“Anne was Queen in fact, if not in name, and the most dazzling members of the court, the poets and musicians, swarmed around her. Wyatt, and Norris, and George her brother, but none of more wit and ability than Anne herself. The King still doted on her then, and the future seemed so bright.
“George was clever, with a vicious tongue and a slashing wit, but as quick to laugh as to quarrel, and much taken with the foreign lady so suddenly in their midst. They were not long out of the merchant class, the Boleyns, and Nicolas, under various names, had been doing business with them for years. As a favor to him I was presented to Anne, and, in her mercurial way, she took a fancy to me though as a rule she much preferred the company of men. George would ever love where his sister did, and soon he and I were lovers. He was my first love, and the thought that he would age and die while I would live on unchanged was unendurable. We made the exchange, and I foolishly thought that our future was secure.
“Nicolas and I left England soon after, intending to return in the fullness of time, but—” her voice broke, and she choked back a sob before continuing. “Anne did not produce the expected son, and Henry was not a man to be thwarted, but rather one to turn upon any whom he felt had misled or betrayed him, however much he may have pretended to care for them. He hated George, as did others: the aging Henry for his youth and beauty, the others for his pride and superior intellect. That was not enough to condemn him, though, so George was accused by his wife, a sour and insanely jealous bitch, of incest, of adultery with his own sister!
“When we returned to England they were dead. Anne, George, Norris, Brereton, all the brilliant youth of Henry’s court, so that he might wed a placid jade with a face like cream and all the wit and sparkle of a farm-house cheese. He had them beheaded, you see. And so I lost my love forever.
“Then so many years later I saw him again, swaggering through the London streets, a poet and a playwright. You, Kit, were so like him as to make one think of miracles, if one did not remember that the Boleyns, like the Marlowes, were a Kentish family. George had at least one bastard, and I know that he provided for the child, arranging for either apprenticeship or dowry, depending upon the child’s sex, which I never knew.”
“I had wondered why you so favored me. My—tastes? habits? — were no secret, and of a nature to repel most women, I would have thought. You were not the kind of woman to try to cure me of my ‘affliction’ at least. I do have one rather uncomfortable memory of having to leave off frequenting the Anchor, because one of the wenches was sure that the right woman could make me change my ways, and she, of course, was that woman.” I stifled a laugh. “On the other hand, depending upon how one looks at it, one might say that the right woman did indeed make me change my ways.” Rózsa looked at me quizzically for a moment, then joined in my laughter. It did not occur to me until later that her laughter seemed somewhat forced.
The following evening I woke before dark. I dressed and made my way downstairs alone, and followed the sounds of soft voices to the little parlor where I was wont to meet Geoffrey and Nicolas. The door was ajar, and the note of anguish in Rózsa’s voice stopped me even as I lifted my hand to push it open.
“But he’s a stranger! A ghost! I think after all, Geoffrey, that I did much harm in making the exchange with him. Better he should have truly died than to live on a cripple, with only half his wits!” I could hear her pacing, and drew back a little into the shadows of the hall.” He is almost like a child, but a child in a man’s body. It is not just the reading—he is diffident where once he was decisive, hesitant where he was hasty. You did not really know him before, the reckless brilliance, the edge of his humor. To see that razor wit become a sickle of leather! And his present state is souring even his few memories of what he was. He cannot think now what he might have thought then, or how.” There was a muffled thump as she threw herself down on a chair.
“Give him time, sweetheart. I took eleven years to regain my full sensibilities—Marlowe has not had even eleven months,” Geoffrey said, his voice kind, as it never was when he spoke to me. She stood and commenced to pace again.
“Perhaps you are right. I shall return to Paris, to give him more time to heal. I cannot bear to be with him now; I lose my George all over again with every glance at him—I had not remembered that there were worse things than dying!” She was so distraught that she passed me in my dark corner without noticing me. When she had gone I started to slip back to my room, only to find Geoffrey watching me from the doorway. He motioned me in, and I took my accustomed chair. I sat staring at my hands, too stunned to speak. After a moment Geoffrey shifted in his chair.
