She made up her mind. ‘Take me to him, Jensen.’
Three
GOODLUCK SPRAWLED AT his ease, facing Kit Marlowe across the upturned crate which served as a makeshift table below deck. At anchor, the barge swayed gently on the Thames, a motion he had grown accustomed to over many weeks when this craft had been his home. Here, some years ago now, he had recovered from a near-mortal wound, and learned to hope again that his time on earth was not finished.
The owner of the barge, one Jensen, a brave but shambling woman who lived as a man, had reluctantly agreed to let him and Kit rest and drink here awhile. Now she had vanished.
He did not smell a trap. Jensen was to be trusted, he felt it in his gut. But there was still the question of Kit Marlowe’s loyalties. It would be good to know what he had been doing in the Low Countries. And there he was still very much at sea.
‘More ale, master?’ he asked, gesturing to the young man’s tankard. He took care to slur his words, though in truth he had not drunk so much as he had spilt these past few hours. ‘There is yet a little if you are still thirsty.’
‘No.’ Marlowe hiccuped, then held up his hand. ‘I have taken sufficient, I thank you. What I need now is … is …’
Kit Marlowe stood unsteadily, fumbling at his hose which seemed to have become unfastened.
‘A piss?’ Goodluck suggested, his eyebrows raised.
They both laughed uproariously, then Kit shook his head, stepping back to wag an accusing finger at him. ‘No, good master, for I …’
The young man blenched suddenly, and made for the upper deck, his hose almost falling down in his hurry, clambering up the narrow ladder just in time before he was sick over the side.
Goodluck followed the unpleasant sound of retching and found his companion hanging over the side of the barge, his face quite white in the sunshine, spittle on his lips.
‘You are unwell?’
‘Too much … ale.’ Marlowe rolled on to his back, staring up at the smoky air. ‘And I smell fire.’
Goodluck looked down the river, feigning a loss of balance as he staggered to the side and clung on. ‘Ah! Some fool has lit a bonfire by the bridge. To celebrate our famous victory over the Spanish, no doubt. But now it … it threatens the houses.’
‘Damn the Spanish though. May they rot in hell. Damn their black … black hearts!’
‘Aye, aye,’ he agreed rather too loudly, slamming the side of the barge with his hand so that the vessel rocked uneasily in the water. ‘Damn the Spanish and God save the Queen!’
Marlowe wiped his mouth, staring up at him fixedly. ‘You serve the Queen. No, do not try to deny it, man. Why else would you have been there, amid the enemy?’
‘And you?’
The young man threw his arms wide. ‘A poor player, that is all I am. A maker of scenes. I have told you this a thousand times. Yes, I have worked for Sir Francis Walsingham in the past, when I was a student at Cambridge. But do not think me a master spy like yourself, Master Goodluck. Pray excuse me that. I do not have your … your nose for trouble.’
Goodluck grunted and turned away, the warm sun behind him as he looked downstream towards the bridge. Coming back to London from the Low Countries in Marlowe’s company, he had made up some fanciful story about having fallen on hard times abroad and taken work reluctantly to earn his keep. Not quite believed, he had been forced into a drinking match with the young man, who seemed determined to stop him making his report to Walsingham. Although impatient to leave and be reimbursed for his expenses, he was also curious to see where it would lead, this drunken charade with Kit Marlowe. He had a suspicion the boy was no more drunk than he, though putting on a good act.
Not that it mattered. By the time they had reached the port of London three days ago, hindered in their approach by bad weather, the news he bore had grown old. The Armada had sailed and been assaulted, they had heard on arrival, first by a storm and then by their stout English warships, smaller by far than the vast Spanish ships, but faster in the water and more manoeuvrable. Now those ships that remained intact were limping back to Spain, much to King Philip’s shame, and it seemed likely to Goodluck that the exiled Catholics in the Low Countries had not been able to sail in time to bolster their numbers.
‘Nay, do not go,’ Marlowe had insisted whenever Goodluck stirred and tried to leave, itching to make his report. ‘Not yet, not yet. Take another cup of ale, good master. It’s not every day I am honoured to drink with one of Her Majesty’s greatest spies, and with our war half-won. Let’s play another game of thimblerig.’
