Scorpions' Nest (28 page)

Shaw turned his hand this way and that. ‘It’s nothing,’ he said. ‘Librarian’s fingers, that’s what I have. Good for mending broken books and apprehending anyone trying to sneak out of my library with something they shouldn’t.’ He mimed pinching Marlowe’s ear.

‘And yet you didn’t apprehend Edmund Brooke,’ he remarked, taking a seat.

‘No,’ Shaw said sadly. ‘No, someone else did that for me. A shame. He was a nice boy.’

‘And Charles Russell?’

‘No,’ Shaw looked Marlowe straight in the eye. ‘I have no idea who that is.’

‘Died by hanging.’

‘Was that his name? How sad that we only remember him because of the hanging. There were… rumours, of course. Boys from the town, that kind of thing.’ His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘The sin of Sodom.’

‘Leonard Skirrel?’

‘No, you really can’t just drop these names like this, you know, Master Marlowe. I really don’t know that one at all.’

‘He was a priest. He was with the College in Douai.’

‘Ah, well, there we are, then. I wasn’t librarian in Douai. Well, I was
in
the library, but not in charge. Much more humble than I am now, if possible. I didn’t know everyone.’

‘Father Laurenticus.’

‘Well, obviously I knew Laurenticus. He was in here all the time, poring over books and writing, writing, always writing. We have his papers somewhere…’ He looked around vaguely. ‘I’m sure we will come round to cataloguing them some day.’

‘Do you know his mistress, Sylvie?’ Marlowe asked.

Shaw froze, looking away from Marlowe on a fruitless visual search for Laurenticus’ papers. When he turned his head, his face was a mask, immobile and waxen. ‘I never met the lady,’ he said, ‘although, of course, there were…’

‘Rumours. Yes. The sin of Gomorrah. Well, she has now remembered who she saw outside the room on the night he died.’

‘Really?’ Shaw plumped down in his chair and leaned on his elbows on the table. He blew out his cheeks and smacked his lips, a parody of amazement. ‘Really? Well, out with it, man. Who was it?’

‘I don’t know,’ Marlowe admitted. ‘She didn’t know who it was, just that she would know him again.’

‘That must be quite frightening for her,’ Shaw remarked.

‘She’s very brave. She has met him once since, when he paid her to poison Martin Camb.’

‘Well, in that case…’

‘Yes?’

‘I was about to say she is no better than she should be, but that rather goes without saying, doesn’t it.’ The librarian bared his teeth, in what might pass for a smile.

‘I think that he feels he does have that crime to use against her, should the day of his accusation dawn. Well –’ Marlowe got up – ‘I must be off. Things to do, you know, Dr Shaw. Busy. Busy.’ And he was gone.

Shaw looked at the door for a moment. ‘I wonder what he came for?’ he asked the inkwell, for lack of anyone else to ask.

Marlowe tapped on the door of Dr Allen’s room. This was his last piece of bread that he must cast upon the waters before he started his wait to see what fish the bait brought to the surface. He had left this particular eel until the last. Whenever he was with the Master of the English College, he was never sure who was watching whom.

‘Enter.’ A clever choice, Marlowe thought. It didn’t really matter who was standing outside, English or French, they would at least get the drift.

He pushed open the door and stepped in, closing it carefully behind him. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I can’t stay long. I have promised to help Mr Salter with a trans… Oh, Dr Skelton. I’m terribly sorry. I didn’t see you there.’

‘Gerald does tend to skulk,’ Allen said, jovially. ‘It comes with being a Bursar, I have always thought. Watching to see if he can catch any of those groats going down a drain. That is where they all go, you were saying, isn’t it, Gerald?’

Skelton gave a wintry smile. ‘We must look after every tiny expenditure, Master,’ he said. ‘Money doesn’t grow on trees.’

‘Sadly not,’ Allen said. ‘However, I am almost certain that Dominus Marlowe didn’t come here to talk about economics, did you, Dominus Marlowe?’

‘Not really, Master, no,’ the projectioner admitted. ‘Although it is a fascinating subject, in its way.’

Skelton smiled a slow smile, the smile of the accountant who knows his books are in perfect balance.

‘No, I have come with some good news. Not wonderful news, but a good way to putting a lid on a little problem of yours, once and for all.’

‘This sounds marvellous, Dominus Marlowe. May I call you Christopher, I wonder?’

‘Kit, Master, if you wish. I usually only get called Christopher by my mother, when I have done something wrong.’

