Tamburlaine Must Die (7 page)

The
girl's body shone silver in the darkness. Blaize presented her to me
like an unwrapped gift. She smiled bravely, she had decided he was
safe, but I was an unknown quantity, silent and stern while he was
all tickles and smiles.

I
placed my palm on the small of her back, pulling the girl towards me.
She let herself be drawn, but there was enough resistance to let me
know she was still unsure or perhaps she thought it might excite me.

`How
now, Mistress Minx? I whispered. `I would that we had a light.'

And
she pushed herself against me, rocking against the hardness she felt
there. I put my face in her hair, smelled smoke and evening air and
heard her say, `We will make sparks by moonlight.' And felt better.
It was such an old phrase that I knew she had said it to other men
and I was not the destroyer of her innocence. I ran my fingers softly
around the curve of her rear, over the swell of her thighs, into the
swoop of her waist. The contrast between her soft round flesh and my
stiff arrow straightness was fascinating. I wished we had a glass, so
I could see us side by side, watch my body merging into hers. I
dipped my head to her throat, pushed a finger inside her, then rubbed
her wetness against her nipple and pressed it to my mouth. She
gasped, hooking her legs around my waist, helping me guide myself
within her, clasping her hands around my neck. I placed my palms to
her rear, leading her into a rhythm that had us both gasping until
the strain became too much and I lowered her to the bed, covering her
with my body. Conscious all the time of Blaize's smile in the gloom.

When
we had finished and began to draw apart I felt the return of her
nervousness and understood she knew this was the dangerous time,
after the act, the moment men often turned and did harm to women. I
stroked her hair in reassurance and looked towards Blaize. He shook
his head and threw me a coin. It twinkled as it shot through the
dark. I caught it and gave it to the girl, adding two of my own. Her
relief hung in the air as she quickly dressed herself, eager to
leave. When the door had shut behind her Blaize hissed, `You might go
to Hell for this.'

The
liquid dark embraced us both. I whispered, `Hell is on this earth and
we are in it.' His breath stroked my face, he reached towards me,
then we were together. Sometime in the night I woke to the sound of
sobbing. But whether it came from the street, or within my head I
could not say.

Where
else can a poet live but the bastard sanctuaries? Beggars' breeding
grounds where all are as welcome, or unwelcome, as the other. My
lodgings are in a broken-up tenement in Norton Folgate. It was here
that I headed, plunging into a bright new morning breezed through
with the stink of the Thames.

It
was early by theatrical standards but the streets were already
swarming with the need to make a coin. I crossed the bridge,
travelling against a tide of travellers who were bound for the shore
I had just quitted. A parade of people who, having nothing to sell,
sold themselves. Jugglers and tumblers; comers, cutpurses and
cosiners; dancers, fiddlers, nips and foists, vagabonds of all
description. Three generations of rogues swelled the throng. Ragged
children studying the moves of apprentices and masterless men. Old
soldiers, who were soldiers no more, just shuffle gaited beggars
nursing their sores. All were making their way to the City from the
night-time sanctuary of privileged places.

Prominent
amongst their ranks were the strangers. Those who, finding no
sympathy in their own country, had sought out ours, bringing with
them their own ways and customs and sometimes an expertise the Queen
wished to claim for her own. They were unpopular amongst the people.
The incomers' differences and skills inspired jealousies and mistrust
that resulted in attacks, woundings, murder and dissent. The Crown
had countered with statutes promising harsh measures against anyone
offering harm to strangers and promising the ultimate sanction of
death. The paper the Council had shown me had taken my writings and
implicated me in a rough plot against the newcomers for which I might
be hung.

Come
dusk the traffic would reverse direction. And as the night grew dark
so would creep the respectable rich and poor following in the rogues'
wake. Burgesses, merchants and aristocrats, esquires and gentlemen,
stepping from the city into the unchartered quarters, heading for the
bear-baiting pits and playhouses. Hunting for the company of harlots,
whores and sixpenny strumpets. Bewigged and bedazzled they would drop
their breeches in bawdy houses, thanking God for inventing a sin they
would regret and renounce even before they had returned to the safe
side of the river.

In
the midst of the crowd someone shouted, `Look to your purse!' Most
were wise to the old ruse and kept their hands clear of their money.
Near to me though a youth in velvet breeches clutched at the chest of
his jerkin, nicely marking the thief's target. A one-legged man
vaulted past, nimble on one crutch, jolting the youth as he went. A
second cripple followed in the first's shadow, a legless long-armed
rogue birling fast on a box fixed with rollers. Each man bore the
leery marks of boxing bouts. In an instant the boy's purse was
snatched and passed and the thieves absorbed by the crowd. No one
offered sympathy. London hands out such lessons by the minute and it
is up to each to look to himself

Every
fourth door led the way to a tavern or ale-house, every fifth to the
house of a bawd. The interview with the Council still hung heavy on
me. I wondered at it coming so fast on Walsingham's attentions, but
dismissed my suspicions. What we had done was a capital offence, but
neither could implicate the other without incriminating himself and
he could easily be free of me without recourse to law or murder.

I
turned my thoughts instead to my destination, wondering if my rooms
remained free. I'd paid my landlady two months' rent on the eve of my
departure. She'd been in her quarters frying chitterlings. The
chopped intestines had wriggled like grubs, bouncing and snapping in
their own fat, filling the room with the sicksweet smell of burning
hellhag. She'd turned to face my knock on the open door with her
usual sour expression. But my promised absence and the sight of so
much coinage had wrought a transformation. The landlady had tested
each bit with her teeth then gripped my arm in a nightmare hold, with
hands even harder and more wrinkled than her face. She'd invited me
to eat with her and, not offended by my curled lip refusal, began her
feast, tripping forth a series of rusty smiles punctuated by chews,
swallows and assurances about the cleanliness and security of my
chambers.

