Christopher Marlowe had been more tired than this, many times in his short life. He could think back to when he was singing in the Good Friday vigil, when all the choristers felt ready to drop by the time the altar cloth was stripped and they all scattered in silence, in honour of the Last Supper. Hokum and claptrap he now would call it, but at the time, almost overwhelming for a small boy who was bone tired and emotional. He had been exhausted many a night climbing over the wall at Corpus Christi, hardly able to put one drunken foot before another as he dodged the proctors on the prowl. He had been tired, cold and in fear of his life often when on his dark work for Walsingham. But now, he closed his eyes and swayed as the sleep almost took him; now he felt that if he slept, he would surely die.
A door slammed somewhere on the edge of oblivion and he opened his eyes and squared his shoulders. He was Kit Marlowe, the Muses’ darling. He did not sleep. Not in Philip Henslowe’s office, anyway, and not when he needed to beg a favour.
Henslowe slid into his chair on the other side of his counting table. ‘Master Marlowe,’ he said, rubbing his hands together. He had left the takings for the week in the safekeeping of his Lombard friends and he was feeling in a mood to love all of his fellow men, even actors and especially playwrights. ‘How may I help you?’ His face suddenly froze as a thought occurred to him. ‘Although I am not at the moment in a position to advance …’
‘I am not here for money,’ Marlowe said. ‘Do you take me for an actor?’
Henslowe laughed a little too loudly with relief. ‘Then …?’ He spread his arms in query.
‘I do need a favour and it may cost a little … only a little … money. But it will greatly enhance your standing and may even result in …’ Marlowe dropped his voice, ‘… enhancement.’
Henslowe looked dubious.
‘Personal enhancement, if you understand me.’
Henslowe’s eyebrows reached his hairline, a more difficult trick these days than heretofore. ‘You mean …’ he dropped his voice to below even a whisper, ‘… a title?’
Marlowe nodded, a finger alongside his nose.
Henslowe sat back, careful not to crush the invisible ermine or knock his coronet askew. ‘So, this favour,’ he said, lacing his fingers across a paunch grown suddenly a touch more baronial.
‘It’s not anything hard,’ Marlowe said, speaking fast so that Henslowe wouldn’t see the catch until it was too late. ‘I have been writing a play in my spare moments …’
‘You have spare moments?’ Henslowe was already wondering where this was going to go. It was a well-known fact that Marlowe never slept and even so he took on more than most sets of twins.
Marlowe’s tone was airy. ‘A few. I have written … let us call it the bare bones … of a new play, but I doubt that Sir Edmund Tilney would let it pass. It contains some … well,’ he leaned forward, as one man of the world to another, ‘some material that might cause a stir. But you know how that goes – once it has been performed somewhere, the people cause a stink, they want to see it too, pressure is brought to bear. I needn’t draw you a picture, I’m sure.’
‘What material?’ The coronet was feeling a little less secure.
‘Oh, you know the kind of thing. Devils, a few devils …’
‘Devils? We’ve done devils before. Tom—’
‘I was going to ask you about Tom. How is he?’
‘You know Tom,’ Henslowe clicked his tongue. ‘Can’t keep a young dog down, eh? He’ll mend.’
‘There you are, then,’ Marlowe beamed, keeping to himself the thoughts that Meg might have more to do with the time of Tom’s return than Tom. ‘Nothing to worry about. So, my plan was to get it put on in a private house. You know how these titled lot go on, always having revels and such; Ralegh, he’s always ripe for a revel. House on the Strand. Nice and central.’
‘I don’t know him, though.’
‘You know Strange.’
‘Everyone knows Ferdinando Stanley.’
‘Well, there you are, then. Speak to him. Tell him you have a new play … oh, and another thing. Can you tell him Shaxsper wrote it?’
Now Henslowe’s eyebrows all but disappeared. ‘Now, Kit, that is too much! No one could take your work for Shaxsper’s.’ He dropped his voice again. ‘Have you seen any of Henry the whatever?’
‘Sixth, I think.’
‘Is it? He keeps changing it.’
‘Some of it is all right.’ Marlowe tried to keep the doubt out of his voice.
‘But Shaxsper? Why?’
