Secret World Read online

  ‘For Jane Benchkyne, certainly,’ Walsingham said sharply. ‘And for my brother-in-law, if things had been a little different and he had caught his night prowler in the act. What did Mercator have to say on the subject?’

  ‘He was difficult to read, Sir Francis, if I am to be honest.’

  ‘Why start now?’

  The new voice made both men turn.

  ‘Ah, Nicholas,’ Walsingham said as his left-hand man strode down the room, sweeping off his cap and cape. ‘I was wondering where you had got to. What news of that lunatic Drake?’

  ‘As we understood, Sir Francis, he, Sir Francis …’ Faunt stopped in some confusion.

  Walsingham flapped an impatient hand. ‘Yes, yes, very amusing. The Queen can laugh for hours over the coincidence. Just call him Drake. That Mad Bastard. Whatever works for you.’

  ‘Er … Drake,’ Faunt said, hardly missing a beat. It wasn’t like the Spymaster to be quite this testy, but Drake put everyone on their mettle. Nothing was quite what it seemed with Drake in the mixture. ‘He is still at sea. As I understand it, and this is from someone who just saw his signal, he is having trouble with …’ He foraged inside his doublet and brought out a scrap of paper. ‘Excuse me, Sir Francis, these nautical terms are rather incomprehensible … trouble with his ballywrinkles at his bitt end. Also, from what I gathered from a rather half-witted old sailor who seemed to be the only one who could read signal flags, his boom vang is giving him –’ he consulted the paper again – ‘… gyp.’

  ‘And this means?’ spat the Spymaster.

  ‘I have no idea,’ Faunt said. ‘I think in general terms we may assume that Sir F … Drake will be at sea for a while longer while he attends to –’ and he waved the scrap of paper vaguely – ‘things.’

  ‘You don’t have to be cryptic in front of Marlowe, Faunt. He is one of us, after all. I assume Drake’s assault on Lisbon has petered out?’

  ‘It has,’ Faunt acknowledged with a nod. That round-the-houses explanation was five minutes he’d never get back.

  ‘So,’ Marlowe butted in, ‘we can’t ask Drake about these globes, but should we, anyway? If the Chancellor is right and he will be moved to anger when he finds one or even more of these globes have fallen into the wrong hands, then perhaps the least said to him, the soonest mended?’

  Faunt agreed, nodding. ‘Marlowe’s right, Sir Francis. Why trust Drake?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t,’ Walsingham said. ‘Never have. Never will. But Marlowe was about to tell me about Master Mercator when you came in, were you not, Christopher?’

  Marlowe had hoped to dodge that particular projectile. Mercator had not taken his fancy as the silversmith had. He had been rather secretive and although he had finally shared the jeweller’s name and whereabouts with him, it had taken all of Marlowe’s powers of persuasion to tease out the facts. ‘I can certainly tell you of what he said, Sir Francis,’ he said, ‘but it was nothing we didn’t know already. The list of the owners of the globes will surely take us further.’

  ‘List?’ Nicholas Faunt pricked up his ears. ‘How many are there, then?’

  ‘Eight, or so we believe.’ The Spymaster took back the initiative. ‘I don’t believe we know the gentleman in Canterbury who sold his globe to Mistress Benchkyne.’

  ‘Or had it stolen from him by her or another,’ pointed out Marlowe. He was quietly glad that Walsingham didn’t know Wim Grijs. Men known to Walsingham tended to end up twisting in fires or dangling at the end of ropes.

  ‘Precisely so. But he will no doubt be easy to investigate, Nicholas. My brother-in-law, Walter Mildmay we know. The other six –’ and he glanced again at the list in his hand – ‘I know perhaps one of them. You may know more, Nicholas.’ He handed the paper over and Faunt read it carefully.

  ‘What do the numbers signify?’ he asked, looking from man to man.

  Walsingham raised a hand to his forehead. ‘Kit,’ he muttered. ‘All this and the risk of having to deal with Drake is giving me a headache. Take Nicholas somewhere, share some Rhenish and tell him all about it. Then, choose one person each and go and squeeze him until there is not a drop of juice left in him. There is more to this than meets my eye. And I don’t like being purblind. Let me know how you get on. And …’

  ‘Yes, Sir Francis?’ They spoke in unison.

