Eleventh Hour Read online

  ‘It seems he do.’ Frizer looked around him. ‘Well, shame to waste a crowd. Got your dice?’

  ‘Does the Archbishop of Canterbury bugger goats? And it’s your shout, by the way.’

  Kit Marlowe did indeed know people in high places. But it wasn’t a person he had come to see today, but a place. Sir Francis Walsingham would be buried tomorrow, at St Paul’s in the City, but today his inner sanctum in the corridors of Whitehall might yet provide an answer as to who would send him there. He had flashed the arms of Walsingham to the guards at the gate and from there he knew his way well. Chances were that the strongboxes here would be locked too, as they had been at Barn Elms and at Seething Lane when he had visited. But he was wrong. The strongboxes, like the door to the room itself, were wide open and a young man sat at Walsingham’s desk, his face narrow, his eyes large and his hair combed back. He was Marlowe’s age or thereabouts, but much smaller and his back was crooked under the dark velvet.

  ‘Yes?’ He was surrounded by parchment, quills and an inkwell, for all the world like a Cambridge scholar with vivas looming.

  ‘I was looking for Nicholas Faunt,’ Marlowe lied.

  ‘Were you?’ The man placed his quill on its rest and leaned back. He seemed almost dwarfed by the chair and the table. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘A friend to Her Majesty,’ Marlowe said, not looking away from the man’s careful, hazel eyes.

  ‘I know that,’ the man said, ‘or you wouldn’t have got past the guards. Specifically.’

  Marlowe flicked the Walsingham cypher from his purse and it clattered on Walsingham’s desk.

  ‘Walsingham had no son,’ the man said, recognizing but not touching the metal. ‘Nor any son-in-law … at the moment. I must assume, then, that you are either a steward …’ He looked Marlowe up and down, the large eyes narrowing. He took in the doublet, the buskins, the Colleyweston cloak ‘… for which you are too well dressed. Or …’

  ‘Or?’

  ‘Or you are one of Walsingham’s people. One of his golden lads. If you know Faunt, I assume you are a projectioner.’

  ‘And what can I assume you are?’ Marlowe asked.

  ‘I am not Essex or Ralegh,’ the man said.

  ‘What?’

  Something like a smile played around the seated man’s lips. Suddenly, he stood up and thrust out a hand. ‘I am Robert Cecil,’ he said. ‘The Lord Treasurer’s son.’

  Marlowe blinked. He knew that Lord Burghley had a son – two in fact – and that Robert was his favourite. He knew that Burghley had been the confidant of the Queen since before he, Marlowe, was born. But what he had not been ready for was the man’s height. He barely came up to Marlowe’s chest and his bent back gave him the appearance of a toad.

  ‘Christopher Marlowe.’ Marlowe took the man’s hand and shook it. A strong enough grip, but perhaps not that skilled with a blade.

  Cecil smiled. ‘“Let earth and heaven his timeless death deplore,”’ he said, ‘“For both their worths will equal his no more.”’

  ‘You know my Tamburlaine.’ It was Marlowe’s turn to smile. ‘I am flattered, Sir Robert.’

  ‘Don’t be,’ Cecil said, sitting down again as soon as he could. ‘I have yet to see your Jew. I’ll reserve judgement. But I must concede, Marlowe, you do have a mighty line.’

  Marlowe half bowed.

  ‘Why do you want Faunt?’

  ‘Now that Sir Francis is gone …’

  ‘Ah, an assignment. Yes, I see.’

  ‘I had assumed that Faunt—’

  ‘Would take over the reins of office?’ Cecil finished the sentence for him. ‘Yes, I rather think he did too. No, my father has filled that breach. Which means that, de facto, I am your new master, Marlowe.’

  ‘Honoured,’ Marlowe said, but he wasn’t sure he meant it.

  Cecil looked at the man. He could read people like his father could, read them almost as well as Walsingham. But Marlowe … that might take a little time. ‘That business about Essex and Ralegh,’ he said. ‘A piece of advice my father gave me. Forget it.’

  ‘Forget what?’

  Cecil laughed. Kit Marlowe had no idea what a rarity that was.

  ‘He also told me not to let my sons cross the Alps, lest they learn nothing but pride, blasphemy and atheism. Do you think he’s right, Master Marlowe?’

  ‘I have not crossed the Alps, sir,’ Marlowe said. ‘I cannot know.’