‘I want to hide my light under his bushel. To see if my line is mighty enough for recognition if the playgoers don’t know it’s me.’ Marlowe dropped his eyes in mock modesty.
Henslowe was silent for a long moment, looking at his cash cow from under heavy brows. Then he sat forward, suddenly, bringing both palms down on the table with a crack. ‘Let’s do it!’ he cried. ‘Do you have the pages with you?’
Marlowe smiled, the smile of a spider who has only to wrap up the fly before sucking it dry. ‘Not with me. But you shall have them tomorrow. After the performance. I want them in rehearsal as soon as possible after that. This play … it is topical, it won’t keep.’
Henslowe wagged his head. ‘Hmm … I think that could work. How many in the cast?’
‘Not many. You’ll need Alleyn, of course. Burbage. Some walking gentlemen. Jenkins … Shaxsper, I suppose … and I thought I might take a small part myself, nothing major, just for fun.’
Henslowe was already taken up with the thrill of it all and forgot for a moment Marlowe’s nominal acting skills. It would undoubtedly be all right on the night.
Marlowe stood. ‘So, Master Henslowe … can I leave it with you?’ He hoped the answer was yes. He desperately needed to get home to Hog Lane and have a lie down. He wasn’t even sure whether he would be able to make the stairs.
‘Yes, yes,’ Henslowe’s head was still full of coronets. ‘Oh, Kit, before you go. I found this on my chair this morning.’ He paused for a moment as a thought struck him. The parcel he was now holding out to the playwright had not been there when he had locked up the night before. And yet, there it had been when he unlocked that morning. He shook his head, deciding that sometimes the least said, the soonest mended. ‘It’s addressed to you. By hand.’
Marlowe took it with a sigh. ‘It’s probably some would-be playwright, showing me his work. Although …’ he weighed it in his hand, ‘it is a heavy piece of work, if that is so. May I open it here, Master Henslowe? Then I can leave it here for kindling, if I am right.’
‘Of course.’ Henslowe cleared a space.
Marlowe undid the knots and folded out the waxed cloth that wrapped the contents, secure against the elements. A pile of parchment and papers were inside, not looking like any play Marlowe had ever seen. On top was a folded note, sealed with a blank spatter of wax. He opened it and read silently, glancing up at Henslowe as he did so, but the theatre owner was already jotting down some figures on the corner of an old playbill and had lost interest already in Marlowe and his parcel.
‘Kit,’ the note said, in scrawled, uneven letters, ‘I write in haste. Cecil’s men are on the way to search my rooms. They have already been to everywhere I lodge and these papers are not safe with me any more. Take them. Read them. Hide them somewhere secure. They will come for you, next. Believe me. Faunt.’ He turned the paper over and saw another line, in faint graphite, on the back. ‘I am on his trail. I will have him soon.’ Cryptic, so cryptic, it was unclear whether it was meant for him or was just a note on the other side of an old piece of paper.
Marlowe folded the parcel up and tucked it under his arm. He had a feeling that Faunt’s warning had come too late for Tom Sledd. Suddenly, the assault on the Mermaid made some sense. Henslowe looked up. ‘Is it any good?’ he asked, pointing at the bundle.
Marlowe shrugged. ‘Too soon to tell. I’ll look at it at home.’ He hitched the parcel tighter under his arm. ‘Well, goodbye, Master Henslowe. I will deliver those pages tomorrow.’ And with that, he was gone, clattering down the stairs.
‘Alleyn?’ Richard Burbage could roar for England when the need arose and it always arose at the mention of his rival’s name.
‘Of course, Alleyn.’ Philip Henslowe stood his ground while flapping his hands for quiet at the same time. ‘He always plays the leads in Kit’s plays; you know that.’
‘Why?’
Henslowe looked at the boy. What was he? Twenty-two? Twenty-three? Towering ambition in one so young was downright embarrassing, but Henslowe had been here before – with Ned Alleyn only three years ago. The theatre was a young man’s world, but God give him strength, he could kill for a little maturity. And he didn’t have all day to explain the secrets of the theatrical universe to a boy who hadn’t finished shitting yellow. ‘You’ve got Mephistophilis, Richard,’ Henslowe wheedled. ‘It’s a plum part. Head Devil.’