But
in a world where men are cuckolds, a faithless landlady might rent
out the bed of an absent tenant. Had my return been more auspicious I
would have swashbuckled into the lodgings ready to repel all comers,
but that day the thought of discovering some decayed gentleman
amongst the few things I'd stored there was repulsive. Worse, if
Kyd's rooms had been ransacked, my own might have received the same
treatment. Who could know what awaited me there? I ducked into a
tavern across the street from my quarters, a mean low-ceilinged place
that suited my mood. The main trade would arrive later in the day
when men had worked up a thirst or crawled from their beds, but there
were a few drinkers sitting in the shadows nursing their ale and
their pipes at rough wooden tables decorated with the uneven chips
and random scorings of careless men. I ordered sack, commissioned a
boy idling by the door to deliver news of my arrival and a request
that my rooms be made ready, then settled myself in a dark corner
with a good view of the door. In the centre of the room a group of
men were playing chance. The clack of their dice and low definite
calls of their bets was the only noise within. The randomness of the
numbers was soothing against the regular tumble of the dice. I sipped
my drink and allowed myself to drift with the sound.

The
events of the previous days came back to me. The long journey from
Walsingham's house, the interview with the Council. I recalled my
patron's power, wondering again if the turn our last night had taken
would do me harm. Finally I fancied myself back in the peace of the
forest. Recalled the intricate construction of ferns that flourished
in the sylvan depths. Each with its own space, all their world
supremely arranged. And yet these curling miracles were ruthless. Any
unfurling too close to another or happening to fall too deep in the
shade, would wither without hope of assistance.

My
musings were interrupted by the return of the boy with the news that
my rooms had been ready `these past six weeks'. I detected the
injured innocence of my landlady's voice in these words. And nodded
the boy's dismissal. Instead of leaving, he proffered an envelope.

`She
asked me to give you this letter which arrived for you an hour ago.'

I
gave him the coin promised and another to acknowledge the untampered
seal on the envelope. He lingered, hoping to be commissioned with a
reply, but I sent him on his way with a look.

My
urge was to save the envelope for a more private place, but even if
it contained bad news, it was best to know before braving the street.
I held the missive beneath the table, broke its anonymous seal, tore
open the envelope and drew out a small square of scarlet linen the
same shape and cryptic blankness of the virgin fragment Blaize had
given me the previous day.

If
it hadn't been for the interview with the Council, the meaning of the
strange messages might have eluded me until much later. But suddenly
it revealed itself. I tossed back my drink and exited the tavern,
shoving the blood-red note into my pocket, pulling my cloak about me
as I went. My room was as mean and dark as I remembered. I sat on the
bed and took the pieces of linen from my pocket. Lines from
Tamburlaine came to me and I whispered them out loud. The first day
when he pitcheth down his tents, IVhite is their hue, and on his
silver crest,

A
snowy feather spangled white he bears, To signify the mildness of his
mind That, satiate with spoil, refuseth blood.

My
hands clenched into fists. I uncurled them and watched the crushed
fabric unfold, trampled roses, one as red as the other was white.

Tamburlaine
had decked his siege camp in three successive shades. First white,
offering peace should the enemy surrender. Next red, indicating the
execution of all combatants. Finally black, promising death to every
last man, woman and child. Not even a dog would survive the
slaughter.

The
Privy Council had no need for these games. Tamburlaine was my best,
most invincible hero, he had lent me some of his power and I never
felt as good as when he walked invisibly by my side. His boast came
back to me. I hold the fates bound fast in iron chains.

And
with my hand turn fortune's wheel about; And sooner will the sun fall
from his sphere Than Tamburlaine be slain or overcome. Tamburlaine
the Great remained unvanquished to the last, reducing all in his path
to rubble. But I was his creator and would outdo any angry God. I
would destroy my creature turned enemy, just as soon as I knew who he
was. I lay back on the bed, closed my eyes and slept, the scraps of
linen growing damp in my curled palm. The knock wasn't my landlady's
tentative tap, but an authoritative rapping which brought to mind the
Queen's Messenger and set my heart racing. Bidding the visitor, `Wait
one minute,' I put my eye to the crack I had contrived in the
doorjamb long months ago when I had first rented the rooms. The
sliver wasn't wide enough to reveal the whole man. Just an impression
of brown leather jerkin and russet breeches. The figure moved,
blocking the view as if he knew he was being watched. I kept my hand
on my dagger and opened the door quick onto a stranger. He saw my
combative stance and took a step back, making it clear he wished me
no threat, but smiling as if amused I should think myself any match
for him. `Master Marlowe? I nodded.

`I
represent someone eager to meet you.' The man in front of me had the
dimensions of a smallish oak. Though his bulk might hamper his
swiftness, his strength would more than compensate. I guessed he
wasn't inviting me for a feast and bought time by wilfully
misunderstanding him.

`I
appreciate the invitation, but I have many other obligations.' I
gestured towards the open door. `Bid your master good health and
thank him for his compliments.'

He
looked around impatiently.

`We
have no time for disputing. Make haste, my master requests you come
to his house where you will hear something to your advantage.'

`Your
master's name??

'Is
not for casual ears.' He shifted impatiently. `I assure you no harm
awaits. Though harm will certainly find you, should you refuse my
invitation.'

The
unavoidable moment where I hit him and he knocked me around the room
before taking me where he had always intended was fast approaching. I
took a deep breath and hoped it wouldn't hurt too much. I made a
flourish towards the open door.