by M. J. Trow
‘Cicely Meux,’ she said as she curtsied, allowing as much of her cleavage to show as she dared. ‘You must be Christopher Marlowe,’ she purred.
‘If you say so, madam.’ He bowed and the dance carried them apart. Those wallflowers around the wall and the grumpy old men who were too Puritan or too old to dance, kept time, heads nodding, shoulders swaying. Carey’s borrowed musicians were excellent.
‘Master Marlowe.’ The playwright’s next partner nudged candles with his. ‘Ann Oglander. Welcome to Carisbrooke.’ The girl had glorious blonde hair piled high with Spanish combs, and rubies glittered at her throat.
‘Madam,’ Marlowe bowed and swayed on.
‘You must come to Ningwood,’ the next partner insisted as she dipped in front of him. ‘I am Ferdinanda Hobson. Wonderful to meet you at last, Master Marlowe.’
‘Er … likewise,’ the poet said and was almost glad when the music came to an end and he could bow to his last partner, a snaggle-toothed old merchant who had got so hopelessly confused in the sets that he had been dancing largely by himself for the last five minutes. And his candle had gone out. There was a flutter of applause.
‘La Volta,’ Bet Carey commanded and there was an inrush of breath around the room. The Master of the Musick looked at George Carey, who merely shrugged and spread his arms. He was glad to be able to sit this one out and wandered off to natter to John Vaughan. The music struck up and four ladies made a beeline for Marlowe. It was all done seamlessly except for the odd stepping on toes and Bet Carey seemed to have won the race.
‘This is a little fast for me, my lady,’ Marlowe said.
‘Nonsense,’ she laughed. ‘We’ll get to the full galliard later and then we’ll put you through your paces.’
The music struck up and Bet slid forward, her feet tapping on the rush-strewn floor. Marlowe did too, slapping his hand against hers as they twirled. Other couples took to the floor, most of them noticeably younger than those who had danced the Candle Dance. As the rhythm beat faster and the couples swayed more suggestively, Marlowe’s left hand slid across Bet’s right hip; his left caught her between her legs and he lifted her high across his body, to the whoops and delight of the watchers.
Each time, she came down to earth with a sigh that only he could hear and a light in her eyes that only he could see. He felt himself smiling. No doubt the Lady Avis was alone somewhere in the bowels of George Carey’s house, tutting and frothing about the filthy gropings and the fire of lust going on under her brother’s roof. Dancing! Did no one read their Bibles any more?
The dancing went on into the early hours when various carriages rattled and clattered in under the arch of the barbican and people took their leave and said goodnight. Farewells were loud and hearty, steps vague and unsteady. It was always the same after one of George Carey’s parties; no one wanted to go home.
The last wavering light disappeared down the hill and the castle settled into silence, broken only by the occasional bark of a fox over in the forest of Parkhurst. A shadow detached itself from the darkness of the chapel wall and waited; a light appeared at the door of the mansion and a slim figure slipped out, covering the lantern with a shutter. Without a stumble, the man carrying the light made his way to the chapel door and slid the key into the lock. Without looking round, he spoke.
‘Shall we?’
The waiting figure grunted softly and they both disappeared into the cool of the chapel, smelling of old stone, decay and also the muddy wetness of Walter Hunnybun’s slowly drying clothes.
Martin Carey put the lantern down on a tomb lid, turned up the wick and turned to Marlowe. ‘Do you think anyone saw us?’ he asked.
Marlowe shook his head. ‘It’s going to rain soon but even if it was the best night of the year, no one in the house is in any state to be up watching. There may be lots of people padding along landings tonight, but no one looking out at the chapel. No one will see.’
Master Martin moistened his lips. ‘Why are we being so secret? Everyone knows that Hunnybun is lying here.’
‘Yes, that’s true enough, but not everyone knows he was murdered and I want to keep it that way if at all possible.’
‘Odd reasoning from a playwright, if you don’t mind my pointing it out.’
Marlowe smiled. ‘Everything is grist to my mill, Master Martin. Who knows when perhaps I might write a play about a murder and then this will all come in handy. Let’s get on. Bring the light nearer and hold it up.’
