POLEY DIVERGES FROM THE path back to London to lead Frizer through slumbering Deptford, pointing out the relevant landmarks, so that he’ll remember them on the day: Eleanor’s house in the seeping mist. The tide-slapped watergate. The ghost-ship on the green. All the while, Frizer barely utters a word, communicating in grunts and nods, his gaze darting about as if a flood had started to rise all around him.
’Tis not until they are nearly to Southwark that he cracks his lips and bravely squeaks, ‘You say y’are a man of some repute, but I’ve never heard of ye.’
‘Really?’ Poley grins. ‘How many Robins do you know of?’
This shuts the boy’s mouth for a good five minutes.
And then: ‘Does Marlowe know ye?’
‘Not on intimate terms.’
‘So why keep it secret, then?’
Poley gives no answer.
They make slow progress. The Council’s hired rogues, some in Puckering’s livery, some in the archbishop’s, some in the Lord Treasurer’s, have the run of every bridge and gate between Deptford and Southwark, putting all travellers to lengthy questioning. The sky is just turning pink as London Bridge finally appears in the distance, floating above the water like some maledicted barque, its many arches swirling with bats. Soon enough, St Mary Overy’s pitchfork spire juts above the rooftops, guiding them to Great Stone Gate, with its crown of thirty-six skulls. One still bristles with sun-bleached hair, a single, shrivelled ear clings to another like an oyster to a rock, another admits daylight through a vacant eye-socket.
Here, too, they find more guards than usual. As they wait in line to cross, Frizer cranes his neck, gaping childishly at the mounted skulls. Perhaps he does not even know the story of the one set above the portcullis, on which Poley himself declines to look directly. Frizer would have been hardly more than a child at the time. He will not turn and say to Poley now, as men often do in this place, There’s your lover, Sweet Robin! Or, Your husband looks unwell! Do ye never feed him? To Frizer, the skulls are merely warnings, relics of a strong and well-defended state. To him they have no names.
‘You see that fellow up there?’ Poley says.
Frizer squints upwards again, with a start as he realizes where Poley is pointing. ‘Ay?’
‘Master Marlowe and myself both had some hand in his capture, though in quite different capacities.’
Frizer glances aside, astonished, perhaps, to learn this portion of his new friend’s history, endeavouring not to show it. ‘Who was he? What did he do?’
‘He plotted to murder her Majesty.’
‘And… Marlowe caught him? And you?’
‘I can only speak for my part,’ Poley says, modestly. ‘Circumstances were dire, and therefore I took certain measures which proved controversial. I found it necessary to befriend him, you see, which required me to adopt a pretence of treachery. In my defence, I had only a minimum of support from the Council, for at the time I was no agent, merely an informant – a concerned citizen, if you will. That man up there came to me in the beginning. I did not have to go to him.’
‘Came to you? For what?’
‘A passport.’
The line moves, and they walk their horses a few paces closer.
‘Well, as you see, the plot was foiled,’ Poley says. ‘I consider myself a private man. I never looked to receive any lauds, nor public honours. I saw an opportunity to avert calamity and duly took it, as any honest fellow would have done. But the Council, for whatever cause, saw fit to reward me for my pains with a year’s repose in the Tower. For my safety, they said.’ Poley lifts his right hand, spreading the fingers so that the gap is clearly visible. ‘Now, does that look like safety to you?’
All lies, of course. Not long before Babington’s skull found its way here, Poley had entered the Tower for a stay of three gloriously debauched months – for his safety, yes, but also as a reward for services rendered. Wine. Women. Boys. Such a reckoning did he run up with all the pimps and wine merchants in the Liberty that, in the end, Sir Francis had ordered him forcibly removed.
But Frizer stares with horror upon Poley’s missing finger, perfectly credulous. He must shake himself to say, ‘But why? Why did they disapprove?’
‘I reckon that, between a deceiver and the deceived, the latter always wins the sympathy of the mob. Deception is the Devil’s sidearm, after all. But at times one must wield the Devil’s own weapons against him – an invidious position for a Christian fellow to find himself in, but it could not be helped, and I begrudge it not now. Nor do I begrudge men like Master Marlowe, who never did me any harm, their opinion of me. I know well to whom I owe my resentment.’ He smiles at Frizer shyly, concluding, ‘This world hath such double-dealing in it that we often find ourselves with common enemies among uncommon friends.’