“I am sorry, Christopher, that you heard that. Rózsa is very upset—”
“Yes. It must be a truly horrifying thing, to throw a lifeline to a drowning poet, and drag a disfigured half-wit back in his place,” I said bitterly, and he raised his hand.
“That is not fair, Christopher, either to you or to Rózsa. I tried to warn her, though she did not want to believe me. But neither has she seen the progress you have already made. You will heal, that I do promise, though it may take a very long time, a very long time indeed. During that time, however, we will—you will be—”
“Put under charge? Given a keeper? Who shall be burdened with that honor? You?” He nodded, and I was angry, suddenly and furiously. We stood at the same moment, and Geoffrey caught my arm, holding me almost effortlessly. I struggled but it was useless. He savagely pushed me back into the chair, no less angry than I.
“Do not spurn us, Christopher,” he hissed. “You have this choice, and this choice only, to live upon my terms, or to die, here and now.” He meant it. I could see it in his eyes. If I so chose, he would kill me before I could change my mind. I looked down, trying to think. “Well?”
“I want to live,” I whispered. “Whatever the terms.” I raised my eyes to his, and he nodded coolly and started to walk away. “But,” I added, and he wheeled to face me. “But, if it is possible, I’d rather not see Rózsa for a time. I’d fain not put her to the strain of another such performance as last night’s; she hid her feelings most adroitly.” He relaxed slightly, and nodded again. He left, and I sat staring at the fire for a long time, still trying to think.
When I was well enough, we traveled to Italy, and there I felt for a time that I had come home. Geoffrey had me drilled in equitation, in swordsmanship and any other discipline he thought necessary to maintain my current social position; I was gratified to find that I mastered my lessons in nobility as easily as I had once mastered grammar and rhetoric. Before long I was able to ignore, if not forget, the pain and sense of failure Rózsa’s words had given me. The injury that had taken so much had at least left my arrogance relatively intact.
When the first year had passed, Rózsa joined us there, and she and I struck an uneasy peace, as of siblings raised apart and meeting for the first time as adults. The plots of plays lay thick as autumn leaves upon the ground there, and I had fretted over my inability to write them until Rózsa had proposed a simple solution: I would dictate, and she would write them down. We had made more than one attempt at this compromise, but I found that whatever spark had fired my talents had burned out of me, and the words I produced were stilted and awkward, worse than any of the “jigging rhymes” I had so despised in my lifetime. I gave the endeavor over to Rózsa, who found that she had a taste for it, and contented myself with collaborating on plots and staging, while she wrote the plays. I wondered at the time if she truly appreciated my help, or if she merely humored the half-wit. I still do not know.
Chapter 6
Nicholas Skeres was pimping for several doxies, the eldest a raddled forty, the youngest no more than fourteen. He approached me as I lounged against the wall of the shabby dockside tavern, and began trying to induce me to make use of them. The passing years had not been kind to him, I noted. His muscle had run to fat, his matted hair was thinner, greyer, and alive with vermin, as was the ratty beard that failed to cover his saggi
ng jowls. I merely shrugged and turned away to continue my conversation with one of the lads frequenting the place, but that was enough to let an astute pander guess where my interests lay. He wandered off, but watched me speculatively as I later left the crowded room.
More than three years had passed since we left England. I had had a surfeit of traveling, longing to return to my native land and to embark upon my overdue revenge, so we had returned to Blackavar, leased to us for an indeterminate length of time. I had been well coached in the royal role of Geoffrey’s younger brother, our presentation at court being imminent, but vengeance drove me to my old haunts, some of the more disreputable taverns and inns of London. At Geoffrey’s request I prowled incognito, for, he said, while such disreputable occupations were not uncommon in royal younger brothers, as he had reason to know, they were still an embarrassment. Within three months I had succeeded in tracing the first of my murderers.
It was several nights later that I returned to Skeres’ den. I caught him eyeing me, and gave the lout a good look at the heavy purse I carried. The ugly man drew a thin, pretty youth into a dark corner, speaking to him earnestly, gesturing towards me, the mysterious man with the heavy purse. The boy looked defiant, then scared, finally nodding in apparent resignation before making his way through the smoky room. His invitation to entertain me was given sulkily and obviously under duress, but I feigned not to notice and followed the young man from the inn. Lige, Elijah Lyly, as he had introduced himself, explained that the dark and twisting alley was a short cut to his lodgings and drew me after him into the darkness.