  ‘Get someone to come and light this fire. It’s perishing in here.’

  ‘Yes, Sir Francis.’ And, wiping a thin film of sweat from their brows, the two went off in search of Rhenish and a cooling breeze.

  The breeze on the water was indeed cooler than that on land and Marlowe settled down in a quiet place on deck of the little barque that Faunt had summoned up to take him to Lowestoft, the furthermost eastern location of a globe. He and Faunt had drawn lots as to which of them went to the coast, all other means of making the decision having been exhausted, bar actual combat. Wim Grijs had fallen to Marlowe with only minimal sleight of hand, but Faunt had quite reasonably pointed out that a visit to him was unnecessary as yet because they already had his globe, though by circuitous means. Faunt was off to Hertfordshire, which he claimed was hardship enough. Marlowe had pleaded prior engagements galore but the straw didn’t lie and so here he was, a few essentials in a knapsack and nothing but time until they dropped anchor in Lowestoft. The crew on the little ship were all busy as they wove their way down the Thames, with its sandbars and deadly currents. The tide was running high and fast and soon they were shooting past Tilbury and the Essex marshes and were out in the open sea.

  Marlowe didn’t mind travelling by sea. He had some happy memories of going out on boats with his mother’s family out from Dover when he was a child. But other memories crowded in too and he didn’t close his eyes for fear that the image of the wooden walls of Spain engulfing him and consigning him to the drumming deeps of the Solent should jerk him awake with a scream.

  A hand on his knee made him awake with a scream.

  ‘Master Marlowe.’

  He looked up into a weather-beaten old face, not a handspan from his own. ‘I wasn’t asleep,’ he said, hurriedly. ‘Just thinking.’

  ‘Ar.’ The old man sat down on a coil of rope alongside Marlowe’s perch. ‘They said as how you were some kind of a writer man. Tells stories, they said, for them players.’

  As a brief job description, it couldn’t really be bettered, so Marlowe nodded.

  ‘I’m a bit of a writer myself,’ the old man said.

  Marlowe steeled himself to be polite. After all, he was in the hands of this old man and the rest of the crew up the treacherous east coast where, he had heard, doomed ships were lured on to the hidden sands by siren songs and were lost. ‘I don’t think I have met a sailor with a tale to tell before,’ he lied. ‘Have you got anything you would like me to read?’

  The old man looked surprised. ‘Read?’ he said, looking puzzled. ‘Read? I’m not a hand for reading.’ He looked sharply at Marlowe. ‘Oh, ar, I see where we’ve got a bit mazed, like. When I says writer what I should have said was teller. I tell tales, to them as wants one.’

  ‘Oh.’ Perhaps there was a chance that the old man would go away, if he said no more and a companionable silence fell, broken only by the soft flap of canvas and distant sailorly calls.

  ‘So,’ the ancient mariner said, eventually, when it became clear to him that Marlowe was not going to say more. ‘Would you like a story, master?’

  Marlowe sighed. There didn’t seem to be much choice and beside, he had had ideas for plays from stranger men than this. ‘Why not?’ he said.

  ‘What would you like, master? They’ve all happened to me, you know. All first-hand stuff. I’ve had all sorts ask for my stories. I bin everywhere, I bin.’

  ‘Oh,’ Marlowe said, kindly. ‘You choose, why don’t you? Tell me your favourite.’

  ‘Now that’s a tough ’un,’ the old sailor said. ‘I bin everywhere, I bin.’

  ‘Have you, indeed?’ Marlowe looked over the old man’s shoulder, hoping to
be rescued by a passing deckhand or even perhaps a sighting of a whale, mermaid or similar sea creature. ‘Still, you choose.’

  ‘Well,’ the old storyteller said. ‘I was at the Siege of Malta. Course, that was back in ’65. I wasn’t a youngster even then, though you might not think it to look at me. No, but I was still putting in my years before the mast for any as’d pay me. It was a day much like today, June it was an’all, when the call came up, All hands on deck. So I got on to the deck and …’

  Marlowe slept, but it didn’t matter. The old man was back before the mast, his face sprayed with the warm Mediterranean water and the blood of his fellows, with all manner of djinns bearing down on him. As always when he reached the end of his story, he had to be led away by kindly sailors, to lie in his hammock, weeping for the dead.

