Eleventh Hour Read online

  There, mounted on a wall, were thirty or forty crossbows, enough to start a small war. They were French, German, English and …

  ‘That one’s Chinese.’

  Marlowe turned at the words. Henry Percy stood there, a lantern in his hand against the gathering dusk.

  ‘It repeats, fires ten bolts one after the other. Ingenious, isn’t it?’

  ‘Undoubtedly,’ Marlowe nodded. For the life of him, he couldn’t see how the thing worked.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Percy asked. His voice was chilly, enough to offset the lingering warmth of the day.

  ‘Forgive me, Your Grace.’ Marlowe crossed to him, into his pool of light. ‘Your armoury is almost as famous as your library. I just couldn’t resist.’

  ‘You could have asked, Marlowe,’ Percy said. ‘But come, let me show you my pride and joy. Over here, the finest of our English suits for the field and tilt. Made in Greenwich, every one.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ Marlowe smiled and walked away from the rows of crossbows, any one of which could have been used earlier that day in the attempt to kill him.

  Marlowe had not been keen to take on Carter as his manservant. He had tried it once before, but it hadn’t been all it was meant to be; in fact, it had not been like having a manservant at all, more like being tethered to a snake of uncertain loyalties. But Carter turned out to be an excellent servant: there when necessary; quiet when quiet was needed; a witty conversationalist when a little company was required. He was as adept with a goffering iron as Agnes and not inept with a needle either. Saving Marlowe’s life was the cherry on top.

  Henry Percy was a gentleman by nature as well as by birth and if he was a little put out by Marlowe’s prowl in the armoury, it would have been a keen observer of human behaviour who would spot it. He was also rather taken by one of the lady guests who looked a lot like his first wife, or so his prognosticative bone told him and when Henry Percy smelled love in the air, he really did not want any spare men around. Especially when that spare man looked like an angel, who might have a touch of the Devil in him, and had a way with words which would charm the very birds from the trees.

  At breakfast, Percy had turned to him, a lovesick glint in his eye. ‘Do I remember your saying that you could not stop long?’ he asked, rhetorically. ‘I do feel most ill at ease, my dear fellow, for detaining you. I have sent a message to your man; I believe he is packing as we speak. Oh,’ he held lightly on to Marlowe’s arm as he made to rise, ‘please, do not rush. Finish your oatmeal first, please.’ His smile was tight and small. ‘The cook would be mortified to see a full bowl returned to the kitchen, whatever the reason.’ And with that, he had turned away and said no more.

  Carter waited at the foot of the sweeping stairs, both horses saddled, bags slung ready for the off. Marlowe was about to mount when the great door swung open and Michael Johns appeared, ink-stained and distraught at the top of the flight.

  ‘Kit!’ he called. Then, thinking of his position in the household, ‘Master Marlowe!’

  Marlowe turned. He had not meant to hurt his tutor’s feelings but he had forgotten him entirely. ‘Master Johns,’ he said, taking up the ethos of the morning. ‘I would have come to say farewell, but …’ he gestured to Carter, ‘my man here had the horses ready and my bay is skittish, as you know.’

  ‘Your man?’ Johns was confused. ‘I didn’t know …’

  Marlowe grabbed for the scholar’s inky hand and squeezed it. ‘He came on later,’ he said. ‘He had business in town.’ He winked slightly and forced a smile. ‘I don’t know whether you have met; Carter is his name.’

  Johns sketched a salute to Carter, who nodded gravely in return. ‘But … Kit,’ he whispered. ‘Why are you going now? I thought you were getting on so well with His Grace.’

  ‘Well enough,’ Marlowe said, ‘until he found me in his armoury. But since part of his armoury had almost found me, I thought I had every right. He disagreed. So, before the social niceties are forgotten, I must be away. That settles the why. As for the where – I expect Carter knows.’

  Johns boggled. ‘Carter knows? You let your manservant tell you where to go? Kit …’

  Marlowe squeezed his hand again. ‘Michael, calm yourself,’ he said. ‘All will be well.’ Tom Sledd popped into his mind and he smiled. ‘Don’t worry so much. Go back to your cataloguing. Let us both do what we do best.’ He turned and bounded down the steps and sprang on to his horse. Carter wheeled his mount and together they trotted down the great drive to the lane which ran along the endless wall that bordered the Northumberland estates. The spring morning was cool and the dew had damped down the dust, cushioning it beneath the horses’ hoofs.