‘I thought Lucifer was head Devil.’ Burbage had petulance written all over him this morning.
‘Technically, yes, but not the way Kit’s written it. I’ll tell you how unimportant Lucifer is – I’ve cast Jenkins.’
Burbage’s expression changed. ‘Oh, I see. Well, put like that …’
‘Burbage?’ Alleyn thundered a little later and in another part of the theatre. ‘You’ve given Burbage a role?’
Henslowe’s hands were flapping again. ‘I had to, Ned; you know how it is.’
‘No, Henslowe,’ Alleyn looked at him from under his best leading man scowl. ‘Suppose you tell me.’
Henslowe looked at the actor. Ned Alleyn, it was true, was everybody’s leading man – tall, handsome, assured. Winchester geese flocked to him (no payment required); titled ladies sent their manservants with offers of trysts in romantic places, often accompanied by a diamond clip or two. Alleyn wasn’t choosy – no sensible offer was refused. But Henslowe didn’t have all day and had no idea of how to even start to give Alleyn a sense of his own perspective.
‘Faustus, Ned,’ he murmured in his ear, like the good angel that Marlowe had conjured up. ‘A magus with power to raise the Devil himself. Kit based the character on you.’
‘On me?’ Even Alleyn was surprised by that.
‘Only someone of your gravitas,’ Henslowe grinned, hoping that some of Marlowe’s Muses would rub off on him, ‘your raw sensual power, could carry a part like that. It’ll be something they’ll talk about for years, trust me – “I saw the great Ned Alleyn play Faustus”. Can’t you hear it?’
‘Edward,’ Alleyn said. He thought of posterity often. ‘The great Edward Alleyn. Has more of a ring.’
‘Absolutely.’ Henslowe knew he had got him.
‘So, it’s a comedy, then?’
Henslowe frowned. Perhaps he hadn’t got him after all. ‘Er … no, Ned. It’s a tragedy – The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus.’ The impresario closed to his leading man. ‘It’s a true story.’
For a moment, Henslowe believed he saw the colour drain from Alleyn’s cheek, but it may have been a trick of the light. The actor fumbled in his purse and hauled out a large crucifix on a chain, which he hung around his neck. He caught Henslowe’s glance.
‘Can’t be too careful,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll remember to take it off when I play The Jew tomorrow.’
‘Lots of thunder, Tom,’ Henslowe beamed at his stage manager; but, if truth were told, he didn’t like the look of him. He was still carrying all the signs of his stay with Master Topcliffe, but it was almost time to stop making allowances, in Henslowe’s opinion. Allowances cost money. ‘Lightning, a dragon, apparently. Is that going to be all right?’
Sledd tried to shrug, but gave it up as too damned painful. This was a Kit Marlowe production; miracles took longer. ‘I suppose I should be grateful it isn’t the whole thing,’ he said. ‘Have you seen the stage directions he has in mind for the full play?’
Henslowe shook his head.
‘If you take my advice, don’t. Dragons and thunder are only the beginning. But …’ a sudden thought had struck him. ‘We aren’t doing it here, are we?’ It would be an absolute nightmare if they were. It was already bad enough, with the cast corpsing in their lines on stage in The Jew because they had got confused with their lines from Faustus. If he had to have two lots of scenery stored backstage as well, he might as well throw a lighted taper in first as last and hope that Henslowe would embrace an early retirement.
‘No, no, don’t you worry.’ Henslowe patted his shoulder, forgetting that it had been dislocated by various and cunning means not so long before. ‘Sorry. No, it’s a private performance. At Durham House. That’s Sir Walter Ralegh’s place, you know, along the Strand. There’ll be a few fat purses there or I’m a friar’s codpiece.’ He swept away and clapped his hands, ignoring the scowls that Alleyn and Burbage gave each other. ‘Places, everyone. Where’s the bloody Chorus?’
‘Our Puritan friends wouldn’t approve,’ Walter Ralegh murmured in Ferdinando Stanley’s ear. ‘If this gets out, they’ll want Durham House closed down.’
Strange laughed. ‘I’m looking forward to this. Good of you to lend your place, Walter, and good of Henslowe to find me a new playwright after … well, you know, the whole Marlowe business.’
