The Playmakers (34 page)

Warm smiles would start to radiate from the
person sitting in the chair.

There would be more.

“If I may, sir,” the ambassador would inquire
discreetly, “may I please have permission to step forward and
privately apprise you of detail of a more, shall we say, intimate
nature.”

Having received the regal nod, he would step
up and whisper in the aristocratic ear, “Sire, she is from an
African tribe where it is well-known that their approach to the
physical act of love is of a wild, hedonistic nature, and not
subject to the constraints of our much-vaunted but, alas,
restrictive society. As well, the Nubians are a remarkable people,
my liege. Their history is centred on the mining, production, and
use of gold. Gold, sire, gold! They live for gold, they love gold,
they wear gold, they worship gold, they kill for gold, they take it
to their grave with them, such is the bounteous supply they have
under the expansive stretches of the otherwise inhospitable sandy
desert they call home. Why, her dresses are hemmed in gold, her
hair is tied in a turban edged in gold, and underneath her attire
it is said that her black, luxurious locks are braided in gold.

“And I do not just mean the hair on her head,
sire, if you get my drift…”

By now the esteemed leader would be deeply
taken by all this, almost salivating at the prospect of bedding a
gold-embossed super-lover, and willing to hear more.

“And, sire,” - and here, the messenger would
lower his voice even further so the remainder of the court could
not hear - “even more reliable sources tell me that hanging from
the nipple of her magnificent left breast is a ring of the purest
gold.

“It is said that the true sign of a most
harmonious visitation, master - that is, the indicator to the
host’s credentials as a real man - is to find the ring amid the
bed-sheets the next morning…”

Well, that would be enough for any
self-respecting prince, potentate, or warlord.

Even if he were short, fat and balding.

And by the time the turret guards first
sighted the entourage looming in the distance, with Soho and the
strongman leading the way, the chief would be rubbing his hands in
glee at the prospect of seeing this vision of loveliness, having a
wild night in the bed, and scoring a gold bonus at the end. Perhaps
even establishing a long-term relationship, possibly even marriage,
and access to all those reserves of gold resting under the sand
dunes?

But little would he know that he would have
to pay, and sometimes pay dearly, to even get close to fulfilling
his fantasy. To begin with, he would soon discover that an
underlying notion of regality is timelessness. Royalty operates in
a time frame bordering on suspended animation. And once the
entourage was enthusiastically welcomed through the guarded
city-state walls by the astonished populace and had settled in its
rooms, events would move at a slow pace.

Days, nights, weeks would pass.

The Queen would be a most engaging guest -
bright, charming, talkative - but able to curtail any conversation
with a sudden display of the most stony, regal face. She would
flirt - many a lust-ridden prince would suddenly feel the brush of
a knee encased in purest silk against his under the table. But she
would then calm the salivating host’s post-dinner ardour with the
stoic face, and tease him with a promise.

“When the moon,” she would whisper to in his
willing ear, “is directly placed in line with your palace and my
homeland, then we shall order the bed to be aligned in the same
direction, and make love to honour our two great states.

“But not until then.”

In the meantime, little did he know that
during the dinner, he had been pumped for information by her
talkative and engaging private secretary, a strange little chap
named Le Doux who seemed to blunder naively into conversation about
all manner of things, including the delicate power structures
pervading the land.

Many a potentate woke up with a hangover the
next day, not realising the night before he had blabbed state
secrets, hectored the table about old political adversaries,
praised current allies, and revealed hitherto sensitive plans for
attack on a neighbour, or a whole series of city-states within the
region.

Little would he realise that all this
information was later being scribbled down by this pleasant young
man and being sent back by courier to London.

He was not to know that Monsieur Le Doux was
in fact Christopher Marlowe, presumed-dead playwright, and skilled
intelligence-gatherer for Sir Thomas Walsingham, master spy of
England.

“Why do you need all this information?” Rasa
asked Christopher one night as he jotted down some final notes,
before sneaking out of her chamber and down to his room.

