Black Death

by M. J. Trow

  That sounded remarkably intelligent and Marlowe almost looked around to see who had spoken; surely the words had not come out of Shaxsper’s mouth? ‘The problem there, though, is that they were twins. Absolutely identical, according to the surviving brother. It would be stretching credulity to think that this hypothetical person, who knew where another hypothetical person was, was also an identical twin looking very like …’

  Shaxsper flapped a hand. ‘Yes, yes. I do see. But it would explain it, all the same.’

  ‘Then there was another death, in Hatfield. At Burghley’s house, as a matter of fact. This time, it was an old lady, who had been savagely smothered, her face and neck a mass of fingermarks, scratches and bruises.’

  Shaxsper looked blank.

  ‘I know at first glance it doesn’t seem to have anything in common with Greene and the drowned boy and yet … it niggles at me.’

  ‘Did anyone see anything? Hear anything?’

  Marlowe blew out a frustrated breath. ‘Not a thing. The maid along the landing is deaf, although she won’t admit it. The house is full of all kinds of people, coming and going. The guests are above reproach and their servants have to be assumed to be so, otherwise we would all be with Tom in Bedlam. It will turn out to be something and nothing, I suppose, but … even so …’

  Shaxsper was tiring of looking intelligent and the heat of the fire was making him a little drowsy, but he tried his best to stay awake.

  ‘Do you think that the boy heard his attacker speak? That it wasn’t his imagination?’

  ‘I hear someone call my name, sometimes,’ Shaxsper said.

  Marlowe looked encouraging. He wasn’t quite sure where this was going.

  ‘At night, you know, between waking and sleeping. Just “Will” like that. Once, when I heard that Hamnet was ill, I heard him call “Papa”. But I have never heard a question like that. Not in my head. It seems a bit …’ Shaxsper sought for the right word – the problem he often had with choosing the correct one frequently drove him to make one up. ‘A bit … complexible.’

  ‘Complexible? Is that even a word?’ Marlowe was beginning to see through Shaxsper’s rambling but needed another push to get there.

  ‘Complicated, then. Over-precise. So I think that he did hear it, yes.’

  ‘But what did it mean?’

  ‘That I don’t know. Perhaps I’m tired. I suppose I should be getting back home.’ Shaxsper looked wistfully at Marlowe.

  The real playwright let him stew for a moment then reached forward and slapped his knee. ‘Don’t worry, Will, you can stay tonight. Will the second-best bed do you?’

  Over the years working for the Queen’s secret service, Kit Marlowe had learned a thing or two about waiting on street corners. London was crawling with coney-catchers, shady characters like Frizer and Skeres who could spot an ingénu a mile away and fleece him of his valuables, livelihood and inheritance before he could so much as sneeze. Dressed down as he was, he tried that ploy today. He had already bearded Forman in his lair, badgering Gerard on his way in and he didn’t want to risk it again. He had bumped into Timothy without having to break his stride, but that still left Matthias.

  The lad emerged a little after noon, striding down Philpot Lane in the direction of the abbey. Knights of the shire in their formal black robes were crowding into St Stephen’s Hall. There was much jostling and shouting as men prepared to debate one of Her Majesty’s bills of provision. Marlowe had targeted three of them already, posing as a humble petitioner. In every case, he’d been given a flea in his ear, but it had all killed time that morning and had served its purpose.

  ‘Keep walking,’ he muttered in Matthias’s ear, getting into step behind him.

  The big lad turned with a swirl of his flashy cape. ‘Master Marlowe,’ he said, but didn’t have time for more before he was scuttling down some steps into the basement of an alehouse and bounced into a hard, wooden seat.

  ‘What’ll you have?’ Marlowe asked him.

  ‘Oh, that’s very good of you. Rhenish, if they have any.’

  ‘Pickles to go with that?’ The playwright-projectioner clicked his fingers and a serving girl appeared. He was remembering Gabriel Harvey’s explanation of what had killed Robert Greene.

  Matthias looked up at the girl and grinned. ‘No, no,’ he said. ‘I am about the doctor’s business today and my breath must be fresh.’ He winked at the girl who smiled coyly, curtseyed and went in search of the wine.

  ‘Tell me about Dr Forman,’ Marlowe leaned forward.

  ‘What do you want to know?’ Matthias asked.

  So much for the loyalty of apprentices. Marlowe kept it simple. ‘Everything.’