‘Yes.’ Ralegh’s face was dark for a moment. ‘Who is it?’
‘Well, that’s just it. I may have met the man. I can’t remember. Shakespeare. William Shakespeare.’
‘What a ludicrous name!’ Ralegh laughed.
‘Warwickshire, apparently. County’s thick with them.’
‘Do you know this story, Walter?’ Thomas Hariot leaned across from his makeshift box.
‘No. It’s all about raising the Devil, apparently. And a scholar who signs a pact with him.’
‘The Great Lucifer?’ Henry Percy leaned across from his box, next to Strange. ‘Are you not taking a part, Walter?’
‘No, no,’ Ralegh chuckled, flashing his fondest smile to where Bess Throckmorton sat with a bevy of her ladies and Jane Dee, all in their finest velvet. ‘You know how I detest being the centre of attention.’ He pretended not to see Percy’s and Strange’s eyes roll upward.
For a whole day, Tom Sledd and his people had been sawing, hammering, gluing, creating the Rose’s O in Ralegh’s Great Hall overlooking the river. The stage manager was annoyed with himself. Ever the perfectionist, Sledd knew he could never do justice to Marlowe’s new work in somebody’s house. On the road, with the strolling players of Lord Strange’s Men, it was difficult and everybody allowed a little latitude. True, this was not the finished Faustus, Marlowe had told him. It was a work in progress, but the stage manager was to give it his all – the more terrifying the better – and Marlowe had insisted the performance be at night rather than the usual afternoon.
Now, all was ready. A thousand candles, it seemed – reflected in Ralegh’s window that looked out over the darkling river – shone in the eyes of Bess Throckmorton and her friends, who fluttered their fans and made those eyes at the gentlemen sitting in their boxes across the stage from them. Bess, of course, only had eyes for Ralegh, now that they had kissed and made up, as he had told Marlowe they would. The others sighed at the elfin locks of Henry Percy, the strange, lovelorn young man who, even now, had his nose in a book. There was the dashing Lord Strange, the friend of actors and mountebanks and to some extent rather a dark horse. The ladies of Court had certainly heard of Derbyshire where he spent much of his time, but had no intention of actually going there. There was the downright peculiar mathematician, Hariot, who had numbers for brains, and the odd little foreigner Salazar, who was watching the stage so intently. In the centre of them all, one of them yet apart, the Queen’s magus, Dr Dee, with his snow-white beard and glittering eyes. Could any company on the stage match the one that sat in the audience?
In Sledd’s temporary green room, more usually Ralegh’s armoury, the players prowled the space. Will Shaxsper, as surprised as the next man to find his name on the bills as author, was gowned as a scholar playing Cornelius, Faustus’s friend. His high forehead was covered in a shapeless Piccadill and his ruff was giving him gyp. Richard Burbage stood on tiptoe, his face and hands a vivid scarlet and horns protruding from his hair, Mephistophilis to the life. Tom Sledd had seen it all in his time with Lord Strange’s Men and at the Rose. Even some of the rough plays he had put on – when the only audience were some passing shepherds and their sheep, their only scenery a sheet with some bushes scrawled across it in charcoal – had had some scary moments, for anyone willing to let mummery carry them away, but he felt his hair crawl when he looked at Faustus’s Devil. He had to glance at the Good Angel, old Ben Kent, complete with wings and a halo, to keep his feet firmly on the ground. Ned Alleyn was increasingly edgy. The more he read Marlowe’s words, the less he liked this part. He was as blasphemous as the next man, in his cups and in the Mermaid, but this was on stage, within feet of the great and good. There were two earls in the audience, the Queen’s favourite and the Queen’s magus. And he was playing a man rejecting God and supping with the Devil. It’s only a story, he kept telling himself, only a story. Such things can’t happen. Even so, he fingered the crucifix, bright at his throat.
Not even Sledd could recognize Belzebub, his face and hands black, a flash of lightning running like a livid scar from his forehead to his jawline. Kit Marlowe had never played in his own works before. He had rarely played in anybody’s works before. Tom Sledd was not the only person who had noticed the metaphorical broom up his backside as soon as he walked onstage and his opportunities had been few even when he was trying to make a name for himself. But tonight was different. Everybody sensed it. This was no ordinary performance. This was no ordinary play.
