License to Quill (10 page)

Because … Guy Fawkes was also Catholic! That was the only explanation for why he knew so much about Shakespeare: the Church had told him. It was why Fawkes disappeared from the Mermaid's logs so many times. It was why he operated under so many names, presently “Guido,” a Latin name. A Catholic plot was afoot just outside of Parliament, and as Shakespeare entered Westminster waters, he knew whatever was at work there threatened to destroy everything he had built at the Globe.

If Shakespeare told Walsingham to continue the investigation from there, Guy Fawkes would be killed and whatever loyalists he had hidden would seek revenge. If Shakespeare chose not to meet with Fawkes, there was no telling how far this covert Catholic would go to keep whatever the bard knew about him a secret. Shakespeare could be killed. His actors slain. His wife and daughters murdered at Stratford.
W was right
, the bard realized. By involving the Globe in their plot, Fawkes forced Shakespeare into a position where the only way to expose this conspiracy was to join it. The playwright had to betray England in order to save it.

“We're at Westminster,” croaked the waterman.

“Take me to King's Bridge.”

“Aye.”

The bard crossed himself.

It would take months, Shakespeare realized, but he would see this through to the end. He would not be intimidated. He would not have his actors used as puppets. The Globe was the closest thing to a democracy in authoritarian England, and Shakespeare would not have it turned into a crucible for civil war again. The playwright was prepared to defend it with his life. He would meet Fawkes, he would greet Fawkes, and then he would defeat Fawkes.

Once more, the fate of England would be decided by a play. But this was not
Richard II
and the Essex affair. It was the Catholics this time, trying to succeed where the Earl of Essex failed. Once more, the world would hinge on what took place at the Globe.

Also, for whatever reasons, this play would involve witches.

*   *   *

“What will you do if Shakespeare does not show?” Thomas Percy asked from his desk.

“Then I will have to pay him a visit where he works,” Fawkes replied.

“Will you need me to come?” inquired Jack Wright as he sharpened a dagger.

“Only if I need to visit him where he sleeps.”

“Jack, you shouldn't be up here. Go back to your hole.”

“Aye, Percy.” The swordsman pushed himself up from his barrel and went back to work in the tunnels.

As for Fawkes: “Guido?”

The bearded man turned his head.

“Are you sure we can trust Shakespeare? How do we know he hasn't alerted the government?”

Guy Fawkes smiled. “Because he hasn't! One of the sisters followed him home yesterday. She says we have nothing to worry about.”

“Oh? Which sister?”

A knock at the door interrupted the men.

*   *   *

Meanwhile, across the river …

“Penny?”

“Sister!”

Outside the office of the most gifted barber-surgeon in Southwark, two friends who had not seen each other in ages shared a loving embrace.

“All of God's blessings upon you!” the elder spoke as they hugged. “It has been too long, Penny. Are you all right, love?”

“All is well.” The Secretary smiled to the woman who saved her life as a child. “May I come in?”

“Of course! We have the whole house to ourselves.”

“Perfect,” appraised Penny, who hoped to make this encounter as painless as possible.

As with most barber-surgeon shops in the city, this one was marked by a wooden pole—an old spear painted red and topped with a brass washing basin. The bowl contained leeches and sat atop a pair of white, and blood-covered bandages. Since the white bandages were often wet, they sometimes stuck to the pole when carried by the wind. The pole served as an advertisement of sorts: an exhibit of familiar tools of the trade. Some even displayed a collection of human teeth suspended from strings to showcase the surgeon's dental skills. Judging from the many molars Penny passed on her way through the door, she could tell that business had been good for her friend. The bloodied floor she found inside served as further confirmation, as did the tools she saw. One of them, an iron forceps, was freshly mottled with red pulp.

“I am sorry we have not spoken in so long,” Penny sighed as her friend whisked her into more private quarters.

“Fie, fie! Think nothing of it. You have your work, and I have mine.” The lady surgeon smiled with large, caring eyes that contrasted brightly against her raven hair and dark skin. “Please, sit! Can I get you anything?”

