The Marlowe Conspiracy (48 page)

“Yes,” Kit replied dryly. “I feel good, too.” He pulled up the side of his cloak and showed her the gashes and bruises around his chest.

Her face dropped. She gasped at the sight of it.

“Oh, God... Oh, dear God...” She slowly extended her hand but her fingers stopped short and didn’t dare to touch the skin.

He lowered his cloak and recovered the wounds.

“My chest feels a little tight to breathe. But everything’s stopped bleeding now.”

“You’re certain?”

“I’ll be fine.”

She glimpsed over shoulder at the skiff lightly bobbing in the water.

“But where will you be fine? What scheme makes you leave me?”

His face turned deadly serious. Reluctantly, he lowered his head to hers and whispered the details of his plan into her ear. She gasped at the start, but listened steadily until he had completely finished.

She stood there frozen save for the rise and fall of her breast. She looked him in the eye.

“Is there anything I can do,” she offered, half in shock. “Anything you need?”

“Not for me. But perhaps you might find the owner of this bark and pay him some small amount? I have no choice but to steal it.”

She shrugged.

“What else? I’ll give you all I have, you know that, I’ll give you anything.”

He felt a pouch on his belt bang against his thigh. He reached down.

“Actually, I have something of my own to give you.”

She looked down. From his pouch he produced a batch of papers with the title
‘Hero and Leander’
and gave them to her. She held the pages in her hands, but peered up at him mournfully.

“I can’t bear for us to part like this. Does it really have to be this way?”

He nodded. After a moment, he pointed to the poem.

“The last of
‘Hero and Leander’
,” he said brusquely.

“Oh, I see, you’ve finally written it all.”

“No. The ending is unfinished.”

She took a shuddering breath and scanned through the pages.

“Unfinished? Why?”

“Because love is unfinished...” He stepped closer and put his hands upon her hips.

Tears pooled in her eyes and spilled over, tracing lines down her cheeks. She turned to the last page and read the words aloud.

“And now she wished this night were never done,

And sighed to think upon th' approaching sun;

For much it grieved her that the bright daylight

Should know the pleasure of this blessed night...”

With a shaking hand, she closed the page and raised her head to him sadly.

He closed his fingers tighter around her waist.

“Farewell, my lady.”

She opened her mouth, but tears choked her words and she could not answer. Her fingers reached up, combed tenderly through his hair, then she gently wrapped her arms around his neck and drew his head down towards her own. Bodies pressed close, they embraced and shared a final lingering kiss.

SCENE NINE

St Nicholas’ Churchyard.

T
wo days later, on the morning of June 1st, Will travelled back to Deptford.

News of the killing spread fast. Will had heard about it while he browsed the book stalls around St Paul’s Cathedral in London. At first, he’d wanted to throw up. A slow-fermenting anger festered inside him until it almost made him ill. It thrashed around inside his gut. It rent his mind to pieces. Kit was dead: it was impossible to believe. The concept loomed above him and raised the world into a monstrosity – a place too hard, too crushing to be endured.

Nevertheless, once the severity of Will’s initial reaction had quelled, he regained some mastery over his thoughts and recalled his final conversation with his friend. Kit’s last words haunted him. He remembered the mysterious promise Kit forced him to make. What was the purpose of the note? What had Kit known but been too afraid to tell him? Will could think of little else…

In the graveyard, mist now buried the slanting headstones to their very tops. Carved angels made silhouettes against the white. Will stepped through the entrance gates and nervously eyed the stonework skulls atop the posts. His fingers gripped the cuffs of his doublet to stop the cold air from drifting up his sleeves. A seagull's distant laugh echoed through the graveyard. His head swiveling for danger, his ears alert to the smallest noise, he moved nearer the north tower. Overhead, the corners of the tower looked awkward and limited against the vast round sky. More of the graveyard stretched out before him. Just as he began to search the gravestones for Kit’s note, he stopped dead.

Ten yards in front, an open grave yawned in the earth: Kit’s burial was due today. Mounds of freshly-dug soil lay at the corners and small traces of dirt tumbled down the pile and dropped into the grave's mouth. However, the sight that troubled Will lurked just beyond the grave – a figure dressed in a red cloak and hood. The figure stood with its back to him. He couldn't see the face.

His heart drummed faster, faster, faster. Pounded through his thoughts. He kept still. Kept very still. His sweaty hands shrunk up his sleeves. His lips wrinkled into a crooked, anxious smile.

Drafts of mist passed in front of him and the figure's outline blurred and sharpened in the vapor. It was a statue – then a phantom – a statue – then a phantom.

He tried to swallow, but his Adam's apple felt like a cannonball. With effort, he slowed his breathing and calmed himself. He stepped forward bravely to address the figure.

“Do I–” he choked a little, his mouth dry. “Do I look upon the ghost of Christopher Marlowe?”

The figure turned around with an almost surreal composure. Will craned his neck and peered up into the hood.

The face belonged to Audrey.

Vexed and wary, he backed away, ready for anything. He studied her closely, his eyes shining and full of mistrust.

“There isn’t a note anymore, Will, so you needn’t look,” Audrey said serenely. “It was Christopher’s last wish that I should tell you in person about what has happened.”

“I’m afraid I know it already, Lady Walsingham.” Will replied. “He died tragically at the meeting house.”

