He drummed his fingers on the sideboard and stared out of the latticed windows. The morning sun was gilding the turrets of Whitehall and the birches flashed silver under their fast-vanishing canopy of leaves. The Queen’s Secretary of State had waited long enough. Either Dr Forman had driven back the Pestilence or Dr Dee had had a mercurial hand in it. Or God Himself had decided that enough was enough. Whatever the reason, the Pestilence was petering out and he had it from the mouth of the magus himself. The plague pit was only half full this time and there were markedly fewer men wandering the streets in herb-filled beaks.
Burghley could do what he was about to do without loss of face. He called loud and clear and a liveried flunkey arrived, secretary to the Secretary. ‘Get a message to the Master of the Revels, Dickson,’ he said. ‘Tell him to open the theatres. We’ll just have to ride out the wrath of the Puritans. And tell Tilney to put something new on for Her Majesty – the old trout’s been bending my ear for weeks.’
‘Sir.’ The secretary bowed.
‘Oh, Dickson – you’ll dress that up a bit, of course.’
Edmund Tilney skipped around his chambers on the shadier side of Whitehall. He was clutching Burghley’s letter, complete with wax and ribbon, and humming to himself. He even danced a very quick volta with Mistress Tilney and he hadn’t danced with her for years. In his head, the orchestra played and a thousand cannon roared their approval, fireworks filling a golden sky.
‘Henderson,’ he bellowed at an underling, ‘write me an edict. Make it in the form of a playbill and run off a hundred copies. No, make that two hundred. Stick them on any available space your people can find. Well, don’t just stand there, man!’
‘Er … the Puritans, Sir Edmund?’ Henderson could read the minds of Londoners like an open book.
‘Bugger the Puritans, man!’ Tilney chortled. ‘The theatres are open!’
A horseman was galloping along Maiden Lane, lashing his mount with his rein-ends and ramming home his spurs. Had the Dons invaded? Was the Queen dead? Neither seemed likely, because the messenger was Edmund Tilney. The Master of the Revels dismounted as if he was half his fifty-seven years and threw his reins to Nicholas Skeres, who happened to be sitting by the Rose’s gate. With a theatrical flourish, Tilney produced a hammer from his saddlebag and, waving a sheet of parchment, smashed the padlock that held the doors shut.
‘Do you work here?’ he asked Skeres.
‘Used to,’ the man muttered, but Ingram Frizer was altogether nimbler and louder.
‘No, he don’t, sir. But I do.’ He bowed low. ‘Ingram Frizer, walking gentleman.’ It never hurt to get your name lodged in the minds of great men. Unless, of course, those great men were magistrates.
‘Well, carry on walking, sir,’ Tilney laughed. ‘The theatres are open!’
Edmund Tilney had never been hoisted shoulder high before, but he was now, first by Skeres and Frizer, then by actors and stagehands without number who seemed to sprout from the Rose’s stonework. They carried him through the vestibule and into the courtyard before placing him carefully on a dais centre stage.
‘If it’s good enough for the King of France, Sir Edmund,’ Frizer said, patting his shoulder, ‘it’s good enough for you.’
Tilney wasn’t quite sure how to take that, but was more comfortable with the effusive thanks he got from Ned Alleyn and Richard Burbage, falling over each other in their hurry to reach him. A rapidly balding actor from Warwickshire was there too, slapping backs and laughing with joy, the tears running down his face.
‘Marvellous news, eh, Mistress Henslowe?’ he called out to one of the mob standing where the groundlings usually gathered.
It was one of those strange moments when a lull descends, like the eye of a storm, like the silence between the hiss of a fuse and the roar of a cannon. In that silence, all eyes turned to the woman in question.
‘Marvellous, indeed,’ the woman shrilled, looking about her hysterically. ‘My husband, wherever he is, will be delighted.’
Cheers rose again from the crowd and the party began. Fighting his way out at last from the delirious theatricals, Edmund Tilney passed Mistress Henslowe.
‘You really don’t have to go to these lengths, Henslowe,’ he muttered, ‘unless of course, there is something you haven’t told me?’ and he swept on.
The October night was not cold, but even so, Marlowe was happy to be astride the wall of Master Sackerson’s Bear Pit, with the musky warmth of the creature making just that tiny bit of difference to the overall temperature. It was too dark to see the details of the bear’s moth-eaten coat, but there was enough light still in the sky to reflect in his piggy eyes, so Marlowe knew he was looking up at him. His huffing breath was his way of saying he loved you, or so Tom Sledd always said, so Marlowe decided to take it on trust.
