Black Death Read online

  ‘Don’t we all,’ Shaxsper muttered, but his mind was elsewhere.

  ‘Well, there we are then. What’s a bloke got to do to get a drink around here?’ he shouted. Still nobody was listening. He looked at his fellow actor. ‘So, how are things at the Rose, then, Will?’

  Gerard was the first of Forman’s apprentices to reappear at the house under the walls of the abbey. Mistress Forman was the first person he saw as he pushed open the door.

  ‘Oh, you’re back,’ she grunted. ‘Hungry, I suppose.’

  ‘Not especially,’ Gerard said, politely. ‘I ate quite well while I was away. Largely fish, but very tasty. In fact,’ he rummaged in his pack, ‘I have some for you. Fresh caught this morning.’

  She took them and sniffed them. ‘These don’t smell of fish,’ she said. ‘Is it some trick?’ Being married to Simon Forman tended to make a person suspicious.

  ‘They don’t smell because they are fresh,’ Gerard told her. ‘I have some vegetables here as well.’ He had another rummage and brought out some roots the woman couldn’t immediately identify.

  ‘Black sticks. Thank you.’ She sounded dubious.

  ‘It’s salsify,’ Gerard told her. ‘It tastes of oyster. Just in season now. And some carrots.’ He handed them over. Carrots, she could recognize and she smiled for once.

  ‘Did you have a good holiday?’ she asked him, just to be polite.

  ‘It wasn’t a holiday, Mistress Forman,’ he said. ‘I was working.’

  ‘And how did that go?’ she asked, with no interest evident in her voice.

  ‘I pitched a tent in a clearing by the river. It took a day or two, but finally, a few people found their way to me and I think I …’

  But the woman had wandered away.

  ‘… made a difference.’ Gerard sighed. Perhaps making a difference was putting it rather strong, but one ingrowing toenail less in the world could only be a good thing, surely.

  If truth were told, Will Shaxsper missed Warwickshire, the green fields, the shaded forests, the babbling brooklets. One day, he had promised himself, he would write a play set there. It would be about fairies, nothing heavy, nothing too serious; one for the ladies, essentially. So here he was, that wet, chilly afternoon, slushing through the mud of Moor Field, making his way to Bedlam.

  A solitary donkey, with ears like errant wings, looked at him, taking a moment off from chewing the grass. Sheep moved to one side, not caring for the man’s determined stride at all. The rain had done little for the sewer that ran under the old Roman walls, except to make it overflow and smell even worse. Rats played on its banks, so somebody in London was happy.

  ‘You on your own?’ the gaoler challenged him.

  Shaxsper looked to each side. He hadn’t realized that the keepers had to be mad to work here as well. ‘Yes,’ was the best the playwright could manage. All the way here he had kept telling himself that Dignam had been joking. The man was a clown, after all, famous for talking in riddles and tipping over non-existent stumbling blocks for the amusement of the crowd. Every year, on Twelfth Night, handbills would appear announcing the sale of the Rose and every year a furious Philip Henslowe would tell would-be buyers where they could stick their paltry offers. Such playbills were written by Hal Dignam; everybody but Philip Henslowe knew it for a fact. But Tom Sledd was Tom Sledd and Shaxsper counted him a friend. He couldn’t let it – or Tom – lie. So, here he was.

  ‘Anything special?’ Jack asked the actor. ‘Queen of Sheba? Dick Three-in-One?’

  ‘Just browsing,’ Shaxsper said cheerily.

  ‘Right you are.’

  The noise in the Hell-hole was deafening. A woman was banging a tray against a wall to a rhythm known only to her.

  ‘For the love of God,’ a sallow-faced man intoned, ‘alms, alms, good sir.’

  Shaxsper was the son of a glover and he had inherited his father’s lack of giving ways. He carefully removed the man’s bony fingers from his sleeve and swept on.

  ‘Wanna see what I got?’ an old crone asked him coyly, swaying her hips and fluttering what passed for eyelashes.

  ‘Nobody wants to see what you’ve got, Bessie,’ Jack was at Shaxsper’s elbow. ‘Oh … unless the gentleman …?’

  But the gentleman had already turned a corner and there he was; Tom Sledd, as large as life, if a little sallow.

  ‘Will!’ Sledd shrieked, leaping on him and wrapping his arms around his neck. ‘Will, thank the Lord!’

