Witch Hammer Page 23

  He reached Alleyn’s door. The Earl of Worcester certainly knew how to look after his Men. Ferdinando Strange was an excellent patron in many ways, but he was a man who didn’t mind personal discomfort, so if he was prepared to camp in a wet field, he saw no reason why his Men shouldn’t do the same. The Earl of Worcester used the same principle; he needed a soft bed and all the comforts of home when on the road, so his Men got those too. Clearly, Brasenose College had come up trumps too, with the best linen and the downiest feather. It was all about funding these days and Worcester’s funds, men said, were limitless. Marlowe fought down a desire to join the Earl of Worcester’s Men on the spot and tapped lightly on the door. He cleared his throat delicately and waited for Alleyn to answer. His plan hinged on Alleyn having not scooped up some willing wench for the night already. From what he heard, the chances were that he already had company, but hope sprang eternal.

  Straining his ears he heard footsteps cross the bare floorboards of the room on the other side of the door. A voice sounded, muffled by the oak, but clear. Alleyn clearly took his enunciation seriously, even at dead of night.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Is that Master Alleyn?’ Marlowe fluted, in a falsetto voice high up in his head.

  Marlowe sensed rather than heard that Alleyn was running fingers through his hair and unlacing his nightshirt a notch or two. ‘It is,’ he said, dropping his voice a tone and injecting it with honey. ‘And may I ask who you are, dear?’

  Marlowe cast his eyes up. Did the man never give up? When he was eighteen, he was intent on his studies, lost in the world of Ramus and Aristotle and Plato. His brains were in his head, not tucked into his breeches. But, Alleyn was Alleyn and if the stories were true, he never missed a chance of a roll in the hay or any other soft surface. ‘Ooh, Master Alleyn!’ he said, with a knowing chuckle. ‘You must remember me, surely. After what you said to me this evening at the tavern. Ooh, my friends did bait me about it, so here I am. Like you asked.’ For a moment, Marlowe thought he might have gone too far, but no. The bolts were drawn back and Alleyn stood there, one hand on the door jamb, the other holding the edge of the door in a nonchalant pose.

  ‘Come in, my . . .’ His eyes started in his head as he recognized Marlowe. ‘You!’ he breathed and went to slam the door, but Marlowe was quicker and slipped inside like a cat.

  ‘Good evening, Master Alleyn,’ he said, smoothly. ‘Or is it good morning, by now? It’s hard to tell, isn’t it, when it is that hour of night when good things of day begin to droop and drowse and night’s black agents to their preys do rouse.’

  Alleyn drew himself up and pulled his nightshirt together. ‘I’m an actor, Marlowe,’ he said. It amused Marlowe that he put emphasis on the second syllable. What an insufferable poser; he might go for the face after all. ‘Don’t you come in here quoting at me.’

  Marlowe blinked. ‘I’m not quoting. It just seemed like a good way to say it was dark, late and no one’s about. If you are an actor, Master Alleyn, then I am a poet. And a playwright. Unlike your good self, perhaps I should add.’

  As they spoke, Marlowe was walking steadily towards Alleyn, pushing him further into the room until the backs of his legs made contact with the bed and he sat down with a bump. Marlowe kept walking until he was knee to knee with the man and he had to lean back on his hands to look up into his adversary’s face.

  ‘What is it you want, Marlowe?’ he asked and Marlowe was impressed that, even in extremis, he could keep up his bluster.

  ‘Dido.’

  ‘She isn’t here . . . oh, you mean the play.’

  ‘No. I mean my play. Where is it?’

  ‘I don’t have it.’ Speaking the truth, even with lies by omission buried within it, gave Alleyn more confidence still and he pushed with his knees and managed to stand up. ‘Write it again. I understand you have a very ready pen. And those lines just now; you don’t seem short of ideas.’

  Marlowe drew his dagger, using his bad arm gingerly. He hefted it and then put it down on the table. ‘I’m not going to fight you, Alleyn,’ he said. ‘I’ve been to see the Earl of Worcester. He knows now what a conniving, lying, thieving little shit you are and your career as an actor is well and truly over.’ He was gratified by the light of panic that flared in the actor’s eyes and saw him suddenly for what he was; just a boy who had had too much, too soon. ‘It’s all over, Alleyn. Perhaps you should make a career out of women. You seem to be good at that. An innkeeper’s wife here, a farmer’s wife there. Perhaps a short stint as a groom in some big house, pleasuring the master’s wife for the extra food and clothes she might give you. Even a gold coin now and again, if you are really as good as they say.’