“This is not the way to your lodgings, is it, Elijah?” I said softly, turning the starveling boy to face me. I had not fed in almost a week and the awareness of his pulsing blood was all but overpowering. “I will not hurt you,” I breathed, and drew the young man into a kiss. Lyly resisted, but only for a moment, then the fascination overtook him and he relaxed—I had learned my lessons well. My teeth found the vein and his sweet blood filled my mouth. I forced myself to take but a little, then withdrew, speaking to the dazed youth in a low and lulling murmur.
The sounds of pursuit echoed in the alley’s mouth, and I turned to face the hounds, placing young Lyly safely behind me. Skeres and two companions spread out to flank me in the small yard at the alley’s end. One man, a ruffian called Thomas Cully, laughed and showed a rusty blade, while the other, a stranger to me, hefted a short but weighty club. Skeres stood back and set the lantern he carried carefully on the ground then motioned the other two forward. He leant against the wall to watch the fun.
I lazily drew the Italian snaphaunce pistol from beneath my cloak and leveled it at Cully’s head. The two stopped and glanced uncertainly at Skeres, who cursed softly at the sudden appearance of the pistol. Too swiftly for mortal eyes to follow, I smashed the gun’s long barrel against Cully’s skull, dropping him, and caught the second knave with the rebound before aiming the pistol at Skeres. His face pale under the dirt, he tried to plead with me, but fell silent at an abrupt movement of the pistol.
“Elijah,” I said softly, “go to sleep until I bid you wake,” and Skeres’ eyes widened to see the youth close his eyes obediently, although he remained standing against the alley wall.
“And now, Nick, it is time for the reckoning,” I murmured. I pulled off the eye-patch I wore and turned so the lantern light fell on the puckered, purple scar. “Do you not know me, Nick? No? Marlowe, who paid so many reckonings for you, whom you repaid with treachery and murder?” I ignored the strangled sound Skeres made. “Yes, I died, but I yet live, or at least after a fashion. How?” Keeping the pistol level, I pulled the boy to me, sinking my pointed canine teeth into his throat again, my gaze never straying from Skeres, as he watched in horror. I raised my head and licked the blood from my lips just as Skeres, with a cry, hurled himself at the alley mouth. I dropped the pistol and was on him before he had gone two steps, catching him by the thin, greasy hair. I had scooped Cully’s knife from the ground in passing, and I slashed it against the terrified man’s throat, tearing through vein and artery, windpipe and gullet, with one brutal motion. I coolly stepped out of the way of the fountaining blood, retrieved my pistol, and stood watching in grim satisfaction as Skeres pawed at his throat in a futile attempt to staunch the flow.
“Be thankful, Nick,” I hissed. “Yours is a quick death. The others will not be so fortunate.” There was a protesting gurgle from Skeres, and he died. I turned to Lyly. “Elijah,” I said,” come with me.” At the mouth of the alley I woke the young man, after admonishing him to remember nothing of the night’s encounters.
A few nights later I struck up a fresh acquaintance with the lad, and eventually found him a place with the Lord Chamberlain’s players. There was no inquiry into the death of Nicholas Skeres, so I assumed that his two fellows, upon awaking to find the corpse and the bloody blade, had been at some pains to conceal the deed.
Not long after Skeres’ demise a letter came for me. I took it to Geoffrey to have it read. It proved to be a cunningly written invitation from Robert Cecil, to meet with him in order to discuss matters of “mutual interest and benefit”. Since it was well known that Cecil had a desire to spread his, and England’s, influence onto the continent, it did not take much thought to see what he was carefully not saying—he wanted to recruit an agent to act in his interest in the east. Geoffrey accompanied me to the meeting, much to Cecil’s dismay, though he tried manfully to cover it.
