Traitor's Storm Read online

  The innkeeper, stupid or not, was fast enough and was at the table with two brimming beakers. He also slammed down a plate of gingerbread, cut into cubes and dusted with powdered sugar. Faunt looked dubiously at the drink and the food but good breeding precluded him from commenting until the man had gone. He then pushed the beaker and the plate away. Marlowe took a swig from his drink and a bite of the gingerbread.

  ‘I thought you said the ale and wine were bad,’ Faunt said.

  ‘They are. The cider is excellent, though, and the gingerbread some of the best in London.’ Marlowe smiled at Faunt. ‘You forget that Ned Alleyn is of the company up the lane and where Ned Alleyn drinks there are always perks to be had. Especially from innkeepers’ daughters who like to keep Ned Alleyn’s friends sweet.’ Marlowe raised his beaker to a trembling curtain at the back of the inn and was rewarded with a distant giggle, followed by a grunted curse from the innkeeper. The playwright pushed the plate back towards Faunt. ‘Try some. It’s just right.’

  Faunt took a tiny nibble from just one corner and nodded. ‘Are you tired of London yet, Kit?’ he asked, suddenly getting down to business.

  Marlowe, mouth full of gingerbread, shook his head. ‘No,’ he said, swallowing. ‘Why should I be? I admit this play is heavy going at the moment, but I am writing one of my own which … well, why lie to you, Master Faunt? I am going to be writing one soon, but things keep getting in the way of my beginning.’

  ‘What kind of thing?’ Faunt asked, interested to know what this man of fire and air might be doing that had passed his intelligencers by.

  Marlowe looked up at him over the rim of his beaker. ‘You, for one,’ he said.

  Faunt spread his hands and tried to look innocent, something that he found increasingly difficult to do convincingly. ‘I?’

  Marlowe leaned forward. ‘You didn’t come to the theatre looking for me just to say hello and join me in a drink, Master Faunt. I have felt the hot breath of too many of your intelligencers following me around to think you had forgotten me. What is it you want me to do? I want to warn you that I will not be going abroad for you in a hurry. News from Spain does not make me anxious to get any nearer to that spider’s web – and anyway, in this weather, I don’t want to do a Channel crossing.’

  Faunt looked injured. ‘A Channel crossing? Heaven forfend, Kit. No, no, although … a boat may be needed.’ He leaned back and patted the table rhythmically with his fingers for a moment, thinking. This man was too tricky for his own good, sometimes. He had almost let the cat out of the bag and there was no way of knowing which way the animal might jump.

  ‘Ireland?’ Marlowe broke the silence. That Godforsaken place was the graveyard of many a good man.

  ‘No, no, not Ireland. Governor Parrott is keeping the lid on things there, at least for the time being. No, it’s much nearer than that.’

  ‘Is this a guessing game?’ Marlowe said, a little testily. ‘Well, how about … the Isle of Dogs.’

  Faunt narrowed his eyes. ‘Let’s not be frivolous, Kit.’ He motioned him nearer and leaned in himself. He dropped his voice so that the distant innkeeper would have no chance of hearing, even if he wanted to. ‘I’m talking about the Isle of Wight. One of our men is … missing. Perhaps not missing, but certainly unaccounted for, as we speak. He was investigating … well, you don’t need to know that now. If you can’t find him, that will be the time to tell you more.’

  ‘Rubbish!’ Marlowe leaned back and spoke at a normal level. ‘How can I possibly find him if …’ He stopped, as any man would who suddenly felt the point of a dagger pricking the inside of his thigh.

  Faunt raised a sardonic eyebrow.

  ‘… if I don’t know what he was doing there,’ Marlowe continued, in a whisper.

  ‘He was working for Sir Francis,’ Faunt said, ‘and that really is all you need to know. He was working for George Carey at the castle at Carisbrooke. His story was that he was a garden designer but we may have blundered there. As far as I know he didn’t know a dogrose from an actual dog, so it may be that his cover has been blown.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about gardens either,’ Marlowe protested, ‘so I can’t be his replacement.’