  ‘Look, Marlowe, can’t we talk this over? Have you really been to Worcester?’

  ‘Yes. He was very interested to hear of your . . . I can only call it theft and deception, Ned. I can call you Ned, can I? I feel I know you well enough to call you Ned.’

  ‘Call me what you like!’ the boy spat. ‘You’ve ruined my life so what’s in a name?’

  ‘Ned, Ned, Ned.’ Marlowe took a step back. He wasn’t a fists man as a rule, but he would make an exception in Alleyn’s case. He looked at him and made a decision. The face it was. He raised his arm and saw the actor’s eyes widen in terror. ‘It’s only a thump, Alleyn,’ he told him in disgust. ‘You’ll only get a black eye.’ Then, he leaned closer. There was something other than terror in the other’s eyes. There was the glint of metal in candlelight.

  Marlowe turned and pushed Alleyn to one side, all in one movement. He realized as he did so that he had not had noises in his head; he had been followed.

  ‘You,’ Alleyn said, from his position on the floor by the bed.

  ‘Yes, me. I’ve been searching for you for nearly a year, you worthless excuse for a man. I’ve nearly had you once or twice, but you have always been one step ahead. If I thought you had done it with skill, I would applaud you. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Applause.’ The intruder lifted his voice an octave and mocked. ‘“Ooh, Ned. That was lovely. Can we do it some more, Ned? Can we, Ned? My husband can’t do it like you, Ned. Not as hard. Not for as long. Have some money, Ned. Have some nice clothes. He’ll never miss them, he has so many.”’ He took a step nearer to the actor, scrabbling now to get further from the murderous knife.

  Marlowe moved towards his own dagger on the table, but the intruder caught the movement and turned to him.

  ‘Don’t do it, Kit. I don’t want to hurt you. I just want to kill this worthless turd. I’ll be quick. He won’t suffer, more’s the pity.’ He turned back to Alleyn and, using the high voice again, he spoke to him, but the words were wrenched from his heart. ‘“Oh, Ned,”’ he said, the voice full of pain and fear, ‘“Oh, Ned. I’m going to have a baby. I haven’t let my husband near me, Ned, not since you came along. He’ll know it isn’t his. Let’s run away, Ned. Let’s be together, us and our baby.”’ Dropping the high voice, he took a step nearer. ‘And you did run away, Ned, didn’t you? You ran as fast as your legs could carry you. Leaving my beautiful wife, with child and desperate.’

  ‘I was sixteen,’ Alleyn said. ‘She was a woman and I was a boy. She could have said no.’

  Cawdray stepped back, as if in shock. ‘Well, that’s perfectly in order then. She could have said no.’ He sheathed his dagger and held out a hand to Alleyn as if to help him up and by reflex the actor took it. Marlowe started forward but Cawdray grabbed his injured arm and squeezed it viciously. ‘Stay out of this, Kit, I said. This is not your battle.’

  The pain was so intense that for a moment everything went black for Kit Marlowe. When he came to his senses, Cawdray had pulled Alleyn from his place on the floor and had him pinned against the wall by his throat. The actor was shorter than his attacker and his toes barely touched the floor. He was clawing at the fingers around his neck, but Cawdray was wearing gloves, some rather ornate ones, a gift from Shaxsper a lifetime ago. Alleyn’s lips were turning blue when Marlowe s
poke.

  ‘Richard,’ he said quietly. ‘Don’t do this. What Alleyn says does not excuse him, but there is some sense in it. He didn’t force your wife to do anything.’

  In reply, Cawdray just squeezed a little harder.

  ‘Let him go, Richard. You don’t want to become a murderer. What would your wife say if she knew?’

  Cawdray froze as the shot went home then let go of Alleyn’s throat and let him crash to the ground, making horrible cawing sounds as he tried to drag air into his lungs past his tortured throat. It flew through Marlowe’s mind that it would be a week or so before he could deliver much of a line on stage.

