Witch Hammer (2 page)

‘Often,’ the actor said, all hurt and innocence. ‘There’s a lot to listen to, Ned; you don’t mind if I say that, I’m sure.’

‘Droll, Edward, droll. Don’t let me forget to cast you as the fool in the next production. Take care of those sheets, by the way. It’s a new version of
Dido
.’

‘New version of . . .’

‘I accidentally burned it last time. So take care of it. A mighty line. A mighty line.’ He sighed for the beauty of all he had just read, quoting softly as though rehearsing for the part, ‘What can my tears or cries prevail me now? Dido is dead.’ With a final tug on a recalcitrant lace, Sledd was off at a trot. ‘And don’t call Lord Strange Ferdinando, please. It’s Lord Strange, to you, sonny. Sire, things of that nature. You
do
realize his father’s great uncle was His Majesty King Henry VII and his mother the daughter of the niece of His Other Majesty, King Henry VIII?’

‘As you wish,’ Alleyn said, who had realized nothing of the sort. He wandered off, reading as he splashed through the steaming puddles in his path. ‘
Dido
, eh?’ he muttered. ‘Fool, indeed!’ He read more and his left arm started to wave about of its own volition, as he tried the rolling lines out in his head. This was good stuff. It made sense and it rhymed; was he reading it right?
Five
beats to the bar? Excited and not a little alarmed by the shock of the new, the actor wandered off down the lane, the towers of Troy burning in his mind.

Sledd slowed from his half-hysterical crouching run as he approached the small group over by the biggest wagon and raised his voice in greeting as he did so. ‘Lord Strange!’ he declaimed, bowing as he walked. Ferdinando Stanley was not a large man but he had the presence of all the Derbys who had ruled the bitter North for so long. His dark hair cascaded over his shoulders and his curls made twisted patterns against the white of the square cut collar he habitually wore.

‘By our Lady, Sledd,’ his patron said. ‘Have you hurt yourself, man? Whatever is the matter with your back?’

Sledd paused. Here was a quandary and a half. ‘A passing malady, My Lord,’ he said. ‘I was too long crouching under the wagon, sheltering from the rain. I will be well presently.’

‘Sit down, man,’ Strange said. ‘You make me feel quite unwell looking at you listing like that.’ The man looked around him. ‘Is there a chair for Master Sledd?’

None of the actors moved. Sledd was their manager and their meal ticket, but most of them held him in friendly contempt. He had never been a good actor and now that Strange’s gold had come on the scene, men who knew how to wring the meaning out of a line were joining the company and making him look worse than ever. Even Thomas, who relied on his pretty beardless face and fluting voice for parts, even Thomas could give him a run for his money.

‘Well?’ Ferdinando Stanley, Lord Strange, related to so many kings, was not used to being ignored.

‘Sorry, My Lord.’ One of the bit-part actors pushed forward a chest.

‘That’s better. Now, be off with you, lads, and rehearse, or whatever it is you actors do.’ They stood around, looking uncertain. They had the odd practice if anyone remembered, but otherwise they just went on stage with a hazy notion of the story to be told and with any luck the play staggered to its conclusion without anyone being brained by a flying vegetable. But Lord Strange was, after all, the man with the fat purse, so they took themselves off in as purposeful a way as they could.

Strange turned back to Sledd and Marlowe. Sledd was sitting at attention on his crate, Marlowe was at ease on the throne that Sledd managed to bring in to every production, usually as his seat as the King, Duke or other authority figure he played every time. He felt mildly annoyed that Marlowe had commandeered it, but on the other hand was anxious that the newly reborn
Dido, Queen of Carthage
, should not slip through his hands again, so kept quiet.

Strange spread his hands to the men. ‘Ned,’ he said, ‘Master Marlowe here has been telling me of his new play. It sounds exciting. May I read it?’

‘Of course, My Lord,’ Sledd said, smiling.

‘Where is it, Ned?’ Marlowe spoke for the first time.

‘Hmm?’ Sledd looked at him with a rather frantic expression on his face. ‘Where’s what?’

‘
Dido, Queen of Carthage
. You were reading it under the wagon.’

‘I was indeed.’ Sledd played for time. ‘And a very good read it is too. Better than the first draft, if I may say so.’

‘Thank you very much, Ned,’ said Marlowe, leaning forward. ‘Where is it?’

Sledd looked around, as if it might possibly appear in a puff of smoke, just as the Devil was meant to do in
The Devil and Mistress Maguire
– he was finding it difficult to get the right amount of gunpowder calculated though and so it didn’t often work. His mind wandered off at a tangent, as it so often did these days.

