Scorpion's Nest (2012)

by Trow, M J

  ‘Always, if I can,’ the actor told him, removing the parchment from his boss’ grasp. ‘It saves having to search through drawers; so demeaning, that, don’t you think? And I always read them if they concern me.’

  ‘And that concerns you?’ Henslowe snatched it back.

  ‘Marlowe does,’ the actor said.

  ‘That’s right,’ Henslowe remembered, throwing himself back into his chair again. ‘Didn’t you pinch another play of his? Um . . . Dido, wasn’t it?’

  ‘It may have been,’ Alleyn said, pouting.

  ‘Well, well . . .’ Henslowe chuckled. Ned Alleyn’s ego was the size of St Paul’s – it was good to see it demolished every now and again.

  ‘If this play is by Marlowe –’ Alleyn sat down next to him – ‘it’ll be worth your while getting hold of it.’

  ‘Will it?’ Henslowe asked. ‘Why?’

  Alleyn looked at the man with a smouldering hatred. ‘Because Marlowe is a genius,’ he said, as though the Queen’s Rackmaster had ripped the words from him with red-hot pincers. ‘And because it will make us a fortune.’

  ‘Us?’ Henslowe raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Philip, Philip.’ Alleyn chuckled, leaning back with his hands locked behind his head. ‘We are but the buttocks of the same arse, you and I. You have a theatre. Brand spanking new. State of the art. I have a talent that will not be matched in a thousand years. Together . . . well, we’re irresistible. The third corner of our great triangle of the Muse belongs to that man –’ he flicked a finger at the letter – ‘Kit Marlowe.’

  Henslowe was nodding, groat signs reflected at the back of his eyeballs onto his brain. ‘Who is this Tamburlaine?’ he asked.

  ‘No idea,’ Alleyn said, shrugging. ‘But whoever he is, I’ll make him immortal.’

  ‘Well, then.’ Henslowe crossed the room again and produced a bottle of claret and two beakers. ‘Here’s to the great Tamburlaine,’ he said. ‘And the great Kit Marlowe.’

  ‘What about this Greene?’ Alleyn asked. ‘The man who’s stolen the play?’

  ‘Do you know him?’ Henslowe checked.

  Alleyn shook his head.

  ‘I’ll just wipe him off my shoe,’ the theatre-manager said.

  Marlowe sat through breakfast more quietly than usual. Once the jealousy over his lumpless oatmeal had worn off, he was a popular companion at the day’s first meal, as he was witty without cruelty and was a ready mimic of authority, when authority was conveniently looking the other way. This morning, though, he was not on his usual form and one by one, the scholars who had flocked to his table got up to get second helpings and didn’t come back. He scarcely noticed.

  ‘Good morning, Dominus,’ a voice with a twang in it broke his conversation and he looked up into the face of Peregrine Salter. ‘Do you mind if I join you?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Marlowe said, looking around at the empty table. ‘There is plenty of room, after all.’

  ‘Where are your audience today?’ Salter asked, without malice.

  ‘They seem to have heard all of my best lines,’ Marlowe said with a smile. ‘I don’t seek the bubble reputation and I don’t mind a quiet breakfast now and again. To be truthful with you, Master Salter, I have a bit of a head on me. I was out late last night in some rather dubious company and the lads are good company when I feel well, but with both my eyes feeling as though they are on one side of my nose, I couldn’t bear their chunter.’

  ‘Their . . .?’

  ‘Their talk,’ Marlowe said, covering one eye and attempting to focus on Salter’s face. ‘They will go on.’

  ‘Well, boys will be boys,’ Salter agreed. ‘Where were you last night? Anywhere you would recommend?’

  ‘Oh, no. A tavern of a very low sort. I met with a –’ he lowered his voice – ‘a couple of ladies of very low type.’ He smiled, but without using too many muscles, as a man will whose head is splitting. ‘I lost track of time somewhat as well as goblets.’

  Salter sat back on the bench and placed his hands flat on the table on either side of his platter. ‘Do you know,’ he said, carefully not using the projectioner’s name, because of listening ears, ‘you don’t really strike me as someone who would get much pleasure from that kind of night out.’

  ‘Not as a rule, Master Salter, not as a rule,’ Marlowe growled, addressing his oatmeal with little relish. ‘But now and again one’s animus drives the body, not the other way around.’