‘Don’t worry, Master S.,’ Marlowe said, throwing down a wizened apple he had brought with him specially. ‘Tom will be back soon. I know he’s missed you.’
The bear gave a soft little grunt and Marlowe could tell why he and Tom were so close. He really did understand every word said to him.
‘He knows you do,’ the playwright told the bear. ‘He’s in good hands. Nicholas Faunt … you remember him?’
The huff was a little harsher. Faunt had not always got on with the bear; he didn’t really understand his point of view, so Tom said.
‘Well, he’s looking after Tom, so he’ll come to no harm. You’ll see him soon, don’t fret.’
An enormous cheer broke from the Rose, almost visible in the faint glow of limelight spilling through the open roof.
‘Someone’s having a good time,’ Marlowe said, indulgently. ‘Theatres open again, everybody happy.’ Except. Except Fan Jackman, Richard Williams, Burghley and Cecil – and who knew how many others, deprived of their loved ones before their time. Marlowe looked down at the bear. ‘Have you ever seen Heaven, Master Sackerson?’ he asked.
The bear rolled over with a sigh, arms splayed, apple mush on his chin. Heaven was easy for him. Food. A bit of well-chosen company. Years ago, he would have said a female bear, just for a few minutes, now and then, but now, not so much. Marlowe wondered, not for the first time, how it would feel to tickle that vast stomach, to feel the strength still beneath the mothy fur. But he suspected that would be a very fast way of seeing Heaven, or wherever the tickler might be headed. He swung his leg over onto the pavement side of the wall and jumped down.
‘Goodbye for now, Master Sackerson,’ he whispered. ‘Stay safe. And pray for me – I am going to see a man about a God.’
By the time Marlowe reached the house in the shadow of the abbey, the night was pitch dark. The usual detritus of London were still out and about and from time to time a cry of fear or pleasure – often hard to distinguish – pierced the night. But there was no glimmer of light from any of the windows facing the street, nor a sound.
Marlowe was wearing dark clothes with no decoration. Buttons had been dimmed with soot. His dagger hilt was loosely hung with a scrap of black velvet so that no glow of palm-polished silver would betray his position. He didn’t know what he might have to do this night – he wasn’t even sure if he would find Forman at home, given his well-advertised proclivities. But he had to try. With every day of freedom he gave the man, another soul might find itself set free before its time. And if Kit Marlowe wasn’t sure of the existence of souls, he was sure that every man or woman alive had the right to their allotted span.
He eased himself under the deep lintel of the door. The lock was a basic one and soon broached. As he had suspected, there were no bolts drawn across. No man who likes to wander at night has bolts on his doors; all too easy to be locked out. The hinges were well oiled too – with an inward chuckle, Marlowe wondered whether Forman would appreciate the joke that his nocturnal wanderings had made it so easy for Nemesis to come calling. Marlowe would have wagered a good purse that the stairs wouldn’t creak and he would have won. Getting silently from a door to the landing above had never been so easy.
After that, it was a little more difficult. There were five doors off the landing and no other stairs. Like many buildings squeezed into the streets around Westminster, this house had just two floors. Downstairs, there were two large rooms, mainly for show and, in Forman’s house, the laboratory and then the sanctum sprawling out at the back. A window at the head of the stairs looked out onto the courtyard, and the windows of the long, low building were dark and blank. One door stood open and in the gloom it was possible to see two little beds, blankets rolled back, and some children’s toys. It didn’t surprise Marlowe that Forman, for all his brave words about being able to cure the Pestilence, had sent his children away to the safety of the countryside. Many farmers’ wives had reason to bless the black death that stalked the city streets – as long as their little guests didn’t bring it with them, the money that they did bring could make all the difference between a lean winter and a comfortable one.
He crept along the landing, rolling from heel to toe, slowly, carefully. Just because Forman oiled his hinges and braced his stairs, there was no need to be careless. Marlowe had faced many a man over the years, armed to the teeth and determined that one of them would die. So far, they had all backed the wrong man as survivor, but Forman was cunning, if not, Marlowe guessed, much of a swordsman. Where Marlowe was quick on his feet and ruthless, Forman knew this house like the back of his hand and he wasn’t above installing trapdoors to catch the unwary. And he had three apprentices to call upon. Rumour had it that Mistress Forman had a formidable right hook too. So care must be uppermost in his mind.
