Crimson Rose Read online

  ‘Not to mention the titled ladies,’ Marlowe reminded him.

  ‘Those too. If they were all laid down end to end I wouldn’t be at all surprised.’

  ‘But Mistress Merchant is not among them?’

  ‘Not Merchant. Shakespeare’s landlady is a widow. My beloved’s name is—’

  ‘Perhaps I had best not know. What if I met her and let her know, by word or look, that we have been discussing her?’

  ‘A good point, Kit. But no, she is certainly not among them. I can’t describe it. Her eyes, her brow, her lips, the way she talks, the way she moves. I can’t sleep for thinking of her. And when I do, she’s there in my dreams. You’re a poet, Kit. Tell me, is this what they call love?’

  It was Marlowe’s turn to ask, ‘How old are you, Alleyn?’

  ‘Twenty-one,’ the actor told him.

  ‘Twenty-one going on six,’ the playwright teased him. ‘Why break the habit of a lifetime, Ned? Do your usual. Promise her the world, the moon, the stars. Get her into bed and get her out of your system.’

  Alleyn’s face crumpled. ‘I thought you’d understand,’ he mumbled.

  Marlowe looked into his face and held his arm. ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’ he asked.

  ‘As God is my judge. I need your advice, Kit. I mean it.’

  Kit Marlowe had never seen himself as a matchmaker, a counsellor to the lovelorn. He was a scholar, grounded in Ramus and Plato and Aristotle. He was a poet, Ovid’s right-hand man and Lucan’s. And he was a playwright, the genius behind Tamburlaine of the mighty line. And, though it was behind him now, Marlowe had dubious friends in high places, men like Francis Walsingham, the Queen’s spymaster. There were some who called him Machiavel and said he supped with the Devil. Now Ned Alleyn, of all people, wanted him to help him overcome his new tongue-tiedness with a girl, the sister of Will Shaxsper’s landlady.

  ‘Can I meet the girl?’ he asked Alleyn.

  ‘Of course!’ The actor jumped at the offer and, shouldering Marlowe aside, ran down the stairs on to the stage. ‘We’ll go now.’

  Marlowe gathered up the discarded costume and followed him down. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘you have a rehearsal to finish. Why don’t you invite your love tomorrow night? I understand Henslowe’s throwing a party afterwards – first night and all. Introduce me then.’

  ‘Done.’ Alleyn grinned, shaking the poet’s hand and taking his breastplate and shrugging it on. Thomas Sledd was at his elbow in an instant, buckling him in. Alleyn didn’t often stand still on stage for long enough for a rehearsal and Heaven knew he needed one. He gave Marlowe a grateful look over the actor’s shoulder.

  Marlowe walked across the stage, then turned at the edge, his face dark and his eyes cold. ‘“Vile tyrant! Barbarous bloody Tamburlaine!”’ he rapped out.

  ‘“Take them away. Th …” Oh, bugger!’ Alleyn groped for his line.

  Marlowe laughed. ‘As I said,’ he called as he crossed the groundling’s space of the Rose. ‘You have a rehearsal to finish.’

  As he left the dark of the theatre and paused on the steps outside, he saw Philip Henslowe, bent towards a man he thought he knew but whose name he couldn’t bring to mind. He took a step towards them but then, seeing the expression on Henslowe’s face, thought better of it and, raising a hand in greeting, hurried off.

  For the first time in his life, Kit Marlowe, the son of a Canterbury shoemaker, had a manservant. If you’d put the playwright into one of those iron boot contraptions they used on suspected traitors in the Tower, Marlowe couldn’t exactly tell you how he’d come to hire Jack Windlass. There were times when it seemed rather the other way round, as if Jack Windlass had plucked the name ‘Marlowe’ from the crossrow.

  From what he knew of him, Windlass was a good man, but he had his foibles. Every Thursday, come Hell or the Flood, Jack Windlass served up a mighty shin of beef for supper. And woe betide the master who missed a meal like that.

  And so Marlowe missed Philip Henslowe at his most patronizing.

  ‘I know it’s you, Burbage,’ Henslowe was saying, following the other man across the landing.

  ‘You mistake me,’ the man said, keeping his back to the light and his shoulder turned but Henslowe was persistent and hauled him round so he could have a proper look.

  ‘No, I don’t. You are Richard Burbage, joiner.’