  ‘No, no,’ Faunt said. ‘Because he might be just absent, rather than missing, we won’t draw attention to it by replacing him. I thought you could pretend to be a writer …’ He saw the look on Marlowe’s face and quickly redirected the rest of the sentence: ‘Which of course you really are, so the cover is perfect in that respect. No, I thought – that is, Sir Francis thought – you could go down as a writer looking for inspiration on an island.’

  That was so near to the truth that Marlowe was open-mouthed. Perhaps he had not spotted all of the intelligencers after all.

  ‘It’s a peculiar place, the Wight,’ Faunt went on. ‘Odd people at every turn and so you might even find inspiration. The supernatural, all that rubbish is a bit up your street as I recall.’

  ‘History,’ Marlowe corrected him. ‘History, not magick.’

  ‘Well, make your own cover story,’ Faunt said dismissively, taking a final swig of cider and a bite of gingerbread. He glanced over to the window and peered out. ‘I do believe the rain is easing off. I have had your man pack you a bag. He’ll be at the theatre with your horse about now, I should think.’

  Marlowe smiled. That was pure Faunt. The man always assumed and it never made an ass out of him.

  Walsingham’s right-hand man stood up and wrapped his cloak over his arm. ‘Keep in touch, of course. There will be a boat waiting at the Hamble this time tomorrow.’ He waved at the twitching curtain and was rewarded by another gale of giggling. ‘The cider is good,’ he remarked. ‘Not something I would usually drink but very … appley. Good day.’ And he was gone.

  Marlowe swilled back the last of his drink and smiled. It was a good batch. The last one had had rather more rat in it than he really enjoyed, but that was the thing about cider. It was always a surprise.

  Marlowe’s horse was indeed waiting at the Rose but of his servant there was no sign. He always had other fish to fry and clearly didn’t want to risk being inveigled into accompanying Marlowe in his trip south. Tom Sledd held the animal’s head and he was looking far from happy. Apart from anything else, the man was a stage manager, for God’s sake. He held horses for no man.

  Marlowe took the reins and lifted the flap of the bag thrown across the cantle. It didn’t seem very big for an extended stay, but he would doubtless manage. He nodded to the stage manager, who had transferred his grip to a stirrup leather. He still hadn’t spoken. ‘Tom,’ he said, with a smile, and tried to walk the horse a few steps, but Sledd was like an ox in the furrow. Marlowe had seen him in this mood before. He wasn’t often moved to anger, but a twitching nerve in his cheek was giving it away.

  ‘Kit,’ he replied, through clenched teeth. Then, as if the words had built up so that they overflowed the dam of his tongue, ‘I thought you were finished with all this. I thought you were a playwright now, that you would stay here, help … help with …’ He looked down angrily at the ground and kicked a muddy stone viciously. He let go of the stirrup and stepped back.

  Marlowe needed to get away, but not before he had put his friend’s mind at rest. ‘Tom, I’ll just be away a day or so. I need to go … to somewhere and do … something. Oh, God’s teeth, Tom, you know I can’t tell you anything. I’ll be back soon, that will have to be good enough.’

  ‘But, the play!’

  Marlowe smiled. ‘Ah, the play. I thought it wasn’t me you were worried about. Get Master Shaxsper to give you a hand.’

  ‘He won’t work with Ned,’ Sledd said with a sigh.

  ‘Tell Ned he has to behave. Apologize to Will over whatever it is he has done. Tell him otherwise you’ll replace him with Burbage.’

  ‘Burbage won’t work with Shaxsper.’

  Marlowe leaned his forehead on the saddle. He could stay and sort out the shambles at the Rose or he could go off for a few days o
n a nice, quiet island, staying in a castle, which sounded a cut above his normal lodging. He could have a brief look round for the missing ladies’ man, Hasler, and then come home. By then, any number of situations may have resolved themselves. If his prayers were answered – should anyone be listening to answer them – then the whole boiling would have fallen down a hole in the ground and they would have to start all over again. Perhaps Tom Kyd would have come back from his travels with a new play that somebody actually liked. He drew a deep breath, stepped back half a pace and sprang into the saddle. He looked down at the stage manager. ‘Goodbye, Tom. Expect me when you see me.’ And he walked his horse down Maiden Lane and trotted through the half-timbered suburbs that hugged the road to the south.