  Carter bided his time before speaking. ‘A nervous gentleman? What’s his name? Johns, I think, is it?’ Living cheek by jowl with Dee and his motley household had made Carter something of an expert on nervous disorders.

  Marlowe mulled the thought over. ‘Unschooled in the ways of the world, certainly. Michael Johns is really too trusting to be loose among anyone but scholars like himself. But needs must when the Devil drives, Carter. In Petworth’s library, he is as near to heaven as any man should ever get on this earth. If I know him, he will have forgotten about us already.’

  Carter gave him an old-fashioned look. For someone so intelligent, his new master, as he tried to think of him, was very foolish, as all great minds are. Michael Johns would never forget Christopher Marlowe, if he lived to be a hundred.

  ‘So,’ Marlowe said, after another companionable silence, ‘where to now?’

  Carter gave him another look. He had expected to be rather more of the manservant, rather less of the master in this partnership. ‘I don’t have the list, Master Marlowe,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, you do,’ Marlowe laughed. ‘I somehow don’t see the doctor sending you off will they, nil they into the blue without some guidance. So, again, where to now?’

  Timing was important in this kind of situation, as Carter knew only too well. John Dee had taken a day to school him in the ways of Christopher Marlowe and even then had only scratched the surface. But if he had taught Carter one thing only, it was to know when he had pushed him far enough.

  ‘I had thought perhaps Master Salazar. His home is on the way back to London from here, so we will waste little time if he proves to be elsewhere.’

  ‘I know little of him,’ Marlowe said. ‘In fact, it could be said that I know nothing of him. You?’

  ‘He has visited the doctor from time to time. An unusual gentleman, I think it fair to say. He … they say he is fond of animals.’ Carter didn’t like lying but saw no point in always telling the strictest truth.

  ‘That’s a pleasant trait,’ Marlowe said. ‘Does he keep a zoo? Lap dogs? A bear?’ It pleased him to think that Master Sackerson might have kindred spirits somewhere, even though destined never to meet.

  ‘I am not sure quite what or how many they may be,’ Carter said. ‘I have just heard tell he has a menagerie, of sorts.’

  Marlowe had never had much affinity with animals and dogs in particular had never really been a favourite of his, nor he of theirs. A menagerie sounded not so bad, though. A menagerie suggested cages, a measurable distance between them and him. ‘But that can’t be all there is to the man, surely? Somehow, I cannot imagine the doctor having much in common with a menagerie-keeper.’

  ‘I really cannot say more, sir. Perhaps if we wait to see if Master Salazar is at home.’ Carter looked dead ahead and closed his mouth tightly. Sometimes it was better to say too little than too much and this was, in his humble opinion, certainly one of those times.

  TEN

  Barnaby Salazar’s house looked almost normal in the pearly spring light of that early afternoon. It was closeted behind a high yew hedge and a path of silvery shingle led from the wicket gate to the front door, which was of oak, grey and gnarled in its natural state. Marlowe would not have been surprised to see a green shoot pulsing from the boards; there was a feeling of supp
ressed power to it, that it was almost daring the visitor to knock. The knocker, centre and at eyelevel, was unassuming. He had expected – hoped for – something more elaborate, more arcane, but except for the fact that the house was of a fairly substantial size, it felt like a country cottage. It belonged in a clearing, surrounded by toadstools and hanging vines. He tapped the knocker and stood back.

  Carter had opted – with barely concealed alacrity – to stay in the lane with the horses. Marlowe had agreed readily, but Carter had been ready to argue his case. If a man unsettled John Dee, it was not for nothing; Carter was not ready to see what Dee had seen and which had kept him sleepless five nights in a row.

  The door creaked open slowly. Marlowe was impressed; Dee had taught him years before that nothing impresses like a nicely creaking door if a man sets out to be a magus. He had also taught him that a creaking door is more difficult to create than one that opens on hinges smooth as silk. From a narrow crack between door and jamb, an eye peered out and looked Marlowe up and down, with no little disapproval.

