A Prisoner in Malta (2 page)

“There's a Cambridge education for you,” he said, shaking his head, “an equal ignorance of everything. You'll go far, Pygott. You're headed for Parliament; anyone can see that.”

“Parliament?” Pygott gaped, not moving.

“Codpieces are going out of fashion, by the way,” Marlowe continued. “They're ridiculous.”

“Let him go, Marlowe,” Dr. Lopez said softly.

“The college is pretty this time of day,” Marlowe said absently. “Especially when the weather's soft like this.”

Pygott stayed, uncertain what to do. His lip began to tremble more violently, and blood was beginning to spot the unfashionable bit of haberdashery.

“Please, young man,” Dr. Lopez encouraged Pygott, “take your leave.”

“Yes,” Marlowe concurred. “Be gone. But avoid the church. There is no sin but ignorance and you, I fear, will surely burn there.”

Without a word, Pygott wandered off, slightly dazed, in the direction of the church.

“That wasn't necessary,” Lopez chided.

“He insulted you,” Marlowe disagreed, “and he jumped on me. It was quite necessary.”

“You draw too much attention to yourself,” Lopez went on. “That dagger you wear, its filigreed hilt is too elaborate.”

“It was a gift from my father,” Marlowe protested, “and it serves a purpose.”

“It attracts too many eyes! You've only been at Cambridge since January and everyone on the campus knows your name.”

“I do it on purpose,” Marlowe said, grinning. “It's my theatrical nature.”

“The last thing a man in this world wants to be is unusual,” Lopez said. “And you, my friend, are unique.”

“I'm late for my last session,” Marlowe said. “Will you walk with me?”

Lopez pulled his red cloak around his neck. His long black hair seemed to be cut from midnight, out of place in the daytime.

“You give your thoughts too much tongue,” Lopez began as they walked in the direction of Old Court. “You give every man your voice when you should lend your ear.”

“You came here to tell me that I talk too much?” Marlowe threw his arm around Lopez.

“You've drawn too much attention to yourself,” Lopez said in a very confidential voice. “The way you dress, for example.”

“What's wrong with the way I dress?” Marlowe asked, not quite aware of his old friend's strange behavior.

“All black. It's too somber for a young man,” Lopez insisted.

“This from a man in a flame-red cape.” Marlowe shook his head.

“You lend your money too freely,” Lopez went on, “and you quarrel entirely too much.”

“But I always win,” Marlowe answered impatiently. “And I'm always good-natured about it. Rodrigo, what are you doing here?”

Marlowe stopped walking. They were nearly to the Parker Library. All of the students were gone; classes had started. The relative silence made it easier to hear noise from the street, beyond the church, where some minor commotion arose.

“You haven't yet become your true self,” Lopez explained. “A man's only genuine occupation in this life is to discover who and what he truly is, and then do his best to become that. Most never manage it.”

“This is quite a lot of advice,” he said, “from a Portuguese Jew who's pretending to be a Protestant in England.”

“Chris,” Lopez said quietly. “I am to become Her Majesty's physician-in-chief.”

Marlowe took Lopez by both arms.

“What? At last! My God!” Marlowe's voice boomed. “
That's
why you've come to Cambridge, I understand now: to tell me this wonderful news.”

“Please lower your voice,” Lopez said. “That is not the reason for my visit.”

“Look, honestly,” Marlowe suggested, ignoring the older man's comment, “just wait here until my session in poetics is concluded, and then you and I will go to the best pub in Cambridge.”

“No, I'm sorry.” Lopez looked around as if to make certain no one was looking at them. “You're not going to your class.”

Marlowe blinked. “What?”

“You're coming with me to London. Now.”

Lopez flicked his cloak and a coach appeared out of nowhere at the other end of the yard, headed toward them slowly. It was an ornate closed cab with a spring suspension, four wheels, and two muscled horses. It had been the source of the commotion out in the street. Marlowe recognized it as a very new Boonen construction—the kind built exclusively for the Queen.

Marlowe eyed the conveyance with suspicion.

“I'm not getting into that thing,” he said.