  ‘Well …’ It hadn’t occurred to Marlowe that this sorcerer’s apprentice could gossip for England, but the man asking the questions had struck pure gold. ‘Not to put too fine a point on it, Master Marlowe, he is a fraud.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘His sole purpose in life is to find fame and fortune – in either order. To that end, he has his way with ladies of rank. Or money; he doesn’t care which.’

  ‘And men?’

  Matthias looked shocked. ‘I hadn’t heard that!’ he said, almost indignant.

  ‘No, I mean, how does he manage the men? I assume not all of his clients are female.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Well, he uses his science, of course. I once heard him discourse with two leading scholars from the Inns of Court for nearly three hours. All very plausible, but I’m not sure how much of it was true.’

  The girl arrived with the cups and lingered for long enough for Matthias to squeeze her hand. ‘You have some tension there, my dear,’ he purred. ‘Comes of carrying too many heavy jugs, I’ll wager.’ He beamed at her breasts, threatening as they were to burst out of her bodice. ‘If I had more time today …’

  ‘You haven’t,’ Marlowe said, shooing the girl away. ‘You’re an Oxford man, aren’t you?’

  ‘Trinity,’ Matthias said, ‘although I have not attained my Masters degree yet.’

  ‘Nor will you, away from the college,’ Marlowe pointed out. Both men knew that residence at the university was essential for the higher qualification.

  ‘Ah, but I am learning at the knee of the great Dr Forman,’ Matthias pointed out.

  ‘His knee may be great,’ Marlowe said, ‘but you just told me he is a fraud.’

  ‘In his daily rounds, yes,’ Matthias sipped his wine, ‘a man has to make a living.’

  ‘Can he cure the Pestilence?’ Marlowe asked.

  Matthias shrugged. ‘He says he can. But deep down, in the stillness of the laboratory, we all of us work for one thing.’

  ‘Which is?’

  Matthias became confidential. He glanced from left to right. ‘To find God,’ he said.

  Marlowe’s eyes narrowed. ‘Then you have all missed your calling, Master Matthias,’ he said. ‘You should have joined the Church.’

  ‘No, no,’ the boy shook his head. ‘I’m not talking about religiosity, faith, any of that claptrap. I’m talking about science. About the notion of Heaven. Is it real? Are there gates of pearl? Does St Peter keep them, with the keys in his hand? When you and I see a man laid into his grave, Master Marlowe, is that it? Is that all? We believe there’s more.’

  ‘We?’ Marlowe repeated. ‘Do you mean the majority of the world?’

  ‘No,’ Matthias said. ‘They just repeat by rote. The three of us and the magus know there is more. As do you.’

  ‘Me?’ Marlowe raised an eyebrow.

  ‘One of the little trifles I’ve read in my time is a copy of a play of yours that I believe will never be staged again – Dr Faustus.’

  ‘Where did you get that?’ Marlowe asked.

  ‘Never mind. Faustus sells his soul to the Devil to see things that most mortals can only dream of. Have you seen the Devil, Master Marlowe? Are you really a reincarnation of Machiavel?’

  Marlowe looked at the boy. With his golden curls and the smooth curve of his cheek,
he had mistaken him for a cherubic oaf, a chaser of girls and a charlatan, posturing, like his master, in a lurid gown for effect. But this jackanapes had neatly turned the tables and it was Marlowe who was stretched out like some hapless thing pinned to a laboratory table.

  ‘Reincarnation of Machiavel?’ Marlowe smiled. ‘No. Have I seen the Devil? Who’s to say? He wears so many guises, Master Matthias. That drunk over there?’ He nodded to the far end of the room where a loudmouth was complaining about the taste – and the cost – of the beer. ‘The girl who served us, the one you plan to practise the doctor’s special massage on? Philip Henslowe, erstwhile owner of the Rose? Lord Burghley? You?’

  ‘Me?’ The tables had turned again. ‘No, no. I’m looking for God. If I find the Devil on the way, so be it.’

  ‘How do you do it?’ Marlowe asked.

  ‘Aha,’ Matthias tapped the side of his nose. ‘Trade secrets, I’m afraid, Master Marlowe,’ he said. ‘I can tell you how the others do it. My own methods must remain my own.’ Again he became confidential. ‘We all risk damnation as it is.’

  ‘I’ll settle for that,’ Marlowe said.

  ‘Take Gerard. Not a duplicitous bone in his body, or a brain in his head. He will not hurt animals so he uses plants, herbal medicines, that kind of thing.’

