Traitor's Storm (24 page)

‘No, Sir Robert,’ Marlowe said. ‘I do not suspect Mistress Carey.’

‘I have heard it said that there is a suspicion of Popery around Carey, but of course I am not one to believe tittle-tattle.’

‘Sir Robert!’ A voice called from the cherry orchard and a galloper stood there in the colours of George Carey. Dillington beckoned him forward. ‘It’s a letter from George,’ he said, ripping the seal and reading the contents. ‘A Masque. We’re invited to a Masque.’ His beam vanished. ‘Oh, Lord, I suppose that means Matilda will have to …’ He refixed his grin. ‘Tell Sir George that Sir Robert and Lady Matilda Dillington will be delighted to attend.’

The messenger bobbed his head and, reaching into a bag slung across the other shoulder, passed over another letter.

‘What’s this?’ Dillington said, extending his hand but less enthusiastically this time. ‘Two letters in one day. What
is
going on? Militia business, I imagine.’

The messenger was a little disconcerted to see Marlowe there, watching him with that all-seeing eye. ‘I am delivering this for a friend, Sir Robert, if you will forgive the intrusion. The poor fellow is laid up and his master …’

Robert Dillington flapped his hand to silence the man and ripped open the seal, frowning as he recognized the spurious coat of arms embedded in the wax, the one appropriated by John Vaughan. He did not beam this time but nodded solemnly as he read the contents. He looked up to see the messenger still standing there. ‘Thank you, my good man. I shall reply to this by messenger later. That will be all.’ The messenger bowed and doubled back through the orchard. He had appointments to keep and many miles to go before he slept.

‘Urgent news, Sir Robert?’ Marlowe could read neither the man’s mind nor his letter, crane his neck though he might.

‘Hm?’ Dillington seemed to be elsewhere. ‘Oh, no, no,’ he said. ‘Just one of the thousand little things that are sent to try us country gentlemen. Look, Marlowe, it
has
been fun, to catch up on all the London gossip, I mean, though as you know I do abhor it. We must do it again, some time, before you leave the Wight, I mean. But now …’

Marlowe knew a heavy hint when he heard one. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Many thanks for your hospitality, Sir Robert.’

‘I’ll see you to your horse.’

‘One more thing, though, if I may ask it before I go,’ Marlowe said as they walked. ‘Is this Island of yours haunted?’

‘Haunted? Why do you ask that?’

‘Oh, nothing. It’s just that I was making my way back to Carisbrooke the other night and I happened upon a churchyard. A gravestone seemed to move, one of those table tombs. I could swear the top slid open.’

‘Chale.’ Dillington kept walking. ‘Devils, they are.’ He was chuckling.

‘They are?’

‘Smugglers, Marlowe. Chale is rife with them. There’s a rabbit warren of tunnels under that churchyard and the tombs are the gates to them, so to speak. The tunnels are natural, put there by God and not for smuggling purposes, I feel sure. But the Islanders being what they are, especially down there at the Back of the Wight, have found other uses for them. Terrifies innocent folk, of course, and your horse too, I daresay. It looks as though the graves are giving up their dead. It’s quite effective, really.’

‘So smuggling is not just confined to Mead Hole, then?’ Marlowe asked.

‘Lord love you, no; it’s everywhere. Why, John Vaughan himself …’ He waved the second letter in the air and then thought better of it, tucking it into his doublet. ‘Well, here we are.’ They had reached Marlowe’s horse tethered outside the stable block. ‘No, no,’ he chuckled as Marlowe mounted. ‘There’s nothing haunted about this Isle, I assure you.’

Marlowe walked his horse around the corner of the house and was about to spur him into a canter when a pale hand snaked out from the shadowy porch and grabbed the bridle.

‘Master Marlowe,’ a harsh voice whispered. ‘Not going so soon, surely?’

‘I … I must get back to the castle,’ Marlowe said to the figure. He had after all just been assured that there were no ghosts here.

‘Come in, come in and dine with us,’ the figure rasped. Then it coughed, a sound so like the gravestone moving that Marlowe started. ‘I am sorry about that,’ the creature continued, in a light and cultured contralto. ‘I have just recovered from a quinsy.’

Marlowe peered closer. ‘Lady Matilda.’ He laughed. ‘I didn’t recognize you there for a moment. I won’t come in, thank you. Your husband has business to conclude, or so I understand.’

