Black Death Read online

  ‘What is that stuff?’ Marlowe was impressed.

  Forman tapped the side of his nose. ‘That’s my secret,’ he rasped.

  ‘You’ll make a fortune if you ever sell it,’ Marlowe said and Forman smiled a wintry smile. That was certainly his plan, for a rainy day, which might already be here. ‘Do you have some rope?’ He was holding Timothy down, but it was getting difficult as the boy regained his strength.

  Forman nodded and foraged under a bench, coming up with a coil of hemp, with strands of other materials woven through.

  Timothy spat. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘don’t tell me we’re using the magic rope.’

  How he could inject such venom into such simple words, Marlowe could not see. ‘Magic rope?’

  Timothy looked at him. ‘It’s just rope with a few dried flowers in it, but you would be amazed at how many people will pay a guinea a yard for it. It’s good for whatever ails you, or so I believe. Or used to believe, perhaps I should say.’

  Tied into his chair, the apprentice looked anything but a murderer. His bruises were starting to come out and he had the beginnings of a wonderful black eye. But through the swelling, his pupils were like fire, blazing out of a face contorted with hatred, malice and madness.

  Forman leaned forward and swallowed painfully before grating out, ‘Why did you do it, Timothy? What were you hoping to achieve?’

  The boy laughed in his face. ‘I was trying to beat you, to beat you all to finding God. You see,’ and his face grew intense, ‘I had heard stories, when I was a little boy. My mother, when she was giving birth to me, had died, or so they said. But the nurse brought her back; she threw water over her, bucket after bucket, and finally, she took a great breath and was alive again. That’s what they told me. And later, when I was older, she told me that she had been on a staircase, lined with angels, and at the top of the stairs was a light and in the light was … God. She could never tell me what he looked like, because she heard me crying and came back to me.’ He smiled like a child at each of his accusers. ‘So she never saw God’s face. But I knew that it could be done, to send someone up that staircase, but higher than she went, until they saw God’s face. And then, bring them back, to tell us all about it.’

  ‘But …?’ Marlowe had seen many things done in the name of God, but this was new. ‘How would it help us, to hear what God looks like? Surely, if you believe, you can decide for yourself what He looks like.’

  ‘You can,’ Timothy said, looking doubtful. ‘But isn’t it better to know?’

  ‘Not if people die,’ Marlowe said.

  ‘People always die,’ the apprentice said. ‘You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.’

  ‘You killed people,’ Marlowe said, bluntly. ‘With your bare hands.’

  ‘That wasn’t very pleasant, I agree,’ the boy said. ‘But the herbs were too difficult to get right. I put some extra ingredients into Gerard’s potion for Robert Greene and then, when he was almost gone, I would give him the antidote – which is just good old-fashioned mushrooms, by the way. But he never saw God, or so he said. I wouldn’t put it past him to not tell me. He was a curmudgeon till the moment he died. And nobody cared, anyway.’

  Marlowe couldn’t help himself. He slapped the boy so his head snapped back. ‘Who are you to judge that?’ he snarled. ‘Even I cared, and I wasn’t even his friend. Who knows what he might have written, given time? Everyone should have the chance to live their span.’

  As far as the ropes would let him, Timothy shrugged. ‘Anyway, I decided not to use herbs,’ he said, dismissing Robert Greene’s little life in seven words. ‘But I remembered my mother and her being doused with water, so I thought I would try that. The twins were an extra thing I thought I might try. I thought if I killed one, he might wait at the top of the staircase, to show God to his brother. But that didn’t work, either. In fact, I did feel a little sorry about them. Well, the one that stayed alive. He looked so miserable, all wet and alone on the bank. But the river was hard work.’

  Marlowe felt he would be happier somehow if this poor, mad creature had no scruples. To find he had one or two somehow made it worse. ‘And Eunice Brown? How did you choose her?’

  Forman cleared his throat. ‘You said you were in Barn Elms,’ he whispered.

  Timothy looked him up and down as if he were a specimen on his slab. ‘We all lied to you,’ he said. ‘At first, we were terrified, because you told us you could see what we did through your scrying glass. But as time went by, we knew it was all just your usual lies – yes, lies, so don’t look so horrified – and, in the end, only Gerard believed it, and now not even him. I admit you caught me out, or almost. I thought the story of the horse – which was true, by the way – would be enough, but oh, no, you wanted more. So I told the truth in all but two things. I missed out killing that old woman.’ He looked at Marlowe. ‘What did you say her name was?’

