The Marlowe Conspiracy (19 page)

“No one else?”

“Not that I know of, sir. Of course, you could get me to follow him...”

“I need you here.”

“Oh, thank you, sir.”

“Have Baines follow him from now on. But he reports only to me. Remember that.”

Frizer nodded, then took his leave and paced for the door. Thomas watched him go and sliced again into his apple.

SCENE TEN

Portsmouth.

T
wo days later, Kit and Will rode horses near the south coast of England and finally reached the walled town of Portsmouth. A long line of people waited at the city gates to be admitted by guards. Nervously, Kit and Will joined the queue and readied their travel papers for inspection.

After inspection, Kit and Will trotted down into the labyrinth of streets. They soon found their way to the market at the harbor front, tethered their horses, and walked off into a square now crammed with stalls of red, white, and black awnings, and loud merchants desperately touting their wares.

Through the throng of shoppers, seamen heaved sea-chests on their back ready for loading onto the ships. Naval officers outside a tavern cavorted with women on their laps and pointed to their warships in the harbor. At one corner, the symbol of sign above indicated it was moneylender’s shop. Next door, gaudy dresses hung outside a draper’s stand, and mothers and daughters surrounded it to paw at taffeta folds or run fine lace trimmings through their fingers. Above the shops, washing poles stuck out from the windows of homes, drying dull-colored shirts, sleeves, tights, and breeches. Sometimes a flurry of wind sailed inside a pair of breeches and puffed-out the legs. In another window, a man in a red gown and white cap leant out, watched the scenes of the market below, and the smoke from his pipe spiraled up and drifted into the washing poles.

Within minutes, Kit and Will crossed the square to the far side. Down a nearby alleyway, prostitutes with died blonde hair and loose bodices waggled their chests, waved, and called out raunchy solicitations. Kit, however, was more concerned about a man he noticed standing over at a butcher's stall: beside a pig's head on a crate stood a man Kit instantly recognized as Baines – one of Walsingham's spies.

At almost forty years old, Baines looked haggard by an uncertain life yet still seemed oddly inexperienced and gormless. Spiked black hair accentuated the flatness of his broad, moon-shaped forehead. Dense stubble roughened his chin. His stiff, over-muscled body wore a murky brown tunic and black breeches. Gloves stretched tight over his hands, his shirt collar pinched into his neck, and a hole in his shoe revealed bare toes.

Kit hustled along and pretended not to see him. In return, Baines made no sign he had identified Kit – he just continued browsing past the meat.

As Kit and Will left the butcher's stall behind, Will suddenly began chatting and worked his way onto recent events.

“So you're still on good terms with Thomas?” said Will searchingly.

“Yes,” Kit replied.

“Nothing happened at Scadbury?”

Kit hesitated and looked away with guilt. He felt Cholmeley’s note touch his skin inside his shirt.

“No. Nothing really.” His throat dried up. He hated lying to Will, but the instinct to hide information was too strong to resist. He would explain it all later. Some other time.

After a moment, he slowed his gait and turned his head for a second look at Baines.

Will took a glance in the same direction and frowned.

“What? Are you lost?”

“No,” replied Kit. He resumed his pace and quickly changed the subject. “Whenever I have business on the continent I leave from here. That's how I know Poley – the man we're going to see.”

“What exactly does Poley do for the government?”

“He intercepts and decodes messages coming through the port.”

“I see...”

“If anything's happening, he usually knows about it first.”

Will nodded and they left the market square.

A few streets away, Kit led Will up to the front of a book shop known as ‘Chaucer’s Books’: a narrow window with a jumbled shelf of books, and a tiny, stooped doorway to the side. The sign above was faded with dirt. Will paused and gazed inquisitively through the window. Kit waved him onwards and they entered the shop.

SCENE ELEVEN

Chaucer’s Books.

D
ampness lingered inside. On every side of the store, fusty bookshelves hid the walls. From the window came the hot fumes of book leather in sunlight. Kit led Will deep into the shop and padded over to a clerk stood behind a semicircular counter at the back. The clerk leant one hand on the counter, as if he might topple over without support.

“I've come for some new editions,” said Kit brusquely.

“Have you?” the clerk replied. He pointed a finger at Will. “And who's this?”

Kit gritted his teeth.

“No one.”

“I need to know who he is first.”

“Just let us through. You know who I am, don’t you?”

“Who is he?”

“No one... Henry the Eighth... Now, are you going to let me in this century or the next?” He put his hands flat on the counter. His eyes knifed into the clerk. “I won’t ask you again.”

The clerk scowled and made no rush to let Kit and Will around the counter. He turned, unlocked the door behind, and threw it open: a straight, dark staircase descending to a basement below the shop. Without hesitation, Kit ventured forward and tramped down the stairs. Will crouched slightly and followed close behind. The clerk stayed in the shop above, and Will jumped as he slammed the door after them.