Frizer nods, as if accustomed to feigning understanding of that which is above his intelligence. ‘And that is why you mean to help him?’
Poley’s smile widens. ‘Ay, to make a fine point on it, ’tis so.’
Frizer seems about to speak, but then glances straight up and tugs at his collar, as if afraid that a tooth or a piece of flesh will drop down the back of his neck. Unthinkingly, Poley too looks up, meeting the stare of those empty sockets and tumbling headlong into their depths: a midnight room in Holborn. An evening by a lake. For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.
‘What if he distrusts me?’ Frizer says, dragging Poley back into the world. ‘He’s grown suspicious of everything – rightly so. What’s to say he’ll not take me for an enemy too?’
But his eager gaze holds another question, another demand, unspoken: Tell me, tell me I am not his enemy.
Poley pities him terribly, for all that is about to come. Perhaps he pities Frizer even more than Marlowe.
He reaches out, touches Frizer’s arm. ‘You’ll see.’
This is the truth about Anthony Babington: when, in April of 1586, he came to Poley’s then rather derelict house seeking a forged passport, it had not been out of any desire to join the seminarians’ little army in Rheims, nor the Catholic League in Paris. Babington’s only desire had been to get out, anywhere, so long as his companion, some drooping, yellow-haired Welshman, could accompany him. France, Italy, Spain, it mattered not. ‘Anywhere,’ he’d said, quite boldly, ‘that a Catholic may live free.’
His gaze had been a dare, a boyish masquerade of bravery. He had grey-green eyes, Poley had noticed, neither fully one shade or another, as lonely and unknowable as the sea. What a thing to notice about a man he’d only just met!
Poley was no spy in those days – that too was true – but his work had given him contacts at the Privy Court, through whom he’d learned that Babington had recently been named as the Queen of Scots’ courier by a Jesuit prisoner in Paris. In his youth, Babington had served as page to the Earl of Shrewsbury, Mary’s long-time custodian, during which time the lad had fallen under her papist spell. Poley also knew that Sir Francis Walsingham had had his spies sifting through Mary’s supposedly secret correspondence for months already, in hope of unearthing due cause to wield the axe. And so, the day after Babington’s visit, Poley had met with the Spymaster in his office, and promised to soon deliver what Sir Francis sorely lacked, but dearly wanted: proof positive that Mary and her minions were plotting regicide.
The only trouble was, Poley had no such proof. Nor was there any forthcoming. Sir Francis knew not of this, of course. Poley could see the old man pretending to consider his offer well ere he licked his lips in none-too-subtle hunger, and shook his hand. ‘Proof first, then payment,’ the Spymaster said. ‘If you fail, it shall be your head.’
When next Babington had visited Poley’s house, the yellow-haired Welshman was nowhere to be seen, and the requested passport was now for one man only. Heartbreak had dulled Babington’s eyes, made his speech heavy and slow. Poley made an excuse for the passport’s delay and offered the lad a drink, which was heartily accepted. After the fourth glass of wine, Poley put his hand on Babington’s arm and said, ‘Listen to me: you must not leave England. Our cause needs you here. You know what I mean. Our queen loves you well – I do not mean that usurper in Whitehall, I mean the queen who loved you when you served her jailer, when you were only a boy. She loved you then, and loves you still, and laments that you have abandoned her.’
Poley had not needed to go on so for much longer before poor Babington was blubbering like a baby. He did love Queen Mary, he said. Twice as much as he loved his own mother, who was ever cold to him. He had not abandoned her in his heart; he prayed day and night for her restitution. He simply doubted he was the man to see it done.
‘Why?’
‘Because I am a coward!’
‘No,’ Poley assured him. ‘I see no cowardice in you. I see strength, immense strength. The strength that bore the cross to Golgotha hill!’ He touched Babington’s tearstained cheek, a liberty, at the taking of which the lad offered no resistance. Poley said, ‘Blessed boy, you are the only one who can save England’s soul. This is your Gethsemane. Come out of the garden. Be what God intended you to be.’
Lo and behold, the next letter Babington had received from France – which was, like the last several preceding it, crafted by the Spymaster’s men – was soon in the hands of Mary, and her coded reply soon in the hands of Phelippes, Sir Francis’s best codebreaker. No express plans to kill her Majesty, not yet. Mary had simply seemed glad for the illusion of friendly company.