  Richard Cawdray turned to face Marlowe as though mounted on a spindle. His face was lifeless and he unsheathed his dagger and took a step towards him. ‘I have always liked you, Kit, from the moment we met. Hayward didn’t like you. He doesn’t really understand anything except perhaps making money. And what he doesn’t understand, he doesn’t like, on principle. But me, I’m not like him. I take in waifs and strays.’ He paused and looked over his shoulder at Alleyn. ‘I taught my wife to do the same. She was always around the estate, doling out comfort and charity. She was a good woman. Everyone said so.’

  Marlowe smiled at him and took a step backwards to match the man’s progress. ‘From what you said, she certainly sounded . . . pleasant.’

  ‘Don’t patronize me, Kit,’ Cawdray growled. ‘She was indeed a very pleasant woman. Then, she changed. She wouldn’t let me share her bed. She became distant and was out from the house at all hours. When she came back she would be happy and laughing for an hour or two, then she would become tearful and quiet. This went on for weeks.’

  The coughing huddle on the floor that was Edward Alleyn seemed to be trying to speak. Cawdray went over to him and kicked him viciously in the head and he slumped back.

  ‘Then, one day, she came back to the house crying and screaming. The servants called me and I went to her. Her maid had put her to bed, but she threshed and struggled and called his name constantly. She wouldn’t speak, so I asked her maid what was going on. She didn’t want to tell me, but . . . well, I persuaded her.’

  Marlowe could almost feel the slaps and punches which he had dealt to make the woman tell. How could he have missed this side to Cawdray?

  ‘When I had what information I needed, I went back to my wife. I told her I knew everything and she started to speak to me. As it turned out, I knew only a little. She had met this animal –’ and he turned and spat on Alleyn’s recumbent body – ‘while out for a walk. He was staying with an aunt in the village. They talked. And more, of course. It is the only language he knows. She fell in love with him. She thought he loved her too. But when she told him she was with child . . . well, the craven creature ran away. She thought they were going together, but when she got to their meeting place, the only person there was his little cousin, with a note. And that was the last she saw of him.’

  ‘And so she killed herself.’ Marlowe could feel the man’s pain.

  ‘Kit. Sometimes, you really let your lack of years show. Of course she didn’t kill herself. She was carrying his child and wanted to keep it as a lasting reminder of him. When she got over her hysteria, she closed in on herself. She walked around the house cradling her growing belly, crooning to it. She was sure it was a boy. She intended to call it Edward. I was to be shown to the world as a cuckold. A stupid cuckold, with another man’s bastard in my wife’s belly, in my house. So –’ his eyes became colder and he seemed far away – ‘I went to her, when her bastard was almost ready to be born. I went to her and said she needed fresh air. For the baby’s sake. She had prepared a room for it, with a crib and all any gentleman’s son would want. She had ignored me, but she didn’t see what I was planning. She said her pains were coming, not often, but she had been told by her old nurse what it meant. She was an innocent in many ways, my wife.’

  ‘Richard,’ Marlowe said. ‘Why don’t we sit for a while? Look at Alleyn. He’s unconscious. Maybe even dead. Why don’t we sit? If you are as tired as I am . . .’ He held his hand out to the man. ‘Come, over here. Put the dagger down and we’ll sit.’ His words seemed to calm the man and he sat on one of the hard chairs at the table, but the dagger he kept in his hand. He moved Marlowe’s dagger absent-mindedly away from his elbow, without really seeing what it was.

  ‘She was an innocent. We went for a walk near the lake. She was talking of filling it in, when the baby came, so he would be safe.’ He supported his head in one hand and took a deep and shuddering breath. ‘I walked her round the lake at a pace she couldn’t keep up, even before she was with child. I walked her and walked her, with her crying out that her pains were on her, that the baby was coming.’

  Whenever he paused in his narrative, the room seemed to hum with what more horrors he still had to reveal. Marlowe edged his hand across the rough table top, inch by careful inch, until he was touching the dagger’s hilt. He waited for the tale to begin again before he curled his hand around it and slowly drew it towards him.

  ‘She fell to the ground and hauled up her skirts like the slut she was. The baby came in a rush of blood and water. It was a boy, as she had said it was all along. I held it up to her.’ He turned his face to Marlowe and it was wet with tears. ‘In all her fear and pain, her eyes lit up. She smiled and held out her arms to it. “Edward,” she said. “Edward. Please give me my son.” So, I did. I gave her her son into her arms, and then I picked them both up, took them to the lake and held them under.’ He took a deep and shuddering sigh. ‘I feel better for that, you know, Kit. They are right who say that confession is good for the soul.’ He smiled brightly and pulled himself together in an instant.