  ‘I wish he wouldn’t always tell that one,’ the Master said to his Mate. ‘He’s much easier to manage when he tells the one with Drake in it.’

  ‘True,’ the First Mate said, nodding and twirling the wheel to catch the wind. ‘But then we get the crying for all the gold he had to leave behind. I don’t know which is worse.’

  The Master shook his head and sighed. ‘Poor old beggar,’ he said. ‘And the only sailing he’s ever known is a crabber out of Lowestoft. I only bring him along of us to get him out from under the wife’s feet. I know blood is thicker than water and all, but I’m going to have to stop bringing him out.’

  ‘It’ll kill him,’ the Mate remarked.

  ‘Ar.’ And the Master fixed his eye on the horizon, a small smile on his lips.

  A single candle lit the room. Shadows advanced and retreated, trying to extinguish the light. But still the flame held out and it flashed on the brass buttons of a doublet, a doublet worn by a man on a mission.

  ‘Are you there, Benedict?’

  ‘I’m here, Shakespeare. I’ll always be here. Until the job’s done, anyway.’

  The newcomer eased himself down, his hand never far from the dagger hilt hidden in the folds of his cloak. He had met this man once only and he trusted him about as far as he could throw him.

  ‘Wine?’ When it came to trust, the risk of poison had to be taken into account, but the job wasn’t finished yet, so taking a proffered drink was probably still safe.

  ‘Thank you, I will.’ He laid his cap on the table in front of them and waited while the cup was poured. Then, despite everything not being yet over, he took the other one. Old habits die hard.

  ‘My, my,’ the host chuckled. ‘Aren’t you the trusting soul?’

  ‘My soul’s got nothing to do with it. You’ve bought the money?’

  ‘Let’s see the merchandise.’ The smile had vanished now from the host’s face and he held out his hand.

  The other reached inside his doublet, past the metal of the dagger hilt and he laid the leather bag on the table. The man called Benedict opened it with one hand. The other lay on the butt of a wheel-lock pistol cradled in his lap. The candlelight flared on the silver. He saw America, Asia and Terra Australis. And he saw the emerald glowing green along the dotted line carved carefully into the metal.

  ‘This precious stone,’ the newcomer murmured, ‘set in the silver sea.’

  The other grunted, snatching the jewel and replacing it on the table with a purse of gold. ‘Very poetic, Shakespeare,’ he said. ‘Where next?’

  ‘That depends.’ The thief leaned back, tucking the purse safely away next to his dagger.

  ‘On what?’

  ‘On why a silver trinket should be worth so much more in gold? In any bourse in Europe you’ll find it ought to be the other way around.’

  ‘You agreed. No questions.’

  The thief took another sip of his wine. ‘That was before … Canterbury.’

  ‘Why? What happened in Canterbury?’

  ‘A woman died, Benedict. The woman who owned the gewgaw that got away.’

  ‘You killed her? A thief and a murderer?’

  ‘I do what I have to do. She was old and the jewel wasn’t where I had thought it might be and someone got to it first.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘His name is Marlowe. We are in the same line, he and I.’

  ‘Does he know you? For what you are, I mean?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Can you retrieve the jewel, Shakespeare? That is the main thing.’

  ‘I can, but meanwhile, you have another now. Fortunately, Hertfordshire was easier.’

  The man patted his breast where he had safely stowed the globe. ‘In what way?’

  The younger man smiled, knowingly. ‘Let’s just say the lady of the house has a … weakness.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Men,’ he said with a grin. He smoothed down his doublet and stood a little straighter. ‘Not just any man, but I took her fancy.’

  ‘So,’ the other said thoughtfully, ‘you kill the old ones, lie with the young ones?’

  ‘I didn’t say that, but in these two cases in point, you are right, Benedict. But you did say, did you not, as we embarked on our little transaction, that I was to obtain the globes. How I do it is my business. And –’ he poked the other painfully in the chest with his forefinger – ‘my private life is, after all, my private life.’