  Jack was like a leech, if only because he sensed in Shaxsper someone who was looking for something specific and might be prepared to pay for it. ‘Do you know this gentleman, sir?’ he asked.

  Again, Shaxsper’s mind whirled. Nobody was committed to Bedlam for no reason. Whatever had happened to poor old Tom, Shaxsper wanted no part of it. ‘No,’ he said, a shade too quickly, perhaps. ‘No, I don’t.’

  Sledd was gripping Shaxsper hard, his knuckles white as he clawed at his doublet. For a moment, the visitor stood rooted to the spot, at a loss as to what to do. Jack, as usual, read it wrongly. ‘Would sir like a little time with this madman?’ he asked. ‘Get acquainted, like?’ Jack didn’t judge. He had a family to feed and clothe and, without his little extras, they would be on the streets.

  Shaxsper’s mouth hung open. He’d seen enough for one day. If ever he wrote a play for real, he vowed then and there, there wouldn’t be a madman in it.

  Matthias was some hours behind Gerard and managed to get into the house without encountering Mistress Forman, who was busy in the kitchen trying to work out how to cook salsify, which still didn’t strike her as looking very edible. Carrots she was at home with, but they weren’t the makings of a meal. And now, these gannetting boys were back – she could hear the great clodhopping one trying to creep up the stairs.

  Matthias was anxious not to make too much of an entrance until he had changed his clothes. His mother had insisted that he had a complete wardrobe as a gift and before he could leave the house she had decked him out in every latest fashion. He had a feeling that he looked a bit of an ass, but as he was built like a privy, most people had laughed behind their hands and behind his back. He also needed to choose which of the testimonials to show to Forman. He had earned them all – especially the one from Mistress Flambeaux, the French governess at the big house in the next village. She had not needed Forman’s special massage, but she had taught Matthias a thing or two which he would never forget, especially in damp weather. In the end, he chose three, two from grateful widows, and one from a lady who expected to be brought to bed of a healthy child thanks to Matthias’s good services. The date of the confinement was something she had fortunately left out. Matthias folded the testimonials neatly and put them with the allowance from his father in a pouch. Master Forman would be impressed, Matthias had no doubt. Even if his scrying glass worked, he wouldn’t turn his nose up at gold coins, Matthias knew well.

  ‘It was him, Kit. As God is my witness, it was Tom Sledd.’

  The Angel was crowded that evening; in fact, it was so full that the muttered conversation between the two men went unnoticed. Shaxsper was still trying to calm his nerves after Bedlam earlier in the day. He had been propositioned by an old crone and leapt upon by a mad stage manager; someone had ripped off his codpiece as he left and was last seen wearing it on his head. Jack had found it all very amusing.

  ‘What did he say?’ Marlowe asked. Nobody had mentioned Tom Sledd for days and Marlowe’s days had been full recently, one way or another. He would be leaving for Hatfield in the morning and another iron in the fire was something he could really do without.

  ‘Asked me to get him out … well, not in so many words. He just seemed so glad to see me.’

  Marlowe nodded, frowning. If Tom Sledd was glad to see Will Shaxsper, things were very bad indeed. ‘You left him there?’

  Shaxsper knew Marlowe all too well. The man could fill you with guilt one moment, even without resorting to his mighty line. The next, he’d have you shouting from the ro
oftops at the joy of his company. Kit Marlowe could drive men mad as surely as Bedlam did. ‘It must have been Greene,’ the Warwickshire man said. ‘Well, you know, the exhumation. It’s unhinged him.’

  ‘Don’t talk bollocks, Will,’ Marlowe growled. ‘Bedlam. How do I get in?’

  Timothy was the last of the apprentices to get home. It was pitch dark and late as his key scraped in the lock and Forman whisked the door open before he had had time to turn it.

  ‘And what time do you call this?’ Forman hissed. ‘Where have you been?’

  Timothy was in no mood for this. If it cost him his apprenticeship, he would speak his mind. ‘Firstly,’ he said, not bothering to whisper, ‘I am not late. I am still in fact a day early, as midnight has not yet struck to bring in Tuesday, which I believe was the day we were to return. Secondly, my horse decided to give birth yesterday.’

  Forman’s eyebrows shot up, disbelievingly.