Babington too seemed to crave companionship. Over the next few weeks, wherever Babington went, Poley went too: to visit Babington’s complotters at their various hideaways around London, to meet with Jesuit priests from the Continent, to stay at Babington’s house in the city, to go fishing and hunting at his house in the country. Clearly, Babington had no one to talk to openly. He had a wife he was intent on leaving, and young children whom he barely saw. He had many friends, who demanded much of him and gave little in return. ‘All great men are alone,’ Poley had said to him, as they’d sat by the lake near Babington’s country house, fresh from a swim. ‘That is your burden. Even to you, God’s love comes not on bended knee to your door. You must believe in His love. You must fight, you must strive, you must suffer to believe in it.’
Babington lay beside him in the grass, worryingly silent, as if he’d heard the rote insincerity in these words.
‘Am I,’ he’d whispered, ‘alone?’
Such terror in his eyes, the terror of reaching into the unknown. Such suffering too, the suffering of one who desires, desperately, to believe. In one look, Poley realized that he’d been going about everything the wrong way, all that time. He saw, plainly, what he must do. And he did it.
Was that really any different from love unfeigned – to look into a man’s eyes, and know what must be done? What was feigned in that first kiss, if a kiss can be feigned at all? It had begun like any other first kiss, a fragile proposition, and then came a slip from one state to another, a sudden reeling of the world at which Poley had heard himself murmur, into Babington’s mouth, ‘Oh.’ That was not feigned. If he told his hand what to touch and when, did that make it feigned? If he told himself to look into Babington’s eyes, did that make the act of looking less real? If he willed even what came upon him involuntarily – willed it by wanting it, by thinking, or saying, Yes – was he, for a moment, unreal?
In the evening’s hum, Babington walked his fingertips up Poley’s chest and sang softly, shyly, ‘For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy…’ and Poley had laughed like a reflex, like the jolt one feels on the edge of sleep. Surely that was real.
A few days later, Sir Francis summoned Poley to Seething Lane, a meeting which he’d fully expected to leave in a bloodstained sack. But the Spymaster greeted him with a generous handshake, congratulations, and a bagful of money. The last letter Babington had sent to the Queen of Scots was in his own hand, stating, unambiguously, his intent to ‘undertake the delivery of your Royal Person from the hands of your enemies’ – moreover, his intent to ‘dispatch’ the so-called ‘usurper’. How he hoped to achieve this exactly, he did not say. Mary, to her credit, was cagey in her reply, but hardly dismissive. Phelippes had grown so jubilant upon the decoding of her letter that he’d sketched a gallows-tree in one corner of the transcript.
‘Now what?’ Poley had asked Sir Francis, feeling a peculiar emptiness, with his thirty pieces of silver.
‘What do you mean, “now what”?’ rumbled the Spymaster. ‘Go home, spend your money. After tomorrow, your part in this is finished.’
The next evening, Babington turned up at Poley’s door and told him to gather whatever was most precious to him. ‘Your pistol too.’
Numbly, Poley packed a random assortment of objects: a change of underclothes, a favourite cap, his father’s Bible, one half of his best pair of gloves. Babington and he rode off together, breaching London Wall just before the gates closed. Well after dark, they arrived at an inn up in Holborn, out past the fields, where Babington gave a false name to the landlord and treated Poley as if he were his manservant, for which he apologized as soon as they were alone. ‘We shall use false names from now on,’ he said, circling the room and pausing to listen at every wall. ‘Tomorrow, we ride for St John’s Wood. My friends will meet us in Harrow. We shall ride all day and night, if the horses can bear it. North – we must go north.’
Poley sat upon the bed, the pistol in his lap. Babington’s friends had already been arrested that very morning, at Poley’s own house no less; there was no one waiting for him in Harrow. Poley wondered how much further he could go along with this. If he stayed the night, did that make him an accessory? If he followed Babington to Harrow, would that make him a fugitive? And when the end finally came, as inevitably it would, would it come peaceably? Would there be a standoff? Would he have to fire that gun?
‘I cannot do this.’ Poley laughed, grimly. ‘I cannot do this!’
