The wind was blowing off the land, well for the ships gliding out to sea but against Nicholas pulling for the shore of the lagoon. The water was black and warm, setting up little ripples of phosphorescence as he rowed steadily towards the point where he confidently expected Tobias to be waiting. The fishermen were out with their lamps and spears and paid no heed to him as he passed between them. It took longer rowing single-handed and he slid between the gondolas lined up like piglets to their sow, blowing hard. He shipped oars and lay over them a moment and when a helping hand reached down to pull him up onto the quay he took it gladly. A knife pricked the side of his throat.
“Quiet,” said Francisco. Nick stood perfectly still. Tonio pulled his arms behind him and expertly tied his wrists and hobbled his ankles. The point of the knife was transferred to the small of his back and the brothers urged him towards a narrow dark alleyway. He turned his head to see the Hawk gliding silently out of the lagoon towards the open sea.
The Antolini scurried through their natural habitat, hustling Nick through a rat-run of down at heel buildings and turned into a noisome lean-to against the wall of the Arsenale. Back where they had started. It was black as the underside of hell and Nick heard one of them fumble for a tinderbox. It sparked and Tonio held up a stub of candle. The tiny flame was a miniature sun after the dark and Nick closed his eyes for a moment. There was a board with a hole in it raised on bricks over a culvert and Francisco pushed him down onto it.
“Where is the Queen’s letter?”
“I sent it on,” said Nick. The knife pricked under his eye.
“Which would you rather lose, your eye or your balls?”
“How much are you being paid? I’ll double it and forget this – charade.”
They laughed, leaning together and stamping their feet. “There’s those would pay a king’s ransom to have you out of the way, milord Rokesby. It can be slow or quick, as you please.”
Tonio was still giggling and his brother’s voice was suddenly iron. Nick shrank back, allowing a look of naked fear to cross his face. Tonio stopped giggling and watched avidly. Francisco moved closer to take a grip of Nick’s hair, and Nick swung both feet together to take him hard and accurate between the legs. He screamed and doubled up, Nick twisted sideways to topple the board and fell into the stinking culvert. It was deep and narrow, a turgid stream running through it, and in no time he had wriggled along, jack-knifing his body, under the wall of the lean-to. He felt for the little knife that nestled in the small of his back, wheedled it out and, trying not to breathe the foul air, curled himself to thread his legs between his arms. The knife was bitter sharp but still it took a moment to cut the twine that bit into his wrists and by then Antonio was waiting for him. Nick could hear the other twin still sobbing in agony and risked sliding back up the culvert to the other side of the hut. He cut his feet free and scrambled out as quietly as he could, sliding in the muck, and circled the hut to come silently up behind Tonio, who was still hesitating to step down. The stink should have warned the man, but Nick’s arm was round his throat before he could turn and the knife inch deep beneath his ribs.
“Will you live or die?” Tonio gurgled and went rigid. “Who is paying you?” No reply and the knife slid deeper. “I will only ask once more. The Council can get it out of your brother.” The man gasped and told him. Nick was unsurprised; his guess at the involvement of the Lennox faction was confirmed.
“Your usefulness here is done, Tonio. Get your sorry arses back where they belong.” Nick drew out the knife, reversed it and hit him hard behind the ear. He let the man slide into the culvert and turned to find Toby standing silent behind him, two of the Rokesby escort at his side. They took a step back from the smell and Nick said, “The other one’s in the hut,” before starting to tear off his foul clothes, bloodied now as well. If his memory served, there was a well somewhere near and he set off in oozing boots and hose to find it. Tobias could be trusted to finish clearing up.
A pot-bellied moon had risen and was peering behind the campanile when Toby found him. He was lying naked in a fountain surrounded by marble nymphs, his feet dangling over the edge. Toby began to laugh.
“You can laugh, damn you. Where were you?”
“The sly creatures doubled back through the prison, would you believe, letting out all manner of carrion to trouble the city. It’s been one gaudy night.”
Nick kicked water over him. “Don’t stand there like a grinning ape – find me some clothes. Or give me some of yours.”
Toby handed him a motley collection of garments contributed by the amused escort. “No boots, I’m afraid.” He picked up the sodden hose between thumb and forefinger. “These can go on the bonfire with the rest,” he said. “The English Ambassador was never here.”