‘Nonsense.’ The woman’s voice was fully recovered and would brook no argument. ‘If he is busy then your presence at supper will be all the more welcome.’ She stepped out of the shade, a splendid figure of a woman, with breasts that parted all before them, like the prow of the
Revenge
or the
Triumph
. ‘Let me walk you back round to the stable with your horse and as you go you can tell me all the London gossip. Tell me, is it true what I hear about the court? Carding? Whoring and worse? And what about that monkey, eh?’

T
he night was thick and dark when Kit Marlowe eventually left the Dillington mansion. A groom brought his horse up to the door and gave him a knee up into the saddle, then scuttled back round to the stables as if the hounds of Hell were after him. The wine had flowed freely during the meal, which had seemed to consist mostly of rabbit in all its guises, but apart from that it was tasty enough. Marlowe wondered whether perhaps the Dillingtons were as rich as the mansion suggested. Matilda Dillington certainly wore very little jewellery and Marlowe was sure he could see darns in the brocaded pattern of her gown. Sir Robert had contained his disappointment with fortitude when he saw Marlowe at his table and all had gone splendidly. Now, all the playwright had to do was find his way back to the castle. Matilda Dillington had recommended that he aim for high ground. From there, looking west, he should see the castle on the hill. The couple wasted no time at the door, but shut it hurriedly as soon as he was through it and he heard the bolts ram home.

His horse picked its way along the driveway that led from the front door to the road. It skirted thick woods, with the orchards off to the right. Through the serried ranks of cherry trees, Marlowe could make out the lights of a town, but he could not tell which. To his left, the old oaks were twisted and gnarled and seemed to shift and turn to follow him as he rode along. Although Sir Robert had been adamant that the Wight was not haunted, the conversation throughout supper had turned to the uncanny and the couple had an insatiable appetite for gossip about Dr Dee, about whom they had heard so much, but could always do with hearing more. Their house wasn’t haunted – no, no, they had chuckled. But the castle was, so folk did say, and as for Hollow Lane … well! Lady Matilda had repeated Dillington’s scurrilous tale with a blush on her cheek and a good time was had by all.

Marlowe had seen some things that he never spoke of to another living soul. He had been where no man should be asked to go, usually in the service of Francis Walsingham. He was glad that this charade was almost at an end. Just see the Masque through and he and Tom Sledd could pack up their traps and head back to London, to see if Philip Henslowe would still give them the time of day. He felt a pang of longing; he didn’t think he could be so homesick, after all his wanderings, but he could hardly wait to get the smell of the crowd back in his nostrils.

He heard the horse’s snicker first of all, then felt it shy and check. His hand went down to its neck without another thought, smoothing it, stroking it. Soft words came from his mouth, the tone was important to a horse, not the words, he knew this. ‘I love thee not for sacred chastity. Who loves for that? Shhh, shhh, there’s nothing there. Nor for thy sprightly wit: I love thee not for thy sweet modesty …’ Marlowe looked up from between the creature’s ears and saw what had frightened it. In the middle of the path ahead, two figures strolled, hand in hand. One was a slight young thing, a girl with head bowed modestly. One was a man, thickset, running to fat even, and even as Marlowe looked, he pulled the girl into the wood. She opened her mouth and screamed, but there was no sound from those phosphorescing lips. She stared into Marlowe’s eyes, extended a hand and fell to her knees. The man, silently cursing, pulled on her arm and then, not able to move her, clubbed her once on the head with his heavy stick and she lay still. Then he too saw Marlowe and his horse, both transfixed with horror, and made for them, mouth wide and foaming, wider than any mortal mouth could be. But before he could reach them, Marlowe spurred his horse on and rode through the apparition, and was on the road and heading for the high ground, his horse’s hooves throwing sparks as he went.

A curtain twitched at the front of Knighton Gorges and Matilda Dillington turned back to her husband, lying in the bed with the covers pulled up over his eyes.

‘Robert,’ she said sharply. ‘You can come out. He has gone.’

‘Who?’ Dillington said, his voice muffled.

‘Both. I couldn’t see who it was this time, but Marlowe rode him down, in any event.’ She climbed into bed and blew out the candle. ‘When can we ever see an end to this, Robert?’

‘When they make me Governor,’ Dillington said. ‘And we can live in the castle.’

‘I don’t think I can wait until Hell freezes over, Robert,’ his wife said peevishly.

‘Ah, but you don’t know what I do, my dear,’ Dillington said smugly. ‘It won’t be long before I have as good a chance as everyone else, mark my words.’

And soon, Knighton Gorges slept.