‘Yes, indeed,’ the Master said. ‘Mine was the same.’ It was hard to think of the Master having had a mother, but biology dictated that it must once have been so. ‘Well, Kit, what is your news?’

Marlowe flicked his eyes at Skelton, who moved towards the door, prepared to leave.

‘Kit, Kit,’ the Master said. ‘Have we not already agreed that anything you have to say to me, you can say in front of Dr Skelton?’

‘Of course, Master. I am sorry, Dr Skelton. I didn’t mean to throw you out so rudely. No offence taken, I hope.’

‘None in the world, Dominus Marlowe,’ the Bursar said, sitting in a hard chair by the window.

‘I am agog, Kit,’ the Master said. ‘What
is
your news?’

Marlowe squirmed slightly. ‘I hope I haven’t given it too much emphasis, Master,’ he said. ‘It may be nothing.’

Allen waved a hand, his expression getting steely. This was like pulling teeth with no pliers.

‘I met with the girl Sylvie, Father Laurenticus’ . . . erm…’

‘Harlot,’ Skelton said, calmly.

‘Come, come, Gerald,’ Allen said, gently. ‘Live and let live. There but for the Grace of God… well, not literally, of course, but…’ Thoroughly tangled in his sentence, the Master waved Marlowe to continue.

‘Shall we call her his mistress? He would have made her his wife, had he not been caught between his God and a hard place. Call her what you will, I met with her last night…’

‘How did you get out of the College?’ asked Skelton, aghast. ‘Where is the gate roster, Master? Heads will roll.’

‘I just walked out, Bursar,’ Marlowe said, with an apologetic shrug. ‘I walked out and then back in, just as the scholars do and for all I know half the town. Father Tobias is not much of a watchdog, I fear.’

‘Make a note, Gerald,’ the Master said, mildly. ‘Speak to Father Tobias.’ He turned to Marlowe. ‘Let’s assume for the moment that we are already at the home of the girl Sylvie,’ he said. ‘Then we may have this news before nightfall.’

Marlowe took a deep breath and delivered his tale at last. ‘For reasons I need not dwell on, Sylvie has remembered the man who was outside Father Laurenticus’ room on the night he died.’

The Master and Bursar were on their feet in an instant. ‘What?’ they chorused. The Master looked Skelton in the eye and he subsided once more into his chair. ‘Who?’ the Master asked.

‘She doesn’t know,’ Marlowe said, spreading his hands helplessly. ‘She only knows that she will know him again.’

‘We must get the girl here,’ Allen said.

‘How will that help?’ Skelton asked.

‘She must be made to look into the eyes of every man here, to see if she can recognize him,’ the Master said. ‘See to it, Gerald.’

‘With respect, Master,’ Marlowe said, ‘I interrupted her night’s work last night. I paid her, as seemed only fair, but she has regular customers.’ He shrugged. ‘You know how it is.’

‘Not really,’ Allen said, drily. ‘But if I read you aright, Dominus Marlowe, you are suggesting that we bring her here tomorrow in her… off-duty hours, if I may put it like that?’

‘Exactly,’ Marlowe said. ‘Tomorrow.’

‘We will do that, then.’ Allen turned to the Bursar. ‘Gerald, make a note.’ After a moment, he looked up and saw Marlowe standing there. ‘Don’t let us keep you, Dominus Marlowe. I believe you have some translations to be getting on with.’

‘Hmm?’ Marlowe was a little foxed for a moment.

‘Master Salter? I understood you to say…’

‘Indeed, yes.’ Marlowe made for the door. ‘I have to help Master Salter with some translations.’

‘Close the door on your way out,’ Skelton barked.

And with a whisper of wood on wood, Marlowe was gone.

Marlowe smiled gently to himself as he walked purposefully back to his room. He was not a countryman by either upbringing or inclination, preferring the buzz of humanity to that of the bees, but he felt now as he thought a gamekeeper might. He had baited his trap. All he needed to do now was to wait for nightfall and see what fell into it. A quick visit to Solomon Aldred, a quick rummage through his clothes for something that would neither rustle nor gleam in the darkness, and then he was all ready to catch a murderer. The only slight weak link in his plan was that he needed Aldred to watch one gate while he watched the other. That the vintner was still mostly projectioner was not really in doubt, but he was a well-known figure on the streets of Rheims and he would find it harder than many to pass without being hailed by some wandering drunkard. But sometimes there were no choices but second best, so Solomon Aldred it would have to be.