‘Sledd!’ Strange had a way of speaking which made all of Sledd’s nerves stand on end, with the hint of the Derbyshire dialect coming through as it always did when he was angry. ‘The play!’

‘Yes. The play’s the thing,’ said Sledd, slumping. ‘I had it under the wagon . . .’ Suddenly, he brightened. ‘Young Alleyn has it! I gave it to Edward Alleyn.’ The relief brightened his face like the sun coming over a hill.

‘And Alleyn is . . .?’ Strange looked around.

‘Thomas!’ Sledd yelled. ‘Get Alleyn. Here. Now.’

All the actors muttered amongst themselves, eavesdropping as they were on the far side of the wagon. Just like Alleyn to get singled out. Always toadying up to the management for the best parts and barely out of his hanging sleeves. They huddled together and muttered some more.

Thomas looked around him helplessly. Alleyn was nowhere to be seen and now he would have to go and winkle him out. He would have found an inn, a cottage, somewhere where a pretty girl would be giving him food, drink and as much more as he wanted. Thomas sighed and slouched off in the direction of the lane. He hated it when he had to interrupt Alleyn at play.

‘He’ll be back with it shortly,’ Sledd said to the two men before him. ‘Have you been planning a production, My Lord? Master Marlowe writes a mighty line.’

‘We need to plan something, Ned.’ Ferdinando Stanley might be a bit of a rebel, as the aristocracy went, but he watched his money like any Northerner and didn’t like to see it pouring down a drain. ‘The pennies aren’t coming in, Ned, are they? We need to do something to keep the groundlings in the theatre till the end, so we get their money, don’t you think? We can’t just rely on the food they throw – most of it is definitely past its best by the time it hits the stage.’

‘Theatre, sire? We haven’t played in a theatre these past three months. Not since the plague closed them all.’

‘Plague?’ Marlowe asked. ‘What plague?’

Strange shrugged. ‘You know how it is, Kit. Someone sneezes, a few people die, everyone shouts plague and before you know it, London is empty and all the theatres closed.’

‘But . . . plague?’ Marlowe asked again. He was no coward, he would face any man with any weapon he might choose, but the plague was a different kettle of fish. There was no sword on earth proof against the plague. He had known people bowed down with the weight of talismans and prophylactic charms who had nevertheless died in days. ‘Plague in London? I was on my way there.’

‘Nothing to stop you going,’ Sledd said. ‘The gates are all open as far as I know, but you won’t find anyone still there. Well, no one who is anyone, if patronage is what you’re after.’ He flashed an ingratiating smile in Strange’s direction.

‘I’ll have to reconsider my plans,’ Marlowe said.

‘No need,’ Strange said, expansively. ‘Join Lord Strange’s Men, Kit. You can act, I suppose?’

‘I can’t say that I have ever tried,’ Marlowe said, to an accompanying snort from Sledd. ‘I can sing, if that’s any help.’

‘It’s a start,’ Strange said. ‘It’s a start. Can you learn lines?’

‘I can write them.’

‘Yes, as you say. Now, where is that boy with Alleyn? You have little control over this troupe, Sledd. We must talk.’ He turned to Marlowe. ‘Kit, go for a walk or something, will you? I must talk to Master Sledd here. Privately.’

Marlowe stood up and bowed. ‘Sire. Ned. I’ll join Thomas in his search for
Dido
.’

‘Alleyn,’ Sledd said, absent-mindedly. ‘The name’s Alleyn, Kit. He gets very funny if you forget his name.’

Nicholas Faunt had sat in Francis Walsingham’s anteroom for well over an hour. He had served the spymaster now for more years than he cared to remember, but he never got used to the little irritations that Walsingham threw his way. Waiting came with the territory; standing in the pouring rain or the melting snow by a great man’s door. It was the only way to get on.

Nicholas Faunt had a timepiece – better, he believed, than the Queen’s – and it had cost him a year’s pay. He was just reaching into his doublet to find it when the door crashed back and the man he was waiting for stood there, a quill in his hand and a furrow on his brow. The cares of State had etched themselves into the face of Master Secretary Walsingham and his carefully trimmed beard and moustache were iron grey in the white crispness of his ruff. His eyes, however, still burned for England and they missed nothing.

‘Nicholas, dear boy.’ He looked vaguely up and down the corridor. ‘Why wasn’t I told you were here? Come in, come in. How’ve you been?’

‘Well, Sir Francis, thank you.’ Faunt was on his feet already, bowing low.

‘Enough of that,’ Walsingham chided him. ‘We’ve known each other too long for such niceties.’ He ushered him into the chamber. ‘Er . . . do you smoke?’ Walsingham waved to a pipe rack on the far wall. ‘I can never remember.’