Francis Walsingham was up to his waist in papers. Missives from the Queen, complaints from Lords Lieutenant of the counties, whinges from Justices of the Peace. And always, coming in with exhausted gallopers most days, demands from Howard of Effingham. ‘For the love of God and our country, let us have some speed, some great shot sent out and some powder with it.’

‘For the love of God, indeed!’ the exasperated Spymaster bellowed, unconcerned who heard him. ‘Does the Lord Admiral think I don’t know what makes his bloody guns work?’

‘Bad day, Sir Francis?’ Nicholas Faunt had appeared in the chamber at Whitehall like the shadow he was. The fortress had yet to be built that could keep Nicholas Faunt out of it. And Her Majesty’s Palace of Whitehall was not a fortress; it was a cracking shell that contained all the concentrated panic of the moment. ‘I could call back.’

‘No, no, Nicholas.’ The Spymaster threw down the latest letter from Plymouth and leaned back in his chair. Nicholas. It
was
a bad day. ‘Find a seat, will you? This wretched business will be the death of me. But at least here is one honest face.’

Faunt laughed. Not many people who knew him would use that description. ‘I’m afraid I have more paperwork.’ He pulled some sheets out of his satchel. ‘From Kit Marlowe.’

‘Really? Any news of Hasler?’

‘He says that’s resolved.’ Faunt took the Spymaster’s proffered chair.

‘Resolved how?’ Walsingham wanted to know.

‘He didn’t say.’

‘Nicholas …’ The Spymaster looked over his spectacles at the man who might one day succeed him.

‘I know.’ Faunt raised his hand. ‘But you know Marlowe, Sir Francis. He said let it be. I did.’

This was not exactly music to Walsingham’s ears. Projectioners who did as they liked when Philip of Spain was knocking on the door were not to be tolerated. And Marlowe had started out so well.

‘God preserve us!’ Walsingham was suddenly on his feet, Marlowe’s pages in his hand. ‘Where did he get this?’

‘He found it in a book,’ Faunt told him, ‘borrowed from Sir George Carey’s library.’

‘What book?’

‘Er … Ralph Holinshed’s
Chronicles
, I believe. Is it a code? I couldn’t see anything there. Nor could Marlowe. I thought perhaps Thomas Phelippes …’

‘There’s no need to bother Master Phelippes.’ Walsingham sat down heavily. ‘The meaning is hidden in plain sight.’

Faunt looked confused. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I am sorry, Sir Francis; I am not with you.’

‘Holinshed,’ Walsingham explained. ‘The book was published last year.’

‘It was?’

‘Oh, of course,’ the Spymaster remembered. ‘That’s right. You were in the Low Countries at the time. It caused a hoo-ha. Holinshed was arrested – on my orders as a matter of fact. He spent a mesmerizing half an hour with Richard Topcliffe before the Queen relented and decided it was better to let sleeping historians lie and leave him with both arms intact.’

‘I don’t understand.’ It was not like Faunt; he was annoyed with himself.

‘Ralph Holinshed is one of those annoying people, an honest chronicler. He wrote his chapter on the Queen warts and all, as it were.’

‘So?’

‘So …’ Walsingham became introspective, tight-lipped. ‘What I am about to tell you is for your ears only, Nicholas. It is not to go beyond these four walls.’

‘Marlowe will want to know,’ Faunt warned.

‘Marlowe can go hang,’ Walsingham snapped. ‘We had to expunge various passages from Master Holinshed’s opus –
these
passages, to be precise. Obviously someone thought they should go back in.’

‘To what do they refer?’ Faunt asked.

Walsingham hesitated. ‘They are all about the Queen,’ he said. He and Elizabeth were of an age and Francis Walsingham had a mind like a razor; he forgot nothing. Ever. ‘There were some … difficulties … with the Princess Elizabeth,’ he said in a hoarse whisper. ‘She was slim, boy-like, late to develop. Some said …’

Faunt leaned forward to catch it.

‘Some said that her father was so determined to beget a son that her mother provided him with a child who was neither male nor female. Or both.’

‘Not possible, surely.’ Faunt frowned.

‘No, of course not,’ Walsingham assured him. ‘But they were different days, Nicholas. When she was thirteen, a clutch of doctors examined her apparently. Under her clothing. All was well.’

‘Oh, good.’ Faunt liked happy endings. ‘And the spanking?’

‘Yes.’ Walsingham sighed. ‘Malicious tittle-tattle. The story went that Lord Thomas Seymour would come into her bedroom when she was still a girl, with or without the connivance of Queen Catherine, whose third husband he was.’