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I DID OBEY MY MOTHER to the finest point. Mog and I fetched the babies home for supper, and Mog set a plate by the hearth to keep warm for Joan. I rather imagined Joan would use keeping Father company as an excuse to be in late, and I was right, but even she wasn’t bold enough to stay out past sunset. I saw her come in because I was downstairs in the shop, tending to whatever chores of the cobbler’s trade I understood enough to complete.
If Father’s executed, I thought, at least Mother could marry again. I wondered if there was a man in Canterbury who would take on a tired widow and six of another man’s brats for the dowry of a cobbler’s shop, and what it would mean to Moggy and Joan if he did. Surely not much of a marriage portion—
And then it struck me that I was writing my own father’s death-warrant, and I had the decency at least to cover my face with my hands. Father was right: I was a bad son, disloyal, and unwilling to bend my neck for the good of the family.
As if he ever put his family first—
Hush, you. I stood with both hands on his bench, arguing with myself so intently that I never heard Joan come up behind me. I yelped like a child when she laid her hands on my arm. “Penny for thy thoughts,” she said, and there was almost sweetness in it.
Too much sweetness. I reached up and plucked a bit of grass from her ash-blonde hair. “Joanie, thou must have more of a care who thou dost let call thee turtle-dove—”
She sighed and tilted her head. “At least an he marries me, I’ll have a hearth of my own and a fire to sit beside. It won’t be the poorhouse for me.”
“Joan!”
But she cut me off with a toss of her hair even as I reached out and caught the sleeve of her smock where it showed under her dress. “And how dost thou justify thy high-and-mighty, brother, when I hear thee sneaking in Mog’s window at ten of the clock?”
“That’s different.”
Her eyes were grey on either side of the fine high arch of her nose, and they flashed with a wrath very like Mother’s as she shoved me aside. “Because thou art a lad?” A sneer, and she stepped away. “Aye, it’s always different for a lad. At least thou can’st prentice or claw thy way into a school. Or run off for a tinker or a player, an it moves thee. What way have I out of this house but a man?”
She waited a long time, staring at me, and then sighed and turned and flounced away. It wasn’t until much later, lying in my bed sleepless and staring at the ceiling, that I realized that she might actually have thought I could answer her.
And that it pained me that I could not.
I tried to distract myself with thoughts of Ginger, failing utterly when I realized that I hadn’t heard from him since the night before. What if he was angry? What if he was shocked? He hadn’t pushed me away, but that could have been for fear of falling as much as from desire to be kissed—
—What if he hates me now?
I must have slept a little, because I remember dreaming of John Latimer reaching up at me through drifts of water weed. I called his name, stretching through the current as mud and water filled my mouth. The weeds were slimy between my fingers, and I couldn’t get to him no matter how hard I swam.
I woke again, and lay very still in darkness. I heard nothing: a scratching in the walls, but that was mice, and that other sound was Mother snoring exhaustedly as she did when she was heavily pregnant. She’d be delivered by May, I thought, and hoped it went more easily this time than last. Thou’rt the man of the family now. There would have to be a midwife, I supposed, and—
What did I know of such things? “God,” I prayed into the darkness. “Help me. Help me prove Father innocent, and get me into King’s School, and I swear I’ll—” I paused, unable to think of a dire enough promise. Long moments, and then inspiration struck. “I’ll be a priest. I will. Just help me do this thing.”
I lay for a little while and listened, but the only answer was the mice in the walls and Mother weeping in her sleep. And then I remembered. The man in John Latimer’s rooms had talked of a damnable book. John’s book. And if he could not find it, then it seemed terribly likely that it was the book John had given to me. The one that Father must have hidden somewhere, or given Mother to hide. And the strange man had spoken of John as one who loved him, in grief and rage—would not kick a dog that bit him. Surely that was not how a murderer would speak of his victim. And that man hadn’t believed that Father had killed John. He had thought that there was something else. A reason. Some reason for John Latimer’s murder.
But he didn’t know that John had been working on a translation.
What if the translation were still in John’s room?
I rose from the rustling strawtick in darkness, hunching my blankets so that if someone glanced in they might mistake the shape for a body under the covers. I found my shoes and eased the door open an inch at a time, and then I crept down the stairs, keeping my feet close to the wall, so the treads wouldn’t creak under my weight.
I went out through the garden and padded through the darkness to John Latimer’s lodgings. There was a light showing, and when I opened the door, I found the young man sprawled asleep across John’s table.
He woke on the instant, but his head dropped back to the table when he saw me. “Oh. ‘Tis you. What do you want?”
My idea seemed foolish, but I had come all this way through the dark, and I could not rid myself of Mother’s voice: Kitten, thou’rt the man of the house now. I said hesitantly, almost timidly, “I... I did speak to John. Yesterday. The day before, I mean,” for it was now well past midnight.