‘I am no master spy,’ Goodluck had told him several times, but Marlowe was having none of it. He just kept smiling and tapping the side of his nose as though to indicate some secret knowledge.
‘Are you afraid that I will speak of it abroad? I am not one of those loose-lipped fools, for all I am a player. Your profession is safe with me, Master Goodluck. Come, another cup? Let us drink to England, and the Queen’s good health!’
After a day of drinking in the riverside taverns with Marlowe and his player friends, Goodluck had staggered away, thinking to sober up before he made his rendezvous with Sir Francis Walsingham.
He had made his way down to the waterside, sick of the stench of ale and smoke, and had found Jensen’s barge moored alongside the quay, low tide making it sit several feet below the wall. Hailing the man-woman hunched on deck with her ubiquitous pipe, he had come aboard only to find himself followed by Marlowe, bearing more ale and apparently not yet ready to stop his debauchery.
‘A new place to drink?’ The young man had slapped Goodluck on the back, nodded to Jensen, then made his way below deck, shouting back, ‘Come down here, man, there is a crate for a table and a good light. I was sick of the taverns’ prices anyway. Here we can talk more privately, for I know you spies dislike long ears wagging about you, even at your play.’
A night and a day later, Marlowe was only just beginning to show signs of weakening, while Goodluck himself had grown sick with fatigue, no longer able to hold his own with these young drunkards.
They had drunk long into the night, playing cards and thimblerig while Jensen reluctantly fetched more ale and hot pies for them. Then they had dozed uneasily until first light, neither man wishing the other to slip away unnoticed, and started drinking again as the sun came up. But though Marlowe had questioned him hard and relentlessly, under the guise of drunken banter, Goodluck had held his peace. There was only one man to whom he would talk of what he had learned in the Low Countries, and that was Walsingham, the Queen’s spymaster.
Now it was late afternoon and the river stank in the heat, the north bank of the Thames shrouded in smoke from the fire near London Bridge. He could hear shouts from those watching out of windows on the bridge, crowded with narrow houses, as the flames were doused with river water, one bucketful after another.
Goodluck looked impatiently at Marlowe, stretched out on the deck and groaning now like one in mortal pain. He had to get away somehow and make his report to Walsingham. But this young man was tenacious, and an expert dissembler. Even his groans sounded realistic. But Goodluck was convinced it was all for show, merely a distraction while the young man studied Goodluck in his turn.
Certainly he was still a spy. There was no other explanation for it. But in whose pocket? Was Kit Marlowe working for the Queen these days, or the Spanish?
If the former, then Goodluck was once more under suspicion, for it was clear that Marlowe was intent on discovering what he knew by whatever means possible. If the latter, it was his duty not to let Marlowe out of his sight, for God alone knew what information he might have gained in Nieuwpoort, or one of the other places under Spanish control he had visited in his guise as a travelling player.
‘Master Goodluck!’
Hearing his name called, Goodluck turned in shock to see a tall, dark-skinned lady standing above him on the quayside. She was not dressed as a lady would be, but simply, her sleeveless gown plain-cut and of coarse s
tuff, more like a peasant woman than one of the Queen’s own ladies. And yet that was what she was, her face as well known at court as any wealthy noblewoman’s, the one-time protégée of the Earl of Leicester himself, and still one of the Queen’s favourite singers. And Goodluck’s ward.
‘Lucy?’
He stared, momentarily confused by her appearance. It was indeed Lucy Morgan, though how and why he did not know. Then he saw Jensen’s heavily cloaked figure behind her, the barge woman’s brow threaded with sweat in the sunshine, and understood.
Lucy’s hands were on her hips, her full lips pursed in disapproval as she looked down on him. Even in that poor gown she looked regal, he thought, straight-backed yet somehow elegant, a dancer’s grace in the way she held herself. And for a thoughtless second, he forgot his mission and was overjoyed to see her again. It had been too long. And as always, Lucy seemed more alive than everyone else, her dark eyes sparking with emotion, her tight-curled hair spilling out from under the neat white cap, a strange humming vibrancy in the very air about her.