  ‘Yes?’ The voice belonging to the eye was croaking and slow, as though not often used.

  Marlowe swept a bow. ‘Good afternoon.’ He would have added a salutation but realized as he spoke that he had no idea whether he was addressing man or woman. ‘Good afternoon,’ he said again. ‘I would speak with Master Salazar; is he at home?’

  With no preamble, the door was closed again, the creak, which had risen up the scale on opening, now running down in a cadence of sharps and flats. Marlowe stood up. He was unsure quite what this might mean. Was Salazar not at home? Was it, as he had no idea other than Carter’s directions to tell him, not even Salazar’s house? He waited in indecision and was about to turn and leave when the door opened, this time silently, as though hinged in velvet.

  The man in the open doorway was as unlike Marlowe’s imaginings as it was possible for anyone to be. His age was difficult to determine, but was probably between forty and fifty. His hair was jet black but heavily laced with grey and sprang back from a high forehead in a mass of springy curls, oiled to perfection. His beard was trimmed with exquisite precision around a mouth which was just the pleasant side of petulant. His skin was smooth and unlined, his frame spare and trim and yet, despite the trimmings of middle age, he stood as if he was in some discomfort, every joint tense, every limb stiff.

  ‘Master Salazar?’ Marlowe ventured. This was not the owner of the doubting eye. That had been pale and rheumy; this man’s eyes were the richest brown, sparkling and alive. It would be his luck, Marlowe thought with his usual cynicism, if this was the manservant and the eye belonged to Salazar. But no – this time his luck held.

  ‘Indeed.’ The man sketched a small bow. ‘I am Barnaby Salazar. And you are …?’

  ‘Christopher Marlowe. I—’

  ‘Not the Christopher Marlowe? The playwright? The poet?’ The man appeared to be charmed.

  ‘Yes, but today I …’

  ‘Well, come in, come in,’ he said, stepping to one side and extending a hand into the hall. ‘Forgive Jorge for his inhospitable welcome. We have so few guests here that he forgets himself. And he is …’ he dropped his voice, ‘… Portuguese.’ He set his lips and gave a knowing nod, as if that explained everything.

  Marlowe had never knowingly met a Portuguese person before, although he had looked down the business end of a Spanish cannon or two, so he couldn’t judge whether Jorge was a typical example. But it seemed the best thing to just smile knowingly and step in.

  Carter, looking through the dense yew branches, saw Marlowe disappear inside; he fingered an imaginary rosary and muttered the Nicene Creed under his breath. He could fill time with Hail Marys until his new master re-emerged. If he re-emerged.

  The hall was dark after the garden but not too dark to see. Jorge lurked in the background and was reluctant to come nearer, like a sulky child. Salazar sent him back to his kitchen with a stream of what Marlowe had to assume was Portuguese and then led Marlowe into a room which ran the entire back of the house, overlooking a little garden, laid out in knots and, further off, the rolling fields towards London. The glass in the windows was in small panes, but in an intricate design, which Marlowe had never seen before. It was like a rainbow which catches the eye and then is gone, only to reappear when the watcher looks away. It was almost hypnotic and Marlowe had difficulty sometimes in looking through rather than at it. He blinked and tried again.

  From behind him, Salazar laughed. ‘I see you are admiring my window, Master Marlowe,’ he said. ‘It is from a design by Sir Thomas Hariot. It represents … tell me, are you a mathematician amongst your many talents?’

  ‘Sadly, no.’ Marlowe saw no need to lie. ‘Numbers and I only get on in the most tangential of ways. Which is to say, I scarcely understand them at all.’

  ‘But ciphers? Surely, a wordsmith like yourself can appreciate a cipher?’

  ‘I enjoy a conundrum or two,’ Marlowe agreed, his eyes drawn again and again towards the window.

  ‘Then mathematics should not be a mystery,’ Salazar said, with the zeal of an adept. ‘If you think of each number simply being a symbol, as letters are in words, then …’ He saw the look on Marlowe’s face. This was an argument he had heard before, from Thomas Phelippes and others in Walsingham’s stable. It had cut no ice then and cut none now. Salazar smiled and gave in gracefully. ‘It represents something rather wonderful, if you are of a mathematical bent,’ he said. ‘And it is a comfort to me, when my own work is not going too well.’ He eased his wrists in his cuff and winced a little.