“Aye?” said the young man, going so far as to prop his cheek on one fist the better to glower at me.
“He said he was expecting someone.”
“Aye. That would be me.”
“Oh.” Oh, I had been wrong, I had been stupid. John had been right about me and my curiosity and my rushing into things and how it was going to get me killed. “Nought, then. Nought but a maggot. I beg pardon for disturbing you.” And I clawed the door open and bolted down the stairs again.
“Boy!” the young man shouted after me. “Boy, for the love of Christ—”
I had nearly confessed John’s secret to his murderer. My head was throbbing with it, with the panicked confusion of not knowing what to do. Who should I tell? Who could I tell, that John Latimer’s murderer was in his room, searching his things? Would Magistrate Arnell listen to me? I could not pretend, even to myself, that I had a likely tale to tell, but I could not think of anyone else I could speak to, anyone else I could trust.
Canterbury’s streets were deserted at this hour—whatever hour it was. I turned when I heard the scuff of a shoe against cobbles, but I was too late. The man was already out of the doorway, his arm like an iron bar around my throat, hot breath against the side of my face, and the reek of sweat.
I couldn’t even make a noise; I just clawed and scrabbled uselessly at his arm. I had done more than my share of brawling, but only against boys my own age. This was a man full-grown, and for that one horrible moment I knew that if he wanted me dead, they would be burying me beside my two little brothers, for I could not breathe, I could not get my feet planted—I certainly could not make the least impression on the arm that crushed my windpipe.
And then a heavy body crashed into both of us, and we fell, me mostly underneath. My attacker was up again in a second, and running, while I lay and panted, my whole body heaving like a blacksmith’s bellows.
Someone else knelt beside me. “Lad?”
I thrashed feebly away from the hand that touched my shoulder, sure that he’d decided to finish the job with a knife.
“Don’t be an idiot,” and before I recognized anything else, I recognized the abrasive tone of the young man from John Latimer’s room. “Art hurt?”
“I...” I coughed rackingly, and the young man helped me to sit, his hands unexpectedly gentle. “I thought he would kill me.”
And I thought he was you.
“I’m sure he thought it, too. Canst walk?”
“Aye,” I said. “I’m fine.”
“No, you aren’t. But you can make it back to John’s room, and we can see how badly thou’rt hurt.”
He hauled me to my feet as if I were a child no bigger than Annie. I’sooth, he had to drag me the half-block back to John’s room, for my legs were no reliable support. At the foot of the stairs, he stopped, gave that impatient snort I was already learning to hate, and swung me up in his arms like a father carrying a child to bed.
“I can manage!” I protested.
“You are an idiot. I’ll not have you fainting on the stairs and me left to explain to John’s landlady. I’ve already taken enough grief over his reputation.”
I wanted to protest that, too, but by then we were in John’s room and the young man was dumping me on John’s narrow bed, kicking the door shut behind him.
He turned to bar it, lit more candles, and examined me critically. “‘Tis a rare set of bruises you’re collecting, but I see no blood and am inclined to believe thou wilt live. Now wilt thou at last and for the love of God and all His angels tell me thy name?”
He had saved me instead of killing me, when he could as easily have done the one as the other. “Christopher Marlowe,” I said in a small voice. “Kit, most people call me.”
“Well, Kit, my name is Thomas Watson. Tom. And I begin to believe that you were indeed a friend of John’s. Tell me, why did you turn and run like the Fiend was after you when I said John had been expecting me?”
“Will you swear to me that you did not kill him?”
“Me? Kill John?” But he must have seen in my face that I was serious, for he said, “I swear, by God’s wounds and most precious blood, that I did not kill John Latimer.”
“I thought the man he was expecting must have been the man who killed him.”
His lips curved, just a little. “‘Tis not bad reasoning. But why such suspicion of John’s visitors?”
“Because of the book.”
Tom Watson seemed to stiffen and expand, like a porpentine raising its quills. “The book? What book?”
“The book that John gave me for safe-keeping.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, and his hands clenched until his knuckles turned white. “And here I have been this great long while, giving myself cramps in every muscle, straining my eyes to the point I misdoubt I shall ever be able to walk out in the sun again, and you don’t think to mention to me that John gave you a book?”
“How could I know I could trust you? And why is this book so important?”
He gave me a slow, thoughtful, considering look that made me feel like a chicken on a spit. “And how do I know I can trust you?”
“You have to,” I answered promptly. “Besides, I’m not the one acting like a murderer.”