At the first door, there was a glimmer of light showing around the hinges and through a knothole just below Marlowe’s eyeline. It threw a narrow beam across the landing, picking out a detail on a small painting hung on the panelling; a curled finger seemed to beckon in the darkness. Taking care not to get too close in case someone on the other side of the door saw his eye fill the space, Marlowe looked in. The cook and the kitchen maid were tucked up in narrow beds, one on either side of a small chest where a stub of candle burned, the little maid completely fast asleep, as only exhausted people can be. The cook was reading a Bible, running her finger slowly along each line and moving her mouth silently as she did so. Sometimes, when a word was difficult, she had several tries at it and Marlowe found himself holding his breath as she struggled. After a moment or two, she reached the end of the appointed passage for the day and, with infinite care and slowness, she put a bookmark into her place, wrapped the Bible in a cloth and stowed it beneath her pillow. Then she retied the strings of her nightcap, snuggled down into the bed, into the nest her body had made after many nights of sleep and blew out the candle.
In the sudden darkness, Marlowe crept along to the next door. No handy knotholes here and he pressed his ear to the boards. A crescendo and diminuendo of snoring came through the wood, sometimes stopping altogether and then coming back again, like wind through the chimneys on a blustery day. The snores bespoke contentment but, more especially, young males deep in dreams they would rather not share. Occasionally, a bass chuckle broke the rhythm and then the snoring would be off again. It reminded Marlowe of being out in a fishing boat in his youth. The labouring climb to the top of a wave, the silent anticipation at its crest and then the exhilaration of the slide down the other side. This must be the apprentices’ room and Marlowe crept past.
At the end of the landing, a door was slightly ajar. The position of this bedchamber suggested that it was bigger than the rest and Marlowe tried to decide whether this would be that of Forman himself or his wife. He had not got to know him well, but he didn’t feel that the magus would give his wife the largest room. But on the other hand, he might do that as a sop to keep her quiet. It couldn’t be easy to be married to a man who made fornication into a successful business. He had only seen the lady briefly, when she clouted Gerard round the head with a crack that echoed through the house, and he didn’t think that she was someone who would let Forman get away with his dubious doings without a serious quantity of quid pro quo.
He pushed gently on the door and slipped inside. He knew instinctively that he was not alone in there. The smell of the rest of the house – of unknown chemicals, herbs, blood and dead vole – was less tangible in here, being overlaid with lavender and roses. The furniture was heavy and dark – the faint starlight coming through the undraped window showed massy blocks of darkness against one wall, a four-poster bed framed by presses. The white counterpane almost glowed by comparison and the bed clearly had an occupant, but from the doorway it was impossible to see who. Marlowe held his breath and crept closer. The figure on the bed writhed suddenly and muttered something he couldn’t quite catch. But the voice was a woman’s and so either this was Mistress Forman’s room or, if she shared it with her husband, he was elsewhere. Marlowe frowned. This might mean making a new plan. But that wouldn’t matter; a job worth doing is worth doing well.
He carefully retraced his steps to the door, not turning his back on the bed. Marlowe never turned his back on anyone, on principle. If a blade was coming for him, he would rather see its flight than suddenly feel it between his shoulder blades. He pulled the door to behind him and resumed his slow heel to toe along the landing, back towards the head of the stairs. As he passed the fourth door he listened briefly, just to complete the job. As his ear touched the knotty pine, he heard a noise which made even his man-of-the-world view of life take a pause. It was a low moan, not repeated, then the creak of a bed, the strings protesting as two bodies pressed down and writhed upon them. Surely, Forman didn’t bring his conquests here? Not to the room next to his wife? No wonder the woman was a little short-tempered. Marlowe had had no second thoughts in bringing Forman to book but, even had he, they would have disappeared with that sound. His hand crept to the small of his back and he flipped the velvet from his dagger hilt. He wanted nothing to impede him when he made his final rush. If the lady was going to be embarrassed, so be it. Perhaps it would be a salutary lesson.
He lifted the latch slowly and was not surprised to find that it slid like silk. As he pushed the door open a little, he saw that a candle was burning on a press under the window. The black night took the flame and reflected it back into the room and so there was ample light to see by. Marlowe stood silently inside the door, eyes downcast for a moment while they got used to the light. At the edge of his vision, he could see that the figures on the bed seemed to have no shame. One was hunched over the other, back bowed and shaking furiously, fast, desperate. He raised his head from time to time and Marlowe could see the monstrous beak of a plague doctor outlined in gold against the light. The sparkle from the adorned robe threw prisms around the room, trembling on the walls and ceiling, reflected again and again from the black window panes. How like Forman to wear his robe when fornicating with some woman in desperate enough straits to be taken in by his lies. This had surely gone far enough. Marlowe reached for his dagger and was unsheathing it slowly, silently, when there came a sound that chilled his blood.
