Crimson Rose (19 page)

‘I am so glad we understand each other. Now, do you know Master M—’ He stopped himself. ‘The person who is at issue here?’

‘We’ve heard of him,’ Frizer said, ‘but we have never met.’

‘You are fortunate in the extreme,’ Harvey said. ‘I have heard nothing but his name and seen nothing but his face every time I close my eyes for years. But I digress. I would like him … eliminated.’

‘You’ve come to the right men, Master …’

‘Professor.’

‘Professor Harvey.’ Skeres didn’t miss a beat. When there was serious money to be had, the customer was always right, be they barking mad or only nor’ by nor’west. ‘We do elimination to order, and very discreetly.’

Harvey looked puzzled. ‘Discreetly?’ he asked. ‘How can you do it discreetly? I want Marlowe’s sins shouted from the roof tops. He must be …’

‘Eliminated, yes.’ Frizer jumped in. He had enough blood on his hands to see him in Hell, should there be one, for the rest of time, so a little more wouldn’t hurt. But if he could earn money with no blood being spilled, then so much the better for his immortal soul – should he have one. A man couldn’t be too careful these days. ‘I just need to get your orders straight in my mind. Could you just answer “yes” or “no” so we all know what is going on?’

‘Yes.’ Harvey was not happy with monosyllables, but realized that needs must when the Devil drives.

‘Do you want us to kill Master Marlowe?’ Frizer asked.

‘God, no! Sorry.’ Harvey composed his face and folded his hands in his lap. ‘No.’

‘Do you want him to be injured at all, even slightly?’ Skeres had the idea and was joining in with a will. ‘Kneecaps, that kind of thing.’

‘No.’

‘Do you want us to –’ now it was his turn again, Frizer was stuck for the phrase for a moment – ‘say nasty things about him?’

Harvey brightened up. God’s teeth, could it be that these idiots had got the idea at last? ‘Yes!’

‘That’s all? No knives, no beating, no injuries of any kind?’

Harvey was a literal-minded man and was stuck for the right answer. ‘Um … Yes, and … yes?’ He wasn’t sure that was right. ‘Yes, that’s all. Yes, no knives, no beating, no injuries of any kind?’ He stood up sharply, looking madder than ever. ‘What do you take me for?’

Now Frizer and Skeres were both stuck for answers, but eventually Frizer spoke. ‘A man of the world, who doesn’t resort to violence,’ he said, soothingly. ‘Refreshing, in our line of work.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘Well, Ma—Professor Harvey. Time is money. The sooner we start the sooner we finish …’

‘Please,’ Harvey said, closing his eyes. ‘Enough clichés. Here is your payment; I trust you will find it adequate for your task.’ He handed them a purse, reassuringly heavy, then walked to the door and opened it for them. ‘Good morning, gentlemen.’

‘Er … good morning,’ muttered Frizer.

‘Shall we be in touch?’ Skeres asked. ‘To let you know how we get on?’

Harvey looked at him and laughed, a harsh bark. ‘I shall know,’ he said. ‘The heavens will proclaim it when the Muses’ Darling crashes to earth. I will hear the angels sing.’

Skeres opened his mouth to speak, then settled for a nod and a hurried departure. Once out in the street, both men were silent until they reached the crossroads by Smithfield.

‘Was he …?’ Frizer began.

‘As a serpent, coiled or otherwise,’ Skeres agreed. ‘Still –’ he hefted the purse before stashing it in his belt – ‘easy money, Ing, the easiest we’ll earn in a long day’s march.’

‘Are we going to, you know, do it?’

‘What?’ Skeres was planning what he could spend his ill-gotten gains on and his mind was very much elsewhere.

‘Be nasty about Master Marlowe?’

‘Nah. What would be the point? But we’ll treat ourselves to a penny show, shall we? Just to say hello. It would be as well to know what he looks like, at least.’

‘Dinner, then a show,’ Frizer said, linking arms with Skeres. ‘That sounds like a plan.’

Ingram Frizer dashed away an errant tear, as Ned Alleyn, after much gasping and clutching at his breast, finally died.

‘My body feels,’ the actor groaned, ‘my soul doth weep to see your sweet desires deprived my company. For Tamburlaine, the scourge of God, must die.’

Frizer sniffed, glancing at Skeres. ‘Not such a bad old stick, was he?’

Nicholas Skeres, always more pragmatic, was simply glad that most people died more easily than that, with far less noise and fuss.

John Meres, as Amyras, stepped forward to close the play and, apart from Skeres’, there was scarcely a dry eye in the house. ‘Meet heaven and earth, and here let all things end, for earth hath spent the pride of all her fruit, and heaven consumed his choicest living fire! Let earth and heaven his timeless death deplore, for both their worths may equal him no more!’