“No.”

Will tilted his head, curious.

“There’s more?”

“A lot more. You see, I was the last person to speak with him.”

“You spoke to him before the meeting house?”

“Afterwards.”

“But… how could you? He was dead afterwards.”

“Yes and afterwards he was alive, too.”

Will paused and tried to think it though. His brow crinkled deeply and he hung his head in contemplation. His next words were ponderous.

“You mean… then it isn’t true what they say? He didn’t die in a brawl about money? He didn’t die in a fight over the reckoning of a bill?”

“No.”

“Then how did he die?”

“He didn’t.”

“I don’t understand.”

“He faked his death.”

Will felt the words strike down upon him physically, like a building breaking apart and falling about his head.

“What? You… you can’t be serious.” He looked at her closer and squinted. “You are, aren’t you? You’re serious about this.”

She gave a knowing smile.

“Deadly.”

With a tranquil and patient tone, she proceeded to explain Kit’s plan in all its glorious detail. She started by describing the story Kit had created to cover his death. Thomas’s men would tell the authorities the following account: At ten o'clock before noon on May thirtieth, Kit met with three friends at a dining house in Deptford. One of those friends was Frizer. The meeting was held to celebrate Kit’s acquittal on charges of atheism. After dining, he and his friends spent several quiet hours strolling in the back garden. At six o'clock in the evening they finally returned to the house for supper. While supper passed without conflict, as the evening drew to a close a disagreement soon erupted between Frizer and Kit over the reckoning of the bill for the entire day's food. Kit became incensed at having to pay a share. Everyone knew his temper, his sudden rages. Without warning, he uttered malicious words, drew Frizer’s dagger, and attacked Frizer from behind. The other men leapt to Frizer’s aid. In the ensuing struggle Kit received an accidental blow from Frizer’s knife just above the right eye. He died instantly from the wound.

Kit and Thomas had both agreed it was best for Frizer to take the blame for the death: despite his weasely features, his red cheeks sometimes gave him an oddly innocent demeanor. Frizer had also appeared in court many times before as a plaintiff and won several cases. This experience would make him an effective, convincing person to take the stand at the coroner’s hearing. Finally, and most importantly, Frizer was hitherto unknown to the authorities – unlike Poley and Baines. Of course, all the men would be exceedingly careful to tell the story in a way that emphasized Frizer's actions as self-defense. To fortify this, Frizer would stay with the body instead of fleeing like a murderer, and Baines and Poley would provide testimony as supporting witnesses. Thomas could have Frizer pardoned and out of jail within a week. It was also agreed that neither Thomas nor Whitgift would be mentioned in any testimony, so as not to complicate matters. Instead, Poley and Baines would serve as the sole witnesses to the death.

His face puzzled, Will plucked the edge of his shirt collar idly.

“Hmm… the story is fitting enough… although if it were mine I might tweak it here and there. But what about the body? There was a body, no? I heard talk that a man’s body wrapped in sheets was taken from the house and loaded into a coroner’s wagon.”

Audrey closed her eyes and nodded.

“Yes, it was, you’re quite correct.”

“Then how? Stories might be in easy supply but bodies are not.”

“Actually, the reverse has more truth, I’m afraid. Perhaps grief makes you forget the place and age we live in?” She opened her eyes and looked straight at him. “Have you not heard of John Penry?”

He shrugged his shoulders uncertainly.

“I vaguely know the name. He’s a preacher, isn’t he?”

“He was a preacher. He was executed on June 29th.”

“Oh…”

Audrey continued and explained how John Penry had been executed only the day before Kit went to the meeting house. At five o’clock in the afternoon, Penry had been hanged by Whitgift for writing radical Puritanical tracts. The site of his death was at St. Thomas-a-Watering, a small town less than three miles from Deptford and easily within riding distance for Baines and Poley to fetch the body. Penry was just one year older than Kit and possessed roughly the same build and the same dark features. He had been hanged so suddenly that even his family had not visited him or identified his corpse: hence, there was still time to make the body ‘disappear’ before anyone grew very suspicious.

“Yes, I suppose so…” Will said, his mouth falling slightly agape. “I see how that could work. Yet doesn’t all of this depend ultimately on the Coroner? He would have to accept the story and the identity of the body without asking too many questions; otherwise, the whole thing would never work.”

Audrey nodded, completely unfazed. Will raised his eyebrows at her.

“You have an answer for that, too, don’t you?” he said.

She gave a faint smile and told him how Elizabeth happened to be in residence at Greenwich Palace during the time of Kit’s murder. This meant that Deptford officially fell ‘within the verge’ – less than twelve miles from the presence of the Queen. Hence, by the laws of the realm, all crimes fell under the Queen's direct authority and William Danby, the Coroner to the Queen's Household, would oversee the coroner's report and inquest. Danby had worked sympathetically with the nation’s espionage networks in the past: he was certainly accustomed to the ‘negligent questions’, ‘accidental overlooks’, and ‘lapses in judgment’ sometimes required when reaching a verdict. Under a little persuasion from Thomas, Danby could be relied upon to record the coroner's report without trouble. Once the inquest was over, gravediggers from St Nicholas’s church would throw Kit’s body into a large, unmarked grave filled with diseased bodies: a plague pit. The truth would be buried there, too…