He moved for the door. Babington caught him by the arm, but Poley shoved him away. Again, Poley reached for the door, but this time Babington threw his back against it and embraced Poley, his arms like strangling vines. ‘I did all of this for you!’ Babington cried. ‘You said I was strong, you said I was a soldier of God, you said I was beloved, you said you would be by my side, to Calvary Mount! You said it, you said it!’
‘But I am not strong,’ Poley said. There was no feigning there. ‘In myself, I have ever been mistaken. In you, never. My part in this is finished – but my love for you, that is unending.’
Even so, he anticipated having to fight his way out, the pistol ready in his hand. But to his surprise, Babington grew pale and silent, not with rage, but grief. He nodded, understanding. ‘It is too much to ask,’ Babington said. ‘I am sorry I asked it of you. I am sorry I gave you no choice…’
Poley put the gun away, folded both hands around Babington’s hand. ‘Never say you are sorry to me. Listen, you know I have ears at the Privy Court. I will be vigilant of any action against you. Tell me what way you’ll take to Scotland, and if I hear anything, I’ll send a warning.’
Babington mulled this over in silence, long enough that Poley feared a return of his suspicions. But then he twisted a ring from his finger – a diamond left to him by his father, who had died when he was but nine years old – and said, ‘Do not send messages. They will be intercepted. Send this ring. If I receive it, I’ll know they are coming for me. If not, well, keep it. Remember me by it.’
Gently, Poley plucked the ring from his hand, turning it in the light. Some facet of green flashed in its depths – as if the colour were caught from Babington’s eyes – and then fell dark.
A few days later, still less than twenty miles north of London, Babington had sent Poley a final, panicked letter: I am the same as I always pretended. I pray God you be, and ever so remain with me. He’d begged for a reply, for the diamond, for any shout from the wilderness, but Poley sent none. This last letter from Babington, he never received. It would be a full year before he read it, in the dusty archives at Seething Lane.
This was the truth about Anthony Babington: it took him an hour to die. A quarter-hour was spent on his hanging, for after the cart drove away, they let him swing several times, with breaks to catch his breath. After they sawed off his private parts, they tormented him with them in unspeakable ways. This was before they gutted him, and hacked off his limbs, joint by joint, a butchery which they forced him to watch, dousing him with water if he fainted. Eventually, it had seemed that he could no longer feel what they were doing to him, he’d just lain there, watching them take him apart, empty him out, as if incredulous that this meat and offal and bone were all that had ever stood between himself and Death.
Some days later, Sir Francis called an urgent meeting at the Tower, where Poley was already ensconced. The Spymaster had apparently received a letter from the Queen, who was horrified to learn of what atrocities had been committed in her name. So the story went. But the truth, which Poley had heard from Nick Skeres, was that her Majesty was well pleased with the events on St Giles’ Field. In fact, she had written to Sir Francis the day before Babington died, filled with anxiety at the thought that the would-be regicides might not suffer enough – let their suffering be prolonged, she’d said, ‘for more terror’.
Nevertheless, Sir Francis made a grand show of it. ‘We are men of God,’ he’d said, pacing the length of the room, past Phelippes, past Thomas Walsingham, past Poley. ‘We are the agents of her Majesty’s will. We act by her grace, by her leave, by her conscience!’
He stopped behind the bailiff, whom Poley had last seen with Babington’s severed head swinging from his fist, and the two executioners – boys, they were, boys with long, smooth, simpleton’s faces – who had laughed as they’d shoved Babington’s severed cock into his mouth. All three flinched when Sir Francis raised his voice:
‘An hour. By God, an hour! May God forgive us all for that wicked hour!’
Poley pressed the pad of his thumb against the diamond on his finger, rubbing at the setting’s sharp edges. No matter how hard he pressed, he could never draw blood. His skin had already developed a rough, whitish bulge, numb at the surface, though he sensed that the flesh beneath it was tenderer than anywhere else on his body. He tried to breathe without thinking about it. If he thought about breathing before he drew his next breath, did that make the breath a lie? If he thought about this thought before he thought it, did he feign to think? If it was easier to feel nothing, think nothing, be nothing, did that mean he only feigned to exist?
This is the truth about Robin Poley: he does not exist. He is a mask with no face behind it; he is a cloak with no one inside it. And the gullibility of other men never ceases to astonish him – how he has fooled the whole world into seeing him, when in fact there is nothing there at all.