Black Death Read online

  ‘Don’t worry, Master S.,’ Marlowe said, throwing down a wizened apple he had brought with him specially. ‘Tom will be back soon. I know he’s missed you.’

  The bear gave a soft little grunt and Marlowe could tell why he and Tom were so close. He really did understand every word said to him.

  ‘He knows you do,’ the playwright told the bear. ‘He’s in good hands. Nicholas Faunt … you remember him?’

  The huff was a little harsher. Faunt had not always got on with the bear; he didn’t really understand his point of view, so Tom said.

  ‘Well, he’s looking after Tom, so he’ll come to no harm. You’ll see him soon, don’t fret.’

  An enormous cheer broke from the Rose, almost visible in the faint glow of limelight spilling through the open roof.

  ‘Someone’s having a good time,’ Marlowe said, indulgently. ‘Theatres open again, everybody happy.’ Except. Except Fan Jackman, Richard Williams, Burghley and Cecil – and who knew how many others, deprived of their loved ones before their time. Marlowe looked down at the bear. ‘Have you ever seen Heaven, Master Sackerson?’ he asked.

  The bear rolled over with a sigh, arms splayed, apple mush on his chin. Heaven was easy for him. Food. A bit of well-chosen company. Years ago, he would have said a female bear, just for a few minutes, now and then, but now, not so much. Marlowe wondered, not for the first time, how it would feel to tickle that vast stomach, to feel the strength still beneath the mothy fur. But he suspected that would be a very fast way of seeing Heaven, or wherever the tickler might be headed. He swung his leg over onto the pavement side of the wall and jumped down.

  ‘Goodbye for now, Master Sackerson,’ he whispered. ‘Stay safe. And pray for me – I am going to see a man about a God.’

  By the time Marlowe reached the house in the shadow of the abbey, the night was pitch dark. The usual detritus of London were still out and about and from time to time a cry of fear or pleasure – often hard to distinguish – pierced the night. But there was no glimmer of light from any of the windows facing the street, nor a sound.

  Marlowe was wearing dark clothes with no decoration. Buttons had been dimmed with soot. His dagger hilt was loosely hung with a scrap of black velvet so that no glow of palm-polished silver would betray his position. He didn’t know what he might have to do this night – he wasn’t even sure if he would find Forman at home, given his well-advertised proclivities. But he had to try. With every day of freedom he gave the man, another soul might find itself set free before its time. And if Kit Marlowe wasn’t sure of the existence of souls, he was sure that every man or woman alive had the right to their allotted span.

  He eased himself under the deep lintel of the door. The lock was a basic one and soon broached. As he had suspected, there were no bolts drawn across. No man who likes to wander at night has bolts on his doors; all too easy to be locked out. The hinges were well oiled too – with an inward chuckle, Marlowe wondered whether Forman would appreciate the joke that his nocturnal wanderings had made it so easy for Nemesis to come calling. Marlowe would have wagered a good purse that the stairs wouldn’t creak and he would have won. Getting silently from a door to the landing above had never been so easy.

  After that, it was a little more difficult. There were five doors off the landing and no other stairs. Like many buildings squeezed into the streets around Westminster, this house had just two floors. Downstairs, there were two large rooms, mainly for show and, in Forman’s house, the laboratory and then the sanctum sprawling out at the back. A window at the head of the stairs looked out onto the courtyard, and the windows of the long, low building were dark and blank. One door stood open and in the gloom it was possible to see two little beds, blankets rolled back, and some children’s toys. It didn’t surprise Marlowe that Forman, for all his brave words about being able to cure the Pestilence, had sent his children away to the safety of the countryside. Many farmers’ wives had reason to bless the black death that stalked the city streets – as long as their little guests didn’t bring it with them, the money that they did bring could make all the difference between a lean winter and a comfortable one.

  He crept along the landing, rolling from heel to toe, slowly, carefully. Just because Forman oiled his hinges and braced his stairs, there was no need to be careless. Marlowe had faced many a man over the years, armed to the teeth and determined that one of them would die. So far, they had all backed the wrong man as survivor, but Forman was cunning, if not, Marlowe guessed, much of a swordsman. Where Marlowe was quick on his feet and ruthless, Forman knew this house like the back of his hand and he wasn’t above installing trapdoors to catch the unwary. And he had three apprentices to call upon. Rumour had it that Mistress Forman had a formidable right hook too. So care must be uppermost in his mind.