  ‘He’s a wise man, then?’

  ‘Of sorts. White witchcraft, if you will.’ Matthias mouthed the words. An alehouse a mere stone’s throw from St Stephen’s Hall and the Abbey of Westminster was not somewhere men bandied such words about. ‘He has potions, elixirs, all suggested to him by the doctor. Except that he knows far more about them than the doctor does. By mixing certain elements in his phials, he hopes to make it possible for us to see Heaven.’

  Marlowe looked dubious. ‘Any luck so far?’

  ‘That depends on who he tries it on. It did nothing for me or the doctor. Timothy – who knows? I’ll get to him in a minute. Mistress Forman will have no truck with it, but one or two of our clients seem … I’ll have to use the word “enchanted”.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Well, take Robert Greene. Weeks before he died, Gerard gave him a potion – mandragora, foxglove, bits and bobs.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Well, if you ask me, Greene was a little touched before Gerard started, but he became even odder later, sitting in a shroud, as if he was already dead.’

  ‘Preparing to meet his Maker,’ Marlowe nodded.

  ‘That was Timothy’s belief, certainly, when we talked about it.’

  ‘And what is Timothy’s method?’

  ‘Well, he’s far more adventurous. Rats, cats, dogs, the odd crow. He’s working on river trout at the moment.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, he kills them – says fresh meat is essential – skins them and pegs them out on his table. He works on the heart, the lungs, the liver.’

  ‘And?’

  Matthias shrugged. ‘Damned if I know,’ he said. ‘Don’t even know what he’s looking for. He’s been focussing on the animals’ brains recently. There are people in this great country of ours who say that the brain is behind it all, that it – not the body – is where the soul is.’

  ‘So you don’t think that Timothy is making very good progress?’

  ‘No, I don’t, but he’s a dark one, is our Timothy. When and if he finds anything, he’s not likely to share it with anybody else.’

  ‘Which brings us back to the doctor,’ Marlowe said, leaning back. He wanted to replenish their wine but didn’t want the air-headed girl distracting Matthias again, so he went thirsty.

  ‘Hmm.’ Matthias leaned back too, steepling his fingers. ‘The doctor is a picker-up of other people’s ideas,’ he said. ‘He’ll help himself to anything he can from me, Gerard, Timothy, the man in the street.’

  ‘I know a playwright like that,’ Marlowe said.

  ‘I doubt you’ll get anything particularly original from the doctor. You’ll have to ask him.’

  ‘That’s a little like handling quicksilver,’ Marlowe smiled.

  ‘Quicksilver!’ Matthias almost shouted. ‘Now, there’s a thought!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, nothing.’ The apprentice realized he might have said too much.

  ‘Do you know Cambridge, Master Matthias?’ Marlowe asked. ‘Specifically the stretch of the river called Paradise?’

  ‘Wouldn’t be seen dead near the place,’ Matthias laughed. ‘Oh, begging your pardon, of course, Dominus Marlowe.’

  ‘Pardon granted,’ Marlowe smiled. ‘What about Hatfield?’

  ‘Er … that’s in Sussex, isn’t it?’

  ‘No,’ Marlowe said, flatly. ‘Tell me, when the three of you went on your travels recently, where did you go?’

  ‘Can you keep a secret?’ Matthias looked a little concerned.

  ‘Has the Pope put a price on the Queen’s head?’

  ‘Very well. I went home. To Chertsey, I don’t know if you have ever been there. My people have the old Abbey House there. Lots of good cooking, comfortable beds, motherly smotherings, that sort of thing. We all told the doctor we’d been out administering to the sick. All a load of hogwash, of course. Gerard camped out somewhere along the river. God knows where Timothy went. Some place called Barn Elms, he said.’

  ‘Barn Elms?’ Marlowe repeated.

  ‘Do you know it?’

  ‘I know of it,’ Marlowe said. ‘Pity it’s nowhere near Hatfield.’

  Matthias clicked his fingers and the blonde girl came running. The apprentice was shaking his head. ‘All this obsession with Hatfield, Master Marlowe,’ he said, squeezing the girl through her plackets, ‘you really should try to get out more.’