  ‘Hm. And you cannot know who killed Walsingham.’

  ‘I …’

  Cecil laughed again. Then, suddenly, his face was a mask of seriousness, the eyes liquid, penetrating. He held up a piece of parchment. ‘My people intercepted this yesterday,’ he said. ‘It was printed at Rheims, the English College.’

  ‘The scorpions’ nest,’ Marlowe nodded. ‘Yes, I know it.’

  ‘I know you do,’ Cecil spread his arms to the riot of documents cluttering the room. ‘I have been doing my homework, since father nudged me in this direction, acquainting myself with Sir Francis’s secrets.’ He looked at the parchment again. ‘They say that the Spymaster died blaspheming, urine pouring forth from his nose and mouth.’

  ‘They say that the Pope is God’s vicar on earth. They say that the Communion bread and wine becomes the body and blood of Christ.’

  Cecil smiled and nodded. ‘Exactly. Arrant nonsense, all of it. Do you believe Walsingham was murdered?’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  There was a silence between them.

  ‘Tell me, Master Marlowe, you are a scholar of Corpus Christi, are you not? Cambridge?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Well, I was at John’s, briefly. That makes us enemies, does it not?’

  Marlowe smiled. ‘If you are a boy with nothing in your head,’ he said.

  But Cecil wasn’t smiling. ‘Should you be considering involving yourself in the matter of Walsingham’s death, Marlowe, don’t; there’s a good fellow.’

  ‘Is that an order, sir?’ Marlowe felt he had to ask and silently congratulated himself for not leaving even a scintilla of a pause before the ‘sir’. Something told him that this man could detect a scintilla at twenty paces and would not forget it, nor forgive.

  ‘Oh, I don’t give orders, Master Marlowe,’ Cecil said. ‘I have people for that. Can you see yourself out?’

  Marlowe half bowed and spun on his heel, careful to collect the Walsingham cypher first. At the door, Cecil’s voice stopped him. ‘Sero sed serio,’ he said. ‘England has a new Spymaster now.’

  ‘Sero sed serio,’ Marlowe repeated in his head. The Cecil motto – ‘I sow, but seriously’. Seriously: that Marlowe could believe. But it all depended on exactly what Robert Cecil intended to sow.

  The little bookshops along Paternoster Row were busy as usual that morning. The coney-warren lanes that ran between them were full of the rough and tumble of a great city, the draymen and liverymen and guildsmen scuttling like ants under the shadow of the great cathedral.

  No one paid much attention to the man who prowled the leather-bound volumes of Master Munday’s emporium, tucked into the tightest angle of Amen Corner. He had the air of a scholar about him, his robes of good quality, but fustian for all that. His hair was pulled back behind his ears so that nothing could interfere with the intense concentration he gave to each tome that he pulled from the shelves. Soon, he had amassed quite a little pile, much to the delight of the proprietor, who liked the sound of money as much as the next man. Except that the next man was Kit Marlowe.

  ‘Don’t tell me you’ve room for any more, Dr Johns.’

  The scholar spun at the mention of his name. ‘Kit!’ His eyes widened. ‘Kit Marlowe!’ And they hugged each other.

  ‘Master Munday,’ Marlowe smiled. ‘This is Michael Johns, my old Cambridge tutor. Whatever you’re charging him for these,’ he pointed to the teetering pile, ‘halve it, there’s a good bookseller.’

  ‘I’ve got overheads,’ Munday quibbled, scrabbling for his spectacles to work out exactly how
much he might lose this morning.

  Marlowe clapped him carelessly on the shoulder. ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ he murmured. ‘Dr Henderson, aptly enough at the sign of the Cock in the Strand – I understand he has a sovereign remedy for such cases.’

  Munday scowled. He was in no mood for Kit Marlowe today. The man was a menace, always finding a little volume that Munday had underpriced and then haggling him down still further. But doing it on behalf of a third party was too much.

  ‘What brings you to London, Dr Johns?’ Marlowe asked, politely. ‘If memory serves, you hate the place.’

  Johns looked sheepish. ‘I do find it rather … large,’ he said. ‘But needs must. These aren’t for me; they’re for my employer.’

  ‘Wadham?’

  Michael Johns was a gentle, circumspect soul. He didn’t like discussing his private life, certainly not in the middle of a London bookshop. He led Marlowe towards the window, away from Munday, who could – and did – gossip for England. ‘I didn’t take the Oxford post in the end, Kit. A Cambridge man like me? No, it wasn’t to be. No, I’m now – and don’t laugh – the official librarian of His Grace, the Earl of Northumberland.’