  ‘Yes, that’s right. Your damned scrying glass didn’t see that, did it? In the middle of the highway, there we were, ambling along, when suddenly, a wave went through the creature as though she had been shot and she lay down, right there in the road, screaming and kicking. We were in some Godforsaken village in the middle of nowhere but, believe it or not, within minutes we were surrounded by yokels all scratching their heads and mumbling at each other. And all the while, the mare was screaming and she looked fit to explode.’

  ‘Nasty for you,’ Forman muttered.

  ‘Nasty for you,’ Timothy spat. ‘Because, in the middle of all this, some old bat appears out of a cottage and everybody falls back. T’was old Gammer Gummy or some-such name and she was the local wise woman, or so they said. She walked up to the mare, put a hand over her eye and then, when the creature was still, walked to the other end, put her arm up … well, up there and pulled the damned foal out, just like that. And in a minute, the foal was suckling, all the village maidens were going “aw” and that was that.’

  ‘Why nasty for me?’ Forman had got a little wrapped up with the story and didn’t remember to be angry.

  ‘Because old Gammer Gummy had to be paid, didn’t she? I offered her the foal, but she didn’t want it. What she wanted was my purse and there were too many of her sons, grandsons and, for all I know, great-grandsons there for me to refuse. You may not have noticed, but I am not a fighting man. So,’ and he pushed his way past Forman, ‘if you’ll excuse me, I have been a long way, I have had a trying day and I want my bed. Good night, Master.’

  Forman stood just inside the doorway, watching his apprentice go up the stairs and disappear into the gloom beyond the candle’s glow. The week’s experiment had not been a complete washout. He had had a nice meal of trout and salsify, though one of the ingredients had given him appalling wind. He had a nice little purse of coin. And he had, if he played his cards right, a foal to offset against his credit at the livery. He smiled to himself. It could have been much, much worse.

  Most men would have walked across the Moor Field or down Bishopsgate Street. But Kit Marlowe was not most men. Bedlam was locked until eight o’clock the next day, but Tom Sledd must have been in the seventh circle of Hell for days now, and time was of the essence. It may be that his mind had gone already – after all, he had been glad to see Shaxsper.

  There was no rapier tonight, no plumed cap, ruff and Colleyweston cloak. Marlowe wore black with a plain Puritan collar. Only his dagger hilt shone silver under the fitful moon. He knew this part of London well. His home in Hog Lane was not far away, with a second home at the Curtain closer still. He passed the gate of the New Churchyard where he had resurrected Robert Greene what already seemed a lifetime ago, and turned the corner, tight to the Wall. He heard the thud of the Watch on the cobbles and saw their lantern beams darting like fireflies in the night. He flattened himself against the wall and waited.

  Bedlam’s gates may have been locked, but Bedlam’s roof was not. It was open to the sky as it had been for months now and the rain of the previous day had brought down more tiles to lie sodden with the straw of the chamber below. Marlowe edged his way across the roof, feeling the guttering fragile and fragmenting under his buskins. Years of bird shit had encrusted the tiles and no amount of rain would soften that again. He felt it scrape against his back through doublet and shirt. Then he caught an upright and swung himself across so he was face to the roof now, looking down into a pit.

  There were one or two candles down there, too high on the rain-dribbled walls for the inmates to reach. He could make out bodies lying on the straw; men, women? Who could tell? From somewhere, there was a rattle of chains, snoring and crying in the half-light. The drop was … what? Fifteen feet? Twenty? But there was nothing to break his fall and no other way into the hospital that had become a gaol. He had to risk it. And he, who never prayed at all, prayed that the ground was soft.

  He hit the straw hard and rolled upright. Three or four faces peered at him, eyes wide, mouths open.

  ‘Are you an angel?’ he heard a voice croak. ‘Are you from God?’

  ‘If it pleases you,’ Marlowe said and backed into the shadows.

  Most of the inmates still slept, including one who lay against a wall with his mouth open, snoring with the best of them. Marlowe knelt beside him and clapped a hand over his mouth. ‘Hello, Tom’ he said.

  Sledd jerked awake and swivelled his eyes. Before Marlowe lowered his hand, he was crying. He threw his arms around the playwright. ‘I knew it would be you, Kit,’ he sobbed. ‘I knew it.’