  It seemed a long time since Christopher Marlowe, Bachelor of Arts, Cantabriensis, had started out on a road like this. And when was that, exactly? When was the first step of this long journey? When he had splashed through the puddles of the Dark Entry on his way to school in the shadow of the great cathedral? When he had jumped on the back of a passing cart out of Cambridge and taken an apple offered to him by Francis Walsingham? For three long years he had been on that road to London and every time something had got in his way. And here he was, leaving it again. Just how insane was he? Nor’ by nor-west.

  The inn had not been of the best, but the bed had been reasonably soft and at least Marlowe had had it to himself. Walsingham’s purse strings were not loose, but they did allow enough money out to ensure a reasonable degree of comfort. Marlowe had never been to this part of the south coast before and he couldn’t help feeling that he had gone rather out of his way. For a harbour, the Hamble kept itself very much to itself and Marlowe suddenly found himself at the head of a little street of houses, all leaning on each other in what looked like a slowly failing attempt to keep themselves out of the river. Moss was growing over the steps and up the wall and some of the buildings seemed more part of the river bank than the land. He would not have been at all surprised to see a giant water vole drinking smoke from a pipe at the doorway of the most decrepit. But it was a man, dressed all in drab and with a low cap pulled down over his eyes. His beard seemed to join the cap and his chest. As the only living thing in sight other than himself and his horse, Marlowe had little option but to speak.

  ‘Hey, there,’ he called. ‘Is this the Hamble?’

  The man didn’t stir, but his little eyes glinted, swivelling from side to side in the shadow of his cap. ‘Ar.’

  Marlowe dismounted and went a step closer, slipping only once on the slimy green pavement. ‘I was to be met here,’ he ventured. He was usually rather more circumspect, but he didn’t see how this creature would be likely to be a danger. He looked as though he might be actually growing into the low stool he sat on.

  ‘Oh ar?’ Again there was no movement, except from the piggy eyes.

  ‘I need to get over to the Wight.’

  The man finally took his pipe from his mouth and looked out to sea in a vague fashion. ‘Ver the Woight, I wunt start from yere at’all. I’d start from Portsea, I shud. Oh, yes, Portsea, that’s where you wants to be, Master.’

  ‘I was told I could get a ship here.’ Marlowe was beginning to think that he should have listened to Tom Sledd and stayed in London.

  One bright eye closed and the other one surveyed the few little rackety boats pulled up on the river mud. ‘Ship? No ships yere, Master. Just our little boats, poor things as they be. Just a bit o’ fishin’ we do yere. Oh, yes. Just a bit of fishin’.’

  Marlowe wound the reins round his hand to stop him winding his hands around the idiot’s throat. He had been brought up within salt smell of the sea, but his had mainly been an inland life. He hated sailors and all who sailed with them, for all his mother hailed from Dover. ‘A boat, then. I was told I could get a boat to the Wight.’

  Again the eye roamed up the river and back again. ‘Not at this tide, Master. Perhaps this evening there’ll be somebody’ll take you.’

  ‘In the dark?’ Marlowe asked. He had had enough of boats and the dark. He preferred to know where he was going, even if it was to the bottom.

  ‘I shud say, s’arternoon. It’s low tide now, see. High tide in about six hours.’ The eye now looked at him. ‘That’s how it works, see. Tides. Low tides, high tides, twelve hours apart or near as makes n’difference. I would have thought you would have known that, Master Marlowe. Canterbury isn’t so far from the sea and you’ve lived on a tidal river this eighteen months since.’

  Marlowe looked sharply at the man, who looked scarcely any different from before. But both eyes were looking at him now and an intelligent look was in them. ‘I didn’t know …’

  ‘Well, no, you obviously didn’t. I have spent years building my reputation here, Master Marlowe. Looking the other way as the villagers smuggle all night and sleep all day. I am, in a manner of speaking, the village idiot. Daft Harry is my name, but you can call me Daft.’

  ‘Daft Harry what?’ Marlowe had been caught on the back foot and wanted to be able to sound intelligent when he saw Faunt next.

  ‘Just Daft Harry, I think, Master Marlowe. You seem a little too lax to receive too much information. I was told to expect one of Sir Francis’ best men.’ The brown mound shook with a chuckle. ‘I wonder when he will get here?’