“It’s important, it’s what I do, it’s what
Sir Thomas wants,” he said.

“But these are all little city-states, puffed
up by their own importance, wary of their neighbour down the road,
committed to either Catholicism or Protestantism - they have their
own little battles to fight. What importance is that to
England?”

“Ah, yes, but say, they resolved some of
their differences, patched up their problems, united, and started
to look outward. Isn’t there and old Arabic saying? Ah, yes, ‘My
enemy’s enemy is my friend.’”

“So?”

“So, the last thing England needs is a united
France, or a united Italy, or somesuch, ready to take us on.”

“But you beat the Spanish?”

“More by good fortune than good management,
my dear. History will show that the fickle stormy winds of the
south-west blew their Armada to its doom as much as the cannon of
Drake’s mighty fleet. God bless English weather, that’s what I
say!”

“My God,” Rasa said, pretending to shiver,
“don’t remind me of the weather in England. Sometimes when I was on
that litter with Mr Budsby going around south London my nipples
were standing up barking.”

“But that’s the whole point,” Marlowe said,
“we want England to remain English, appalling weather and all. We
do not want anyone else taking over our lovely little isle. What if
a dozen cities in Italy - including the Venetians for example, one
of the most powerful flotillas in the world - were to unite with,
say, the Spanish, and come back and have another go at us? We would
be wiped out.”

“So, what happens with all this material you
are gathering, this, this …”

“Intelligence is the word you are looking
for.”

“Intelligent seems the least apt description
for it. It sounds the pompous meanderings of immature
bully-boys.”

“Not intelligent, my dear, intelligence.
Intelligence.”

“There’s a difference?”

“It means inside information. Whether it is
intelligent, bright, or correct is another matter. I send it all
back to Sir Thomas and he … he … well, he does things.”

“Does things?”

“He’s a very clever man. For a start, look
how organised my death, how he maintains this expensive,
extraordinary show on the road, how he gets my plays couriered back
to London for William to produce.”

“Yes, I see what you mean,” said Rasa,
nodding slowly. Even now, after all this time on the road, she
still shook with fright at the thought of that day back in London
when Walsingham had visited her and explained, in the calmest of
manners, that all was not what it seemed.

William Shakespeare did not write, he had
told her, Christopher had been the real engine room of the group’s
literary output, and he was in mortal danger. To solve it all,
Walsingham proposed to kill him off. Before she knew where she was,
she was suddenly the Queen of Nubia, heading an amazing entourage
down in the Deptford docks. Her dead-to-the-world lover was now her
royal secretary with a new name, and she was sworn to secrecy and
assigned to play this role for seemingly forever. As they toured
through Europe, nothing would astonish her about Walsingham and his
machinations.

“So, similarly,” continued Christopher, “in
the interests of our great nation, he works out the best way to
ensure that these potentially dangerous alliances do not come to
pass. He destabilises them, he brings them undone.”

“How?”

“I wish you did not ask that question, my
love. Some of the results make me cringe in horror. But for
example, rumours are started and which catch on like wildfire. A
story might be circulated, say, about a certain principality’s lack
of armaments, as distinct from the figures that were laid on the
table when the alliance was being formed.”

“I see.”

“Stories of previous grudges will be revived.
Rumours of an alliance involving another state down the track that
the first person hates will be circulated. Smear campaigns will be
conducted about a leader’s mental state, his passion for drink, his
religious persuasions, his sexual preferences or lack thereof. And
if all else fails, he leaves this mortal coil.”

“What? People get killed?”

“Sir Thomas prefers to say that he arranges
to have them prematurely called to meet their Maker.”

“Good heavens!”

“Oh, don’t worry, my love, if it happens, you
won’t even know. But make no mistake, Sir Thomas is ruthless enough
to have anyone removed that constitutes a threat to Queen Elizabeth
and to England. He learnt that from his cousin.”

“Cousin?”