Martin held the lantern at shoulder height and adjusted it so that it threw no shadow. The corpse of Walter Hunnybun was laid out flat on a hurdle across two chairs. Nothing had been done to make him more respectable than the act of laying him on his back. One hand was clawed up to his throat, the other was splayed out across his private parts. Marlowe took hold of a finger and moved it gently to and fro.
‘The rigor has passed,’ he said to Martin. ‘I will move his hands down to his sides, but remember where they are now. This was how he died, one hand to his throat, the other to his pocky. What does that tell us?’ As he spoke, he bent the arms so that they were alongside the body, out of the way. Before he let go, he looked at each hand.
‘He was pushed into a drain,’ Martin pointed out. ‘Couldn’t that explain it?’
‘It might,’ Marlowe said, leaning closer to the body. ‘But it doesn’t explain this.’ He pointed to the front of Hunnybun’s breeches. The laces were undone and a flag of white shirt was pulled through.
Master Martin looked closer and then looked at Marlowe, raising one shoulder. ‘He may have been taking a piss.’
‘He may have been,’ Marlowe agreed. ‘But why do that in a field when his house was just over the next hedgerow? No, I think that Master Hunnybun here was out walking to meet a lady.’ He pulled open the man’s jerkin. The shirt beneath was grey from the drain water, but was clearly made of good linen and freshly laundered. There were no creases from wearing, no marks at all except from the damp. ‘He’s dressed in his best, look. Even his boots are not everyday. I think that our farmer here was not expecting to meet death on his walk last night. I think he was in the mood for love.’
Again, Martin shrugged. ‘But, surely …’
‘Yes?’
‘He is a widower. He could have who he wanted up to the house. Indeed, I have heard stories of him and his maidservant … but we shouldn’t gossip, perhaps.’
Marlowe clapped him on the shoulder, making the lantern light waver over the dead face and giving it a momentary semblance of life. ‘You are very kind, Master Martin. Perhaps Master Hunnybun liked a change now and again. Although –’ and he looked dispassionately at the coarse features – ‘I would not have imagined that he had to beat the ladies off with a stick. Not with a nose like that.’
Martin stifled a laugh and crossed himself piously. ‘Poor man,’ he said. ‘He certainly does suffer from the Hunnybun nose. I can’t think of any ladies from around here who would think it worth meeting him on a damp and cold night such as we have been having lately. Unless …’ He gestured to the unlaced breeches.
Marlowe shook his head. ‘Even allowing for the usual ravages, I don’t believe that Master Hunnybun had any secrets to share in that department.’
‘So …’ Martin looked at Hunnybun for a moment, then made up his mind. ‘So, I’m sorry, Master Marlowe. My money is still on his taking a piss. He isn’t young. Men sometimes get urges when they are his age that won’t wait.’
Marlowe looked down at the dead man too. He nodded. ‘They do, Master Martin. Indeed they do. I think we will have to agree to disagree because although I have seen many an old man take a piss in the street and other public places, I have never seen one,’ and he leaned over to pull the collar away from the livid throat, ‘be strangled for it.’
It rained during the night; the windows of heaven shut up. Lovers lay entwined under their canopies while those of clean heart snored unaware. On the battlements of Carisbrooke, the drops bounced hard and fat off the morions of the night wa
tchmen and the guards peered out into the darkness. They trudged the wall walk under the arms of the oaks, glancing down into the deserted, silent knot garden behind the chapel where the dead man lay and out across the impenetrable blackness of the Downs. That was the way they would come, if they were coming at all, the galleons of Spain. And the beacons would flare into light across the Island’s backbone to tell the Wight that the Devil was on his way.
But perhaps the Devil was here already.
SIX
That was the day the sun shone. That solitary day, in an otherwise blustery, wet May. It warmed the stone of George Carey’s castle and sent shadows dappling the curtain walls. The lord of the Island led his visitor up the steps behind his mansion and out on to the narrow wall walk. His militiamen, in heavy morions, breast and back plates, trudged and cursed along the crenellations. Yesterday, they had cursed because it was wet and cold. Today, they cursed because it was dry and warm. The pads of moss which had flourished in the damp were now treacherous underfoot as the slimy layer beneath made them as slippery as glass. As they stumbled, slipped and complained their way around their beat, it was a worry to Sir George that these were the men who would have to stand against the veterans of the Duke of Parma, the finest soldier in the world.