  At the first door, there was a glimmer of light showing around the hinges and through a knothole just below Marlowe’s eyeline. It threw a narrow beam across the landing, picking out a detail on a small painting hung on the panelling; a curled finger seemed to beckon in the darkness. Taking care not to get too close in case someone on the other side of the door saw his eye fill the space, Marlowe looked in. The cook and the kitchen maid were tucked up in narrow beds, one on either side of a small chest where a stub of candle burned, the little maid completely fast asleep, as only exhausted people can be. The cook was reading a Bible, running her finger slowly along each line and moving her mouth silently as she did so. Sometimes, when a word was difficult, she had several tries at it and Marlowe found himself holding his breath as she struggled. After a moment or two, she reached the end of the appointed passage for the day and, with infinite care and slowness, she put a bookmark into her place, wrapped the Bible in a cloth and stowed it beneath her pillow. Then she retied the strings of her nightcap, snuggled down into the bed, into the nest her body had made after many nights of sleep and blew out the candle.

  In the sudden darkness, Marlowe crept along to the next door. No handy knotholes here and he pressed his ear to the boards. A crescendo and diminuendo of snoring came through the wood, sometimes stopping altogether and then coming back again, like wind through the chimneys on a blustery day. The snores bespoke contentment but, more especially, young males deep in dreams they would rather not share. Occasionally, a bass chuckle broke the rhythm and then the snoring would be off again. It reminded Marlowe of being out in a fishing boat in his youth. The labouring climb to the top of a wave, the silent anticipation at its crest and then the exhilaration of the slide down the other side. This must be the apprentices’ room and Marlowe crept past.

  At the end of the landing, a door was slightly ajar. The position of this bedchamber suggested that it was bigger than the rest and Marlowe tried to decide whether this would be that of Forman himself or his wife. He had not got to know him well, but he didn’t feel that the magus would give his wife the largest room. But on the other hand, he might do that as a sop to keep her quiet. It couldn’t be easy to be married to a man who made fornication into a successful business. He had only seen the lady briefly, when she clouted Gerard round the head with a crack that echoed through the house, and he didn’t think that she was someone who would let Forman get away with his dubious doings without a serious quantity of quid pro quo.

  He pushed gently on the door and slipped inside. He knew instinctively that he was not alone in there. The smell of the rest of the house – of unknown chemicals, herbs, blood and dead vole – was less tangible in here, being overlaid with lavender and roses. The furniture was heavy and dark – the faint starlight coming through the undraped window showed massy blocks of darkness against one wall, a four-poster bed framed by presses. The white counterpane almost glowed by comparison and the bed clearly had an occupant, but from the doorway it was impossible to see who. Marlowe held his breath and crept closer. The figure on the bed writhed suddenly and muttered something he couldn’t quite catch. But the voice was a woman’s and so either this was Mistress Forman’s room or, if she shared
it with her husband, he was elsewhere. Marlowe frowned. This might mean making a new plan. But that wouldn’t matter; a job worth doing is worth doing well.

  He carefully retraced his steps to the door, not turning his back on the bed. Marlowe never turned his back on anyone, on principle. If a blade was coming for him, he would rather see its flight than suddenly feel it between his shoulder blades. He pulled the door to behind him and resumed his slow heel to toe along the landing, back towards the head of the stairs. As he passed the fourth door he listened briefly, just to complete the job. As his ear touched the knotty pine, he heard a noise which made even his man-of-the-world view of life take a pause. It was a low moan, not repeated, then the creak of a bed, the strings protesting as two bodies pressed down and writhed upon them. Surely, Forman didn’t bring his conquests here? Not to the room next to his wife? No wonder the woman was a little short-tempered. Marlowe had had no second thoughts in bringing Forman to book but, even had he, they would have disappeared with that sound. His hand crept to the small of his back and he flipped the velvet from his dagger hilt. He wanted nothing to impede him when he made his final rush. If the lady was going to be embarrassed, so be it. Perhaps it would be a salutary lesson.

