The Marlowe Conspiracy (47 page)

“Just go.”

“I guarantee your reward for this will be tenfold higher than–”

Thomas pointed abruptly into the night.

“Go!”

Whitgift stiffened his back. While favoring a wounded back, he peered over at the faces of Baines, Frizer, and Poley. Without wasting another second, he paced away through the garden. They watched as his cumbersome figure disappeared around the side of the house.

Thomas swiveled towards the men. He felt the urgent need to be alone.

“Frizer, Poley – you two start cleaning the dining chamber. By the time you’re finished I don’t want to see any traces of a struggle in that room, understood?” Without letting them reply he waved a finger towards Baines. “And you, search upstairs for bed sheets to wrap his body in.” He clapped his hands together aggressively. “Now, gentlemen! Why are you still here? Go to! Go to, this moment!”

Nervous at his tone, the men jerked into action and quickstepped back toward the house. Poley sighed and Baines muttered something under his breath to Frizer. They brushed shoulders as they stepped through the back door and vanished from sight.

Thomas pressed his lips together thinly. He held the air tight in his lungs. For a while, he kept very still, afraid of betraying the emotions carefully locked within his breast. Tears crowded into his eyes, but he didn’t move until they dried away. Eventually, with hesitant, solemn steps, he approached Kit's body.

Moonlight gave Kit's skin a luminous, ghostly quality. Grass twitched about his arms. Wind blew in his hair and made him look alive. Thomas stooped down to his side and leant over him sadly. He breathed heavily and spoke in a painful, barely audible whisper.

“You idiot… you bloody idiot, Christopher… why did you come here? I never wanted this. You brought it on yourself. You must have suspected the message. You must have known this would happen to you.”

Slowly, his hand trembling, he reached out to touch the dagger protruding from Kit’s chest.

Just as he did so, just as his fingers neared the dagger hilt, something strange happened and he jumped back...

Kit’s head turned toward him. His eyelids fluttered and blinked rapidly. He groaned and uttered a small cough.

“Good god!” Thomas gasped. He flinched and almost fell over backwards.

Almost unaware of Thomas, Kit moaned again and gave a rasping cough. His eyes were blurred and stinging from being held open so long. With a tremulous hand, he reached up to his chest, grabbed the dagger hilt, and pulled the blade smoothly away from his body. The dulled blade extended to its full length again, no longer retracted inside the hilt. He winced and wiped his hand over the supposedly wounded area. Sticky tar smeared itself across his fingers.

“Christ!” he said through clenched teeth. “It’s only a prop dagger. I didn't know it could hurt that much!”

Thomas watched, utterly amazed, as Kit eased himself on to his side, pulled his legs underneath him, and slowly arose to stand fully upright. His shirt was yellowed from sweat, brown with dirt, and steeped in dark blood. Blemishes marked his face. Blood-clots matted his hair. He looked an utter wreck of a man. But it didn’t matter. He was alive.

Eventually, Thomas expelled a quivering breath and raised his eyebrows. Kit looked back at him candidly. Thomas worked up enough resolve to speak.

“But how?” he asked, raising his hands into the air.

Kit paused. His lips curled into a faint smile.

“What?” he replied playfully. “Haven't you been to the theater?” He stepped closer and smiled widely. “I've written countless death scenes in my life... Now I've acted one, too.”

Thomas gave him a blank stare, unsure how to react and Kit’s face gradually returned to seriousness.

A wary silence opened between them. The sound of Baines’s voice echoed from inside the meeting house. Thomas cocked his head toward the dining chamber and took a half-step backwards. Kit watched him suspiciously.

“Don’t call them, Thomas.”

“And why shouldn’t I?”

“Because you can’t succeed. On the morrow, if I don’t leave here alive, someone will receive a note naming you and your men as my murderers. The note will go directly to the government.”

Thomas shook his head cynically.

“Maybe I’ll take that chance.”

“No you won’t… we both know you don’t really want to kill me…”

“Nonsense.”

Kit gulped.

“Thomas… I’m truly sorry for everything that’s happened… whether you believe me or not, I did value your friendship. It was never my intention to hurt you.”

“It’s too late for all this,” Thomas said brusquely, his resolve beginning to weaken. “What is it you expect from me now?”

Kit gazed up at him hopefully.

“Look, there’s a way out of this for us both. No one has to die, least of all me. I have a plan that can make us both satisfied.”

Thomas rubbed his chin.

“I don’t know. Even if I want to, I’m not sure I can just let you walk out of here with your life.”

“I agree,” said Kit, nodding his head. “Christopher Marlowe cannot leave this house alive…

“What?”

“…but I don’t have to die.”

“What in all Christendom are you talking about?”

With a twinkle in his eye, Kit leaned forward and said his next words slowly.

“Christopher Marlowe has to die, but not me.”

Thomas raised his eyebrows, intrigued.

SCENE EIGHT

Meeting House. Side Garden.

K
it and Thomas moved into the shadows of the lawn. Nearby inside the house, mops squelched on wood as Frizer and Poley cleaned the dining chamber. Bumps and scrapes sounded from upstairs where Baines rummaged through chests for some bed sheets. Once out of view from the dining chamber windows, Kit huddled with Thomas and rushed to tell his plan as fast as he could. They kept their voices low as they discussed it. It was bold, daring, ingenious – and yet not entirely foreign to their experience in spy circles. Such a plan was uncommon, but Thomas had known previous attempts to be successful. They agreed upon its benefits. They also understood that no one beyond the confines of the house could ever know what they were about to do.