  ‘I don’t see why not,’ Marlowe smiled, as if he were having a casual conversation in the street with a passer-by. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘How long have you got?’ Sledd hissed. ‘First that arsehole Kemp, then that bastard Shaxsper. They both saw me and looked right through me. I … Kit?’

  But Marlowe was standing up, staring at a man half hidden in the shadows.

  ‘Oh, Kit,’ Sledd struggled to his feet, but the beating that Jack had given him had taken its toll and he staggered a little. ‘Kit, this is …’

  ‘We don’t have names here,’ the man said. His hair was straggly and his beard was alive with creatures.

  ‘This is the poet,’ Sledd was unfazed. ‘He’s a bloody good one, too. He—’

  ‘I must be going, Tom,’ Marlowe said. ‘I’ll be back.’

  ‘Kit? Kit? No, you mustn’t go. I can climb.’ Sledd watched Marlowe clawing his way up the rough stones of the wall. ‘I can make it … Kit. Kit?’

  But the poet had Sledd firmly in his grip and the playwright had gone, back the way he had come, the wailing of Bedlam ringing in his ears.

  TEN

  Kit Marlowe was packing his saddlebags for the road before dawn the next morning. The bay was as unused to this hour as he was, but the animal was of a stoic disposition and took it well. It would take the pair of them half a day to reach Hatfield by the North Road and he wanted to be away before the drovers began to clog the lanes.

  ‘Master Marlowe?’ The voice made him turn, hand near his dagger hilt as it always was at moments like these.

  ‘Johanna.’ The hand relaxed and he reached out to take her hand and kiss it. ‘Whatever happened to Kit?’

  The woman was struggling with her tears. She had left her children with her mother, a sure sign of her desperation as the woman was a meddling harridan who had thought her daughter had married beneath her and never forgot to remind her. She clutched at Marlowe as a drowning man will clutch at straws. ‘Have you any news of Tom, Kit?’ she asked.

  With all that had happened in the last few days, Marlowe had completely forgotten about Tom’s better half and how frantic she must be. ‘He’s safe, Johanna,’ he said, smiling. ‘Safe and well.’

  ‘Where is he?’ she blurted out, all but stamping her foot.

  ‘That I can’t tell you,’ he said.

  The Devil in Johanna Sledd wanted to slap Kit Marlowe, gouge his eyes out and throw his ravaged corpse onto a dung heap. But the angel in her remembered th
at this was kind Kit, the man her Tom worshipped nearly as much as he had worshipped his old master, Ned Sledd, whose name he had taken. She closed to him and laid a desperate hand on his chest, just above his heart. He was strong and safe and she needed that to calm her. She looked down for a moment, swallowing hard. Some questions, once spoken, could change a life forever, so it paid to take your time. ‘Has he left us, Kit?’ she asked, her voice scarcely audible. ‘Is there another woman?’

  Marlowe couldn’t help but smile. In Bedlam there were several, but none to whom Tom Sledd would give the time of day. ‘No,’ he assured her. ‘Nothing like that. You’ve heard him use the phrase “the Queen’s business”?’ he asked.

  She blinked. ‘He’s used it about you,’ she said, ‘but never about himself.’

  Marlowe tapped the side of his nose. ‘Enough said,’ he murmured. ‘There are more things in Heaven and earth, Johanna …’

  In spite of her misgivings, the woman smiled. ‘That’s one of Master Shaxsper’s lines, isn’t it?’ she said.

  Marlowe frowned. ‘No,’ he said, ‘it’s one of mine.’ When all this was over, he would have to have words with Master Shaxsper. He dipped into his purse and pressed two gold coins into Johanna’s hand. ‘You’ll see Tom soon enough,’ he said. He held up her chin, still wet with her tears, ‘and I don’t want to see any more of these.’

  Simon Forman dressed with his usual care to hear his apprentices’ stories and he went a step further, one he seldom took, and sat in his magnificent carved chair on the dais at the end of his chamber. He lolled there, one arm stretched out and the other bent, an elegant hand supporting a head too full of wisdom to be trusted to a mere neck. The image was somewhat marred by the faint scurryings in his sleeve and the occasional croak or coo, but the three apprentices were used to it now and lined up accordingly, to tell their tales. They were all, including Matthias, a little concerned about what the scrying mirror had told their master, but brazening it out was probably the best plan and they squared their shoulders in their ridiculous gowns and locked their knees to stop them shaking.