“You have to,” Lopez said simply.

“I might ride a horse to London,” Marlowe ventured.

“Get in the carriage, please.” Lopez held out his hand politely.

“That thing? No. It'll rattle my brains out.”

“But it will keep us from being seen as we travel,” Lopez whispered. “And, I insist. You are riding at the request of the Privy Council, and we are expected before midnight.”

“The Privy Council.” Marlowe's mood sobered. “Well. I've had the strangest notion that something odd was going to happen. Just as I concluded it was my encounter with Pygott, here comes a very expensive coach.”

The coach pulled up beside them. Lopez opened the door. Marlowe peered inside.

“Do I really have to?” he asked.

But he knew the answer. The Privy Council had summoned. Not a living soul in England could deny such an order.

“Go on,” Lopez insisted.

As soon as they were inside, the driver took off. Lopez closed the shutters. Light leaked in through the spy holes, but the cab was still very dark. The seats were covered in black leather, worn and softened. The wooden doors were scratched a bit, as was the floor. This was not a ceremonial vehicle, it was a workhorse.

“We're headed west,” Marlowe said cautiously. “London is south.”

“We're bound for the River Cam,” Lopez explained. “We'll turn there and follow the water awhile.”

Marlowe grasped the idea immediately. “If we're being followed, we'll see it when we turn south at the river.”

“Exactly.”

“I don't suppose you'll tell me why I've been summoned?”

“No.”

They rode in silence for a distance.

*   *   *

In Cambridge, Walter Pygott was peeing on roses in the graveyard near the great tower of St. Benet's when he heard a noise behind him. Thinking it was one of the priests come to scold him, he tied his codpiece loosely and spun around.

“I wasn't doing anything,” he began.

But he froze; fell silent when he saw the knife so close to his heart.

“You're a bastard idiot,” the whispered voice told him, “with pudding for a dick and maggots in your brain.”

“I—I—do I know you?” Pygott stammered. “I expect you're one of the little weasels I put to the ground here lately, thinking to get revenge while I'm indisposed. Look. Let's have an understanding. The rules of this place is: I'm on top.”

“Not today. Not anymore. Not ever again.”

“All right,” Pygott said, smiling.

With that he drew out his rapier and thrust it forward, directly at his attacker's heart. It missed because the attacker moved to one side and slashed Pygott's sword arm. The cut was deep and Pygott howled.

Turning in a circle, a dance move, the attacker was suddenly behind Pygott, and slashed the back of the idiot boy's thigh—slashed it to the bone. Pygott went to his knees.

“Wait!” he cried. “Wait! You're not doing this right!”

The attacker turned again, a blur, a gray shadow, and kicked Pygott in the head with the hard heel of a boot.

Pygott grunted and fell flat on his back. Blood soiled his buttered hair.

“No,” Pygott managed to say, but his voice was a dream, a distant memory. “You're not a student here.”

Pygott reached up and grabbed his assailant's coat, but his hand was met with the blade, and blood dribbled down Pygott's arm.

The assailant stooped then, hovering over Pygott like a carnivorous animal.

“Your useless life is over now,” came the whispered taunt. “Despised by everyone, a traitor to your country, who will mourn your passing?”

With that the dagger plunged into Pygott's heart. Blood gushed from the wound. Pygott's killer stood, rolled the body over with the heel of a boot, and was gone.

*   *   *

The Queen's coach was out of town and into the countryside before Marlowe spoke again.

“Can you tell me, at least, if I'm in some sort of trouble?” Marlowe leaned forward. “Should I try to leap out of this carriage before we get too far?”

“Don't jump, you'd only hurt yourself,” Lopez said, “and I'd recapture you.”

Marlowe looked into his friend's eyes.

“Have you captured me now, Rodrigo?” Marlowe's voice could barely be heard.

“I am required to bring you to London,” Lopez answered without blinking, “whether you will or no.”

Marlowe nodded amiably, but surreptitiously reached for his dagger.

Without warning, Marlowe found a rapier point tickling him just underneath his jaw. Lopez wore a cold mask of indifference, and held his rapier with a casual disdain. He seemed calm, but there was menace in the way his chin jutted forward.