T
hey met in the blackest shadow the cathedral had to offer. Aldred was excited; he hadn’t trailed anyone in years and was looking forward to resurrecting old skills. He knew he was a little shorter in wind these days, as he had always been of limb, but age and cunning were on his side against the youth and inexperience of Peregrine Salter.

‘It is Salter I am after, Kit, isn’t it?’ he asked for the hundredth time.

For the hundredth time, Marlowe patiently told him that this was not necessarily the case. ‘Solomon, please listen. I have told four people that Sylvie knows who the murderer is. For all I know, those four could well have told four more, who could have told four more… ad infinitum. Do you see what I am getting at? We are looking for anyone creeping out of the College tonight.’

‘Come on, Kit,’ Aldred said. ‘The place leaks like an old sieve. We could end up running all over town.’

‘I think that the gates will be secure tonight, Solomon,’ Marlowe told him. ‘Father Tobias won’t be much of a gatekeeper for many nights, but I think that he will have been reminded of his duties this afternoon and so anyone coming out of the College will be our man.’

‘Salter.’

‘Solomon…’

‘Just joking, Kit,’ Aldred said, hurriedly, having seen the projectioner’s right arm slip behind his back. Their nerves were on edge; not only did they have to catch a killer, but also keep Sylvie safe. ‘I will take the back gate, you take the front. Anyone who comes out, we follow. Even if they don’t seem to be going in the right direction. We are dealing with someone here who is cunning, cruel and desperate.’

‘Right,’ Marlowe said, withdrawing his hand and using it to clap Aldred on the back. ‘And, Solomon…’

‘Yes?’

‘No heroics. Just keep Sylvie safe. Don’t tackle our man unless she is in danger. Just keep him in sight and, if possible, stop him from getting back in to the College.’

‘Yes, Kit. And the same goes for you, does it?’

‘Very likely,’ Marlowe agreed, slipping from the shadow. ‘See you tomorrow.’

‘
Deo volens
,’ Aldred murmured.

‘Very likely,’ Marlowe repeated and disappeared round a buttress. After a moment, Aldred followed on soundless feet. The playwright had already disappeared into the rabbit warren of streets.

Solomon Aldred had trailed men before. He’d sometimes lost them, sometimes been given a bloody nose for his pains when someone he was following had doubled back round a blind corner and given him a smack. It was all in a night’s work when you were in the pay, however intermittently, of Francis Walsingham. But this night was particularly foggy, Fall blurring into winter as December drew near and the mists came creeping up from the Vesle and past the quays into the labyrinth of alleyways that men called Rheims.

All there was to do now was wait. It was no night for a man to be waiting outside in the dark. The cold was the seeping kind, that crept into your clothes and drove out every ounce of heat the body in them had stored against the day. The first thing to go was the soles of the feet, with only thin, soft leather to ensure a silent tread between the skin and the slick stone. Aldred could feel his feet becoming numb and eased them one by one, wanting to stamp, but unable to make even the slightest noise. He knew that the front door of the College had a little wicket in it, for use at night. He also knew it had a squeak, so he relied on that to alert him, as he wrapped his cloak around his face to avoid the flash of an eyeball or a tooth giving him away in the dim light. It seemed like hours before he heard it, then he had just a few seconds to unwrap himself from the wool and slide away after his quarry.

The brazen bastard. He was just walking out, bold as brass, yet there was still something furtive in his movements. Aldred couldn’t make him out, especially as he’d had to dodge backwards into the shadows to avoid being seen. He was a large man, certainly, with a satchel under his arm and a hooded cloak billowing out behind him. His buskins clattered on the cobbles as he ducked under the archway into the Rue de Lyon and on across the square. He skirted the outer precincts of the great cathedral, dwarfed, as all men were, by its Gothic magnificence. Vespers would be tolling soon, and the black shadows would flicker with movement as the faithful made their way for their evening meeting with the Almighty. But this man wasn’t going there. And neither was the one who followed him.

Aldred nearly broke his ankle spinning fast to hide behind an archway. His target had stopped, looking from right to left and listening. Aldred had tried to time his steps to the rhythm of the man but that wasn’t easy when he was so much shorter in the leg than his quarry. In the murky light there was always one cobble that gave you away, one stone that slipped. The man tapped on a low door twice and waited. Aldred knew the street he was in but the particular house meant nothing to him. He saw the light fill the street as the door opened. There were muttered words, then the door closed and the street was in darkness again.