The Marlowe Conspiracy (38 page)

Kit now searched harder than ever for the dungeon entrance. He hunted through the network of prison corridors, endless corners, dimmed windows, and gates. Minute after minute elapsed and he found nothing.

His face lightened. In the middle of one corridor the wall suddenly broke for a downward staircase. The stairs extended straight and steep. He planted his feet carefully as he started down the steps.

Eventually, at the bottom of the stairs, he came to an arch and discovered a plank door – the entrance to the dungeons. He tried the handle. It wouldn't turn. He drew the key ring out of his sleeve and went through them, hurriedly twisting each one in the lock. None worked. He picked through the keys again and found one he had missed. Frantically, he stuck it in the door and heard it make a full revolution. Something clunked on the other side. He pressed the door's stiff handle down, tore the door open, and strode forward into the dungeon...

In the torture chamber, Topcliffe's fingers clasped handle ‘number six’ and turned the wheel over gently, stretching Will further. Will lay drenched in sweat. Licks of hair clung to his brow. His eyes stung with salt. At first he had screamed – yelled till his throat was sore enough to bleed – but now he was stretched beyond any great noise. He clenched his teeth, and panted, and struggled to breathe. His chest bulged as he fought to inhale. The chains pulled him still tighter. He moaned under the unnatural stress it placed on his joints. His muscles felt ready to snap; his hips tingled, ready to pop; cold, deep shooting pains struck up his leg from his right ankle, as if it were broken; and the blood trickled strangely down his arms. The chains had pulled him so taut his back no longer rested on the bed of planks but hovered half an inch in the air. He moaned again and gasped to inhale. Topcliffe put his palm on handle ‘number seven’ and averted his eyes as he began to turn the wheel.

The door behind opened and Kit entered carrying Baines’s bible. Topcliffe gave a casual glance over his shoulder, mistook him for Baines, and continued turning the wheel.

“Where have you been?” asked Topcliffe. “We started without you, bible-basher.”

Kit didn't reply. With swift feet, he flashed across the room, rose tall behind Topcliffe, and slammed the bible down on his head. Topcliffe swooned under the impact.

“He bashed me...” muttered Topcliffe, his eyes swimming. “He bashed me... With the...” He fell to the floor unconscious.

Kit hastened over to the irons on Will's hands and released him. At first, Will didn't recognize the figure in black robes helping him. When he sat upright, air poured into his lungs, the draught cooler and more bracing than a December wind. He rubbed his sore wrists distractedly. His face looked gaunt with exhaustion and shock. Gradually an expression of great relief bloomed onto his face and his eyes truly connected with Kit's.

For support, Kit put an arm around Will’s slight frame and helped him to shuffle to the door. Will's ankle felt too weak to put much weight upon and he moved slowly but they soon made it outside to the main corridor. With as much speed as they could manage, they hurried past the dungeon cells. Will's head hung low and he concentrated only on moving his feet. His strength seemed to return with every minute. Kit, meanwhile, glanced around and frowned at the cell doors. The keys up his sleeve jingled as he walked.

Before they left the dungeon, he stopped and leant Will against the wall, then hustled back along the cells and unlocked every door. Will watched as twenty startled prisoners emerged. All shifted around silently and kept their eyes on Kit.

Kit dashed back up to Will. Just as he turned to address the prisoners, Will tugged on his sleeve.

“Did you find Tom Kyd?”

“Who?” Kit replied.

“Tom Kyd... He shared the cell with me.”

“No. I’m sorry. They must have taken him somewhere else.”

Will looked down and turned his head away.

Some of the prisoners peered into the torture chamber and gawked at Topcliffe's body lying on the floor. Mumbles filled the corridor. Kit raised his hands and gathered their attention.

“Mark this!” he called to them, keeping his voice as low as possible. “If you want to escape, we'll need more numbers!”

Some prisoners nodded in response. Others merely watched and listened. He glanced at the key ring in his hand, then rushed into the torture chamber, found a set of keys on Topcliffe, and handed them to a young, able-bodied prisoner nearby. Afterwards, he strode up to the main door of the dungeon and turned to the prisoners once again.

“Free the men on the floors above. I'll cause a distraction at the front gate.”

“What if they catch us?” someone whispered.

Kit shook his head.

“No. We can do this. Prisons can only hold prisoners, not people. All of you have your own names, don’t you? Your own thoughts and feelings. Loved ones whom you want to see again. You're not prisoners. You’re men and you can take this prison down.” He curled his hand into a fist. “Now let's do it! Let's take it down!”

Eagerness glinted in the eyes of the men watching him. Kit put his arm around Will and helped him toward the exit. The men crept behind, growing ever more excited. All of them stole out of the dungeon.

Kit approached the front gate. His priestly robes billowed about his legs. The hood reached around his face, still hiding his features. At his side, Will staggered one pace in front, limping on his right foot. He kept his hands behind his back at all times as if they were tied. Kit escorted him like a prisoner in custody. Way behind them both, twenty shadows flitted along and opened all the cells as they passed. Men arose quickly from their slumbers and woke their neighbors. Feet shuffled over the sawdust. Whispers drifted out through the bars as the men escaped. Occasionally, the men sneaked up to a guard and quickly overwhelmed him, taking his set of keys. The further they progressed through the prison, the more guards they overpowered, the more cells they opened, the more men they set free.

Kit escorted Will up to the main gate in the prison. He pressed close to the bars and peered through. On the other side, the guards and the warden gave him a shifty look. When Kit spoke to them he altered his voice, mimicking Baines’s stentorian, blank patter of speech.