“This is unexpected,” Marlowe drawled easily.

“I have survived the destruction of my home,” Lopez whispered violently, “the brutalization of my family, and the torture of the Inquisition. You think you always win, Chris, but you would not prevail against me. Let's be clear.”

“You saved my father's life,” Marlowe said, not moving, “and for that I am in your debt. Have I been mistaken in our friendship?”

Lopez sighed and closed his eyes.

“You have not,” he said. “I have not slept in several days, and the urgency that compels me to fetch you so unceremoniously to London is … not inconsequential.”

“You're not yourself,” Marlowe went on. “I can see that, but would you mind very much taking your rapier from my throat? It's making me uncomfortable.”

Lopez stared at his weapon as if he'd forgotten it was there, then put it away immediately.

“Now let me ask again,” Marlowe continued. “Am I in danger?”

“No.” Lopez closed his eyes. “You are in no danger from the council. In fact, the opposite is probably true.”

“What? The council is in danger from me?”

“Likely, but that is not what I meant either. I—there was a great deal of persuasion brought to bear on this enterprise. I tried, in fact, to save you from it altogether. But now, it's my family, you see. They always threaten my family.”

Marlowe sat back, his hand well away from his blade.

“I have no idea what you're talking about,” he said, “but I can see that you're in great distress. And I think I speak for both of us when I say that no good would come from testing each other. One of us would lose a friend, and the other, a life. I'd rather not do either. Today.”

“Agreed.” Lopez sighed, and appeared to relax a bit. “And I'm sorry. Sorry that my wits are raw, and that I dare not tell you what the council has in mind. I can say that they require our assistance—yours and mine—and that they mean you no harm. Other than that, I am sworn to silence.”

“Secrecy,” Marlowe snorted. “If there is one thing I cannot abide, it's a secret.”

“Spoken,” Lopez offered wearily, “like a very young man.”

Marlowe was about to object when Lopez suddenly raised a finger to his lips. A second later Marlowe realized that the coach was slowing down. Ear to the window, he could make out the sound of several voices whispering low: men on horseback.

Lopez silently drew out his rapier again, and turned to Marlowe, who produced his dagger. Lopez slid quietly to the floor, preparing to leap from the coach. He motioned for Marlowe to do the same.

But before Marlowe could move, the coach came to a complete stop, an arrow shattered the shutter, and the shaft plunged into the leather seat, narrowly missing Lopez's head. Outside the coach driver screamed; the horses complained loudly.

Marlowe reached out and snatched the arrow from where it had lodged. He jabbed it through the black fabric of his doublet and fell back onto the seat, concealing his blade.

A moment later the coach door opened.

Lopez sprang out, snarling and cursing in Portuguese. He scattered the men outside, taking them on all at once.

Marlowe lay stone-still, waiting for his opportunity. He knew that Lopez wouldn't need help.

A rude shadow appeared in the open doorway of the coach. Marlowe could see the man through half-closed eyes.

“You two take care of that Portuguese grease spot, boys,” he growled. “I think this one in the cab is already dead.”

The man leaned in, and Marlowe's senses were assaulted by the smell of sweat and garlic.

“Here he is,” the odiferous voice said tauntingly. “Dead before he's old enough to whisker.”

Without a word, Marlowe plunged his blade into the man's belly.

“Christ!” the man howled.

Marlowe kicked with both feet and the man flew backward out of the coach. Marlowe leapt after him.

Lopez was acquitting himself perfectly against two men near the horses. The man that Marlowe had stabbed was lying on his back, groaning. Marlowe charged. The man made an attempt to roll up, but was unable to do anything except bleed profusely.

“I'm cut dead,” he wailed.

Marlowe bent over the man.

“You're not doing well,” he agreed, “but you're not dying either. Excuse me.”

Marlowe stood up straight and turned toward Lopez.

Lopez was still handling the matter at hand, but Marlowe spied a fourth man on horseback, mostly hidden by a nearby gathering of apple trees. That man had a pistol. The pistol was aimed at Lopez's back.