‘Do you think they’ll come, Christopher?’ the governor asked, locking his hands behind his back and half turning to the playwright.
‘Who, Sir George?’
‘Why, the dons, man. The Spaniards. The whole island’s bristling with more mercenaries than the King of Spain has confessors. Look, here.’ He pointed suddenly to an arrow slit in the wall. ‘That’s Heynoe’s Loop. The story goes that when the French invaded in 1377, Philip de Heynoe put a crossbow bolt through their commander’s brain, fired from that very spot.’
Marlowe squatted to check the trajectory. ‘Impressive,’ he said.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Carey muttered. ‘Anyone can shoot a crossbow. My own dear sister damned near killed me with one once.’
‘Did she?’ Remembering the biceps on Mistress Carey, Marlowe was not too surprised.
‘Oh, she was distraught, of course. In fact, between you and me, she never quite got over it. It was only a scratch and you know how tense everyone gets during a hunt.’
Marlowe knew.
‘She has never touched a crossbow since and she hasn’t come hunting with us either. Which is no bad thing, I suppose. She used to put the men off their stroke. A stunning looking girl she was, in her day.’ Sir George looked to a far horizon that only he could see. ‘Hmm, yes.’ Then he stood upright, squaring his shoulders. ‘But that was then.’ He looked out grimly to where the labourers toiled in the meadows that fell away to the south. ‘Now it’s all calivers and culverins and sakers. Do you know how thick these walls are?’
‘No, sir.’ Marlowe was no fortifications engineer. He was also too polite to guess; there was nothing more embarrassing for guest or host than a guess that got the answer bang on the nose. He waited to be enlightened.
‘Only two feet in places and the centre filled with rubble. That’s where they’ll come.’ He pointed out over the ground rising below the walls. ‘They won’t try the north, the town side. It’s too steep. They’ll never get their cannon up the hill. But over there …’ Carey shook his head and clicked his teeth. ‘Man, it’s a gunner’s dream.’
He walked on, fingering the rough stones as he went. They climbed a long stairway, the stones uneven and worn with the years, to the ancient keep. George Carey, used to the climb as he was, was wheezing by the time he reached the gate. ‘We don’t use this part of the castle any more. Oh, except for Martin, of course; he has a little mathematician’s eyrie. Says it helps him count. But if we are attacked, we can take refuge here. There are ovens and a well – one hundred and sixty feet deep, they say.’ Then he stopped. ‘It’s my fault, of course. If I hadn’t frittered the money away on the hall and the mansion, I might have been able to put up some modern earthworks.’ Carey became confidential. ‘They say Giambelli’s in London.’
‘Giambelli?’
‘Federigo Giambelli, the engineer. Apparently the Italian bastard offered his services to Spain but the King turned him down. So, naturally, he came over to us. You heard about the hellburners last year, Drake’s fire ships at Cadiz?’
‘I heard.’ Marlowe nodded.
‘Giambelli.’ Carey tapped the side of his nose. ‘The man’s a genius … Still, there it is. I can’t afford him now.’
‘Er … the garden’s lovely.’ Marlowe looked down at the tangle of verdure behind the chapel.
‘Oh, my dear fellow, here I am, burbling on about fortifications and impending doom. And you have come with your poetry and wit to lighten our lives for a while. Oh, God.’ Carey was frowning down. ‘Johnson, where’s Hasler?’
The governor clattered down the steps, wobbling here and there but making it safely to the bottom.
‘My Lord?’ An ancient gardener was leaning on his hoe in the middle of a green mess, but the Hall obscured his view now and for a moment he could not see Carey at all. He gazed vaguely into the sky.
‘Hasler.’ The governor trotted around the corner of the chapel, Marlowe in tow. ‘The man to whom I paid a fortune to create a knot garden down there. He’s created nothing at all.’
‘I haven’t seen him, sir. Not this three weeks or more.’
‘Three weeks?’
‘Hasler?’ Marlowe saw his chance. ‘Not Harry Hasler?’
‘I believe so. Do you know him?’
‘Tall fellow, blond … well, auburn, really.’
‘That’s right. What a small world.’
