Secret World Read online

  Marlowe was used to difficult times. He preferred to think of them as interesting – that made them seem more manageable. But the last few days had taken it out of him. His arm still hurt a great deal, particularly when grasped by actors – or should that perhaps be playwright; only time would tell – and he still had the nagging unfinished business of Robert Poley to haunt him the rest of his days. He had promised Walsingham nothing; nor would he. There would be time for Poley; that much he knew. And now here was Shaxsper, heart on his sleeve, about to walk into the Rose, as innocent as the day, probably to be torn limb from limb in a four-way tussle between Tom Sledd, Ned Alleyn, Philip Henslowe and the Rest of the Cast. Could he let him? A thought occurred to him.

  ‘Why were you surprised when I said we thought you were dead?’

  ‘Well, I told young Ben – La Pucelle, you know – where I was going when I left the script with Tom Sledd. I asked him to pass the message on. It wasn’t difficult. Even Ben could remember it, I should think. It went something like “I’ve gone up to Stratford for a while to see wife and children. Marlowe will help if you need any, but I think my words will stand without tinkering from a …”’ Collecting himself just in time, Shaxsper ground to a halt. ‘Words to that effect, anyway. So I can’t for the life of me see why there has been all this drama.’

  Marlowe’s heart was hardened. He patted Shaxsper on the back. ‘A misunderstanding, Will, I am almost sure. Perhaps I got it wrong myself. I have been a little distracted. If you take my advice, you will go in there now, straight up to Henslowe’s office and ask for your payment. There must be something, wouldn’t you say?’

  Shaxsper nodded eagerly. His sojourn in Stratford had been more expensive than he had reckoned for.

  ‘Straight up there, then, Will, and get your just desserts.’

  ‘I will, Kit. Thank you.’ Shaxsper turned for the stage door. ‘Are you coming in?’ He extended a hand as though welcoming Marlowe into his own solar.

  ‘I’ll stay out here, Will. Let you get your glory. You don’t want me hanging on your doublet tails, do you?’ Shaxsper shook his head. ‘No, of course not. I’ll see you later, I feel sure.’

  Shaxsper broke into an excited little trot and disappeared through the side door. Marlowe could just hear cries of surprise and welcome but he wasn’t interested in that. He moved round to the front, so as to be under Philip Henslowe’s window. He waited for a moment or two before he got his reward.

  ‘What?’ Henslowe’s voice roared. ‘You’re here for your what?’

  And for the first time in a while, Christopher Marlowe, poet, playwright, University wit and spy threw back his head and laughed.

  He was still wiping the tears from his cheeks and chuckling to himself when the auditorium door swung open and Tom Sledd appeared, looking around until he spotted Marlowe sitting on Master Sackerson’s wall. He came over, walking purposefully.

  ‘That was very unkind, Master Marlowe,’ he said severely, then leant on the wall and went into paroxysms of silent mirth.

  ‘Where is he now?’ Marlowe asked. He didn’t bear Shaxsper any malice; he wouldn’t like to think of him twirling from a rope to consider his position or anything draconian such as that.

  ‘Still in Henslowe’s office. Henslowe has started that really low voice, the whispering. That can go on for hours.’

  Marlowe nodded. ‘Days, sometimes.’

  ‘I’ve known that, yes. Oh –’ Sledd rummaged in his pocket – ‘I have something here for you.’

  Marlowe leaned forward.

  ‘It’s from Joshua.’ The stage manager opened his hand and held it out to Marlowe. There, on the palm, was the most exquisite piece of jewellery that Marlowe had ever seen. Two hands were shown extended, the fingers lightly curled. In the palms was a world, round and polished as a pearl. The chips of diamond, emerald, lapis and opal marked the equator and the whole was set with a loop to attach it to a fine silver chain. ‘It’s the worlds.’

  ‘I can see …’

  ‘No, the worlds. Ithamore melted them down and then Joshua made this. They let me watch. It was wonderful. It must be so satisfying to be able to make something as lovely as this, with your bare hands.’

  Marlowe turned the man gently around and extended his hand to show the Rose in all her pre-play glory. ‘You make worlds every day, Tom,’ he said. ‘And a new one each time. This jewel is lovely, but your skill is no less. But … you have a wife. Give the jewel to her. I have no one.’

  ‘You have a mother,’ Tom said. ‘Give it to her.’

  ‘I can’t. I said I would never go into my father’s house again.’

  ‘Is Canterbury a big place?’ Sledd asked, innocently.

  ‘Tolerably.’

  ‘Then find another house. God in Heaven, Kit – you have a University education. Surely it doesn’t take a ragamuffin like me to tell you things like that. Take the jewel. See your mother. And this time, no murders, please.’

  There was no murderous oaf standing outside the Grey Mare today, whittling. In fact, Hog Lane seemed extraordinarily quiet and Shoreditch was asleep in the noonday heat. Number sixteen was quiet too. There was no sign of Mary and Eliza visiting Tom Watson in the Stink. He was out of Marlowe’s hands now – the wheels of justice in Elizabeth’s England ground slow.

  The poet-projectioner packed his valise, hauled on a clean shirt and flexed his arm to ease it in its bandage. His sword, with its curved quillons, he left behind, but his dagger … he slid it and its sheath out of the belt-loop at his back and buried it in the clothes in the valise. He opened the window and looked out on to the courtyard of the Grey Mare.

  ‘Ho, Jackie!’ he called.

  ‘Master Marlowe?’ A ragged urchin beamed up at him.

  ‘Fetch my horse and see him saddled.’ He tossed a coin through the air and the boy caught it with expert, practised hands. There was a play forming in Marlowe’s head, a play about a Jew, from Malta, why not? What could he call him? Ithamore? No, too strange. What he needed was a name the groundlings could hiss and boo at. What about … Barabbas? Yes, that would work. Marlowe clattered down the stairs, the valise slung over his shoulder, plot and counterplot whirling in his brain. Barabbas would be a murderer – what else? Joshua the silversmith could help, be a sort of technical adviser. He could go and stay with him in Lisbon, could sit and write in his bee-loud, honey-heavy garden. He sighed; that sounded good. And Ned Alleyn would jump at the chance to play the Jew of Malta. He had a bad play to live down, after all. And in the years ahead, if anyone asked him if he had ever played Henry VI, he would deny all knowledge of it.

  Marlowe hauled open his front door and there stood his black, saddled and bridled. But it wasn’t little Jackie holding his reins. It was Nicholas Faunt, the left-hand man of the Spymaster.

  ‘Come to see me off, Master Faunt?’

  ‘That depends where you’re going, Master Marlowe,’ the projectioner said.

  Marlowe looked at him. ‘Walsingham sent you, didn’t he?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ There was no smile, no flicker of friendship. No face in England was more difficult to read than Nicholas Faunt’s.

  ‘Don’t tell me.’ Marlowe took the warm leather from Faunt’s hands. ‘He thinks I’m still looking for Robert Poley. Well, he might be right. But he won’t know when and where I find him. And are you going to be at my elbow for the rest of my life?’

  Now, Faunt did smile. ‘God forbid it should come to that,’ he said.

  ‘I am going to Canterbury.’ Marlowe tied the valise behind his saddle. ‘I have a little present for my mother.’ He swung on to the horse, taking up the reins as the animal shifted under his weight.

  Faunt walked alongside him to the end of the alley, where the way broadened out into Hog Lane. ‘Well, that’s nice,’ he said. He patted the black’s rump and Marlowe trotted away. ‘So, tell me, Kit,’ he said, raising his voice above the sound of the echoing hoofs, ‘will you be seeing your father this time?’

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  M.J. Trow, Secret World