  When Marlowe woke, he couldn’t for the life of him remember where he was. He was moving, he could tell that, in a series of bumps and knocks which resonated up his spine. His head was at an unnatural angle and felt too heavy for his neck to carry. He was under some foul-smelling cover, redolent of fish and grime. People were shouting in the distance and it was dark. Was this Hell? He had been damned to there by so many people in his short life already, perhaps he had been transported there in his sleep. He opened his eyes, gritty and hot though they were and prepared himself for the sight of the eternally damned to be spread before him in all their legions. But everything was dark. He tried to move, but his leg appeared to be severed from his body. At least, when he tried to move it, nothing happened. Then, suddenly, there was a light, so bright and piercing that he flinched from it, squeezing his eyes closed again.

  ‘Come along, Master Marlowe,’ a gruff voice said. ‘Lowestoft.’

  ‘What?’ It all started to come flooding back. An old man and a story. The list. The globes. Lowestoft! He jumped to his feet and regretted it as his leg buckled.

  ‘Leg gone to sleep?’ the Master chuckled. ‘Sorry, Master Marlowe, not to have woken you last night but you were well away. Old Jem was telling you some yarn and you dropped off. We just covered you with yon tarpaulin and left you sleeping like a baby. Only other place to sleep would’ve been along of old Jem in the hold so we thought you’d be better off up a’top, especially on a lovely night like the one we’ve just had. Calm as calm and warm as a whore’s tits, begging your pardon, sailors’ term, like.’

  ‘Thank you, Master,’ Marlowe said, taking a tentative step along the deck. ‘Whores’ tits are warm on land as well as at sea.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ the Master was shocked. ‘No women on board. We goes and finds us what we needs on land, when the devil drives.’

  ‘I see.’ Marlowe remembered now what it was that he disliked most about going to sea. The sailors. ‘I believe Master Faunt paid you in advance?’

  ‘Well, now …’ The Master scratched his head. ‘Not sure …’ He looked around aimlessly. ‘Perhaps the Mate knows …’

  Marlowe reached into his jerkin front. ‘Perhaps a little …’ And he passed a gold coin into the Master’s open hand.

  ‘That’s very kind of you, Master Marlowe,’ the Master said, with a small bow. ‘Very kind. Will you be wanting a passage back to London?’

  ‘I’m not sure when I will need to return,’ the playwright said. ‘But I assume I can ask here for you?’

  ‘Yes, we’re allus here, here or on the way back.’ The Master stood aside. ‘I’ll let you be on your way, then, Master Marlowe. Safe journey.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Marlowe said, and shouldered his knapsack. ‘Do you know where ther
e is a livery stable in the town?’

  ‘Right ahead, up the street, turn left, you can’t miss it.’

  ‘I’ll say you sent me,’ Marlowe said.

  The Master smiled and nodded. For a landlubber, Marlowe knew a sailor’s ways. ‘God speed.’

  Marlowe inclined his head in a way which could show consent to the wish and edged down the gangplank, carefully failing to make eye contact with old Jem, who sat on a capstan on the harbourside, pregnant with tales. With his customary glance behind and to either side, to check for possible assailants, Marlowe set off up the street to the livery. He knew before he even turned left that there would be no livery stable and turned with a sigh back to the harbour.

  Everyone but old Jem had gone and there was no point in asking him anything, not because he would have no answer, but because he would have so many. Before Marlowe had to grasp that particular nettle, a door opened just as he walked past and a man who looked as though he might just know how many beans made five stepped out.

  Marlowe grabbed his sleeve and the man flinched and his hand reached instinctively round his back for the dagger he doubtless wore there.

  ‘My apologies,’ Marlowe said quickly, letting go and spreading innocent hands. ‘I did not mean to alarm you, but I am in a hurry and need a livery stable, if Lowestoft has such a thing.’

  ‘Lowestoft folk are a seafaring lot who have little to do with horses,’ the man said, smiling now the threat of attack seemed to have receded. ‘Inland to them is terra incognita! But there is a small stable at the edge of town, not ten minutes’ walk from here, if you were to step out lively, as I think you probably will, being a strong young chap. They will let you have a horse for a reasonable fee, but make sure you haggle the price.’

  ‘Are their prices too much, then?’ Marlowe asked.

  ‘Not at all,’ his helper told him. ‘But they distrust all foreigners here and if you don’t haggle they will be suspicious and won’t lend you even a sway-backed nag.’