  ‘Eunice Brown.’ Marlowe could scarcely speak for anger.

  ‘Well, her, and also I said Barn Elms, not Hatfield. Master Marlowe can tell you why.’

  Marlowe took a deep breath and composed himself. ‘Barn Elms, Dr Forman, was the home of Sir Francis Walsingham, one-time Spymaster to the Queen. Hatfield is the family home of Sir Robert Cecil, who has that role now.’

  ‘So, that was clever, wasn’t it?’ Timothy said. ‘A clue.’ He nodded at Marlowe, as one clever man to another. ‘The old besom struggled. I wasn’t ready for that.’ Then he caught Forman’s eye. ‘Any more of that drink? I rather liked it.’

  ‘No,’ Forman grated. ‘No more for you.’

  ‘That’s a shame. Where was I? Oh, yes. Well, tonight was make or break. I knew if I succeeded, the magus here would take all the credit. If I failed, I would have a dead man on my hands. So I knew, when I began, that if he told me what the face of God looked like, it would be knowledge that I and I alone would have. Because, you see,’ he said, with a rueful smile at his master, ‘either way, I would have to kill you. But you were as stupid as the rest. I have not been able to understand, Master Marlowe, why no one can tell me this simple fact. All I want, and it isn’t much, is for them to climb that damned staircase, look into the face of God and come back and tell me about it. Is that too much to ask?’ He looked at his captors. ‘Is it?’

  Marlowe motioned to Forman to follow him into the sanctum. Once there, he turned to him. ‘He is quite mad, Doctor, you will agree with me?’

  ‘Totally mad,’ Forman nodded. ‘I …’ he bent his head and massaged his brow with his fingers, ‘I don’t know how I didn’t see it.’

  ‘I don’t think anyone could have seen it until tonight,’ Marlowe said. ‘As far as he was concerned, what he did was experimenting, just as he has been doing with his animals, as Gerard did with his herbs. The lives he took were nothing in the search for the face of God. I must ask you, though – why did you set them on such a task? You must have known that had one of them, against all the odds, succeeded, or at least come up with a plausible answer, you would have all been at the very least in the Tower. The Puritans would not have allowed you to live.’

  Forman flopped down in his chair and buried his head in his arms. Then, with a convulsive cough and a supreme effort, he spoke in almost his normal voice. ‘I didn’t think. I knew they could never find God, could never have a view of Heaven. When I took them on, I was proud to be able to mould young minds. I could send them out, in my image, through the land, making money. Healing people, of course, but mainly, making money.’ He coughed again and eased his throat, flapping his hand to ask for a moment.

  ‘But you didn’t know how bright they would be, did you?’ Marlowe went on. ‘You didn’t know that you had taken three young minds into your home which would not be easy to mould. At first, of course. Give them a robe with glass beads on, gold-coloured lace, fringes and furbelows. Ironically, it was that that led me to one of you in the first place. Whoever killed Eunice Brown left a bead on her forehead in the struggle. But there were four robes and four
sorcerers. But you were the one to give them some explosions, some scrying glass nonsense. And of course, your pièce de résistance, your special massage.’

  ‘Perhaps, in retrospect, the special massage was a mistake …’

  ‘Certainly in the case of Gerard it was. The scales fell from his eyes well and truly then. But eventually, of course, they all outstripped you. They could actually heal people, not just fool them. Gerard knows more about hedge magic now than you will if you live to be a thousand.’

  Forman ducked his head.

  ‘Which I daresay you have claimed will happen.’ Marlowe sighed. ‘And so, the worms turned. And, in turning, in Timothy’s case, became totally unhinged. I have brought you through here so I can make a suggestion. By rights, we should hand him over to the magistrates, who will make sure that before many more weeks have elapsed, he will be dead. Or, we can do a kinder thing.’