  Marlowe had not expected this to be so easy. ‘Your work?’ he said. ‘I would be interested to hear something of it. I have just come from Petworth and heard of what you are achieving here from His Grace.’

  Salazar’s eyebrows rose up his forehead like two leaping jaguars, black and lissom. ‘You did? I had no idea that I had made such an impression on Henry. You flatter me.’ He stood there, looking very pleased with himself, then recovered his manners. ‘Please, take a seat for a moment. Jorge has gone to prepare a small repast for us. At this hour, I usually enjoy a glass of Madeira and a pastel de nata or two. I hope you will join me.’

  It had been a while since breakfast and, although Carter had brought a loaf of bread and some cheese with him for the journey, Marlowe was suddenly hungry. Assuming of course, he thought to himself, that a pastel de nata was actually food. ‘I would be delighted,’ he said and sat at one end of a sumptuous couch, his back firmly to the window.

  Salazar sat facing him, crouched like a raven on a small stool in the inglenook. ‘Do tell me, Master Marlowe,’ he said, ‘for I am agog. What part of my work did Henry speak of?’ He hugged his knees and looked expectant.

  Marlowe gave a laugh and played for time. ‘We were in mixed company, Master Salazar,’ he said. ‘He did not go into detail, for fear of pressing the intellect of the ladies beyond its natural limit.’ As he said this heresy, he thought of his sisters back in Canterbury, who had minds like razors fresh from the strop. He apologized to them silently; they need never know.

  Salazar nodded wisely. ‘Henry is a gentleman in every way,’ he said. ‘So thoughtful. And an excellent host. You were staying with him, you say.’

  ‘I was. A brief stay, but wonderfully stimulating.’ Marlowe was not sure whether the next piece of information should be shared, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. ‘He showed me his officina magicae – his laboratory, as Dr Dee calls it.’ He didn’t add that his book of hedge magic still resided in the pack across his horse’s rump.

  Salazar sat up straight and looked at Marlowe in admiration. ‘His laboratory! You must have been a very honoured guest, Master Marlowe. Few are shown around his laboratory.’ He chuckled. ‘You met his hound?’

  Marlowe went a little pale at the memory. ‘I did. A very spectacular animal.’

  ‘A masterly summing up, Master Marlowe, if I may compliment you thus. When I met it, I nearly lost my bowels, I don�
�t mind telling you. And I have dogs of my own, none too friendly some of them. But Cerberus …’

  Marlowe was not surprised to hear its name.

  ‘… he is built of different clay. When we have had our bite to eat, I will show you my laboratory.’

  That solved one problem – pastel de nata was food.

  The door swung open and Jorge entered with a silver tray between trembling hands. The Venetian glasses on it rang and chimed as they knocked together and the pile of pastel de nata on the silver platter rocked and trembled. The man seemed so infirm that Marlowe got up to help him, but all he got for his pains was a glower that would have turned milk.

  ‘Oh, don’t try and help him, Master Marlowe,’ cautioned Salazar. ‘He prefers to do things for himself. He gets quite testy if you treat him as though he were old.’

  The rheumy eye was turned again on Marlowe and again the poet felt that he was being tested and found very wanting. The tray eventually found its home on a small, intricately carved table by Salazar’s knee and Jorge lurched off again, slamming the door behind him, his only way to show his displeasure at the temerity of the popinjay here to keep his master from his work.

  Salazar poured the Madeira and delicately placed one of the pastries on to a small pewter plate and passed it with a glass to Marlowe. ‘These should be just for Easter,’ Salazar said, helping himself. ‘But they are far too good to just eat for a few days a year. You are familiar?’

  Marlowe shook his head. He had rather expected something rather more appetizing than this small morsel with the blackened top. When Agnes turned out something looking like this, it usually meant tears and promises to do better next time. He swallowed hard and bit into … heaven. Beneath the burned offering was a bliss of custard, flavoured with orange and molasses. The pastry was a mere wrapping for the joy within and disappeared in the warmth of the mouth as if it had never been. He realized he had closed his eyes; when he opened them, it was to see Salazar convulsed in silent mirth.