From the bed came a rattle, a rattle he had heard before, of a man breathing his last. The hunched figure leaned over the prone one and lifted the mask. He bent down and seemed to blow into the invisible face of his lover, who bucked and arced in the bed with a crowing shout as the air went back into desperate lungs. And then low, evil, a voice with ice in it – with dark menace that was worse than any dead man’s rattle – spoke.
‘Have you seen him? Have you seen him yet?’
Marlowe’s breath, held for what seemed like eternity, left him in a rush and the figure on the bed spun round, the beak back in place, eyes burning behind the mask.
‘You!’ he spat and jumped to the floor, gown billowing around him like a cloud. He landed awkwardly, but recovered and went for Marlowe like a madman. The force of his leap sent Marlowe’s dagger skittering into a corner, but even as he landed, Marlowe knew that this was not Simon Forman. Forman was a big man, tending to paunchy but still very fit and strong. The demon wrestling Marlowe to the floor now was small, wiry and desperate. Teeth sank into Marlowe’s arm and hung on like a wild animal’s. Fingers reached up to gouge at his eyes and one hand managed to grab a handful of hair, pulling hard and making the tears spring to Marlowe’s eyes. Keeping his head back, he brought his knee up but missed his target, catching his opponent on the thigh. Even so, it was a hard blow and the grip on his hair was released and the teeth in his arm opened in an oath.
Marlowe rolled, in the limited space between the bed and the wall, and pinned the would-be murderer under him, pressing his arm across his throat. The great beak stabbed the air and almost caught him in the eye, but he pushed it back with one shoulder and felt it crack, cascading herbs everywhere. He pressed and pressed and remembered John Dee telling him how long it could take to stifle someone – he felt he had been here for hours already, but he knew deep down it was less than a minute.
At the far reaches of his hearing, he sensed that whoever it was on the bed was stirring, coughing, retching. Between each cough was a desperate whooping sound as air tried to force its way into lungs crushed and bruised, down a throat burning with the fires of Hell. But he could tell that they were beginning to get stronger. Could he hold down this writhing demon until they could climb out of the bed and come to his help?
The clawing hands beneath him were beginning to get weaker now but he dared not let go. It could all be a trap – he had been fooled this way before now and didn’t intend it to happen again. But before he had to decide whether to stay there until one more man met his Maker before his time, he heard a heavy thud as the occupant on the bed fell to the floor and, swinging wildly, punched the struggling form beneath him in the side of the head so he lay still.
Marlowe rolled sideways, nursing his bitten arm. He looked to where Simon Forman sat with his back to the press, the candlelight making a halo around his head. And between them, out cold, was a slight figure with a broken mask across the face, dressed in one of Forman’s outsize robes and breathing still, but with difficulty.
Forman looked up at Marlowe, a question in his eyes and Marlowe nodded. Slowly, easing the strings from around the ears, the magus slipped off the ruined mask to reveal the face of his apprentice, Timothy, pale in the candlelight, looking like a sleeping child.
‘Did you know about him?’ he said, quietly, to Forman.
Forman pointed to his throat and shrugged. It would be a long time before his silver tongue could do its work around London. Then he shook his head.
The door flew open and Mistress Forman stood there, her nightcap low on her forehead and her nightdress as impregnable as the Tower. ‘Is it too much,’ she said, ‘to ask for a little quiet …?’ Her voice fell away as she peered down at Timothy. Marlowe could read every thought that went through her head and he thought it best to intervene before she gave them a clout that would send them to Kingdom come.
‘Mistress Forman,’ he said, hurriedly, struggling to his feet. ‘It’s not what you think. Timothy was trying to kill your husband.’
She looked unsurprised. She had had the exact idea in mind for years. A thought struck her. ‘What are you doing in my house?’
‘Saving your husband’s life, I suppose,’ Marlowe said, dusting himself off and pulling his doublet back into shape. He saw a glint of metal in the corner, by the bed. ‘Could you just reach that dagger for me, Doctor Forman?’ He pointed and the magus leaned across and passed it to him. ‘Thank you.’ He turned back to the lady of the house, still looming white and terrible in the doorway. ‘I apologize, I should not have come in without an invitation, but I am sure you can see that I had no choice. I knew there was a murderer here,’ though he forbore to tell her he had got the wrong man, ‘and I had to move fast.’
The woman stretched out a toe and poked Timothy with it. ‘Is he dead?’
‘No,’ Marlowe reassured her. ‘He’s asleep. And I suggest we let him lie, for a while. Because when he wakes, his life will not really be worth living.’