“Sir Thomas is skilled at his job, but even
he admits that Sir Francis Walsingham was the consummate
professional. It was Francis who put things in motion that lead to
the execution of Mary Queen of Scots.”

“Really?”

“And they say it was Francis who organised
the death of that Catholic French-woman, Mary of Guise - the mother
of Mary Queen of Scots - when she was looking down from Scotland
with her eyes on the English throne. She had already beaten the
Protestant soldiers rebelling against her at Leith, but Elizabeth
sent up troops to help lay siege against her at Edinburgh,
although, God knows, some of them were just boys.”

“When I see twelve-year-olds, barely removed
from their mother’s breasts, marching in these armies, my heart
breaks,” said Rasa.

“Well, Francis Walsingham resolved that. At
the height of it all, he turned up, Mary of Guise suddenly and for
no apparent reason died, and Walsingham was last seen quietly
making his way back to London. He put down the rebellion by the
Earl of Essex and others too.”

“So, Sir Thomas goes to those lengths,
too?”

“Well,” said Christopher, smiling slightly.
“There are a series of gentlemen’s rules in this game. You can’t be
quite so overt on foreign soil. Instead, people die in their sleep.
Or mysteriously fall off their horse. Or find that the soup they
had for supper tasted a little too bitter for their liking … He has
ways and means of getting agents inside to do his bidding, and then
get out again, without witnesses.”

Rasa looked at the kindly, boyish face of her
lover.

“You?” she said suddenly. “You would not do
such a thing, would you?”

“No, no, no,” he said leaning forward to look
her straight in the eye. “That is not my job, nor my way. Besides,
I have my plays to write.”

That had been an important aspect of their
travels, too. For, just as it was vital for him to write his
intelligence reports and send them back to London, it was also
essential for him to research and write his plays.

Many a host would become intrigued with the
talkative young man, this private secretary who spent a lot of time
in the house library, wandering around the city, examining
buildings and talking to people, and then writing furiously in his
room.

Eventually, though, there would come the
moment when it was time to move on - Christopher having gathered
all the information he needed for Sir Thomas, and completed any
research he needed for a new play.

It was then that the anxious prince or
warlord, by now beside himself with anticipation of the night of
nights, would finally get lucky. That night, at dinner, Rasa would
come down wearing her, as she called it, come-on gown - a stunning
piece of work in shimmering green silk, trimmed in gold, with a
plunging neckline. She would flirt with her host, knock his knees,
and place her hand on his thigh. She would whisper in his ear, and
while she was leaning over to do so, ensure the plunging neckline
would reveal the magnificent dark breasts, and, yes, a flash of
gold sparkling from the left one.

She would ensure he was plied with plenty of
wine, and eventually, with precision timing she would lean over and
whisper in his ear, “The moon.”

“Yes!” would come the enthusiastic reply.

“The moon is in perfect alignment…”

And the dining room would be cleared, and the
couple, with the doe-eyed male humming in anticipation, would head
off hand-in-hand up the stone steps to the royal chamber.

The next day, usually around midday, the
warlord would awake with warm but extremely fuzzy memories.

But the memories would all he would have left
to rely on, because he would be advised that the entire entourage
of Queen Rasa had packed up overnight, had risen early, and left at
dawn.

It was only after a dozen or so of these
interludes that Samuel Davidson had finally had the courage to
broach the subject of fidelity with Rasa one day, as they took a
break from travelling through southern France.

They had settled under the arches of the
magnificent Pont du Gard, the major bridge carrying part of the
stone aqueduct that the Romans had built 1500 years earlier to
carry fresh water from Uzes to Nimes.

“Rasa,” Samuel said hesitantly, when
Christopher and Soho had wandered out of earshot to marvel at the
three levels of symmetrical stone arches of the mighty construction
over the Gard River, “you know we are friends.”

“We have been the firmest of friends,” she
said, “since the day you drove off those men who killed Hercules
and tried to rob us near Norwich.”