  The joiner stood up to become half a head taller and tore off his false nose and moustache, revealing a large nose and fledgling moustache beneath. ‘Allow me to correct you, sir,’ he said. ‘I am Richard Burbage, Actor.’

  ‘Whatever you say.’ Henslowe dismissed it with a wave of his hand, his mind already back with the calculating of whether he had enough timber. Then he stopped and turned back. ‘So what are you doing here?’

  ‘Looking for Cuthbert.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘My brother,’ Burbage explained as though to an idiot. ‘You know, the actor.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ Henslowe moaned. ‘Another one?’

  ‘I was wondering if you’d cast Tamburlaine yet?’

  Henslowe stood there with his mouth open. ‘Cast Tamburlaine?’ he repeated. ‘Man, we open tomorrow. If you want to make any kind of living in this business, I think you should try and keep your ear closer to the ground.’ He turned away, chuckling to himself at the arrogance of actors, when Burbage grabbed his sleeve in his turn.

  ‘It’s Alleyn, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Ned Alleyn’s got the part.’

  ‘So I’ve heard from several ladies.’ Henslowe nodded.

  ‘He’s wrong,’ Burbage said solemnly. ‘I don’t see him in the part. He’s … such a boy!’

  Henslowe looked closely into the actor-joiner’s face. He was an ugly looking thing, with a great nose and a tight little mouth over a heavy chin, but he had a bloom on his cheek that could only be that of youth. ‘Talking of boys, Burbage, how old are you?’

  ‘I was twenty last January,’ Burbage told him.

  ‘Well, there you are, then.’ Henslowe chuckled. ‘Why not see if there’s a Children’s Troupe in need of an old hand. I hear the Boys of St Paul’s are usually desperate.’

  ‘Alleyn’s not much older than I.’ Burbage stood his ground.

  ‘Alleyn is a world older than you, boy,’ he said. ‘Come back to me when you can grow a beard.’

  ‘You haven’t heard the last of this!’ Burbage called after him, ever the master of the cliché. ‘I have my ways. You’ll see!’

  Will Shakespeare, once Shaxsper, of Stratford-on-Avon, now of London, paced his tiny attic room, mouthing silent words and gesticulating wildly. He had already caught himself a nasty one on a beam and had reined himself in somewhat, but he was what he was – an actor who wanted to be a playwright, with another man’s words in this throat, trying not to choke on them. Making enemies with Kit Marlowe would not be a good idea, he sensed that, and making a hash of his performance tomorrow might well turn out the easiest way to make a powerful enemy. So, oblivious to the splinters and the pain, he mouthed and gesticulated on. His one consolation as he stumbled silently through his most difficult speech was that if his memory was bad, Ned Alleyn’s was infinitely worse.

  A tap at the door broke his concentration and his arms fell to his side. This could only be one person. He cleared his throat, sore from the effort of not declaiming out loud. ‘Come in, Mistress Merchant,’ he said.

  The door creaked open and a tousled head peered round it. Whilst no longer in the first flush of youth, the woman was not old by any means and if she was a little flushed and not very tidy she had every excuse: with three children and a house to run, there was scarcely a moment when she was not on her feet. But she had decided that she was due a bit of a lie down and she had also decided that she would be lying down with Will Shakespeare before the day was out, or her name was not Eleanor Merchant.

  ‘Master Shakespeare,’ she said, coming into the room and standing coquettishly in front of him, ‘I could hear you pacing to and fro as I made m
y bed in the room below this one and I wondered if all was well.’

  ‘Well enough, Mistress Merchant,’ the actor said with a small smile. ‘I am trying to remember my lines.’

  She cocked her head at him, one eyebrow arched in query.

  ‘For the play. You remember? I am to play King Theridamas of Argier in the new play at the Rose tomorrow and I need to remember my lines.’

  She flapped a hand at him. Did she remember? Had he not bored the family into stupor about his play these last weeks? But she was a woman with a mission to fulfil and so she must stay pleasant. ‘Oh, of course, Master Shakespeare. Well, as long as nothing is wrong.’ She half turned in the doorway. ‘Do you have a moment, though, to help me with a task? Since Master Merchant passed away …’ She wiped the corner of her eye automatically with her apron; she had shed no tears when the miserly old fool had breathed his last and she wouldn’t cry now. He was only good for one thing (but oh, how good he had been!) and she could get that again with a little effort. As a provider he had been worse than useless. She felt that Master Shakespeare could probably fill his shoes and more with not too much persuasion. ‘Since Master Merchant passed away, there are just a few things I need help with.’ She went out of the door and halfway down the stairs.