  Marlowe frowned. ‘Somewhere in the north, isn’t it? Near Martin Frobisher’s Ice Sea?’

  Johns flicked the man with his sleeve. ‘No, I’m not actually living in Northumberland, Kit. His Grace’s main library is at Petworth – that’s in Sussex, by the way; nowhere near anywhere that Martin Frobisher has been, I’ll wager.’

  They both laughed.

  ‘His Grace heard I was …’ The scholar balked at using the dread word ‘unemployed’.

  ‘Between opportunities,’ Marlowe suggested.

  Johns’s face brightened. ‘Indeed. That I was between opportunities. He has more books than we had at Corpus Christi, and that’s including the Parker Library. He needed someone to catalogue and annotate them so – here I am! His Grace is very generous and kindness itself. He is in London on business and has unleashed me, so to speak, on the bookshops.’

  ‘Well, if it’s the aristocracy’s money,’ Marlowe said, ‘Master Munday, whatever you’re charging for those,’ and he pointed to the pile of books again, ‘double it.’

  Munday’s eyes lit up, but the spark died almost at once. If it was the aristocracy’s money, he knew he would never see a brass farthing, remind them though he may.

  ‘There are some fascinating works here, Kit,’ Johns said, a scholar to his fingertips, never happier than when he had his nose in some intractable Greek.

  ‘If you’re done, then,’ Marlowe said, ‘bring them along and we can talk. There’s an ordinary I know around the corner that serves a spice cake like you’ve never seen before, not even at His Grace’s table.’

  Marlowe was right. The spice cake was indeed exceptional. He sat back on his chair, idly picking up damp crumbs with a forefinger and licking them off appreciatively. Michael Johns was not a trencherman. Years living on the meagre stipend of a Cambridge tutor had left him frugal, undemanding. Even now he ate at the table of the Earl of Northumberland, he often had to decline whole portions of a meal. He crumbled his cake and pushed it around his plate, picking out the more succulent figs and leaving the rest behind.

  ‘Tell me, Kit, although I am loath to ask it … Are you still … er …?’

  ‘Searching for the Muse? Always.’

  ‘No.’ Johns found himself looking around the room, checking that the other diners had no ears. ‘No, I mean …’ his voice dropped to a whisper, ‘… on the Queen’s business?’

  ‘Oh, that.’ Marlowe’s face was suddenly grim. ‘You might say so, yes.’

  ‘I heard … we all heard … about Francis Walsingham.’

  The Michael Johns whom Kit Marlowe knew in Cambridge would not have heard anything about Francis Walsingham. Or any other politician, come to that. He spoke of Aristotle and Plato as if they were old friends, his companions of a mile, but current affairs blew past him like the winds from Muscovy, gusting along the Cambridge streets. Now, though, he moved in different circles.

  ‘Tell me about the wizard earl,’ Marlowe said.

  Never a nautical man, Johns could nevertheless tell a tack when it had changed and took the hint. ‘A fascinating man, Kit; you’d like him.’

  ‘I would?’

  ‘He is a poet, a dreamer. Wears his heart on his sleeve a little, not unlike a certain Secundus Convictus I once knew at Corpus Christi not so long ago. He went on to become a famous playwright, I understand.’

  ‘Did he now?’ Marlowe chuckled. ‘And you had him down for the church?’

  ‘Not for long, I didn’t,’ Johns said, with a faintly regretful smile. ‘But, talking of the wizard earl …’ He ferreted in the pile of books in the satchel at his feet. ‘This might interest you.’

  Marlowe took the volume and read, in gilt letters on the spine, ‘The History of the Damnable Life and Deserved Death of Doctor John Faustus.’ He shrugged. ‘Not one of God’s creatures, I assume.’

  ‘Indeed not. I’m delighted to have found that. His Grace has the original German work, but I fear my German is poor at best. Do you …?’

  ‘Not a word,’ Marlowe confessed.

  ‘Faustus was a scholar and magus, Johannes of Helmstadt, back in the thirties. They say …’ Johns dipped his head. ‘They say he sold his soul to the Devil.’

  Marlowe flicked through the pages. ‘Belzebub,’ he murmured. ‘Astaroth. They’re all here.’