“No, thank you,” Penny replied with diminished enthusiasm.

“Nothing at all? I have some white wine you will love!”

Penny had no doubt that she would, but instead she said “Perhaps later” knowing that a second chance would not come.

“Well then, tell me everything!” The dark lady sat with the silver-haired secretary at a table containing nothing but a shrunken red rose. “What brings you here, Penny?”

“Business, I'm afraid.” Lady Percy removed her gloves and sat upright without smiling.

“Is somebody injured?”

“No,” Penny replied. She had no hint of friendship left in her voice.

All the brightness on the dark lady's face faded as if a passing cloud obscured the sun. “You know I don't do your type of work anymore.”

“I know you
haven't
worked for the government in a long time,” Lady Percy corrected. “Also, both you and I know that the government still very much works for you.”

The dark lady's back stiffened and her surgeon's hands clenched into fists. “What's this about, Penelope?”

“It's about business, Bianca.”

With half her face masked in shadow, the dark lady's eyes glowed with anger.

 

Act III

1604–1605

 

Chapter X

Paradise

When the great Christopher Marlowe met his inconvenient demise, he was carried off to a distant land that might as well have been Heaven. The dining was finer and the weather more sunny, the parties more festive and the wine cost less money! The air was tinged with a whimsy equally mingled with mystery, which electrified the dead poet's heart like a thunderbolt. Some of the most interesting people in history were his neighbors, and those with the best secrets wore them proudly behind decorative masks. Every vice and virtue was Marlowe's for the tasting; every sin and sensation, every pleasure and pain. And books! An entire library overflowing with freshly pressed texts awaited his fingertips like a learned man's harem. If knowledge is paramount, be it carnal knowledge or higher, Marlowe was on top of the world in the floating city of Venice.

Or at least he was until the Carnevale of 1605, for there was trouble in paradise.

From Constantinople to Calais, all ports pointed to Venice—even if the city had lost some of its shimmer by the seventeenth century. The steady stream of trade ships that flooded its markets with treasures also brought plague rats in 1575, which quartered the city's population in two harrowing years. Those who survived this great mortality lacked their ancestors' acumen, for lives of excess dimmed the city's fortune during an already tumultuous era. The Spanish Conquest plundered the New World while Venice stayed bottled up in the Old. The rise of English and Dutch traders surrounded Venetian merchants with fresh new rivals. The Ottoman Empire was in decline and threatened to destabilize the Venetian half of Europe. The Catholic Church hobbled back from the Reformation determined to purge the Venetian Republic of her sinful ways. Venice, La Dominante, the Queen of the Adriatic had dark waters on her horizon, but she was still the most powerful, intellectual, and free-thinking city in Europe when Marlowe crawled into her embrace.

The floating city was the perfect place for men like Marlowe to disappear, and for good reason: beneath all its fortune and splendor, Venice was also a city of ghosts. Spies, exiles, and assassins lurked beneath its shadows, some with no intention of leaving and others with no choice but to stay. Transit occasionally resulted in permanent isolation within the city for reasons ranging from political upheavals to illness to even the occasional romance. No matter what their story or duration of stay, these anonymous exiles were the Venetian walking dead. They were shades, specters, sleepers, the lost souls of countless dead men and women from accross the continents. Marlowe was not their most recent addition, but he was unquestionably one of the happiest.

Being trapped in the most serene city in history tends to make for beautiful friendships. While many of these ghosts hailed from warring kingdoms, they often found themselves too busy enjoying Venice to continue fighting. Many settled their differences over pipe weed and fine wines. Others agreed to work together for their mutual benefit. After all, when so far away from their native lands and with little hope of return, where should their loyalties lie if not to themselves? Besides, information was a valuable commodity in the city, which made murdering a spy a complete waste of money. Any information could be sold to foreign markets at inflated rates. This is why the wisest Venetian exiles pooled what they knew from their former lives to make large fortunes. It was a wholesale information exchange, it was a barter of brains, and it was brilliant. It was what any impartial observer would call a lasting peace among all nations in the most beautiful city in the world.