  Shakespeare stood still where she had left him, feeling rather confused. He heard her pattens clatter back up the steps.

  ‘It’s downstairs,’ she said, poking her head back round the door. ‘I need help with turning my mattress. It has gone flat.’ She looked at him and tossed her curls. ‘Just on the one side, you understand.’

  Shakespeare jumped to attention and crossed the room to her. ‘I am so sorry, Mistress Merchant. Of course I can help you. It will probably do me good to have a rest from my labours.’

  ‘It will,’ she assured him. ‘A change is indeed as good as a rest. It’s in here.’ She led the way into her bedroom, which was at least three times the size of Shakespeare’s own room under the eaves and also much bigger than the room he shared with his wife back in Warwickshire. The room, though large, was dominated by the bed, a huge affair with carvings and swagged curtains, looking rather sorry for itself with the goose feather mattress half on the floor and no sheets or coverlet.

  ‘You see,’ she said, ‘it needs a good shake and then putting square back on the stringing. I had it tightened last season.’ She bounced on the bare strings to demonstrate. ‘But without the mattress is shaken out, I hardly get a wink of sleep.’

  Shakespeare was a man who had always done his share in the house and he was an expert at shaking out a mattress so it was like sleeping on a cloud. He went to the far side and grabbed two corners and waited expectantly.

  ‘I like to see a man who knows what’s needed in the bedroom,’ she simpered at him, then ducked her head. ‘What will you think of me, Master Shakespeare, speaking so boldly?’

  Shakespeare had been running his cues through his head and hadn’t heard a word. ‘Of course you are not bold, Mistress Merchant,’ he said politely. ‘Are you ready to shake this bed?’ He braced himself.

  Master Merchant had been dead a while now and whilst his widow had enjoyed a short tumble with her next-door neighbour but one and the boy who brought the laundry, she was no longer in the mood for small talk. Before Shakespeare could react, she had reached across the bed and dragged him into the middle of the tumbled goose down mattress. Her voice had dropped to a growl. ‘I’m ready to shake this bed, Master Shakespeare,’ she agreed, fumbling down to where his codpiece was laced. ‘Let’s see what actors are made of, shall we?’

  Shakespeare always considered himself more of a scholar than a man of action, so his back somersault took him somewhat by surprise. He shook himself down and tossed back his hair. ‘I think you have misunderstood me, Mistress Merchant,’ he said, catching his breath. ‘I am a married man.’

  She narrowed her eyes at him and knelt up on the bed. ‘A man married to a woman over a hundred miles away is not that married, Master Shakespeare, if you don’t mind my mentioning it,’ she said frostily.

  ‘But I am married, nonetheless,’ Shakespeare said, edging round the bed making sure to keep her in his sights. The woman could move as fast as a striking adder. He felt surreptitiously down to his codpiece to make sure the laces were still secure. As he looked up to judge his path to the door and his chances of making it in one piece, he met the startled eyes of his landlady’s sister, Constance, who was standing in the doorway, looking aghast.

  ‘Eleanor,’ she cried at last. ‘What is this man doing to you?’

  Shakespeare held his breath. An accusation of rape now would not only save Mistress Merchant’s face but would also end his life. He could only hope that she was inclined to be generous. He looked at her over his shoulder and she looked back, her head thrown back. Then she came to a decision.

  ‘When will you learn, Constance,’ she said, climbing down off the bed, ‘that not everything that happens in a bedroom is a matter of the man doing things to a woman? Mother really should have told you a few bits and pieces before she died. Master Shakespeare and I were just changing the bed, weren’t we, Master Shakespeare?’

  ‘Indeed we were, Mistress Constance,’ Shakespeare was quick to agree.

  ‘And while we were changing the bed,’ the landlady added, almost as an afterthought, ‘Master Shakespeare kindly agreed to double his rent, now that he is an actor and everything.’ She smiled brightly at the King of Argier. ‘Wasn’t that kind of him?’

  Constance clapped her hands and ran into the room, to hug the actor and then her sister. ‘Very kind,’ she said. ‘I can have my new cloak, now, sister, can I not?’