‘Kit.’ Shaxsper was still struggling with his ruff, whispering to Marlowe backstage. ‘Don’t think me ungrateful for the billing, but why …?’
Marlowe stopped him with a raised hand. ‘Patience,’ he said. ‘All will be revealed.’
‘It’s just that this play, this Faustus story … well, it’s a bit … near the knuckle, isn’t it? One thing’s for sure; it’ll never get past the Master of the Revels.’
Marlowe was peering through Sledd’s flats of Faustus’s study at Wittenberg, watching the audience as they waited. ‘The Master of the Revels is the least of our worries tonight,’ he said.
Shaxsper caught sight of Helen of Troy, a beautiful girl with grey eyes and golden hair. It was her presence that bothered him most of all. Not only was it illegal to have women on stage, it was bad luck. They were all risking God’s wrath with Faustus as it was; no need to frost the cake. But Marlowe had insisted. There were a number of young lads who could have taken the role – after all, Helen had no lines. But Marlowe had insisted, ignoring the protestations of almost everybody. Not only was Helen to be played by a girl; she was to be played by this girl, whom Marlowe himself had found.
‘And what’s all this about Helen?’ Shaxsper had to ask again.
‘When she comes on,’ Marlowe whispered, ‘watch if you can, the face of the magus. You’ll understand.’
Shaxsper sighed heavily. He’d like that. He’d like to understand something that was going on tonight.
The Heavens crashed and roared. There would be no music for Faustus, no orchestra cluttering the stage. Just Tom Sledd and his thunder-box. One or two of the ladies shrieked and the men were secretly glad of that – it hid their own fears. The windows rattled and the candles guttered, half of them going out with the blast. Henslowe had dispensed with the Chorus to open the play. The man wasn’t very good and, anyway, he had had to leave town very suddenly when the father of a young lady he knew arrived at the Rose with two enormous sons and several large clubs. So the scene settled on Alleyn, sitting alone in his study, surrounded by charts, circles, numbers, hieroglyphs and a brass object that looked very like Hariot’s perspective trunk, pointing through Ralegh’s windows to the Heavens.
Marlowe watched him. Hariot would not show that he was impressed. How the Devil …?
‘Settle thy studies, Faustus,’ Alleyn began, talking to himself as all the School of Night did in their laboratories. He had his instructions from Marlowe. With various lines, he was to pause and look at certain members of the audience. He just hoped he’d get that right. Aeneas, Tamburlaine, Barabbas; all his great roles had had their challenges, but this was something else.
‘Yet,’ he said with the voice that had held thousands in the sound, ‘art thou still but Faustus and a man?’ He half turned in his chair to face Salazar. ‘Couldst thou make men to live eternally, or, being dead, raise them to life again …’ He paused, long enough for Salazar to hear his own heart thump. What knavery was this? His innermost secrets spilled on to the world’s stage. What was going on?
‘Stipendium peccati mors est,’ Alleyn murmured, staring into the eyes of Walter Ralegh. ‘The reward of sin is death.’ Ralegh’s eyes flickered, first to Bess, then back to Faustus, who had the attention of them all.
‘These necromantic books are heavenly.’ Alleyn threw a few of them about, unaware of Henslowe cringing backstage. They had cost him an arm and a leg. The actor fixed his stare on to Hariot. ‘Lines, circles, scenes, letters and characters; ay, these are those that Faustus most desires.’
The mood of the audience lightened measurably when Ben Kent came on as the Good Angel. They had all seen Mystery Plays in their childhoods. It was like coming home. ‘Oh, Faustus,’ Kent intoned, doing his best vicar impression, ‘lay that damned book aside and gaze not on it lest it tempt thy soul … Read, read the Scriptures; that is blasphemy.’ But the audience dipped again when it was clear that dear old Ben was wasting his time; Faustus was having none of it. Alleyn stood up and walked slowly to the stage’s apron. Now he could touch any of the School of Night, at least with a sword. He was happy to see that none of them carried one.
‘Philosophy is odious and obscure,’ he said, looking each man in the face. ‘Both law and physic are for petty wits; Divinity is the basest of the three.’