  Salter cocked his head on one side, considering. ‘I’m not sure that is a doctrine we follow in the English College, is it?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, Master Salter,’ Marlowe said in a low voice, letting go of his forehead for a moment and leaning forward. ‘I think in the English College it might be said that doctrines are there for reading and talking about, not necessarily following. But I did hear an interesting thing, when I was out and about and before I forgot myself in the arms of the lovely ladies – we were chatting.’

  ‘I hope you weren’t paying by the hour,’ Salter said, spooning in his oatmeal but keeping his eyes on Marlowe.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Paying your two drabs by the hour. Just for talking. It seems an awful waste of money.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ Marlowe’s hand went back to supporting his head. ‘They weren’t as low as that. They have an evening rate. Where was I?’

  ‘Chatting.’ Salter was concentrating on Marlowe now, his dish of oatmeal slowly congealing in front of him.

  ‘Yes, that’s right. Chatting.’ He closed his eyes as if retracing his words. ‘We were chatting, and one of them said she had seen something suspicious when one of the murders happened. Father Laurenticus. Murdered in his bed.’

  ‘So she . . .?’

  ‘Was with him. Or so she says. Whatever the truth of it – and how can you trust a woman of the street, no matter how pretty? – she claims she saw who did the deed.’

  ‘Why didn’t she tell the Watch?’ Salter asked.

  Marlowe sounded testy. ‘The Watch weren’t involved. And besides, she would hardly do that, would she? She isn’t exactly on the right side of the law, in her . . . business.’

  ‘True,’ Salter said, nodding slowly. ‘So . . . did she tell you who this man is?’

  ‘No,’ Marlowe said, finishing off his oatmeal and pushing the dish away. Antoinette had excelled herself this morning and it had pained him to eat it with so little relish. If he lived to see another breakfast, he would do it better justice next time. ‘She doesn’t know who he is. She just told me she would know him next time she saw him.’

  Salter shrugged. ‘The woman was lying, to get your attention.’

  Marlowe looked down at the table and traced a random doodle in the spilled ale by his plate. It looked a little like a double-headed eagle. ‘She had my attention, if you take my meaning,’ he said, quietly, with a silly smile on his face.

  Salter looked at him for a long minute, as the silence between them filled with skittering spoons and the hum of conversation. ‘I see,’ he said at last. ‘You do surprise me, Master M . . . Dominus. But we never really know a person, do we?’ He swung his leg over the bench and stood up. ‘Well, I must be away. I am sure I will see you later in the day. Perhaps when your head is better?’

  ‘Yes,’ Marlowe agreed, with a wan smile. He watched under his lashes until Salter was through the door, then sat up straight and flexed his shoulders. ‘Chunter, chunter, chunter, Master Salter,’ he murmured. ‘It’s just all so much chunter.’

  ‘Dr Shaw?’ Marlowe stuck his head round the door of the library and spoke in the hoarse whisper of library users everywhere. ‘Can I have a moment?’

  Shaw didn’t look up, but raised a finger in the air. When it had had its effect in silencing the young man in his doorway, he turned it round and beckoned with it. Marlowe approached the table where the librarian was working and pulled out a chair, which squeaked along the stone floor like the fingernails of some demon in nethermost Hell. Shaw looked up, a sardonic eyebrow raised.r />
  ‘Sorry,’ Marlowe mouthed, looking around the room and meeting the outraged eyes of the scholars reading there.

  ‘And, we’re done,’ whispered Shaw, releasing the book he had been holding in a vice-like grip in his other hand. ‘Just doing some running repairs,’ he said quietly. ‘The glue needs a little encouragement in the early minutes. Let’s go into my room. It’s quieter.’

  ‘That is quite a strong grip you have there,’ said Marlowe when they could speak normally.

  Shaw turned his hand this way and that. ‘It’s nothing,’ he said. ‘Librarian’s fingers, that’s what I have. Good for mending broken books and apprehending anyone trying to sneak out of my library with something they shouldn’t.’ He mimed pinching Marlowe’s ear.

  ‘And yet you didn’t apprehend Edmund Brooke,’ he remarked, taking a seat.

  ‘No,’ Shaw said sadly. ‘No, someone else did that for me. A shame. He was a nice boy.’

  ‘And Charles Russell?’