“Acting like a murderer, am I?” But he laughed, and rested both hands on the table behind him, with all his weight on them. I glanced around the candlelit room; he’d rummaged everything that I could see, but I noticed he’d done it with care and the books were piled methodically on tables and chairs, never heaped upon the floor. “Kit, do you know who Mary Queen of Scots is?”
“The pretender to the throne of England,” I answered promptly. “I’m not a child—”
“No, I’d not make that mistake twice with thee. But your grasp of politics is not yet complicated, I’ll warrant. What’s your Father’s religion, then? Puritan?”
This time I did laugh out loud, but Master Watson didn’t seem offended. “Protestant, of course.” And then, to make it real, I said, “I’m going to study for a priest. An Anglican.”
“Ah,” he said. His eyes glittered with that mockery, but I sensed for once that it was turned on himself. “I’m a divinity student at Oxford myself when I’m not haring about the countryside on Queen’s business. John was your tutor then?”
“John was my friend. What does my father’s religion have to do with anything?”
His fingers tapped restlessly, raising little puffs of disturbed dust. “Queen Mary has English supporters. Her cursed Marianists. Catholics who would see her on the throne because she is Catholic.”
“But Queen Elizabeth would have to be dead—” He nodded, and I stopped with the words swelling my throat. Oh. “You’re not saying John—Master Latimer—was one of these men?”
He raised an eyebrow and countered, “Who tried to kill you tonight?”
“When we’re done with twenty questions, shall we play at mumblety-peg?”
He laughed. “Sharp lad. I take it you don’t know then? What about your father? Did you get a look at the warrant when the constable came for him?”
Warrant. “It wasn’t a matter for a warrant,” I said. “Just a matter of two men seen arguing violently and the next morning the smaller and soberer turns up in the river. It was the Watch came for Father, and the Magistrate with them.”
“Here, for my goodwill—canst keep a secret, Kit?”
“Better than most.”
He must have heard something behind that, for he looked me dead in the eye, very considering, before he continued. “John was one of ours, and he was keeping a book for me. A Greek book. Octavo, a green binding. Euripides.”
“I have it. Well, I think I have it.”
“What do you mean, you think you have it?”
“I don’t know! I’ve never gotten a good look!” That eyebrow went up, not quite condescending and not quite annoyed, and I sighed. This was not going well at all. “Master Watson—”
“Tom.”
Which gave me pause. But, “Tom.” I coughed, my throat still sore with the throttling. “I don’t read Greek much. And my father took it before I could look at it—”
“Don’t read Greek much?”
“At all. John was—John was going to teach me.” A harsh admission, and I looked down at the floor, expecting laughter.
But his voice was considering. “Fifteen? Fourteen?”
“Aye.”
“And doesn’t read Greek. And the son of a cobbler with a violent temper.”
“Aye.”
“Oldest son?”
“Only son.” I hadn’t realized before how futile it was, until I came right out and said it. There was no way. I might as well return Ginger’s book and go on my knees back to Croley, who probably wouldn’t take me, but it might amuse him to be begged.
Across the room, Tom Watson cleared his throat. “And he’s going to be a priest.”
“If God wills it,” was all I could manage.
“Damme, boy.” It still wasn’t mockery, quite, and I dared to lift my eyes to see him shaking his head, as if in consternation at being confronted with a talking fowl or a horse that boxed. “Damme. You might just.”
“Might just what?”
“Make a priest,” he said. “Do you like poetry?”
I nodded, feeling very small and confused.
“They always do.” A grin. He came up by me and tousled my hair in passing, and unbarred the door. “Well, come show me this book, then, Kit Marlowe—”
“Well,” I said, standing up but not yet ready to trust this sudden, unexpected camaraderie. “You see, that’s the problem, Tom—”
“Christ’s wounds. What now?”
“I did tell you. My father took it from me.”
“And?” He caught my arm and said, perfectly levelly, “If thou tellst me thy father has burned it, I will finish the job our friend started tonight.”
“No.” I pulled away, and he let me. “But he hid it. And I don’t know where.”
“Canst find it?”
“I think so, but...”
He waited.
“My father is in gaol.”
“Aye, for John’s murder.”
“I am his only son.”
“So you did tell me.”
I swallowed hard. “My mother is increasing. And I have four younger sisters already. And my mother... my mother says I must be the man of the house. And she thinks Father is guilty.”
“I feel sure,” Tom Watson said, that damnable eyebrow going up again, “that there is a purpose to these confidences, but I confess I cannot find it.”
I took a deep breath and then just blurted it out: “Tom, you’re a Queen’s man, aren’t you? An agent of the crown? Can’t you go to the magistrate and tell him you know Father’s innocent? They’d release him if you said to.”
Tom stared at me for three crashing heartbeats and then burst out laughing. “I must beware, or thou’lt give me a swelled head. Kit, I am not nearly so important a man as you think me. An errand boy, nothing more.”