Salazar decided to brazen it out. Whoever this Shakespeare fellow was, he was playing games with them, having a laugh at their expense. Well, he for one could cope with that. He clapped his hands several times, slowly. But Ned Alleyn had trod the boards of London’s theatres for years and nothing could throw him. He leaned forward to Salazar. ‘’Tis magic, magic that hath ravished me.’
‘Going well,’ Skeres muttered to Frizer as they scampered across the stage behind Lucifer, all cloven hoofs and thrashing tails. Even so, he wasn’t ready for another of Sledd’s thunderclaps when it came and he bit his tongue. Thank God he had no lines in this bit.
It grated on Burbage that his first line should play second fiddle to Alleyn, but there it was. ‘Now, Faustus,’ he boomed, ‘what wouldst thou have me do?’ The greatest actors of the day circled each other on the stage. The audience had long ago got over the usual fidgeting and casual conversation. They were silent, rapt, intent to catch every word. It was what both Alleyn and Burbage expected – complete, unadulterated adulation.
‘Where art thou damned?’ Alleyn asked Burbage.
‘In Hell,’ came the reply.
‘How comes it, then,’ Alleyn closed to the Devil in front of him, ‘that thou art out of Hell?’
It was Burbage’s turn to face the School of Night. ‘Why, this is Hell, nor am I out of it.’ They all shifted in their seats, Ralegh stony-faced, John Dee regretting that he had let Marlowe and Henslowe talk him into this. It was at this point that things turned ugly. Alleyn had not been happy about it. He was all for realism, but a real knife? A real cut? Marlowe had told him not to worry; there would be a doctor on hand to staunch the blood. And anyway, it was nothing that Alleyn had not experienced a dozen times when things got out of hand at the Mermaid.
‘Lo, Mephistophilis,’ Alleyn held the dagger high, ‘for love of thee, I cut mine arm,’ he sliced the blade through his velvet sleeve and the skin beneath and held the hand downwards. ‘… View here this blood that trickles … and let it be propitious for my wish.’ He scowled across at Salazar.
There was an inrush of breath from the audience.
‘How do they do that?’ Percy asked Strange, as though the man with his own acting troupe would have the answer. Viscosity he understood; tricks of the theatrical trade, not so much so.
‘He’s done it,’ Strange murmured, lost in the action. ‘He’s made his pact with the Devil.’ He crossed himself. ‘God help him now.’
A drum rattled from the wings, slowing to a solemn beat, like a heart in its last moments and walking gentlemen moved to a slow galliard in their Devils’ robes, bowing in turn before Faustus and leaving gifts at their feet. It was Ralegh’s turn to clap ironically. Around Alleyn, tobacco pipes were placed and tobacco leaves scattered. Expensive wines, in their dusty bottles and straw, joined them and lastly, as Frizer turned to bow to Hariot, a sack of potatoes.
‘Walter …’ The mathematician leaned across, fear and fury etched on his face.
‘Shut up, Thomas!’ Ralegh commanded, every bit as imperious as Mephistophilis himself.
When Alleyn’s Faustus demanded books from Mephistophilis, each one of the School of Night was ready to leave, but none of them could, riveted as they were by the play unfolding in front of them.
‘Spells and incantations,’ Alleyn spoke directly to Salazar. ‘All characters and planets of the heavens,’ he spoke to Dee. ‘All plants, herbs and trees that grow upon the earth,’ he spoke to Strange. The night grew dark. No one heard Sledd’s thunder any more, or saw the smoke crawl along the ground. Marlowe, black as Belzebub, stood on stage now and introduced to Faustus the seven deadly sins, the number of the chairs that night at Dr Dee’s house. Pride, envy, wrath, covetousness, gluttony, sloth and lechery, all of them in dazzling costumes bowed before Faustus and told him their stories.
‘Bell, book and candle,’ Alleyn intoned, ‘Candle, book and bell. Forward and backward, to curse Faustus in Hell.’
A mighty line and one that, for most of the audience, regular playgoers as they were, seemed to sound the end of the Act. But they sat back down again as the action swept on, numbed by Sledd’s thunder, Alleyn’s acting and, unknown to them all, Marlowe’s words. Friars wandered the stage, holding their crosses high, pulling back their cowls as they chanted ‘Maledicat dominus’ over and over. May God curse him. And the School of Night looked at each other. Were they not all cursed by God?