  FOURTEEN

  He drummed his fingers on the sideboard and stared out of the latticed windows. The morning sun was gilding the turrets of Whitehall and the birches flashed silver under their fast-vanishing canopy of leaves. The Queen’s Secretary of State had waited long enough. Either Dr Forman had driven back the Pestilence or Dr Dee had had a mercurial hand in it. Or God Himself had decided that enough was enough. Whatever the reason, the Pestilence was petering out and he had it from the mouth of the magus himself. The plague pit was only half full this time and there were markedly fewer men wandering the streets in herb-filled beaks.

  Burghley could do what he was about to do without loss of face. He called loud and clear and a liveried flunkey arrived, secretary to the Secretary. ‘Get a message to the Master of the Revels, Dickson,’ he said. ‘Tell him to open the theatres. We’ll just have to ride out the wrath of the Puritans. And tell Tilney to put something new on for Her Majesty – the old trout’s been bending my ear for weeks.’

  ‘Sir.’ The secretary bowed.

  ‘Oh, Dickson – you’ll dress that up a bit, of course.’

  Edmund Tilney skipped around his chambers on the shadier side of Whitehall. He was clutching Burghley’s letter, complete with wax and ribbon, and humming to himself. He even danced a very quick volta with Mistress Tilney and he hadn’t danced with her for years. In his head, the orchestra played and a thousand cannon roared their approval, fireworks filling a golden sky.

  ‘Henderson,’ he bellowed at an underling, ‘write me an edict. Make it in the form of a playbill and run off a hundred copies. No, make that two hundred. Stick them on any available space your people can find. Well, don’t just stand there, man!’

  ‘Er … the Puritans, Sir Edmund?’ Henderson could read the minds of Londoners like an open book.

  ‘Bugger the Puritans, man!’ Tilney chortled. ‘The theatres are open!’

  A horseman was galloping along Maiden Lane, lashing his mount with his rein-ends and ramming home his spurs. Had the Dons invaded? Was the Queen dead? Neither seemed likely, because the messenger was Edmund Tilney. The Master of the Revels dismounted as if he was half his fifty-seven years and threw his reins to Nicholas Skeres, who happened to be sitting by the Rose’s gate. With a theatrical flourish, Tilney produced a hammer fr
om his saddlebag and, waving a sheet of parchment, smashed the padlock that held the doors shut.

  ‘Do you work here?’ he asked Skeres.

  ‘Used to,’ the man muttered, but Ingram Frizer was altogether nimbler and louder.

  ‘No, he don’t, sir. But I do.’ He bowed low. ‘Ingram Frizer, walking gentleman.’ It never hurt to get your name lodged in the minds of great men. Unless, of course, those great men were magistrates.

  ‘Well, carry on walking, sir,’ Tilney laughed. ‘The theatres are open!’

  Edmund Tilney had never been hoisted shoulder high before, but he was now, first by Skeres and Frizer, then by actors and stagehands without number who seemed to sprout from the Rose’s stonework. They carried him through the vestibule and into the courtyard before placing him carefully on a dais centre stage.

  ‘If it’s good enough for the King of France, Sir Edmund,’ Frizer said, patting his shoulder, ‘it’s good enough for you.’

  Tilney wasn’t quite sure how to take that, but was more comfortable with the effusive thanks he got from Ned Alleyn and Richard Burbage, falling over each other in their hurry to reach him. A rapidly balding actor from Warwickshire was there too, slapping backs and laughing with joy, the tears running down his face.

  ‘Marvellous news, eh, Mistress Henslowe?’ he called out to one of the mob standing where the groundlings usually gathered.

  It was one of those strange moments when a lull descends, like the eye of a storm, like the silence between the hiss of a fuse and the roar of a cannon. In that silence, all eyes turned to the woman in question.

  ‘Marvellous, indeed,’ the woman shrilled, looking about her hysterically. ‘My husband, wherever he is, will be delighted.’

  Cheers rose again from the crowd and the party began. Fighting his way out at last from the delirious theatricals, Edmund Tilney passed Mistress Henslowe.

  ‘You really don’t have to go to these lengths, Henslowe,’ he muttered, ‘unless of course, there is something you haven’t told me?’ and he swept on.

  The October night was not cold, but even so, Marlowe was happy to be astride the wall of Master Sackerson’s Bear Pit, with the musky warmth of the creature making just that tiny bit of difference to the overall temperature. It was too dark to see the details of the bear’s moth-eaten coat, but there was enough light still in the sky to reflect in his piggy eyes, so Marlowe knew he was looking up at him. His huffing breath was his way of saying he loved you, or so Tom Sledd always said, so Marlowe decided to take it on trust.