‘Isn’t it?’ Marlowe smiled. ‘Is he staying here at the castle?’
‘Well, it looks as though he isn’t staying anywhere at the moment.’ Sir George looked again at the gardener, now tickling the ground with his hoe. ‘Why wasn’t I informed, Johnson?’ The old man ignored him, lost in thought as he tended what looked like a rather untidy cabbage patch. Carey gave him another moment to reply, then turned to Marlowe again. ‘No, he wasn’t staying here. He was only a gardener, you know. He has lodgings in the town; Quay Street, I believe. Has he gardened for you, then?’
Marlowe laughed. ‘The last time there was any greenery in Hog Lane, Sir George,’ he said, ‘Brutus was founding London. No, I know him as a poet of sorts. The odd play …’
The governor looked again at his knot garden. Given a lot of imagination and a good nature, he decided that you could just about make out some kind of pattern, but it seemed to peter out about halfway across and the knot unravelled into chaos. He sighed again. Another purseful he would never get back. He turned to Marlowe, still standing there on the path. A pleasant sort of chap. A thought occurred to him and his face brightened.
‘That’s it!’ he shouted, clapping a heavy hand on Marlowe’s shoulder. ‘That’s what we need. A play. To brighten the moment. Everyone’s so keyed up with this wretched Spanish business. Look, I hate to ask it of you, Christopher, when I know you are here to write something more serious, but a masque, perhaps … something with music. A comedy. Nothing heavy. No death or anything like that.’
Marlowe raised both hands. ‘That’s not the sort of thing I write, Sir George.’
‘No, no, my dear fellow, of course not. What was I thinking? No, Dido, Tamburlaine … pure fire and air. No, I just thought … well, a little light relief, you know.’
Marlowe looked at the man. George Carey was a governor on the edge. His little island was the most southerly along the south coast. He was standing in the path of a Spanish juggernaut and everybody knew it. If he wanted to whistle in the dark, it wouldn’t ruin Marlowe’s reputation if he helped him, just this once. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I do have a man in London who might be able to help. We’ll need timber for a stage and flats, a few costumes. Would your people be prepared to perform?’
‘Well,’ Carey said, lowering his eyelids modestly. ‘I myself have trod the boards. At Trinity
, I was Queen of the May. Who had you in mind – in London, I mean?’
‘His name is Sledd. Actor-Manager at the Rose in Southwark. He’s up to his Venetians in something that’s not going too well at the moment. Er … his expenses?’
‘Consider them paid.’ Carey beamed. ‘This is marvellous, Christopher, marvellous. I’ll go and tell the ladies.’ He looked at the knot garden and frowned. ‘I suppose that explains why he made such a hash of my garden.’
‘I beg your pardon, Sir George?’
‘Hasler. If he is a poet and a playwright, that explains why he didn’t turn out to be much of a gardener. I wonder why he even applied for the job?’
Marlowe smiled. ‘A man must live, Sir George. The theatre is a precarious profession.’
Carey nodded, still frowning. ‘It would be for him if his poetry is as bad as his gardening, I should think, wouldn’t you, Christopher? Hmm. Yes.’ But Marlowe had no need to reply. Sir George Carey was climbing the steps to his ramparts again, worrying about the way the Spaniards would come.
That night, having sent his letter to Tom Sledd via Sir George Carey’s man, Kit Marlowe went out on the town. He did not take one of the horses in the governor’s stable, though they were at his disposal, but he did take his dagger, just in case. The warmth of the day had long gone and a chill breeze shook the darling buds that were only now peeping out of their hoods. He followed the little brook that babbled over the stones of the ford and watched the cowherds bringing their lowing animals home. Dim lights burned in the church of St Thomas and drunken soldiery were rolling around the square outside it, laughing and farting to their hearts’ content. If Kit Marlowe had been an Old Testament man, he would have read Gomorrah into Newport and seen the destruction of the Lord. As it was he did not believe in fairy stories and he had places to be.
The house in Quay Street was just like all the others that ran down to the docks where the black ships rode at anchor. It leaned at a precarious angle and ivy clung to the walls. It was hard to tell whether the building was holding up the plant or the plant the building. He tapped at the low oak door with the pommel of his dagger and slipped it away again behind his back.