  Marlowe had known some terrible people in his life, and had heard some terrible things. It wasn’t just the content of the man’s tale that chilled him to the bone. It was his lifeless voice, the soulless description of snuffing out the life of two human beings. While he hesitated, Cawdray struck, stabbing with his dagger and pinning Marlowe’s arm to the table.

  ‘I am merciful sometimes, though, Kit. I could have stabbed your arm, but, see, I have only pinned your sleeve. Now, I will just finish off Alleyn and be away.’

  Marlowe thought quickly. ‘Tell me about your hunt for Alleyn. Where did he go when he left your village?’

  Cawdray looked at him, head cocked on one side. In his funereal black he looked like a crow, a raven, some scavenging carrion eater eyeing up something found rotting in a hedge. Then he glanced at Alleyn, still and silent in the corner of the wall. He sat down again, holding his dagger so that Marlowe was no longer a threat. ‘It was a long hunt, Kit, and one I didn’t start until my wife was . . . let’s just say dead. I don’t have to pretend any longer, to you, at least. I left my estate in the care of my steward. Everyone was sad for me because I had lost my wife and child. Ned Alleyn was forgotten. Even his aunt played the part; she didn’t want to lose her cottage. I didn’t blame her for the behaviour of her wanton nephew, but she wasn’t to know that. I am a kind man.’

  To Marlowe’s astonishment, the man meant it.

  ‘I listened to talk around the village. My wife was not the only woman to fall for his big brown eyes and handsome face. Before I kill him I will be able to tell him of at least two more bastards he left behind. I was on his trail quite quickly, but always it seemed one step behind. Then I heard he had joined Lord Strange’s Men. Because of the plague, if there is indeed a plague, in London, the Men had gone into the country and, I now realize, they were not the most organized of troupes. When Ferdinando Strange joined them they were easier to find. I have friends in fairly high places and I discovered that the Queen had insisted on having someone to guard him, someone clandestine, secret.’ He looked up at Marlowe, suddenly alert. ‘Was that someone you?’

  ‘No,’ Marlowe said. ‘But I think I know who it was.’

  Cawdray slapped his hand on the table. ‘York! I knew I knew him from somewhere.’

  Marlowe incli
ned his head.

  ‘Well, I found out where they were going and . . . joined in, as it were. Hayward was a bit of a nuisance, to be honest, but his was a roof over my head and he is quite the organizer, getting rooms and so on. He has found an excellent inn for us here in Oxford. I would have invited you to dine with us, but . . . well, you see how I am placed. When I kill Alleyn, as I will as soon as he wakes, then I am afraid you will have to be next, my dear Kit.’

  ‘But tell me about the chase.’ Marlowe encouraged him to keep talking. Michael Johns, his tutor and mentor in Corpus Christi, had once told him of an ancient manuscript which told of a woman who told tales every night to keep herself from execution. This was that story, but told in a mirror; Marlowe must keep his executioner telling the tales, to save his life. Or at least buy time. It must be nearly dawn.

  ‘Hither,’ Cawdray said. ‘Thither. The attempt on Strange – that wasn’t anything to do with me, I must assure you – rather skewed my plans. You all ran about as though someone had poked your little ants’ nest. But finally, I caught up with you.’

  ‘And you asked for Ned,’ Marlowe said, quietly.

  Cawdray gave a little grimace which may have been remorse, but somehow Marlowe doubted it. ‘I got the wrong one. Yes, that was a nuisance.’

  Marlowe had never claimed to be a patient man. He was not bad tempered as such, but he had his limits on what he would accept as reasonable behaviour. And dismissing the death of any man, let alone a man he liked and who he had called a friend, was very much beyond that invisible line so that he scarcely had to consider his next move. Heedless of the warden of Woodstock’s sleeve, he wrenched sideways and tore free of Cawdray’s dagger pinning him down. Such had been the man’s arrogance that he had left Marlowe’s dagger in his fist and it was the work of seconds to bring the hilt round and smack the man in the side of the head with it, buying time until he could adjust his grip.