The Marlowe Conspiracy (9 page)

“Oh dear! Careful, don't let it tear.”

They stood locked together. Kit worked his hands up to the front of her bodice and felt for the top of the brooch to untangle it. While his fingers carefully picked away at the brooch, his attention wandered. He noticed how the incline of her shoulders pressed against his chest. He could feel the pillowy rise and fall of her bosom. She was close. Very, very close. Her lips lay just a short gap, a tantalizing gap, from his own. Her breath tickled his neck. Her hair brought lemon fragrances to his nose. She noted the direction of his eyes and her cheeks bloomed pink with embarrassment.

At last, he managed to unclip the brooch. Their bodies parted and they stepped back slowly, almost reluctantly.

“I don't think it harmed the fabric,” he said quietly.

She shook her head in agreement, not daring to speak yet. They looked at each other. He raised his hand and gave her the brooch. It was made of dark gold and fashioned in the circular shape of an ouroboros: a snake swallowing its own tail.

“Perhaps you should have it,” he said. “It seems to like you.”

They stood in silence as she took the brooch, glanced down, and smiled gratefully. She turned the brooch so it glowed in the sunlight from the window as if it were alive. His face darkened. Without looking up, she whispered to him.

“Kit...”

He drew himself together.

“I should go now, my lady,” he said abruptly. “I need to see Henslowe about an advance.”

She shifted her weight uneasily.

“Yes, well, don't let me keep you.”

His eyes drifted over her one last time. He gave a small bow and paced away toward the door.

She stared after him despondently. Once he was gone she raised her hand and gestured for the tailor to rejoin her.

SCENE TEN

London. Outside Tailor Shop.

T
homas pressed up to the edge of the tailor’s window, his face against the glass and looking in. Beside him stood Ingram Frizer, his red-haired, weasel-faced secretary.

“We should move back, sir,” Frizer pleaded in his nasal voice.

Thomas ignored him. Frizer waited and looked at him aslant.

“Sir... Sir... come, let's away.”

“Fie upon it!” Thomas hissed. “Will you button your mouth!” He kept his head pressed against the glass and continued to look inside.

Thomas’s claim that he couldn’t go town had simply been a ruse to make Audrey and Kit go alone. He wanted to observe in secret the true extent of their relationship. As soon as Audrey’s carriage had left Scadbury, he and Frizer had set out in pursuit and followed them to the shop. For the last half an hour, they stood outside the window with a clear view inside. Thomas’s eyes had witnessed everything that occurred.

Suddenly, they watched as Kit approached the door to leave. They pulled back from the window. Their images ghosted over the surface of the glass and flitted away. Hastily, they searched for a hiding place. Frizer pointed to a spot ahead – a tavern doorstep. It was deep enough to conceal both their bodies. Within moments, they rushed over to it and crammed into its depths.

Kit exited the shop, strode along a few paces and passed directly in front of the tavern doorway. His mind was occupied. He didn't see anyone lurking in the shadows. Seconds later, he crossed over the road and hurried off down the street.

When Kit was far enough gone, Thomas lurched out of the doorway. He quickly took control of himself. A riot of feelings battered away inside him but he gave them no expression in his face. His eyes followed Kit with a dry, unblinking stare. His jaw was loose. Only the faintest lines traveled across his brow. How could he have misjudged Kit so badly?

Frizer wandered out of the doorway and watched Kit move away further down the street.

“If you wish, I could follow him, sir.”

Thomas pressed his lips thin.

“No need for that,” he replied in a collected, exact voice. “I have something else in mind.”

“If I may ask... what do you think it means?”

“Isn't it clear?”

Frizer shrugged. Thomas scowled at him.

“It's an affair,” he gulped. “I've known it for some time.”

“Are you sure?”

“What? Didn't you see the embrace with your own two eyes? In broad daylight, no less.”

Frizer nodded and kept a wary distance.

Meanwhile, Thomas gazed emptily down the street, watching as Kit finally turned the corner and disappeared from view. Kit already knew too much about his feelings. But this indiscreet relationship with Audrey promised to reveal his marriage as a sham. It threatened his place at court. That could never be allowed to happen. Never.

His eyes found the tailor shop again. He shook his head coldly.

“I expected this from her. Not him.” He sneered and looked at the window as if still seeing the embrace. He muttered under his breath. “The mountebank and the harlot...”

“Sound's like a play,” said Frizer.

Thomas turned on him coldly. Frizer hung his head and shut his mouth.

SCENE ELEVEN

Bankside. The Rose Theatre.

I
n the late afternoon bustle of London, Kit strolled down to the river and caught a wherry for the Rose Theatre at Bankside.