  ‘No,’ Shaw looked Marlowe straight in the eye. ‘I have no idea who that is.’

  ‘Died by hanging.’

  ‘Was that his name? How sad that we only remember him because of the hanging. There were . . . rumours, of course. Boys from the town, that kind of thing.’ His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘The sin of Sodom.’

  ‘Leonard Skirrel?’

  ‘No, you really can’t just drop these names like this, you know, Master Marlowe. I really don’t know that one at all.’

  ‘He was a priest. He was with the College in Douai.’

  ‘Ah, well, there we are, then. I wasn’t librarian in Douai. Well, I was in the library, but not in charge. Much more humble than I am now, if possible. I didn’t know everyone.’

  ‘Father Laurenticus.’

  ‘Well, obviously I knew Laurenticus. He was in here all the time, poring over books and writing, writing, always writing. We have his papers somewhere . . .’ He looked around vaguely. ‘I’m sure we will come round to cataloguing them some day.’

  ‘Do you know his mistress, Sylvie?’ Marlowe asked.

  Shaw froze, looking away from Marlowe on a fruitless visual search for Laurenticus’ papers. When he turned his head, his face was a mask, immobile and waxen. ‘I never met the lady,’ he said, ‘although, of course, there were . . .’

  ‘Rumours. Yes. The sin of Gomorrah. Well, she has now remembered who she saw outside the room on the night he died.’

  ‘Really?’ Shaw plumped down in his chair and leaned on his elbows on the table. He blew out his cheeks and smacked his lips, a parody of amazement. ‘Really? Well, out with it, man. Who was it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Marlowe admitted. ‘She didn’t know who it was, just that she would know him again.’

  ‘That must be quite frightening for her,’ Shaw remarked.

  ‘She’s very brave. She has met him once since, when he paid her to poison Martin Camb.’

  ‘Well, in that case . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I was about to say she is no better than she should be, but that rather goes without saying, doesn’t it.’ The librarian bared his teeth, in what might pass for a smile.

  ‘I think that he feels he does have that crime to use against her, should the day of his accusation dawn. Well –’ Marlowe got up – ‘I must be off. Things to do, you know, Dr Shaw. Busy. Busy.’ And he was gone.

  Shaw looked at the door for a moment. ‘I wonder what he came for?’ he asked the inkwell, for lack of anyone else to ask.

  Marlowe tapped on the door of Dr Allen’s room. This was his last piece of bread that he must cast upon the waters before he started his wait to see what fish the bait brought to the surface. He had left this particular eel until the last. Whenever he was with the Master of the English College, he was never sure who was watching whom.

  ‘Enter.’ A clever choice, Marlowe thought. It didn’t really matter who was standing outside, English or French, they would at least get the drift.

  He pushed open the door and stepped in, closing it carefully behind him. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I can’t stay long. I have promised to help Mr Salter with a trans . . . Oh, Dr Skelton. I’m terribly sorry. I didn’t see you there.’

  ‘Gerald does tend to skulk,’ Allen said, jovially. ‘It comes with being a Bursar, I have always thought. Watching to see if he can catch any of those groats going down a drain. That is where they all go, you were saying, isn’t it, Gerald?’

  Skelton gave a wintry smile. ‘We must look after every tiny expenditure, Master,’ he said. ‘Money doesn’t grow on trees.’

  ‘Sadly not,’ Allen said. ‘However, I am almost certain that Dominus Marlowe didn’t come here to talk about economics, did you, Dominus Marlowe?’

  ‘Not really, Master, no,’ the projectioner admitted. ‘Although it is a fascinating subject, in its way.’

  Skelton smiled a slow smile, the smile of the accountant who knows his books are in perfect balance.

  ‘No, I have come with some good news. Not wonderful news, but a good way to putting a lid on a little problem of yours, once and for all.’

  ‘This sounds marvellous, Dominus Marlowe. May I call you Christopher, I wonder?’

  ‘Kit, Master, if you wish. I usually only get called Christopher by my mother, when I have done something wrong.’

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ the Master said. ‘Mine was the same.’ It was hard to think of the Master having had a mother, but biology dictated that it must once have been so. ‘Well, Kit, what is your news?’

  Marlowe flicked his eyes at Skelton, who moved towards the door, prepared to leave.