  ‘I’m not sure you should make light of these things, Kit. There are more things in Heaven and earth than we can even dream of in our philosophy.’

  ‘I’m sure there are,’ Marlowe agreed, nodding. ‘I was just thinking how this might work on the stage. Here,’ he pointed to a page near the book’s end, ‘“And the demons came and took Faustus by the hair, screaming down to the bowels of Hell.” That’s rattling good stuff. I can probably do something with that. Tom would have to … oh, I don’t know … he could do something with trapdoors. Springs. Smoke …’ He looked up and almost started in surprise. He had all but forgotten Johns was there. ‘I couldn’t borrow this, could I, Michael? Say, for a week or two?’

  ‘Well, I … what His Grace has never had, he will never miss, I suppose. Please, yes, do borrow it.’ He pushed the book a little closer. ‘I look forward to seeing what you make of it. But … but I will get it back, won’t I, Kit?’

  ‘In spades, Michael,’ the playwright assured him. ‘In spades.’

  Marlowe had the rare skill of being able to walk and read at the same time. His boots rang out on the cobbles as he strode, one hand holding the book, the other flinging out to the side, placing players and poetry in the air around him. Urchins and dogs began to gather at his heels and soon he was almost a carnival procession in his own right. He took a sharp left up the rise of Maiden Lane towards the bulk of the Rose, quiet now in the morning sun. Master Sackerson was chatting with someone hanging over his wall, a maidservant beat a mattress out of a window and Kit Marlowe had a play cooking in his head. Apart from the death of Walsingham and the advent of the rather disquieting Robert Cecil, all was well with the world.

  A hand appeared in his vision, splayed over the words. He was so lost in thought, he at first simply tried to see around the fingers, but it was no use and, with a sigh, he looked up.

  ‘Master Faunt,’ he said, unsurprised. ‘Good morning to you.’

  ‘And to you, Master Marlowe,’ Faunt said, with a faint smile. He had used most of his social graces on the bear and he was not feeling at his best that morning. He had had a difficult week.

  Marlowe decided to let the conversation run in its accepted pattern. Although he loved to turn language on its head, he could tell Faunt was unusually strained. ‘What brings you to the Rose? The performance won’t be starting …’

  Faunt waved a hand in irritation and Marlowe took the opportunity this gave him to slam the book closed and stow it away in his satchel. ‘I am not here for the performanc
e, Kit, as you well know,’ he hissed through gritted teeth. ‘I am here to talk to you, about …’ he looked from side to side, suspicious as ever, ‘… you know who.’

  Marlowe could think of at least a round dozen of people who would fit that rather loose description, so opted for looking interested and alert. No doubt more clues would come, but Faunt remained stubbornly silent. ‘Well, of course …’ the poet began slowly, but was still on his own. ‘Sir Francis …’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Faunt said, impatiently. ‘Very sad, I know. We shall not look upon his like again. But … Robert Cecil, Kit! What of him?’

  The conundrum was solved and with very little work on Marlowe’s part. But even so, he wanted to know which way this cat would jump. He thought it likely that Faunt would not be very happy with Cecil’s arrival like a cuckoo in the nest, but with Faunt it paid to be sure. Before he could speak, Faunt was back in full flow.

  ‘He came out of nowhere. No one knows him. Did you know him, Kit?’

  Marlowe shook his head, looking sympathetic.

  ‘He is Burghley’s son, I give him that. But not his eldest son. That I could have understood … except of course that Thomas Cecil is a total idiot when it comes to politics.’ Faunt stopped and revisited his last sentence. ‘Thomas is a total idiot. Nice enough fellow, but a more foolish one never wore ermine.’

  Marlowe gave the idea some thought and, after a second or two, had to agree. ‘So, Robert …?’

  Faunt sighed. ‘Political genius, I fear.’ He leaned against the wall of the Bear Pit and sighed. ‘We won’t shake him off in a hurry.’

  ‘It was not exactly easy to pull the wool over Sir Francis’s eyes, as I recall,’ Marlowe said, soothingly. ‘There is no reason to suppose that much will change. We have an overlord. He has,’ and he smiled modestly, ‘two of the greatest brains in London, no, in England …’

  ‘In Europe,’ Faunt added, his spirit rising a little.

  ‘Indeed. In Europe. I met him at Westminster,’ Marlowe thought it only fair to lay the facts out clearly before Faunt found out and misconstrued. ‘Oh, purely by accident, of course.’