Once the story had been set, and the arrangements fully made, little more remained to be said. Thomas crept back into the meeting house, instantly reappeared with a hooded cloak, and passed it to Kit. While nursing the cuts and grazes all over his body, Kit slipped inside the cloak and flipped the hood up – it was deep and curled around his face, hiding his features.

Carefully, listening for the men inside the house, Thomas led Kit back toward the front garden. For a moment, neither man spoke.

“You’re sure you can convince the others?” Kit asked.

“Of course,” Thomas whispered with a curt nod. “They’re only here under orders. I can’t work for Burghley now but I can still approach Essex’s network. If those men want a future, they’ll do as I say. Besides, they’re all so poor it only takes a little money for them agree to anything.”

“Even Baines?”

“Especially Baines. That’s all he wanted from you at Portsmouth, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Anyway, Baines may hate you, but he fears me.”

“As he should.”

The back door of the house squealed open and the scratch of someone’s footstep sounded on the garden dirt. Thomas’s eyes bulged in alarm. With swift hands, he delved into a pouch on his belt, retrieved a note, and shoved it at Kit.

“What is it?” Kit asked urgently.

“Meet this operative in the Netherlands. He’ll get you safely across the continent to Italy.”

“My thanks.”

“I’ll arrange everything else. Just get yourself across the channel tonight and never return here.”

Kit scanned the name on the note then put it away. Thomas stared Kit directly in the eye.

“Never return,” he said drawing his lips tight. “Never.”

Kit nodded seriously.

Thomas hurried back toward the rear lawn before anyone discovered the missing body. The underlid of his left eye had begun a nervous twitch, but he hoped it was unnoticeable. He felt he would die if a single tear carved down his cheek. He didn’t experience any happiness at saving Kit nor did he receive any liberation from his own terrible emotions and desires. By now, however, he didn’t expect to feel any sense of relief. He knew nothing would end his suffering. Life held only suffering. Before turning the corner, he glanced after Kit for a second. It was enough. He walked away around the corner. He never saw Kit again...

As sprightly as he could manage, Kit whisked back through the sleeping streets of Deptford and approached the churchyard. He retrieved the note addressed to Will from the crumbling gravestone and tore it into pieces. Thoughts of Will flitted through his mind, but he couldn’t stop. Every minute was crucial. His mind focused and aware, he stole away through the headstones, crossed the town green like a shadow, and vanished in the direction of the docks.

Kit’s eyelids wilted as he searched along the moored vessels in the harbor. Sea-salt made the air drowsy and rich. His cloak weighed upon his sore limbs aggravating his cuts and his movements were beginning to slow and lose coordination. He couldn’t stop yet. He needed a boat small enough to steal without notice, small enough to manage on his own. The docks were at their quietest now: the nearby taverns had shut, and most of the town’s fishermen were tucked up in their beds. Some fishermen, however, chose to sleep on their boats at the moorage in order to start early the next day. Kit struggled to keep his senses active, his breathing silent, and his steps as mute as possible. At the end of the last walkway he discovered a tiny white skiff that looked suitable. It was small but sturdy enough for the English Channel. The skiff’s cedar planks curved in a firm, lapstrake fashion around oak frame ribs. A canvas sail lay furled on the single mast.

The skiff swayed as he crept down into it. His foot knocked against three fish hooks nestled under a plank seat at the stern. With heavy, unresponsive hands he crouched down and set to work at feeling his way around the vessel in the dim light. He tried to find the oars.

For a while, as he readied the skiff to leave, he was so distracted and tired that he didn’t notice a figure approach him on the docks.

Tall heels rapped on wood nearby. Above him, a woman's dress swished to a halt.

He flinched defensively and looked up at her. She held her hands neatly together at her narrow waist, her thumbs just touching the cascades of silk around her hips. He couldn't see her face, but he knew it was Audrey.

In reaction, he jerked upright. His wounded shoulder flared with pain and he clutched it with his hand. Unsteady in the rocking boat, he stood up.

“Audrey! I never expected to-” He clenched his teeth as another burst of pain traveled through his body. Carefully, he lifted his leg, planted his foot on the walkway, and took hold of Audrey's hand as he stepped out of the skiff.

“I followed Thomas to the house,” she replied. “I hid in a nearby alleyway, kept watch, and I waited and waited, and when I saw you step up to the front door I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to cry out, to warn you, but I thought… Oh forgive me, Christopher, I didn’t know what to do, I should have warned you.”

Her voice was rising and he put a finger to his lips, telling her to be quiet. He moved closer and spoke in a deliberately soothing voice.

“You should have done no such thing. These few days, you’ve helped me more than I could have imagined. I knew what I was doing.”

Their eyes met and Audrey grew more peaceful. They stood silently in each other's presence. He kept her hand within his own. Her supple fingers touched lightly on his grazed palm. When she turned her head, the light cast brighter across her face. Her sapphire-blue eyes glistened with the build-up of tears. Her lips parted just enough to expose the clean, straight edges of her lower teeth. She forced a tiny smile onto her face.

“How do you fare? You look quite well, all things considered.”