“Prince Geofri, Prince Kryštof, please, be seated. Will you take wine?” He signaled the servant who stood nearby and soon we were comfortably sitting near the fire. Cecil’s glance strayed to my face, trying to read me whenever he thought that neither of us were looking. He was a small, scholarly man, as brilliant in intellect as he was twisted in body, and he must have realized from my lack of expression and the satisfied look on Geoffrey’s face that things had somehow gone awry. That realization was confirmed when Geoffrey pulled the letter from his doublet. “That letter was meant for your brother, your grace,” he said stiffly, and Geoffrey nodded.
“Yes. However my brother Kryštof can neither read nor write, not his own language, nor any other,” Geoffrey answered the implied accusation bluntly, ignoring, as did I, Cecil’s shocked look, and offering no explanation. “He brought this to me that I might read it to him, but, had he been able to read it himself, be assured that he would still have brought it to me. My brother will not be suborned, Lord Robert. If you have matters of ‘interest and benefit’ to him, they are so to me also.”
“Your grace, I meant no offense, and I implore you to take none. I had not wished to trouble your grace with what might after all be but a trifling matter, and I had no idea of your brother’s . . .inability,” Cecil said smoothly, trying to cover his confusion. He was plainly appalled; it had obviously never occurred to him that so elegant a prince as I might be unable to read. It was also obvious that that incapacity, moreover, rendered me useless for any purpose Cecil might have had in mind. He seemed to realize that his thoughts were abroad upon his face, and sighed, schooling his features to impassivity before continuing his business.
We parted amicably enough, but from that night the rumors about us, and about me in particular, took on a decidedly baneful tone. Just as the rumors reached their peak, we were invited by one Lord Haggard to finally be presented at court upon the occasion of the knighting of Thomas Walsingham at his country house, Scadbury, at Chislehurst. We were pleased to accept.
Chapter 7
Walsingham slowly climbed the stairs to his bed, shaking with fatigue and numb from the sleeplessness his impending Knighthood had visited upon him. Thank God that was over, and thank God that he and Audrey kept separate chambers; he could not face her malicious chatter tonight. He had given his body-servant leave to visit the kitchens and the man was probably roaring drunk somewhere by now. Well, he was tired enough to sleep in his clothes tonight, and not for the first time. He pushed open his chamber door and was surprised to f
ind the room well lit already. It wasn’t Dermot, his valet, though, because no one came to assist him. His eyes swept the room and he started violently when he noticed the figure watching him from the shadows of his bed-curtains. His sudden fear and bewilderment pushed him back towards the door.
“Stay,” the stranger said, and the voice stopped Sir Thomas dead where he stood. He knew that voice. He lunged forward and swept the curtains aside, then stepped back in confusion as the candlelight fell full on the face of the man reclining insolently on the bed, propped up by pillows and resting his boots on the counterpane. It was not Kit, of course; Kit was dead. This was one of the foreign princes that Lord Haggard had brought with him to present at court, Kryštof, the younger of the two. Walsingham thought the striking young man had been staring at him earlier in the evening, now he was certain of it and found himself staring back like a fool. He hadn’t been so attracted to anyone since Kit—he wrenched his attention back to the man in front of him.
The prince was exotically dressed, completely in black, which accentuated the extreme pallor of his skin. He wore a black silk doublet appliquéd with black velvet arabesques, and full soft black velvet trousers that met knee-high black calfskin boots, in place of the exaggerated pansied slops, padded canions and hose, and the painted slippers that fashion demanded. Indeed, like the trousers, the boots were an obvious affectation, as no gentleman would wear them except when riding, preferring to show off his calf-muscles (padded, if necessary), and ankles. The shirt was an affectation too, and an expensive one, as not just the falling band, but the whole thing was made of the finest cobweb lawn, dyed to the deepest black, the most costly of colors. It was so sheer that one could see the well-formed muscles of his arms through the open sleeves of the doublet and, since he now had the doublet unfastened, his finely sculpted collar bones and an intoxicating expanse of upper chest. Suddenly Walsingham, in his sapphire velvets, paddings, and jewels felt vulgar and gaudy, tricked out like a harlot at Saint Audrey’s Fair.
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