She looked at her husband with little emotion, and then to the unconscious boy. ‘I’m sorry he tried to hurt you, Simon,’ she said, ‘and more sorry that he killed other people. But you put the idea into his head, whatever idea it was, and that was wrong.’ She turned to Marlowe. ‘Make sure you remember that, that it wasn’t just that poor boy who did these terrible things. Sometimes, you don’t need to wield a knife to kill someone.’ She turned to go and then spoke over her shoulder. ‘I am going to tell the others what has happened and send them on their way. They have homes to go to that are better than mine, though I tried, God help me. You,’ she pointed at Forman, ‘can go as well, as soon as it is light. I am sure there are many homes that will welcome you. And who knows, perhaps one day, this one might as well. Goodnight.’ And with that, she shut the door.
The men sat silently for a moment, Forman because he had no choice, Marlowe because he was reassessing Mistress Forman; she was really quite a woman. Finally, he spoke.
‘Do you feel well enough to help me get to the bottom of this, Doctor?’ he said. ‘Don’t try to speak, just nod.’
The doctor nodded, carefully, holding his throat and swallowing with difficulty.
‘Do you have a herb or something which will bring him round?’
Forman’s eyes swivelled then he mimed throwing a jug of water over his apprentice.
‘No, no, something which will bring him round in a fit state to answer questions.’
The doctor nodded and got to his feet, pausing on all fours to catch his breath. He pointed to his mouth and, when he knew Marlowe was watching, moved his lips in an exaggerated word – laboratory.
Marlowe pulled Timothy’s arms up and hauled him over his shoulder. The boy grunted but didn’t struggle and, with Forman carrying the candle ahead, they made their way down the stairs, Marlowe’s shadow looking like a giant hunchback shrinking and growing in the flickering light. As they passed the apprentices’ door, they could hear Mistress Forman’s voice, telling the boys what had happened. The candlelight was streaming through the knothole again, so the cook at least had heard the commotion. But soon they were in the laboratory, the silence only broken by the skitter of Timothy’s trapped rats and the hiss of a snake’s belly as it circled them in their cage.
Forman made straight for a bottle on the far bench. He poured a cupful of it and drank it greedily, each gulp bringing a whimper. Then, he turned to where Marlowe had slung Timothy into a chair and motioned for him to tip back his head. With no preamble, he poured the liquid into the open mouth and stood back implacably watching while the boy gasped and frothed and tried desperately to get up. Marlowe held him fast and Forman gave him another shot. Soon, the apprentice was sitting looking about him, wild eyed.
‘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.’
‘You’re welcome,’ Faunt said. ‘I can’t stay, Kit. Places to be, you know. But … sometime soon, we’ll get together. Catch up.’
‘Don’t doubt it, Master Johnson,’ Marlowe said and watched him go.
‘Well, come on, you people!’ Philip Henslowe was himself again. He would always watch his back, lock his door, carry not one dagger but two, and he’d keep his ears well and truly open for any rumour that might fly from Whitehall, but the Rose was back in business again. The playbills announcing The Massacre at Paris were fluttering in the October breeze and God, probably, was in his Heaven. ‘We’ve got a play to put on.’
Will Shaxsper was back in his Prince of Condé costume again, extending his left leg, unlike Alleyn, who was extending his right and he was just congratulating himself on a role well-rehearsed when he saw Tom Sledd running across the O which he had done so much to build.
‘Nice of you to call,’ Henslowe roared as he saw the same sight.
Sledd ignored him. That was because he was making for the Prince of Condé. As he reached the Warwickshire man, he swung back his arm and shattered Shaxsper’s nose.
‘I think it works,’ Henslowe applauded, ‘keep it in.’ Then he suddenly frowned, looking down at the script. ‘Tom,’ he said, ‘what scene are we in?’
The rest was legend. Shaxsper’s awful performance as Condé, delivered in the flat vowels of Warwickshire, was explained away (by him) as Tom Sledd’s fault. As for Tom, he had added to the legend by going straight round to the Curtain after the Rose and giving Hal Dignam a black eye. He had also hit Will Kemp with a pig’s bladder, but his had contained a brick.
And so it was a very contrite and rather rattled Hal Dignam who tentatively visited the Rose two days later. His face was purple and he was hobbling a little where he had fallen badly after Tom’s attack. He crept around each corner he came to, looking out for any still-annoyed stage managers who might be in the offing. Much to his relief, all he saw, standing by the apron, making notes on the rehearsal, was the playwright, Kit Marlowe. He slapped him gingerly on the back, afraid of any sudden movements or sharp noises.
‘So, how are things at the Rose, then, Kit?’