The Rose Theater stood on an open patch of dirt once used as a rose garden. Roughly circular in design, like an open flower, the theater blossomed three stories high and outmatched all surrounding buildings with its height and girth. From roots of brick, its frame grew upwards into stalks of black oak timber and white lime plaster. The roof opened to the sky in the style of roman amphitheaters, but a slender thatch of reeds rimmed the very top. Though Henslowe had constructed the theater some time ago, the years had initially been barren for The Rose until Alleyn and The Admiral's Men had pollinated it with their skill and fame. Now the theater was truly full-blown: shows regularly filled the building to capacity – two thousand seats. The Rose may have been London's fifth theater, but it was the first in Bankside, and the very best of its kind anywhere in the kingdom.

With a determined gait, Kit strode up to the front door and barged inside the theater. Right now there should have been a play in progress, but the theater was mostly empty since the plague outbreak had shut all playhouses for the foreseeable future. This meant the Admiral's Men had to tour the provinces when they weren't performing at court. Kit whisked inside to the center of the yard. Sawdust puffed at his feet. The surrounding tiers and balconies reached up and seemed to slant over him. Afternoon sun penetrated the shade of the stands and made a slow-creeping toward the stage.

Though most members of the play company were now in the provinces, some actors had stayed behind to rehearse. Currently on stage stood the figure of Tom Kyd, a lanky, blonde, long-fingered playwright. Next to him were a group of players performing his new work. One player, a young boy, was dressed as a girl while several others posed as a gaggle of monsters. With a horrified expression, the girl knelt before the monsters and begged for her life. An armored man bounded onto stage, metal clunking around his armpits, and stood bravely in between the monsters and the girl.

“By all the powers in heaven,” bellowed the armored man to the monsters, “thou shalt not take this girl.”

Tom peered up from the script in his hand and shook his head.

“No, not like that,” he moaned in his nasal voice.

“Then how?” replied the armored man.

“More conviction.”

“I am trying, you know.”

“Yes, but let the audience truly feel your rebellion. Let them feel it.”

“Alright, alright...”

Kit watched the scene briefly, then passed by the stage and frowned.

“Devil's on stage!” he said caustically. “Good idea – wish I'd thought of it. Oh, wait, I did.”

As if ready for his comment, the players turned and grimaced. The actor dressed as a girl stuck his tongue out. Tom took a moment to register Kit's remark, but soon paced downstage toward him.

“Actually,” said Tom, nostrils flaring, “they're not devils – they're goblins.”

“Goblin's? Is that so?”

“You didn't have that idea, did you?”

“No, you're right, I didn’t.”

“Thank you.”

“You're genius is staggering.” Kit gave a short, dismissive laugh and continued on his way.

At the back of the stage stood a roofed structure called the tiring house: during a performance, props and painted cloths transformed the house into anything from a soldier's garrison, to a prison, to a royal palace, and actors used its doorways to make their way on and off stage. Kit strode around into a back passage and entered the house.

Immediately, he chanced upon an argument between Henslowe and William Shakespeare. He halted at the side among the props and costumes, and observed both Will and Henslowe with interest.

Will was the same age as Kit. He wore brown breeches and a linen shirt open at the neck in a showy, gallant style common to many actors. In fact, nothing really set Will apart from the others: not his hazel eyes, not his auburn-brown hair, nor his slim waist. His skinny arms hung loose from the shoulder. He spoke with a country accent which he tried to conceal. He was a husband, a father of three, and a mediocre player. Recently, he'd even tried his hand at playwriting and received a half-decent success, though ultimately most people could still meet and forget him while in the same room. However, as soon as one got him involved in a meaningful conversation, he could change startlingly. An odd light began to show within – some furnace of vivifying power that had the misfortune to be housed inside his dull form. It lit the corner of his sun-bright eyes with mirth, simmered in the enthusiasm of his voice, and flared in the ideas he left hanging about the air like glowing embers. At the moment, he seemed locked in some vehement disagreement, and Henslowe flapped his mouth and hands in the air fervidly.

“No, no, no – how many times do I have to say it!” Henslowe wailed.

“Think it through, I beg you,” Will replied.

“No. The public currently has a taste for tragedy. That is the only type of play I'll bankroll.”

“Their taste could change, couldn’t it?”

“When it does, I'll let you know.”

“But what if my play itself changed the public’s desire?”

“What if? Hmm...” Henslowe put his hands on his rotund stomach and pretended to think. “If you want your pig to fly it'll need stronger wings than that.”

“I'll take it elsewhere, then.”

“Do as you like.”

“You're not the only playhouse in town.”

Henslowe chuckled derisively.

“No, I've heard Burbage up at The Theatre is fond of bacon.”

Will continued to glare, but Henslowe spotted Kit waiting at the back and began to strut away.