  Marlowe sighed and sat down on the low wall opposite the cottage door. It felt a little slimy and something skittered out from under his thigh, but he didn’t really care. He had a feeling that he was going to undergo far worse at the hands of this self-trained salty sea dog. ‘Are you going to take me across?’ he said.

  ‘Ooh, tha’s a rum un,’ came a voice from behind him. ‘Daft Harry take you out on a boat? You’d need to be as mad as him to do that, I’m reckoning.’

  Marlowe twisted round and looked over a wall. The beach was about six feet below and sitting on an upturned lobster pot there was a man wearing a stocking cap and an oiled jerkin. He was mending a net, but not very well as far as Marlowe could tell. There seemed to be a lot more mend than hole. ‘And you are?’ he asked, wondering how much he had heard.

  ‘Gabriell,’ the man said, ‘Gabriell’s the name.’

  ‘Gabriell what?’ Marlowe asked, feeling as though he had arrived in the middle of a game to which he didn’t know all of the rules.

  ‘Gabriell. Gabriel Gabriell.’ The man gave a throaty laugh, coughed and spat on the weedy stones. ‘My old mum, she’d just straight run out o’ names when I come along.’

  ‘You have a lot of brothers, Master Gabriell?’ Marlowe asked politely. As far as he could see, high tide was at least five hours off and he may as well be civil while he killed time.

  ‘No,’ said the sailor, closing his mouth with a snap. ‘Just me. Poor old mum. Ar.’ He lapsed into a nostalgic silence and Marlowe straightened up, assuming the conversation was over.

  ‘But if you’m be wanting to go over t’t’Wight, I can take you. I got a fair little boat down on the shore.’

  Marlowe looked at Daft Harry, who lifted a shoulder and gave a small nod.

  ‘Don’t ask him,’ came the voice from below. ‘If that’s Daft Harry you’m talking to, he don’t know his arse from a hole in the ground.’

  ‘Aaaarrr,’ Daft Harry shouted, shrugging again at Marlowe and winking.

  ‘Is your boat far?’ Marlowe asked, trying to get the conversation back on an even keel.

  ‘Just down to the shore. A matter of ten minutes’ walk if you can shake your stumps.’

  ‘Is there anywhere I can leave my horse?’ Marlowe asked. In his head, he added where you won’t eat it.

  ‘Up at t’big house,’ Gabriell said. ‘You can’t miss it. Go up t’road where you came in. Turn t’other way from where you came and about half a mile along, there she’ll be. The groom there will take your mare in for ye. She’ll be safe enough along there ’til you come back. Old Lady Dunton, she lives there. Soft for horses, she is.’

  ‘And when I come back, we can go down
to your boat? Get across to the Wight?’ Marlowe was beginning to feel as though he may have wandered into one of John Dee’s secret worlds of faerie. Everyone was as mad here as a March hare and that month had gone.

  ‘For sure, Master. That we shall.’

  Marlowe got up from the wall, trailing green slime for just a second before it gave up its grip on his breeches. He glanced again at Daft Harry, who nodded and winked again, sprang up on to his horse and was gone up the lane.

  The Hamble returned to its silence, the grey sea mist lying at the mouth of the river like a curse, the quiet lapping of the turning tide making the boats boom as they rocked and tapped against each other. Daft Harry sat there in his doorway, sucking his pipe and occasionally giving vent to a random whoop. He liked to stay in character, even with no one to see. Gabriel Gabriell carried on mending his net, biding his time.

  Marlowe had made his turn and was almost at the big house before something struck him like a thunderbolt.

  THREE

  How did Gabriel Gabriell know which way he had come? The question racketed around in Marlowe’s head half the way to the big house and all the way back. He left his mare in the care of a groom no worse than many he had known and a good deal better than some insofar as he seemed to know which end of a horse was which. As he walked the short distance back to the riverbank, the question started to shout in his ear and so by the time he got back within earshot of Harry’s mad oscillating screams and Gabriel Gabriell’s idiot grin, he was in no mood to discuss matters.

  He had his hand on the hilt of his dagger as he stepped over the slippery cobbles of the last few paces. Gabriell was sitting on the wall, a bag thrown carelessly over his shoulder. Daft Harry was peering into his pipe, a mournful expression on his face. He looked up at Marlowe’s approach.