“Christopher Marlowe's out. This prisoner’s not safe here, no longer. I got orders to take him away.”

The bald-headed warden at the front desk rose from his chair and padded up to the gate. His eyes scanned over Kit, then Will. Cautiously, he opened the gate and let them through. Kit watched the guards’ movements carefully from under his hood. Will tucked his hands tight behind his back and tried to keep them from view. Meanwhile, in the background, unseen by the warden, over fifty men swept noiselessly down the corridor. The youth with the keys led the way. They turned the corner and rushed up the wide staircase to the floor above.

The warden shut the gate immediately once Kit had stepped through. While ushering Will in front, Kit didn't stop as he passed the other guards. By now, the musket cabinet was unlocked and emptied. Pikes and swords once on the rack now rested in the palms of the men around them. Kit headed straight for the exit. Almost at the door, he halted as a voice called out from behind.

“Forsooth!” said the warden, confused. “Where are you going, mate? I need to see papers first.”

Kit turned back and saw the warden’s bald head looking at him from the desk. Everyone in the room seemed to turn and watch Kit’s reaction. After a few seconds, the warden opened the ledger and leafed through it to find the right page. Kit hesitated. He shifted his weight uneasily and tried to still his trembling hands.

The warden raised his wrinkled head with annoyance.

“Come on, then. Haven't got all night.”

Kit didn't respond.

A guard on his left suddenly took an interest in Will's hands and stepped in front of Kit and crouched to see under his hood. The guard flinched.

“You're not...” He spun around to the others in alarm. “Hey! He's not Baines!”

The guards immediately shot to their feet. They loomed toward Kit and Will. Pike shafts cut off any escape to the yard. Will stumbled closer to Kit as the guards moved in, but Kit remained where he stood. Musket barrels, steel blades, and pike tips floated through the air and wavered before them. Will glanced at Kit with uncertainty.

At that moment, a racket sounded upstairs: first came the slam and crash of a gate, then the roar of men's voices as if the ground had split open. An eruption of feet blasted down the steps bolstered by cries, whistles, and lengthened yells reverberating off the stone walls. The warden and all the guards and sentries in the room traded looks of fear. Everyone turned to face the gate. From around the corner surged a black mass of faces and shoulders. Hundreds of men gushed forward and thrashed against the locked gate.

In response, the guards opened fire. Musket barrels flared and spat powder. Bullets bit into the chests and stomachs of the men at the gate, yet no one fell. Pikes lowered, guards charged at the mass of arms and hands reaching through. Steel rived through flesh, but the fingers of the men grasped the shafts and blades and yanked them through the gate, disarming the guards.

The guards turned back to the warden in panic.

“Do something!” the warden yelled.

On the other side, hands gripped the bars and viciously shook the gate. At first, it appeared strong, but soon the gate’s hinges wiggled in the wall and the frame juddered back and forth, back and forth, working lose. Iron scraped on stone. The men roared louder. In a burst of sublime anger, the gate collapsed under their force.

Men rushed into the room – an unstoppable, colossal drive forward. The guards retreated fast, banging shoulders with Kit and Will. Everyone was pushed outside and into the prison yard.

SCENE SEVENTEEN

Prison Yard.

T
wo huge and deep and durable wooden doors loomed before the rioters and their escape into the streets of Southwark.

Guards tumbled over each other as the rioters propelled them out of the prison office and tackled them to the ground. On the watchtowers, the silhouettes of sentries stood to attention. They raised horns to the air and blasted notes of alarm. The yard rumbled with freed men and yet still more coursed out from the prison office. A few of the boldest guards tried to resist and push back, but the men fought savagely, stripped them of weapons, and knocked them away. Some rioters took offense at the alarm horns and descended upon a nearby watchtower. One man climbed up the scaffolding and swung from the freestanding struts. Other men bashed against its legs. The tower lurched and shifted and toppled to the ground, smashing into a wall, launching splinters and planks everywhere. Most of the men, however, headed straight for the wooden doors that lay between themselves and freedom.

Across the doors rested a vast iron bar that could only be raised by two barrel-shaped winches. Already, some of the guards had disabled the winches, rendering them useless. Undeterred, the rioters pushed forward and tried to lift the bar through sheer force. They reached up, hands stretching, fingers straining, but the bar rested too high above and most couldn't touch it.

Soon riflemen and archers marched in squads along the ramparts. Weapons loaded, they stopped over the doors and took aim.

The men below ducked. Fanned out.

A hail of shot and arrows tore down into the dirt. Sliced chunks out of the winches. Hammered into backs and arms. Everywhere men fell to the ground, some wounded, some dead, but the rioters regrouped and raged at the doors blindly. This time they pummeled the wood with heels, knees, fists, shoulders, anything. The tallest still tried to shift the bars. Others clawed at the hinges or pressed their backs hard into the wood. Nothing made the doors budge.

Kit stood to the side protecting Will from passing guards. Terrified, he looked at the ramparts over the entrance doors: archers and riflemen had finished nocking their arrows and reloading their muskets for another attack. Zzzumpt! Zzzumpt! Arrows strafed into the rioters. Rifles cracked with bursts of gunpowder. Shot rained into bodies – arms – faces – hands. Nearly a third of the men dropped to the ground or staggered away clutching wounds. Gunners in the cannon ports worked on turning the cannons away from the outside and aiming them down into the yard below. Once the cannons were finally positioned and the fuses had been lit the men would have no hope of breaking free.