Then Goodluck recalled himself. He did not want Lucy to meet Kit Marlowe. It had been one thing to bring her up around the likes of Ned and Sos, and even that foul traitor Twist. But this was different. Those days were gone and life was colder here on the edge, the old ways almost vanished and nothing new in sight.
This was no place for his ward. He wanted Lucy to go home, to remain free of this dangerous, wearying net he had woven about himself.
Then their eyes met and his fatigue fell away.
‘What happened to your beard?’ she asked directly, staring.
‘It’s a long story.’
He hesitated, thrown off balance by her sudden presence. Two worlds had collided. He struggled for something to say, to distract her, belatedly remembering to sound drunk.
‘I can’t believe you’re here,’ he said uneasily. ‘Did Jensen hunt you down at the Palace of Whitehall?’
‘No, I was at your house in Cheapside.’
‘How so?’
‘It’s a long story,’ she repeated his own words back to him, then smiled slowly. ‘Catch me!’
He caught Lucy in his arms as she jumped down on to the barge, and smiled when she rested her hands on his shoulders, kissing his cheek in welcome.
Marlowe was staring at Lucy in frank admiration. An introduction could not be avoided without arousing suspicion that he was trying to hide something. Or in this case, someone.
Goodluck did not want these two involved.
‘Kit, this is my ward, Lucy Morgan.’ He hesitated, thinking back over the implications of what he had just said. Then added, ‘Though too old now to be under my charge.’
‘It seems you must be under mine today,’ she said pointedly. She too had taken a step back, though their hands were still touching. Just the fingertips. ‘You stink of ale.’
‘Forgive me. I …’
He tailed off, seeing how she had looked sideways at Marlowe, an odd expression on her face.
She nodded to the young man. ‘Master Marlowe.’
‘Mistress Morgan.’
Kit scrambled to his feet, managing a sketchy bow. The pallor of his face was less marked now, and although he swayed where he stood, he too no longer seemed as drunk.
‘You already know each other?’
‘Indeed we do,’ Marlowe said, coolly enough for a man in his cups. He looked at Lucy with sharp, clever eyes that seemed to see so much and which Goodluck would gladly pluck out if Marlowe did not keep his hands to himself. The rumour went that Kit Marlowe preferred boys to girls, but Goodluck was taking no chances with a fellow spy. Not this time. ‘Let me see, the last time we met was at the playhouse. How is Shakespeare? Still smoothing his beard with Master Burbage’s oil?’
Lucy glanced at Goodluck. ‘I do not know. That is … Master Shakespeare was well when I saw him last.’
‘Which was when, exactly?’ Goodluck growled, releasing her hands.
Her dark gaze fell before his, a sure sign of her guilt. Had she been wanton with Shakespeare again in his absence?
He surprised a desire in himself to kill that arrogant young man who had seduced his ward, left her pregnant, then failed to marry her because he was already married. Was she a simpleton, that she must continue to love a man who had brought her once already to the edge of ruin?
‘But an hour ago,’ she admitted. ‘We walked out to Finsbury Fields together. There was no harm in it.’
‘Is his wife dead?’ Goodluck demanded.
She looked shocked, then shook her head.
‘Then there is harm in it.’ He climbed up the ladder on to the quayside, clasping Jensen’s hand in farewell. ‘Jensen, I must thank you again for your hospitality.’
The barge woman grunted something, then looked sharply at young Marlowe until he too ascended the ladder. ‘Farewell then, masters,’ she muttered, and climbed down on to her barge with the agility of a cat, dragging the rope away as she did so, so that soon the barge was adrift on the low ebb of the current and heading sluggishly down towards the bridge.
‘What an odd creature,’ Kit remarked, watching her go. He slapped Goodluck on the shoulder. ‘It’s been good drinking with you. Let’s do it again some evening, when I shall hope to wheedle more secrets out of you than you were willing to give this time. Now you must forgive me, but I have an appointment to keep with a tankard of ale.’