  Forman’s eyes opened. ‘What? Kill him ourselves? I’m not sure I—’

  ‘No, not kill him ourselves.’ Marlowe had killed men in his time, in hot blood and cold, but putting the poor mad thing in the next room out of his misery, as one would a horse or dog, was just not going to happen on his watch. ‘I was thinking more of … Bedlam.’

  Gerard and Matthias stood, irresolute, on the street outside Simon Forman’s house. It had been an eventful few days, to be sure, but this night had finally topped the lot. First of all, it was shock enough to wake and find Mistress Forman leaning over their bed, nightcap ribbons flying, her nightdress buttons undone. The tale she told would have been difficult enough to follow even in broad daylight, but by the light of a flickering candle when she had dragged them from sleep was unbelievable. As they understood it, Timothy had gone mad and had killed the magus, who had been brought to life by a demon in black clothes who had been hiding under the bed.

  ‘It sounds a bit unlikely,’ Matthias said, as he hefted his bag over his shoulder.

  ‘I should say so,’ Gerard agreed. ‘I don’t think demons hide under beds, do they?’

  Matthias was doubtful. ‘I don’t know. I know my grandame always said there was one in the press in my room who would eat me if I wouldn’t go to sleep.’

  Gerard thought for a moment. ‘I think that was a story, Matthias,’ he said, gently. He had, after all, seen his own grandmother do some rather incredible things which he had been told never to mention. A demon in a press might just be Matthias’s family talent.

  ‘Either way,’ Matthias said, ‘I’m for home. Soft beds. Good food. I might get my Masters degree after all.’

  ‘Home for me, too.’ Gerard didn’t remember the beds as being any too comfortable, but at least he had one to himself. And his grandmother wasn’t getting any younger; perhaps she would like an apprentice. ‘Which way are you heading?’ he asked.

  ‘West. You?’

  ‘East. Perhaps we’ll meet again one day.’ Gerard stuck out a hand and Matthias shook it in his fearsome grip.

  ‘Perhaps I’ll see you in my scrying glass,’ the young giant said, and loped off up the road towards the river.

  ‘Not if I see you first,’ muttered Gerard, and turned his face to the rising sun.

  ‘Shut the bloody Hell up!’ Jack’s guttural voice echoed and re-echoed through Bedlam’s halls, bouncing off the dark passageways and running through the latrines. At first, his calls for quiet had been met with the usual echoing crescendo of the inmates and the rattling of chains. But now they could all see that Jack meant business. He had cracked his whip over their heads, so had Nat, their eyes blazing, their knuckles white around their weapons.

  Roland Sleford waited until his gaolers had achieved their effect. Then he stepped up onto a table in the central hall. There was only one wolf-whistle and Nat put an abrupt end to that.

  ‘Listen to me,’ the master of Bedlam said, ‘you worthless scum. If you thought you were mad, you’ve seen nothing yet. We are about to have a guest – and believe me, he’ll be here for the duration. He’ll also be in chains, for your safety and his.’

  ‘Nice of him to think of our safety,’ Tom Sledd murmured to Nicholas Faunt.

  ‘Stow it!’ Jack, who had the ears of a bat, stood alongside him.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ Sleford said, ‘if you would be so kind.’

  Jack and Nat shunted the crowd back as they all edged forward to see who this guest was. There were cries of delight when Simon Forman swept into the circle of daylight, his gown sparkling and his face imperial. Anyone who dressed like that had to be an Abram man at the very least. Then came a little weaselly one, shorter than Forman and with heavy chains around his ankles and wrists. Behind him came a dazzling roisterer who had been careful to leave his dagger at the door.

  ‘Ki …’ Tom Sledd was on tiptoe, but a sharp finger in the ribs from Faunt silenced him immediately.

  The crowd looked at each other. Either of the prisoner’s escort should have been their new guest, but not the little one in the middle. Not, that is, until he spoke.

  ‘Good morning, gentles,’ Timothy said, beaming at them in their rags. ‘I have great and wonderful news. One of you will see God soon. It might not be today, but I promise you it will come. You, sister,’ he lunged at an old crone, who was already hauling up her shift. Then she saw the light in his eyes and dropped it again, stepping back to hide behind a kindly lunatic. ‘Will it be you?’

  ‘Never!’ she screeched.