  ‘Kit, Kit,’ the Master said. ‘Have we not already agreed that anything you have to say to me, you can say in front of Dr Skelton?’

  ‘Of course, Master. I am sorry, Dr Skelton. I didn’t mean to throw you out so rudely. No offence taken, I hope.’

  ‘None in the world, Dominus Marlowe,’ the Bursar said, sitting in a hard chair by the window.

  ‘I am agog, Kit,’ the Master said. ‘What is your news?’

  Marlowe squirmed slightly. ‘I hope I haven’t given it too much emphasis, Master,’ he said. ‘It may be nothing.’

  Allen waved a hand, his expression getting steely. This was like pulling teeth with no pliers.

  ‘I met with the girl Sylvie, Father Laurenticus’ . . . erm . . .’

  ‘Harlot,’ Skelton said, calmly.

  ‘Come, come, Gerald,’ Allen said, gently. ‘Live and let live. There but for the Grace of God . . . well, not literally, of course, but . . .’ Thoroughly tangled in his sentence, the Master waved Marlowe to continue.

  ‘Shall we call her his mistress? He would have made her his wife, had he not been caught between his God and a hard place. Call her what you will, I met with her last night . . .’

  ‘How did you get out of the College?’ asked Skelton, aghast. ‘Where is the gate roster, Master? Heads will roll.’

  ‘I just walked out, Bursar,’ Marlowe said, with an apologetic shrug. ‘I walked out and then back in, just as the scholars do and for all I know half the town. Father Tobias is not much of a watchdog, I fear.’

  ‘Make a note, Gerald,’ the Master said, mildly. ‘Speak to Father Tobias.’ He turned to Marlowe. ‘Let’s assume for the moment that we are already at the home of the girl Sylvie,’ he said. ‘Then we may have this news before nightfall.’

  Marlowe took a deep breath and delivered his tale at last. ‘For reasons I need not dwell on, Sylvie has remembered the man who was outside Father Laurenticus’ room on the night he died.’

  The Master and Bursar were on their feet in an instant. ‘What?’ they chorused. The Master looked Skelton in the eye and he subsided once more into his chair. ‘Who?’ the Master asked.

  ‘She doesn’t know,’ Marlowe said, spreading his hands helplessly. ‘She only knows that she will know him again.’

  ‘We must get the girl here,’ Allen said.

  ‘How will that help?’ Skelton asked.
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br />   ‘She must be made to look into the eyes of every man here, to see if she can recognize him,’ the Master said. ‘See to it, Gerald.’

  ‘With respect, Master,’ Marlowe said, ‘I interrupted her night’s work last night. I paid her, as seemed only fair, but she has regular customers.’ He shrugged. ‘You know how it is.’

  ‘Not really,’ Allen said, drily. ‘But if I read you aright, Dominus Marlowe, you are suggesting that we bring her here tomorrow in her . . . off-duty hours, if I may put it like that?’

  ‘Exactly,’ Marlowe said. ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘We will do that, then.’ Allen turned to the Bursar. ‘Gerald, make a note.’ After a moment, he looked up and saw Marlowe standing there. ‘Don’t let us keep you, Dominus Marlowe. I believe you have some translations to be getting on with.’

  ‘Hmm?’ Marlowe was a little foxed for a moment.

  ‘Master Salter? I understood you to say . . .’

  ‘Indeed, yes.’ Marlowe made for the door. ‘I have to help Master Salter with some translations.’

  ‘Close the door on your way out,’ Skelton barked.

  And with a whisper of wood on wood, Marlowe was gone.

  Marlowe smiled gently to himself as he walked purposefully back to his room. He was not a countryman by either upbringing or inclination, preferring the buzz of humanity to that of the bees, but he felt now as he thought a gamekeeper might. He had baited his trap. All he needed to do now was to wait for nightfall and see what fell into it. A quick visit to Solomon Aldred, a quick rummage through his clothes for something that would neither rustle nor gleam in the darkness, and then he was all ready to catch a murderer. The only slight weak link in his plan was that he needed Aldred to watch one gate while he watched the other. That the vintner was still mostly projectioner was not really in doubt, but he was a well-known figure on the streets of Rheims and he would find it harder than many to pass without being hailed by some wandering drunkard. But sometimes there were no choices but second best, so Solomon Aldred it would have to be.

  SEVENTEEN