  He lifted the latch slowly and was not surprised to find that it slid like silk. As he pushed the door open a little, he saw that a candle was burning on a press under the window. The black night took the flame and reflected it back into the room and so there was ample light to see by. Marlowe stood silently inside the door, eyes downcast for a moment while they got used to the light. At the edge of his vision, he could see that the figures on the bed seemed to have no shame. One was hunched over the other, back bowed and shaking furiously, fast, desperate. He raised his head from time to time and Marlowe could see the monstrous beak of a plague doctor outlined in gold against the light. The sparkle from the adorned robe threw prisms around the room, trembling on the walls and ceiling, reflected again and again from the black window panes. How like Forman to wear his robe when fornicating with some woman in desperate enough straits to be taken in by his lies. This had surely gone far enough. Marlowe reached for his dagger and was unsheathing it slowly, silently, when there came a sound that chilled his blood.

  From the bed came a rattle, a rattle he had heard before, of a man breathing his last. The hunched figure leaned over the prone one and lifted the mask. He bent down and seemed to blow into the invisible face of his lover, who bucked and arced in the bed with a crowing shout as the air went back into desperate lungs. And then low, evil, a voice with ice in it – with dark menace that was worse than any dead man’s rattle – spoke.

  ‘Have you seen him? Have you seen him yet?’

  Marlowe’s breath, held for what seemed like eternity, left him in a rush and the figure on the bed spun round, the beak back in place, eyes burning behind the mask.

  ‘You!’ he spat and jumped to the floor, gown billowing around him like a cloud. He landed awkwardly, but recovered and went for Marlowe like a madman. The force of his leap sent Marlowe’s dagger skittering into a corner, but even as he landed, Marlowe knew that this was not Simon Forman. Forman was a big man, tending to paunchy but still very fit and strong. The demon wrestling Marlowe to the floor now was small, wiry and desperate. Teeth sank into Marlowe’s arm and hung on like a wild animal’s. Fingers reached up to gouge at his eyes and one hand managed to grab a handful of hair, pulling hard and making the tears spring to Marlowe’s eyes. Keeping his head back, he brought his knee up but missed his target, catching his opponent on the thigh. Even so, it was a hard blow and the grip on his hair was released and the teeth in his arm opened in an oath.

  Marlowe rolled, in the limited space between the bed and the wall, and pinned the would-be murderer under him, pressing his arm across his throat. The great beak stabbed the air and almost caught him in the eye, but he pushed it back with one shoulder and felt it crack, cascading herbs everywhere. He pressed and pressed and remembered John Dee telling him how long it could take to stifle someone – he felt he had been here for hours already, but he knew deep down it was less than a minute.

  At the far reaches of his hearing, he sensed that whoever it was on the bed was stirring, coughing, retching. Between each cough was a desperate whooping sound as air tried to force its way into lungs crushed and bruised, down a throat burning with the fires of Hell. But he could tell that they were beginning to get stronger. Could he hold down this writhing demon until they could climb out of the bed and come to his help?

  The clawing hands beneath him were beginning to get weaker now but he dared not let go. It could all be a trap – he had been fooled this way before now and didn’t intend it to happen again. But before he had to decide whether to stay there until one more man met his Maker before his time, he heard a heavy thud as the occupant on the bed fell to the floor and, swinging wildly, punched the struggling form beneath him in the side of the head so he lay still.

  Marlowe rolled sideways, nursing his bitten arm. He looked to where Simon Forman sat with his back to the press, the candlelight making a halo around his head. And between them, out cold, was a slight figure with a broken mask across the face, dressed in one of Forman’s outsize robes and breathing still, but with difficulty.

  Forman looked up at Marlowe, a question in his eyes and Marlowe nodded. Slowly, easing the strings from around the ears, the magus slipped off the ruined mask to reveal the face of his apprentice, Timothy, pale in the candlelight, looking like a sleeping child.

  ‘Did you know about him?’ he said, quietly, to Forman.