He bowed again to Lucy, this time with more of a drunken swagger, as though he had only just recalled that he had been drinking all night and day. ‘Fare you well, friends.’
Lucy looked at Goodluck once Marlowe had disappeared. There was an accusation in her face which he chose to ignore. ‘Where have you been all these months?’
He took her hand and dragged her up the street after him, following Marlowe as covertly as he could with a woman in tow.
‘What, did you think I must be dead?’ he demanded, unable to contain his frustration any longer. ‘No wonder you took up so readily with William Shakespeare again.’
‘You think it has been easy for me to meet with him when I know he is married?’ Her eyes glittered angrily. ‘All London has been in an uproar this summer, with tales of Spaniards landing in the night, setting fire to our houses and slitting our throats. You were not here and had left no word of your whereabouts. You could have been dead for all I knew. There was some comfort in that Shakespeare and I were in love when the whole world was going to hell.’
Marlowe, climbing briskly away from the river with no signs of being drunk, turned as if to check he was not being followed.
Goodluck ducked into a recessed doorway, pulling Lucy after him. The space was dark and cramped. Their eyes met.
‘Why are we following Master Marlowe?’ she asked in a whisper.
‘Because he is a spy and I wish to know who he is working for. And to what purpose.’
Her eyes narrowed, watching him. ‘Is that why you were with him on Jensen’s barge today?’
‘I needed to watch him in a place where I would not be watched myself. And I would trust Jensen with my life.’ He smiled, remembering how Jensen had once nursed him back to health after he had nearly died, and his own horror on discovering her sex. ‘I am only sorry she got it into her head to come and disturb you. It was not necessary.’
She frowned. ‘Where have you been, Goodluck?’
‘Nieuwpoort.’
‘I thought the Spanish held most of the ports in the Low Countries.’
‘They do.’
He peeked out of the doorway. Marlowe had continued climbing and was almost at the top of the hill now. Soon he would be out of sight. It was imperative that he did not lose the boy.
‘Come!’ he jerked Lucy after him, hurrying up the steep hill with her at his back, both breathless and sweating in the warm afternoon.
When they reached the top, he was relieved to see that Marlowe was still in sight.
The young player had stopped to talk to someone. A bearded man wit
h a dog at his heels. Goodluck did not recognize him, but then he had been out of London for a while. Besides, this man had the air of a foreigner.
Goodluck waited in the shadows until the man moved on, limping along beside Marlowe, no doubt taking him to a place where they could talk more privately.
‘Time to move on again,’ he whispered to Lucy, and began to follow, watching all the time in case Marlowe entered any of the taverns or private houses. ‘Keep close.’
Lucy was still breathing hard after the hill, though the heat was not so intense here, the old timbered houses leaning in close, shutting out the sun. The street was busier too, people crowding past on their way down to the river, perhaps to spend an evening on Bankside. He had heard the drummers and fife players on their way up the river, and men shouting all afternoon about the celebrations to be held across the bridge that evening, out of reach of the city fathers.
He glanced at her, and was surprised to see anger in her eyes.
‘I had no idea you were in the Low Countries,’ she told him, pausing to catch her breath. ‘Even Lord Leicester abandoned the fight there when they were overrun by the Spanish. Most of the English-held forts fell after he sailed for home, the fighting was so fierce.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘You could have been killed, Goodluck. Do you care nothing for your life?’
‘Those forts did not fall to the Spanish,’ he corrected her, his gaze still on Marlowe ahead of them. ‘They were surrendered without a fight.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Treachery,’ he explained shortly. ‘Not every Englishman has his country’s good in his heart.’
‘Is that why you went there? Into the enemy’s camp? On Walsingham’s command, to smoke out a traitor?’
‘Where there are traitors, there are plots against Her Majesty. I go wherever Walsingham sends me. He has been a good master all these years. I have no complaint to make against him.’
‘So trusting!’
He was angry himself then, the blood beating loudly in his head. But then he noticed Marlowe step aside into a doorway further up the street.
Her Last Assassin Page 5