The assassins circled each other on the stage, peering out into the audience looking for their target. Three of them carried knives, the fourth an axe. ‘Then, gentle Frederick,’ Benvolio said, ‘hie thee to the grove and place our servants and our followers close in an orchard there behind the trees …’
Elias Carter found himself nodding. He still remembered the near miss as the crossbow bolt had all but parted Marlowe’s hair. In the wings, Will Shaxsper, still struggling mentally with his Henry VI, scribbled the name down. Benvolio. That was good. He could do something with that.
‘Here will we stay to bide the first assault,’ Benvolio went on, cradling his axe. ‘O, were that damned Hell-hound but in place, thou soon should see me quit my foul disgrace!’
Hell-hound, Shaxsper scribbled. Better and better. Alleyn, all innocence, wandered across the stage and the killers fell on him. They scuffled together, Alleyn’s boots scraping on Sledd’s timbers.
‘Groan you, Master Doctor?’ Frederick asked, but he was looking at Dee.
‘Break may his heart with groans!’ Benvolio came back. ‘Dear Frederick, see, thus will I end his griefs immediately.’ Twice, thrice the axe fell, thudding into the woodwork. An arc of blood sprayed sideways and Faustus’s head bounced across the boards to disappear behind a curtain. Perfect. While there were screams from the ladies and cries of disgust from the gentlemen, Tom Sledd congratulated himself on a job well done.
‘Excellent, my boy,’ a delighted Henslowe whispered in Sledd’s ear. ‘The groundlings will love that bit.’
As for Ned Alleyn, he stayed crouched behind his murderers, grateful for the fact that Marlowe hadn’t insisted on real blood for this scene in the play. Actor extraordinary he well may be, but beheading would be something hard to come back from. The assassins sat facing the audience. Benvolio’s axe blade glistened with blood. ‘Come,’ said Frederick, ‘let’s devise how we may add more shame to the black scandal of his hated name.’
‘We’ll pull out his eyes,’ a delighted Benvolio suggested, ‘and they shall serve for buttons to his lips, to keep his tongue from catching cold.’
‘An excellent policy!’ Martino laughed. ‘And now, sirs, having divided him, what shall the body do?’
Alleyn’s feet twitched once, twice. Then his knees flexed and he sat upright. It hurt like Hell, straining the muscles of his back, but it impressed the audience. Bess Throckmorton, pale and ill looking, screamed again. Jane Dee looked at her husband for reassurance.
‘Zounds,’ Benvolio really didn’t need to tell anyone. ‘The Devil’s alive again.’
Nearly as rattled as the audience when he turned round, Frederick yelled, ‘Give him his head, for God’s sake!’
‘Nay, keep it,’ Alleyn bellowed from inside his ruff. He thrust upwards and his head reappeared. ‘Faustus will have heads and hands …’
Strange squinted, leaning forward. He’d seen some trickery in his time, but this was beyond him. Percy breathed out a sigh of relief. Of course it was all a play, smoke and mirrors. Of course; it had to be. And yet. And yet …
No one was ready for the beautiful and silent girl who was led forward by the scholars later. Strange rubbed his eyes. Ralegh did a double take. It actually was a girl, wasn’t it? The Master of the Revels would never stand for that; he’d close Henslowe down and the Rose too, in all probability.
‘Was this fair Helen,’ the second scholar asked, ‘whose admired worth made Greece with ten years’ war afflict poor Troy?’ He took her by the hand and brought her forward to within feet of John Dee. The old magus was on his feet, his mouth open, a solitary tear trickling down his cheek.
‘Was this the face,’ Alleyn asked, watching them both, ‘that launched a thousand ships and burnt the topless towers of Ilium? Sweet Helen,’ he closed to her, nodding briefly to Dee, ‘make him immortal with a kiss.’ The girl leaned forward, taking the magus’s face in both her hands and their lips met. In the silence that followed, the girl’s eyes were closed but Dee’s were wide open. Only he understood it fully. Only Jane understood it partially. She had seen the portraits of John’s first wife, Nell, whom he called Helene. Only Dee and Jane knew that Kit Marlowe had once promised to make her live again, in a play. Dee spun silently on his heel and left Ralegh’s hall, Jane in hot and frightened pursuit. What had just happened?