The applause was thunderous, and even the seated gallery patrons were on their feet. Backstage, Philip Henslowe leaned on the back of a piece of the walls of Babylon and muttered his thanks to whoever up there was looking after him. The play had gone off without undue incident, just the odd heckler being ejected. Another full house! His mouth was almost watering at the thought of smashing all the penny pots. His backers were happy. His actors were happy. If this was what a murder could do, he might arrange one for every new play.

Marlowe, passing, poked him in the ribs. ‘I know what you are thinking, Master Henslowe, but I must take some credit, surely?’

Henslowe came to with a start. ‘Of course, Kit, of course. This wouldn’t have happened with a bad play, not even with the shooting. No, no, this is your skill that has …’

Marlowe laughed. ‘Spare me, Philip, please. Excuse me, I must just go through and meet the patrons. I had to calm down Lord Aumerle yesterday; he didn’t at all enjoy being sprayed with blood in the execution scene.’

‘Did you speak to Tom about that? We can’t afford to be replacing clothes left, right and centre.’

‘All done,’ Sledd said, scurrying past with an armful of wood for running repairs.

‘Good lad,’ Henslowe said absently, and wandered off to the box office.

Marlowe bowed and complimented his way across the stage and was about to disappear behind some flats when two men approached him.

‘Master Marlowe?’

He pinned on his most polite smile and turned round. ‘Gentlemen?’ he said. ‘How may I help you?’

‘We are here with compliments from Ma … Professor Harvey,’ Skeres said.

‘Really?’ Marlowe’s eyebrow rose. ‘That is very … unexpected. Thank you.’

Ingram moved round to Marlowe’s other shoulder, so that he was trapped between them. He looked closely at Frizer. ‘But, I know you. We met in St Paul’s.’

‘That’s right,’ Skeres said. He had had his suspicions, but had not been sure. The lighting in the theatre was so different. He wished Harvey’s task had been murder; it would have been a pleasure to take this popinjay down a proper peg or two.

Frizer recognized the signs and while he would not have minded doling out a few kidney punches then and there, on stage at the Rose was probably not the place. ‘All’s fair in love and war,’ he said. ‘No harm done.’

‘No, indeed,’ Marlowe said, extricating himself from them. He struck Frizer a friendly buffet on the shoulder. ‘It’s a shame we don’t have time for a game of Find the Lady, eh?’

‘Ha. Ha,’ Skeres replied, mirthlessly, returning the blow, but nothing like as hard as his heart would have him do. ‘Well, it was good to see you again, Master Marlowe. We will tell Professor Harvey we saw you.’

‘And Robyn Greene? Is he a friend of yours, too?’ Marlowe asked.

‘Greene? Oh, no. Just Professor Harvey. Besides, Master Greene is not … about much at the moment.’ Frizer suppressed a smile.

‘Pardon?’ If there was anyone who could understand a hidden meaning, it was Christopher Marlowe.

‘Well, when we saw him this morning, he was just being arrested by Constable Harrison and his men. He would have been taken to –’ he looked at Skeres for confirmation – ‘Ludgate, from St Paul’s.’

‘What for, do you know?’ A horrible suspicion was creeping over Marlowe. He was not a man much troubled by conscience, but if what he suspected was right, he would need to put things right. When he had the time.

Skeres shrugged. ‘Who knows? Harrison and his men rarely get things right. He could be there for any reason, or none.’ He clapped Marlowe on the back once more. ‘We must be away. We’ll give your regards to Professor Harvey, shall we?’

H
e crouched in the reeds while the early-morning mists still wreathed the water. He turned the key in the gun’s mechanism slowly, watching the pool’s edge where the dark waters lay matted with dead bulrushes. Here and there, a new green shoot rose like a promise from the brown. He nestled the pearl-inlaid butt against his shoulder and lined his eye up along the barrel. This gun was a bitch; he knew that of old, but he also knew it was worth a queen’s ransom and he treated it with the respect it deserved.

Then he saw them, a pair of mallards in the morning, the drake, very like himself, in gorgeous colours, preening its feathers and diving to impress his lady love, the brown speckled drab who swam dutifully behind, looking coy and simple. It was spring in the marshes of Islington and the mallards, like Ned Alleyn who spied on them, had mating in mind.

‘Alleyn!’ The barking voice couldn’t have been worse timed. It coincided with his finger squeezing the trigger and the shot went wide, the gun’s butt thudding into his shoulder with such force that he dropped the thing and only just managed to rescue it from an expensive slide into the murky waters of the pond. The mallards, alarmed and reprieved at the same time, flapped noisily skyward to continue their courtship elsewhere.