  Eleanor Merchant sighed and hugged the girl. As lovely as the day but essentially she didn’t have a brain in her head. ‘Of course you can.’ She smiled. ‘But only after next rent day.’ She smiled over the girl’s ebony head at Shakespeare. ‘Unless Master Shakespeare can give us an advance?’ She winked at him. ‘No? Then you’ll have to wait, lovely. Now –’ she let the girl go – ‘help me with this bed. Master Shakespeare has to learn his lines.’

  In the relative quiet of the London night, with the river lapping gently against the jetty, the tap on the door sounded at first like a branch against a window. Then it came again and the woman stirred, turned over in bed and nudged the man at her side with a sharp elbow.

  ‘Door,’ she muttered. ‘Somebody at the door.’

  Without speaking, he swung his legs out from under the coverlet and shrugged into his breeches, tucking his shirt in as he made towards the landing.

  The woman snuggled down under the covers and pulled them right up over her ears. These taps in the night were getting more frequent, but she preferred to know no more about them than that they disturbed her sleep. Ignorance, if not exactly bliss, was preferable to knowledge. Soon, she was snoring again.

  In the hall, the soft tapping was louder and more insistent. Easing the door open just a finger’s width, he could see an anxious face, white in the moonlight, which ducked into shadow whenever anyone walked past. The occasional itinerant knocking on doors was not uncommon in this street of well-to-do houses and you couldn’t be too careful. But no beggar ever dressed like this. Even so, better safe than sorry. The man put his lips to the crack and whispered, ‘Yes?’

  ‘I am here to see Master—’

  ‘Ssshh,’ the man said. ‘Not so loud. You’ll wake the house. What is it about?’

  ‘I …’ The man outside was stuck for an answer. Embarrassment had stilled his tongue. He dropped his voice lower and brought his mouth up to the crack. ‘I need to borrow some money.’

  The door flew open and a hand shot out, closed around his arm and pulled him in. The door closed behind him, hurriedly but with scarcely a sound. He had been dragged in too fast to see that the jamb and the door’s edge were both lined with flannel.

  ‘Then you’ve come to the right place,’ he was assured in a whisper. ‘Come, let’s go into my study, where we ca
n speak more clearly.’

  He led the way across the hall and through a small door in the corner. With the ease of long practice, he lit a candle, but kept it well away from his face, so the visitor could only see shadows above a crumpled linen shirt.

  ‘Do you have an amount in mind, Master …?’

  ‘Do you have to know my name?’

  The anonymous man shrugged. ‘Not necessarily. Do you have to borrow money?’

  There was a pause. ‘I see. Yes, yes I do. I am Sir Avery Ambrose. I have estates in Kent and a few interests in the City.’

  ‘Yes, Sir Avery, I have heard of you. With estates in Kent and interests in the City, why do you have need of me?’

  The man slumped down on a hard chair near the window and buried his head in his hands. For a moment he couldn’t speak, then, with an effort, he raised his head. ‘I … er … I lent some money to a friend,’ he said.

  ‘Ah.’ The man with the candle put it down on the desk and moved away into the shadows. ‘And he can’t pay you back? Perhaps I can help you … persuade him.’

  ‘No, sadly, no one can. He is dead.’

  ‘Ah. In that case, I can’t help you in that way. But … how much is it that you need?’

  ‘Forty pounds.’

  ‘Forty pounds? That is a rather larger sum than I usually advance, Sir Avery. Very much larger. I don’t have such a sum in the house.’

  ‘I need at least twenty pounds, but if I had forty …’

  ‘Ah, we all need that little bit extra, Sir Avery, don’t we?’ The man leaned forward a little, so that just a cheek and a gimlet eye glowed in the shadow. ‘But, as I said, forty pounds … Wait, though. I may have the answer.’ The cheek bunched as the man smiled. ‘It would mean your coming back tomorrow, though.’

  ‘No, please!’ Sir Avery sprang to his feet. ‘I need the money tonight. I have a mortgage due on the Home Farm tomorrow. If I can’t pay … I have my son’s inheritance to think of. He can’t be left the estate with the Home Farm in strangers’ hands …’

  ‘Hmm … well, if it is that important. Let me explain. I don’t have the money in the house – too dangerous, as I am sure you agree – but I do have some items of value, one in particular, which I could sell you for a promissory note. In the case of one item, a silver jug, I know someone who wants it for their collection and who has often made me an offer for it. If we were to take it to them tonight … well, they may have that kind of money to hand.’ There was a tiny chuckle from above the candlelight. ‘Not everyone is as prudent as we are, eh, Sir Avery?’