The staircase led down into a dark basement room choked with dusty chests, shelves, and wooden boxes full of paperwork and files. To the right, a shaky stack of boxes reached from the floor to the ceiling. A letter poked out from one of the files. Will bent his neck closer and frowned: it was written in a strange, symbolic language he didn't recognize. The only light in the room came from a candle behind a far shelf. It stretched the shadow of a lone man across the back wall. Kit and Will picked their feet carefully through the clutter of sharp-cornered chests and walked toward the light.

Behind the shelf sat Poley: a fat, blonde, spectacled man and the best decoder working for the government. From the hours he spent inside away from the sun, his skin had acquired a decayed, ashen tone. By the time Kit approached, Poley was already standing beside his desk. He smiled harmlessly and feigned a pathetic manner, but a deadly seriousness lay close to the skin. One could almost see a set of cogs and levers working inside him, making calculation upon calculation.

“Kit!” said Poley, smiling as if greeting an old associate. “I hadn't reckoned on seeing you today.”

“I’ll wager you didn’t,” Kit leered at him.

“How is everything?”

“Poley, you're a weedy, fly-bitten codpiece. You know why I’m here.”

“Now, now, let’s be nice, Kit. We can all be friends, can’t we?”

“Don't tell me you haven't heard about the libels in London.”

“Ah, yes.”

“Well?”

“Terrible business...”

“But whose business is it, I wonder?” Kit tilted his head and looked him firmly in the eye.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Like hell, you don’t. I want all correspondence that concerns Lord Burghley or Whitgift over the last three months.”

Poley adjusted his glasses nervously. He put a hand on his desk and smiled.

“Certainly. As soon as I see your authorization.”

Kit nodded at Will.

“Show him.”

Immediately, Will grabbed a pouch hanging from his belt, drew open the string, and started rummaging. Poley's glasses slipped lower on his nose skeptically.

“You don’t really have authorization, do you?”

“It's here somewhere,” said Will in a thin, apologetic voice. He continued rummaging and moved closer to the candlelight. Suddenly, he knocked his elbow into a pile of letters collated together on the desk. Poley watched in despair as they tipped to the floor.

“The devil take you!” he cried. “D'you know how long they took me to organize?” He shot to his knees and started picking them up.

Without answering, Will bent down to help him.

Swiftly, Kit unsheathed his dagger and crept behind Poley. He drew his arm back. Swung forward. Slugged Poley on the temple with the butt of his dagger. Poley staggered two steps, then flopped to the floor over the letters and fell unconscious. Kit loomed over him, ready to strike again if necessary, but Poley didn't move. The papers on the floor by his mouth rustled slightly as he breathed. Will stood up and twisted his lips, mildly shocked.

“You didn't have to hit him!”

“I didn't mean to,” Kit replied. “It was an accident. Get his legs, will you?”

They carried his body to a corner hidden from view of the basement door and sat Poley down carefully, his back leaning on the wall. Will looked at the body and shook his head.

“You accidentally, brutally, smacked him over the head with your dagger?” said Will dryly.

Kit shrugged.

“What else was I to do? Tie him up with parchment? Gag him with a file?”

Will gave a reluctant smile.

“What happens when he wakes up?”

Kit stopped in consideration and put a finger to his lips.

“Another accident, probably. I'm feeling very unlucky today.”

Soon after, they set to work and searched through the boxes for any evidence that Burghley and Whitgift were involved with the libels. They found orders sent from the continent to Catholic radicals in England. Arrangements sent to priests in hiding. Surveillance work. Troop movements. Fleet locations. Mostly, however, they encountered simple intelligence reports of news and notable events happening in European cities like Paris, Hamburg, Vienna, Brussels, and Rome. Kit knew some of the codes and deciphered many documents easily; but for other documents he still needed to refer to one of Poley's code books or cipher sheets. He also had to check suspicious documents for signs of invisible ink. If deep quill scratches were found, if the parchment's surface was unusually rough, or if odd words were sighted within the context of the document, he had to uncork a bottle of ammonia and wave the fumes over the document till the hidden writing appeared.

Time wore away slowly. They had no windows or clocks in the basement to chart the passage of hours, but they knew the day must nearly be over. Occasionally, the clerk from upstairs came down and nosed about and they had to find ways to see him off. Nevertheless, Kit knew they couldn't stay there much longer.

At Poley's desk, he bent down, gripped hold of a small chest, and heaved it up to the desktop. His fingers and eyes tired from searching, he riffled through the files and rubbed his brow. Will sat on the floor nearby and climbed eagerly through a mountain of paperwork.