The actor fumed, clutching his aching shoulder and clambering to his feet. A knot of black-clad officials was striding over the tussocks of grass, Hugh Thynne at their head. A clutch of constables. A cobbling of catchpoles. Alleyn was turning into Kit Marlowe. But he was also turning into Shepherd Lane. That was before Hugh Thynne stopped him with his cane. He prodded Alleyn in the chest with it and stood in front of him.

‘You’re a hard man to find, play-actor,’ he said.

‘Not really,’ Alleyn smiled. ‘It’s Saturday. Everybody knows that Edward Alleyn hunts ducks at Islington Ponds on a Saturday. Gets me in the right mood for whatever part I’m playing.’

‘Shot a lot of ducks, did he, Tamburlaine?’ Thynne sneered.

Alleyn ignored the jibe. ‘I assume you wanted me for something.’

‘I might want you for murder,’ Thynne told him. ‘Or at the very least aiding and abetting a killer.’

‘You have no writ, High Constable. This is Islington, in the county of Hertfordshire.’ He tapped the man on the chest. ‘You are out of your jurisdiction and out of your depth.’

‘When it comes to murder,’ Thynne said levelly, looking into the man’s dark eyes, ‘you’ll find my writ runs everywhere. Show me the gun.’

Alleyn hauled it upright against his chest and threw it to him. Thynne caught it and looked at the thing. Heavy, ornate, richly lapped in silver and mother of pearl. ‘Yours?’ he asked the actor.

‘On loan,’ Alleyn said, ‘from a patron. You may have heard of him. The Lord Admiral.’

Thynne smiled. ‘We had a similar conversation the last time we met, Master Alleyn. Howard of Effingham didn’t frighten me then; and he doesn’t frighten me now. Where’s Shakespeare?’

‘Who?’

Thynne threw the wheel-lock back and Alleyn winced as it jarred against his already-bruised shoulder. ‘The man accused in the murder of Eleanor Merchant. The man Robert Greene sprang from the Clink. Do you know where he is?’

Alleyn spread his arms wide. ‘Perhaps your clods would like to search me,’ he said, ‘to see if I have any bit-players in my codpiece.’

‘We’ve searched your house already,’ Thynne told him.

‘What?’ Alleyn’s jaw dropped along with his arms. ‘You have no right …’

‘We had every right,’ Thynne corrected him. ‘Williams – you made the list. What did we find in Master Alleyn’s inner chamber?’

The Constable produced a paper from his purse and read aloud: ‘Three fullams, sir.’

Thynne closed to Alleyn and whispered in his ear, ‘That’s dice loaded with quicksilver.’

‘Eight gourds.’

‘Dice hollowed on one side,’ Thynne translated.

‘Six bristles.’

‘Dice doctored with horsehair so that they won’t land straight.’ He leaned back and the whisper turned to a bellow. ‘And in the bedchamber?’

‘Two morts,’ the Constable told him, not needing to check his paper for this. ‘One a blackamoor who gave the name of Ebony Sal. The other a country wench called Nell Bishop.’

‘And what were these young ladies doing when we arrived, Constable Williams?’

‘Painting their nipples, sir.’

‘For what purpose?’

‘To draw their clients, sir.’

‘Where?’

‘Anywhere they could, sir.’

‘Specifically?’

‘Up the smock alleys, sir. Petticoat Lane and the Spittle they said.’

‘And for whom do these night-walkers work, Constable Williams?’

The man smiled and delivered his last line with a certain relish. ‘One Edward Alleyn, sir.’

‘You know,’ Alleyn smiled back at him, ‘you’re rather good. Ever thought of acting?’

‘You’re in trouble, Alleyn.’ Thynne wiped the smile off his face. Ned Alleyn was no stranger to the hospitality of London’s prisons and he didn’t care to repeat the experience.

‘Oh, come now, High Constable.’ He decided to brazen it out. ‘These girls are just friends of mine. Doing … favours for other friends. You know how it is? As for the dice, well, let’s not beat about the bush, shall we? Your lads planted them. You see, I’ve got rather a thing about gambling. Especially illegal gambling. Would you believe, some ill-educated souls in the audience actually play at Mumchance and Primero rather than watch the great Ned Alleyn in action?’

‘Yes,’ said Thynne, ‘I would.’ He tapped Alleyn on his bad shoulder with his cane. ‘You keep a sharp look out for Shakespeare,’ he said. ‘If you see him, and if that sighting leads to an arrest, well, I think I can persuade Constable Williams here not to be
too
zealous in passing your name to the Recorder. Of course –’ he tapped the Lord Admiral’s wheel-lock – ‘you could save us all a lot of bother and just shoot Shakespeare yourself.’