‘Can’t abide the stuff,’ Faunt told him, smiling.

‘Quite right, quite right. Abominable habit, although they say it’s good for you. Wine, then? I do remember you are partial to a good Rhennish.’

‘Thank you, sir. Indeed.’

Walsingham clicked his fingers and a flunkey appeared from nowhere, wearing the livery of the Queen. He was carrying a tray with two goblets and he laid them down on the low oak table by the leaded window. ‘This isn’t good Rhennish, I’m afraid,’ Walsingham said. ‘It’s a rather indifferent Bordeaux, but in these straitened times . . .’

‘I’m sure it will be excellent, Sir Francis.’ Faunt took the goblet. Walsingham took one too and noted that Faunt was waiting for him to take the first sip. He did and jerked his head in the direction of the door. The flunkey bowed and left.

‘Now.’ Walsingham ushered Faunt to a chair and looked out of the window at the busy Whitehall day. ‘To business.’ He took in the scarlet-clad guards drilling in the courtyard below, the clerks in their raven black hurrying in pairs with parchment and quills, cooks and scullions and draymen all going about their business in this little world where Walsingham, not Gloriana, ruled. He turned sharply to Faunt, the bonhomie gone, the smile vanished. ‘Marlowe.’

Faunt put the goblet down. He’d been expecting this for a while, for weeks in fact. And he had hoped, by now, to have prepared a better answer. ‘Gone,’ he said.

Walsingham’s eyes narrowed and his lips pursed. He sat down opposite his man and sipped from the goblet again. ‘You have an explanation, of course.’ It was a statement, not a question.

‘I last saw Marlowe at Corpus Christi College two weeks ago. He had become . . . disenchanted.’

‘With Corpus Christi?’

‘With life, as far as I could tell.’

Walsingham sighed. ‘That Delft business.’ He nodded, staring into his cup.

‘He is very young,’ Faunt reminded his master.

‘You mean we sent a boy to do a man’s job?’ Walsingham’s eyes were fixed on Faunt again, searing into his soul.

Faunt stared back. ‘I mean it was an impossible job,’ he said in a level tone. It was never a good idea to let Walsingham know he had you rattled, although that state of mind was almost automatic when in the room with the man. For many, it was a state of mind which never left them, day or night.

There was a silence. Faunt had challenged Sir Francis Walsingham, bearded the Queen’s spymaster in his own den.

‘To save the life of the Statholder of the United Provinces; to keep alive a man who was the target of just about everyone in Imperial Spain? Of course it was.’

‘I mean, Sir Francis –’ Faunt was warming to his subject – ‘in this great game of ours we all have our failures. We take them on the chin, move on. Fresh fields, pastures new. Marlowe perhaps feels more deeply.’

Walsingham nodded. He’d been a young man once and a Cambridge scholar too, like Marlowe. As for feeling more deeply, that wasn’t a luxury he could allow himself. ‘So where was he going?’ he asked.

‘As I understand it, he was on his way here, to London. Had a hankering to write for the theatre.’

‘The theatres are closed,’ Walsingham reminded him. ‘You must be aware, Nicholas, that there is plague in the city.’

‘There is always plague somewhere, Sir Francis,’ Faunt replied. ‘These days I tend to take these constant crises with a good pinch and a half of salt.’

Walsingham nodded, his enigmatic half smile flickering over his face. ‘Indeed, Nicholas. I do think that the Master of the Revels overreacts occasionally.’

‘Marlowe would not have known about the plague, so I assume he is still on his way,’ Faunt said, ‘but I’ve had men watching at the city gates. No sign as yet.’

Walsingham chewed the ends of his moustache, deep in thought. ‘He’d come from the north. Aldgate. Bishopsgate.’

Faunt hid his annoyance. ‘I have covered all of the gates, sir,’ he said. ‘In my experience, Dominus Marlowe often does the unexpected. He’s just as likely to come from the south. What are the points of the compass to the man they call Machiavel? And don’t forget, he has family in Kent. Even Christopher Marlowe needs to see his mother, once in a while.’

A smile crossed Walsingham’s lips and this time stayed a trifle longer. ‘You like him, don’t you?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ Faunt admitted. ‘As a matter of fact, I do.’

‘So do I,’ said Walsingham, nodding. ‘And we can’t afford to lose men like him. Spread your net wider, Master Faunt. Send your people out to the villages. Today is . . . what . . . Thursday? By Monday, I shall expect word on the whereabouts of Machiavel. Are we at one on this?’