One Dagger For Two
Page 25
“It’s a great thing, love!” he cried.
“It’s a hellish thing,” said Frizer, “you and your little Suffolk punk!”
“Keep a decent tongue…”
“How can I keep a decent tongue when I speak of a brach like that? What a sweet little croshabell to lose your head over! I suppose she’s the one Greene wrote of, who held it in scorn, she said, to set a salary price on her body!”
“You can’t anger me,” said Marlowe, shifting angrily on the bed.
“Ye’re right, she’s not worth quarrelling over, the dirty little she-hobby. Ye can meet her sort any night for sixpence at a Picked-hatch at the Sign of the Smock. I’ve seen better in the Strand behind a buckram curtain.”
Marlowe forced a smile and gulped in his wine, but he clenched his fist so tightly around the glass that he almost broke it; he knew that Frizer only wanted him to lose his temper, and he was determined not to lose his hold on it.
“Say whatever you like,” he said, “only give me another drink.”
Frizer poured him another drink. “So ye’re going to marry her?” he said, twisting on the stool and grinning with all his teeth, maddened at seeing his plans miscarry: Poley coming, and now Marlowe having left his dagger at home. He would have to delay the killing: how could he plead self-defence if the man didn’t even carry a dagger? He could not resist poking at Marlowe in his rage.
“Invite me to the wedding, won’t ye?” he said. “Is she going to sell ale or something else? I’ll go as high as a crown for whatever she’s got to sell, whether its bride-ale or herself. I’ll bring her stale friends along with me to give her a cheer at hooking so gallant a gull.”
“By God…” Marlowe shut his teeth tightly together, angry at having let even that escape him. “ Go on, liar,” he said in a forced gay tone.
The bells still shouted their marriage-tune, louder now, almost drowning Frizer’s words, so that Marlowe caught only a phrase here and there.
“Look here, Kit, I’m telling you for your own good… Georgie Peele got…don’t want her to ruin your life…you’ll be… Let me be there just to tell her…while she gulps in the mazar-bowl…want to whisper in her ear…the night…shadow of Coleman Hedge near Fenchurch Street… cost a damn lot…a friendly warning…”
“You’re not a bit funny!” shouted Marlowe above the noise of the bells, holding in his temper only by a great effort.
The bells calmed their fury, returned to the old soft lilting tune, to the epithalamium that brought a vision of little bridesmaids and of a bride flushing under her long brown hair, eyes very bright, her hand held up, finger poised for the descending ring.
“I’m not trying to be funny,” said Frizer, “I only want to help.”
“You talk too much, you and those damn bells,” said Poley, “a fellow can’t hear himself think. When you going to move, Nick? Wake me when you make up what you call your mind.”
“All right, I move there,” said Skeres sullenly.
“Very kind of you,” said Poley. “I’ll have that groat off you soon. Wouldn’t like to make it an angel, would you, Nick?”
“Come, Kit,” said Frizer, “tell us when the wedding is.”
Marlowe did not answer; his rage was so enormous that he dared not answer.
“I’ve got a bridal gift for her,” chuckled Frizer. He swung round on his stool and leaned over the table. Marlowe heard him take something crinkling out of his doublet and smooth it out on the table, he heard Poley warn him not to knock over any of the men.
“If you won’t tell me,” said Frizer over his shoulder, “I’ll take it round myself to Watling Street. It’s a poem. Just you listen now.”
Marlowe shut his eyes as Frizer recited in a mincing clergyman’s voice:
“Come live with me and be my love
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, and woods or fields,
And craggy rocks or mountain yields…”
Marlowe had known that this must come. If Alice saw it… That rat had said he’d take it to her, and he was capable of doing anything: if he did, he’d kill him. Alice…she would be getting ready her white clothes now, twining the chaplet of flowers…
The music still swung its merry bridal through the window, and despite the pugnacious glares of Poley at the game, Frizer chanted the poetry to the tune of the bells:
“Where we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.
And we will make a bed of roses,
And thousand other fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle…”
“What about when they get old?” he sneered. “Crackle a bit in autumn!”
Marlowe opened his eyes and sat up a little, shaking with despair and fury. The candle-flame above shone twinkling on the metal hilt of Frizer’s dagger pushed temptingly up from his back. It fascinated Marlowe, seemed to wink invitingly at him.
Frizer kept on:
“A belt of straw with ivy-buds
With coral clasps and amber-studs;
If these delights thy mind may move
Come live with me and be my love.”
If the dog showed that to Alice as he threatened to, there would be no oranges and lemons on Friday; there would be crying and utter despair… Only chop-chop goes the chopper… She would never forgive him this time…never…
“A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our little lambs we pull,
Fair-lined slippers for the cold
With buckles of the purest gold…
“Thy dishes shall be filled with meat
Such as the gods do use to eat,
Shall one and every table be
Prepared each day for thee and me,
The shepherd-swains shall dance and sing…”
So temptingly that dagger gleamed on Frizer’s back, a cheap metal-hilted shilling dagger, but the blade would be keen enough. Marlowe’s hand reached out, but he stopped in the middle of the gesture, struggling to restrain himself.
“For thy delight each fair morning,
If these delights thy mind may move
Then live with me and…”
Marlowe’s hand leaned forward, seized the dagger and struck with all the force of his arm.
Frizer saw his shadow on the table and leaped swiftly aside, yet even then, the point caught him on the back of the neck and ripped open the flesh before it twisted in the ruff; again, mad now with rage, Marlowe struck, but his rage was so terrific that it blinded him, his aim faltered, and once more he merely cut at Frizer’s head.
Then Frizer was on him — Frizer and Skeres. They leaped at him, the valance came wrenchingly from above, enveloping all three. Poley jumped to his feet, clinging to the table so as not to disturb the men. It was all so swift he could not understand fully what had happened.
Writhing in their grip, Marlowe tried to shout for Poley’s aid, then he saw the dagger that Skeres had twisted out of his hand poised above him by Frizer. It hung there a terribly long time, a shiver of frozen light in the darkness; then it fell, slashed through the air like lightning, and seemed to burn his mind into a blaze of agony. He tried to shriek, and pawed with his arms. One hand caught the hilt sticking like a horn from above his right eye, but he had no strength to pull it out and his fingers merely slid along the metal, unable to grip.
He had never known such pain, never conceived such pain possible. It seemed to tear at him with red-hot iron, a wild beast inside his face, clawing at his eyes from behind. He saw Frizer, very white, sweating; he saw Skeres, grinning; the light flamed against the roof; the bells clashed like cannon roaring in his ears.
“My God,” he muttered in his throat, “Christ…”
Then no words would come, on
ly blood gushed from his mouth. He thought of Alice. The whole world was suspended at a vision of Alice; he tried to climb back into life, shouting at God that He could not let Alice wait on the steps for him, she would not know that he was murdered, she would think he had deserted her; would nobody tell Alice that he was killed?
The pain rushed suddenly at him again, mad like a beast. He wanted to die to escape this terrible agony. O Jesus, why didn’t he die, die, die…?
“He’s dead,” said Skeres, “you killed him, Ingram.”
“He started it, you saw him, Bob, he started it, the fool…”
“I saw him,” said Poley, “ and I was winning, too.”
The landlady — crowds, it seemed, following her — rushed into the room, wailing; she shuddered from that body twisted on the bed with its blue eyes wide open, staring as if trying to see the dagger sticking from its forehead; the body of Kit Marlowe, poet…and dreamer…
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