Hardly surprising after this little adventure, Nicholas fell ill with violent stomach pains and sickness and fever. Tobias had gone on a brief and lucrative escort to Milan and Florence – “Someone has to mind the shop…” – and Nick dismissed the physician with his bowl of leeches and dosed himself with a decoction of figs and cinchona. This left him exhausted and shaken, but better, and he had the sense to keep to his bed for a day or two. Angelica called and was denied entrance. She left some books she had been speaking of, and Nick asked for a chair to be set in the little lemon grove where the fruit might keep away the worst of the midges. He still had a continual thirst and a headache, and once comfortably settled with a jug of honey-water and a book on his knee, he took thought for the future. He would be relieved of his post soon, his tasks for Cecil were done, and apart from his own urgent and private business with the Spanish troopships, he would be free to leave. There was still no place for him at home. He’d had half a mind to take Gallio up on his offer – the rakehell life of a corsair had its appeal. What was the alternative? A subservient life at court, dancing attendance on a peevish, ailing queen, trying to survive the infighting that went on behind the scenes. These were the only scenes he was likely to see; it was very doubtful if he would be allowed back into the Actors’ Company. Nick had no ambition for a state position, jockeying for favour, constantly watching his back. He did not like this sense of being still in the power of others. He needed a position of strength. He needed to make something happen. Like capturing troopships.
He dozed off.
He was startled awake by a panting manservant. “M’sieur de Parolles, my lord.” The man was pushed aside by Marlowe, on a tide of euphoria.
“Your favourite wordsmith, my dear! But what is this? Not up and doing? God’s breath, you are not ill…?”
“No, no, I thank you. Better. I pray you, don’t shout.”
“I must shout! I am delivered, my Niccolo, at last, of my masterpiece. My dear, the gestation of an elephant! So long… But it is done, I am free of it, light as air and already conceived of the next! It is true,” he was unpacking his satchel, “true, that old wives’ tale that birth-pangs are forgotten ’til the next time. But wait, Nick, until you see how this play will be received. It will be acclaimed; it is my best!” He dumped a pile of manuscript in Nick’s lap. “Read. Read it! I have things to do, Niccolo, I will return and you shall rejoice with me. Did you hear? It’s finished!”
“Yes. Good.”
“Good! It is magnificent! Read…” And he was gone.
Nick picked up the first page and Marlowe’s difficult writing blurred before his eyes. Groaning, he placed the script on the grass and went to hold his head under the fountain. An idle breeze scattered the pages across and under the trees, and cursing and chasing and bending, he gathered them up and anchored them with his book. By the time he had done this, he was fit for nothing but the cool dark of his bedchamber.
He slept ’til late the next morning and woke feeling much better. He managed a decent breakfast of bread and honey and eggs, allowed his valet to shave him and, dressed and more in command of himself, passed on into the salon, to find the wretched manuscript in the middle of the table with a note in Marlowe’s scrawl. “You careless creature. If this is all you think of my greatest work, piss yourself back to London. I have done with you. Read, naughty ingrate, and grovel.”
“Tuh!” said Nick and screwed it up. He stuffed the pages into a wallet and sent for his horse. To the dismay of the servants, he took a flask of wine, a hunk of bread and some cheese and set off, refusing to say where he was going. He made his way up the side of the Brenta, to the botanical gardens planted along the bank, where he found a shady spot with space for Oberon to graze and dismounted to sit on the grass. He sat for a while gazing out across the plain dotted with vineyards and cypress, badged in the distance with miniature houses showing the hand of Palladio. A house like these would rise at Rokesby, built for his son and his son’s sons. He himself would very likely not see it finished. Presently he took out the manuscript and began to read.
Two hours later he came to himself to find tears drying on his cheeks and Oberon blowing warm breath down his neck. He gathered the manuscript reverently together and stowed it carefully inside his shirt. He got up to rub the patient Oberon between the ears and gathered the reins to mount. About to put his foot in the stirrup, he paused. There must be no more quarrelling. Marlowe had taken a huge step forward; the story was nothing – there had been Hamlets before – but the working of it, the language, the characters: sublime! He realised he was casting it in his mind. Perhaps the two great actors could be persuaded to work together. What a thing their new young boy player would make of Gertrude – perhaps he himself could play Laertes. He could hardly wait to see this play take wing onstage.
Hold on, he thought. This means I’m going back to London. It seemed the decision was made for him. As usual. Fuming quietly to himself he swung into the saddle to go and find Angelica. He needed comforting company.