My face was burning, but I stared mulishly at his shoes and said, “But you believe Father is innocent.”
“I don’t believe John died in a brawl with a cobbler, no.”
“But Magistrate Arnell does. Everyone in Canterbury does. And if I must be the man of the household, as my mother says, I do not think I will be able to find John’s book.”
I wondered if the threat was too veiled, but he blinked once, slowly. My heart was hammering in my ears. I half-expected him to do as he had threatened and strangle me. And I am not sure the thought did not cross his mind. But after an ominous pause, he said, “You drive a hard bargain, Kit Marlowe.”
“For myself, I would dance at his hanging. But my mother...”
“Peace, Kit. I do not fault thee. In the morning, I will use what influence I can with your worthy magistrate. And you will find me my Euripides.”
“Yes, Tom.”
He grinned crookedly back at me, and we shook hands.
“Then let me walk you home, that you be not assaulted a second time. John would be most wroth with me an I let you come to harm.” His grin went even crookeder, and I pretended not to notice the sudden bright sorrow of his eyes.
But it was at that moment that I lost my suspicion of Tom Watson.
#
MY OWN EYES FELT AS if they had been glossed lightly with fine sandpaper, and my face was hot when I pressed my hands into it. But the house was dark, still, and there was no sign of motion from upstairs as I crept into the kitchen. Mother, or Mog as likely, had banked the coals well. I blew up a flame on a bit of kindling and lit a drippy tallow candle, careful to keep it away from the shutters and the stairs lest the light should be seen from the street.
If I were Father, and in a hurry, where would I hide a book?
It wasn’t a big thing, a book. Small enough to slide behind wainscoting or under a floorboard. Sturdy enough to—
Ah. But if I were Father, and in a hurry, I wouldn’t hide a book at all. I would burn it. And I was as sure as I could be that he hadn’t burned it. Hadn’t had time. And he hadn’t had it in his hand when he came back down the stairs on the way to his ill-fated meeting with Master Latimer.
So in the cold light of logic, he hadn’t hidden it at all.
Mother had. So that I’d have no excuse to take it back to John, and so that Father wouldn’t come home half-drunk, sight the offending object, and fly into a rage all over again. And Mother would hold her own hand over the cooking grate sooner than burn a book.
I turned slowly, the candle spattering tallow on the backs of my fingers, and sighed. It couldn’t have been anywhere too clever. She had perhaps a few seconds between Father’s headlong descent of the stairs and her own summoning of me, and she had been at the table—
—up to her arms in flour.
I grinned, and started looking for smudges in unlikely places. Which was a clever thought, if I do say so myself, and which netted me exactly nothing. I lifted the lid on each pot and I looked in the proofing-box by the hearth, where bread might rise free of drafts. There was nothing but a leftover loaf there, and I was reduced very shortly to crawling about on my hands and knees, inspecting the underside of the table and testing each floorboard to see if any might be loose. I clambered up on the tabletop and stretched on tiptoe to see the topside of the ceiling beams—finding nothing but splinters, spiders, and sneezes for my trouble—and I searched the pantry from top to bottom. The bin for oats and the one for wheatberries were locked, and the keys hung on Mother’s belt, but I didn’t think she would have had time to slip either lock and toss the book inside.
And then it occurred to me that I had not seen the oiled linen wrapping when I came up the stairs either, and Father had taken that with him when he stormed away.
Which meant perhaps Mother had used it to protect the book, wherever she had hidden it. But even that brilliant piece of logic did not get me any closer to finding what I sought.
I bit my lip and sat down on the pantry floor, ready to admit defeat. Perhaps if Father was returned to us in the morning, and I threw myself on Mother’s mercy—no. T’was useless, for when she made a decision she had no mercy.
Baking, I thought, and went to look in the proofing-box near the hearth one more time. But there was nothing within but that lone browned loaf, doubtless saved for Tabbey and Anne’s breakfast—
“Now why,” I said out loud, staring at that oh-so-innocent loaf of bread, “would you put an already-baked loaf back in the proofing-box? Unless this is some detail of housewifery of which I am unaware—”
I set the candle on the floor beside the hearth and reached into the box to lift the loaf of bread. It was strangely heavy, and I knew before I tore it open what I would find within. Still safe, unscorched, protected from the heat of the oven by the thick dough surrounding it and from the moisture of that dough by the layers of oiled linen in which John Latimer had swaddled it so carefully—
Tom Watson’s Euripides.
I burned the crumbs in the hearth and brought another loaf from the pantry to conceal what I had done, and slept that night with the slender volume—the price of my freedom—clutched against my chest, under the covers.