  ‘What about you, my good man?’ Timothy had battened on somebody else and the man ran away, whimpering. ‘Don’t be afraid of His light. With my help, you’ll see him clearly; I know you will.’

  The numbed silence had gone now, now that the inmates realized that the newcomer was as mad as they were. Simon Forman took Sleford aside. ‘That man was sane once,’ he said. ‘At least as sane as you or me.’ He reached under his shining gown, dropping a toad to the flagstones as he did so. It quickly became the old crone’s next meal, as a welcome change from cockroaches. ‘Here’s his keep for the next month. I’ll be back every fourth Wednesday with more. Tell me, must he stay in chains?’

  ‘For his safety and theirs,’ Sleford nodded. ‘What is he to you?’

  ‘He’s my … was my apprentice.’

  ‘Well, he’s indentured here for ever,’ Sleford said. ‘If he annoys the others too much, they’ll kill him; whatever me and my lads try to do about it.’

  ‘You know best, Master Keeper,’ Forman said. He turned to find Kit Marlowe, but the projectioner had already disappeared into the dark passageway by which they had come in. Forman took one last look at his apprentice, surrounded now as he was by ragged lunatics who prodded and poked him, stroked his shoulders and licked his hair. In some ways, Forman knew, the apprentice had come home. And perhaps he had found God, too.

  ‘Time, I think,’ Faunt said, when Forman had gone. He stood up from his crouching position, screwing his poem into a ball and throwing it into the straw. He stopped after a few paces and turned back. ‘Are you coming, Tom?’

  The stage manager leapt up and stumbled forward, unsure what was happening.

  ‘Master Sleford,’ Faunt called across the open space. ‘A word?’

  The keeper pushed his way past the crowd around Timothy and faced the asylum’s poet. ‘Master Faunt,’ he nodded. Sledd stood there, open-mouthed. It was as though a play was unfolding before his eyes and he couldn’t believe it.

  ‘My colleagues and I must be on our way. May I?’

  ‘Be my guest,’ Sleford bowed, though Nicholas Faunt had been that for more weeks than he’d strictly enjoyed already. Lord Burghley’s man suddenly sprang to one side, hauling a large man off a naked woman and pushing him against the wall.

  ‘I’ll give you a moment to compose yourself, Father Ballantine,’ he said, glancing downward.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ the man bellowed, subsiding rapidly as he did so.

  ‘Well, once upon a time,’ Faunt smiled, ‘there was this man called Martin Luther and … well, it’s a long
and complicated story that you, I suspect, know better than I do. I’d like you to tell it, in fact, along with any other Papist secrets you have. You’ll have a small audience, probably only one. His name is Richard Topcliffe. And the venue? Oh, it’s perfect. It’s called the Tower and nobody can hear you scream there.’

  Ballantine made a wild grab but Faunt was faster. He caught the priest’s arm and pulled it sharply against the joint with a dull crack. The Jesuit jack-knifed in pain, the fight out of him and he slumped against Faunt’s shoulder. The three of them marched past Forman along Sleford’s passageway to find Kit Marlowe waiting there.

  ‘You’ve settled up for this one?’ Faunt asked him, nodding at Sledd.

  ‘All done,’ Marlowe nodded.

  ‘Send your bill to Burghley,’ Faunt said, pushing the sobbing Ballantine ahead of him. ‘You might get the refund before Hell freezes over.’

  Marlowe chuckled. ‘We both know, Nicholas,’ he said, ‘that that’s never going to happen.’ He smiled at the stage manager. ‘Guess what, Tom?’ he said. ‘The theatres are open.’

  ‘Are they?’ Sledd scowled, ‘Are they, really?’

  Faunt cuffed him around the head. ‘This man has just paid Sleford a king’s ransom for your freedom, ingrate. The least you can do is be civil.’

  ‘Oh.’ Realization dawned. ‘Kit,’ Sledd nodded, ‘I’m sorry … I didn’t know.’ He clasped Marlowe’s hand in both of his.

  ‘Don’t worry about it, Tom,’ Marlowe said. ‘Now, get home to that family of yours. The least Johanna’s going to say is “What time d’you call this?”’

  ‘I will, Kit,’ Sledd laughed. ‘I will. But first, I’ve got somewhere else to go. Thank you, too, Master Faunt, for … well, everything.’