Everyone was on the edge of their seats as the Devils gathered. The echoing drum gave them their marching rhythm, but the march was an inversion of what men did. They dragged their long, clashing tails and snarled their words.
‘What,’ Burbage had great delight in taunting Alleyn, kneeling, a broken man centre stage, ‘weep’st thou? ’Tis too late; despair! Farewell: Fools that will laugh on earth must weep in Hell.’
‘Stay,’ Alleyn roared, reaching out with both hands. ‘Stay, thou monstrous crawling thing.’
Burbage looked down at him. This wasn’t in the script, not the one he’d seen, anyway.
‘Grant, in mighty Lucifer’s name, one last request of mine,’ Alleyn begged.
Burbage had never been asked to make up lines before and he stood there, open-mouthed. When he got off stage he was going to cut Ned Alleyn a new arse. Meanwhile, that idiot Jenkins had taken his name for a cue and was capering and posturing across the stage. There was a strange smell of burning as well; he would be having a word with Sledd too; extra stage props should not be left to every Tom, Dick and Jenkins.
‘I would exchange it all,’ Alleyn dragged himself upright, using Burbage as a crutch, ‘for one boon.’
‘Name it,’ Henslowe mouthed from the wings, directly in Burbage’s eyeline.
‘Name it,’ Mephistophilis repeated, with as much gravitas as he could in the circumstances.
Marlowe crept nearer, his black face glistening with the sweat of the greasepaint and the gleam from the candles. He wasn’t watching Burbage. He wasn’t watching Alleyn. He was watching the School of Night. All of them. They were all rigid, unmoving. Only Dee had gone and Marlowe would make his peace with him later.
‘At this eleventh hour, one man must die,’ Alleyn said and found himself being answered not by Mephistophilis but by Belzebub.
‘Name him,’ Marlowe said.
‘One close to the Queen and closer to himself.’
‘You wish him dead, this servant royal?’ He had crossed to Alleyn now and the two men faced each other. To Burbage, this was intolerable. He was just standing there like a walking gentleman, his tail dangling.
‘I do,’ Alleyn nodded, ‘and all his Puritan kind.’
‘How will you have it done? With ball or blade?’
‘With poison,’ Alleyn grunted, ‘from the shores far West of here.’
Marlowe turned to face the audience. From where he stood, he could see clearly the faces of both the men who had been to the far West. Ralegh, who had brought the Nicotiana plant. Hariot who had found the tuber. And he could see someone else too, someone standing half in the shadows behind the others, shifting imperceptibly, listening to the mighty lines from the Muse.
‘I’ll bring you poisons that will stop the blood,’ Marlowe said. ‘The weeds that kill the great and good. ’Tis best you mix them simply in the dark …’ He paused, watching the shadow slide sideways on the far wall, ‘With all the skills you learned in godless Prague.’ He was shouting now, his eyes wide, his finger pointing at them all, yet only pointing at one.
No one was ready for the crash that shattered the window behind Marlowe’s head. Henslowe spun round, wondering how the Hell Tom Sledd could have done that. But Sledd was as nonplussed as his master. He gaped beyond the curtain, shattering the illusion of the moment as Marlowe dashed through the audience, kicking over chairs and scattering the School of Night as he went. Everyone was on their feet now, shouting at each other, screaming, wondering at the spectacle they had just witnessed.
Only two pairs of feet thudded along Ralegh’s passageway beyond the Great Hall. Only one pair of hands slammed into the unforgiving oak doors. The echoes that usually rang with the chattering of ladies taking their exercise in inclement weather now returned curses that would make a sailor blench.
‘Not that way, Carter.’ Marlowe had stopped running and waited for the man to calm and turn. There was a wheel-lock in the servant’s hand, but he had already fired the shot that had shattered the window and he could never reload before Marlowe’s knife found him. His shoulders sagged.
‘How did you know?’ he asked. ‘About Prague, I mean?’
‘I am Machiavel,’ Marlowe said, as others, the men of the Rose and the School of Night, came at the double. ‘More than that, I am Belzebub. How could I not know?’