  Forman pointed to his throat and shrugged. It would be a long time before his silver tongue could do its work around London. Then he shook his head.

  The door flew open and Mistress Forman stood there, her nightcap low on her forehead and her nightdress as impregnable as the Tower. ‘Is it too much,’ she said, ‘to ask for a little quiet …?’ Her voice fell away as she peered down at Timothy. Marlowe could read every thought that went through her head and he thought it best to intervene before she gave them a clout that would send them to Kingdom come.

  ‘Mistress Forman,’ he said, hurriedly, struggling to his feet. ‘It’s not what you think. Timothy was trying to kill your husband.’

  She looked unsurprised. She had had the exact idea in mind for years. A thought struck her. ‘What are you doing in my house?’

  ‘Saving your husband’s life, I suppose,’ Marlowe said, dusting himself off and pulling his doublet back into shape. He saw a glint of metal in the corner, by the bed. ‘Could you just reach that dagger for me, Doctor Forman?’ He pointed and the magus leaned across and passed it to him. ‘Thank you.’ He turned back to the lady of the house, still looming white and terrible in the doorway. ‘I apologize, I should not have come in without an invitation, but I am sure you can see that I had no choice. I knew there was a murderer here,’ though he forbore to tell her he had got the wrong man, ‘and I had to move fast.’

  The woman stretched out a toe and poked Timothy with it. ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘No,’ Marlowe reassured her. ‘He’s asleep. And I suggest we let him lie, for a while. Because when he wakes, his life will not really be worth living.’

  She looked at her husband with little emotion, and then to the unconscious boy. ‘I’m sorry he tried to hurt you, Simon,’ she said, ‘and more sorry that he killed other people. But you put the idea into his head, whatever idea it was, and that was wrong.’ She turned to Marlowe. ‘Make sure you remember that, that it wasn’t just that poor boy who did these terrible things. Sometimes, you don’t need to wield a knife to kill someone.’ She turned to go and then spoke over her shoulder. ‘I am going to tell the others what has happened and send them on their way. They have homes to go to that are better than mine, though I tried, God help me. You,’ she pointed at Forman, ‘can go as well, as soon as it is light. I am sure there are many homes that will welcome you. And who knows, perhaps one day, this one might as well. Goodnight.’ And wi
th that, she shut the door.

  The men sat silently for a moment, Forman because he had no choice, Marlowe because he was reassessing Mistress Forman; she was really quite a woman. Finally, he spoke.

  ‘Do you feel well enough to help me get to the bottom of this, Doctor?’ he said. ‘Don’t try to speak, just nod.’

  The doctor nodded, carefully, holding his throat and swallowing with difficulty.

  ‘Do you have a herb or something which will bring him round?’

  Forman’s eyes swivelled then he mimed throwing a jug of water over his apprentice.

  ‘No, no, something which will bring him round in a fit state to answer questions.’

  The doctor nodded and got to his feet, pausing on all fours to catch his breath. He pointed to his mouth and, when he knew Marlowe was watching, moved his lips in an exaggerated word – laboratory.

  Marlowe pulled Timothy’s arms up and hauled him over his shoulder. The boy grunted but didn’t struggle and, with Forman carrying the candle ahead, they made their way down the stairs, Marlowe’s shadow looking like a giant hunchback shrinking and growing in the flickering light. As they passed the apprentices’ door, they could hear Mistress Forman’s voice, telling the boys what had happened. The candlelight was streaming through the knothole again, so the cook at least had heard the commotion. But soon they were in the laboratory, the silence only broken by the skitter of Timothy’s trapped rats and the hiss of a snake’s belly as it circled them in their cage.

  Forman made straight for a bottle on the far bench. He poured a cupful of it and drank it greedily, each gulp bringing a whimper. Then, he turned to where Marlowe had slung Timothy into a chair and motioned for him to tip back his head. With no preamble, he poured the liquid into the open mouth and stood back implacably watching while the boy gasped and frothed and tried desperately to get up. Marlowe held him fast and Forman gave him another shot. Soon, the apprentice was sitting looking about him, wild eyed.