Yes, Venice was paradise—until trouble finally found the name of Christopher Marlowe, deceased.

 

Chapter XI

The Dragoman

Several months after Shakespeare rode the River Thames into Westminster, another man with another mission entered Venice's Grand Canal at night.

He was a towering figure, almost a head taller than anyone else in the city, and that was without wearing any of his fantastic hats. On this particular evening, the stranger wore a brilliant white turban with matching silk robes and a fur-lined, gold-embroidered, kermes-red kaftan made of
çatma
: Ottoman silk velvet, the finest and most expensive cloth in the world. His coat alone made him one of the wealthiest men in the city, and he wore it like armor as he sat erect in his gondola with a burning torch in his gloved hand.

His gondolier rowed silently through the vast expanse of the sleeping city. Rats bobbed here and there, but otherwise all appeared to be quiet. It was past midnight, and there were few people to bump into on Venice's Canałasso at this hour. That is, save for one gondola that drifted dangerously close to the men. The vessel carried two young women wearing beautiful masks and laughing merrily. The ladies passed the men and disappeared into the darkness behind them.

Carnevale was fast approaching, the dragoman noted.

The tall man turned away from the laughing ladies and focused on the Rialto. Countless gondolas were tied up in the waters, some with boatmen sleeping inside them like watery cribs. And then there was the bridge; that grand structure connecting Venice's San Polo on the west to the San Marco
sestiere
on the east. Antonio da Ponte's beautiful contribution to the floating city was only thirteen years old at the time. As the dragoman's gondola passed through the marble archway, his glowing torchlight illuminated its immaculate underside. The dragoman lifted his chin and let his eyes run like fingers over the smooth white surface. It had been six months since he had last seen the enchanting creation.

Once the dragoman emerged from the bridge, he directed his gondolier into the narrow
calli
that would take them to the Carampane di Rialto. Venice's famous Ponte delle Tette was there, “The Bridge of Tits,” where prostitutes were required by law to expose their breasts to all young men. Although Marlowe was not as young as he used to be and the bridge's legendary ladies were indoors, the dragoman knew the late poet's ghost would be lurking someplace near.

*   *   *

According to tradition as well as government records, dragomans played a unique role in shaping matters between the Ottoman Empire and the Venetian Republic for centuries. Although essentially an interpreter, a seasoned dragoman also used political cunning coupled with a mastery of foreign languages to sway dealings at their own discretion. No one understood the chaotic climate of world affairs better than they did, and through something as simple as a choice of words, dragomans wielded more power than kings or sultans during dialogues. Ambassadors were helpless without their wisdom. The fates of nations could be dictated by their hand gestures, their posture, a raised eyebrow, a pursed lip, or even by a well-timed cough. Every inch of their body was a psychological weapon, which made these strange figures as prized as they were feared and venerated. To be a dragoman was to be counted among the most powerful people deliberately kept off the pages of history, and the tall figure searching the Carampane di Rialto brothels for Christopher Marlowe was unlike any dragoman the world would never know of.

During the twenty-year war between Protestant England and Catholic Spain, Queen Elizabeth found an indispensable friend in the most unlikely of places: a Turkish harem. Safiye Sultan, consort to Sultan Murad III of the Ottoman Empire, was taken by tales of England's Virgin Queen and enjoyed a personal correspondence with her for years. The two swapped gifts and trinkets, but more important, they shared a unique connection: both women found themselves in seats of insurmountable power during a most unlikely century for their gender. Neither the king of Spain nor the pope in Rome could wrest Elizabeth from the English throne, and all the armies and navies of Europe could not drink from the fountains in the sultana's palace by force. The ladies delighted in each other and busily brokered a peace across the fifteen hundred miles separating their mighty empires. It was an alliance that could have tipped the scales of power to England's favor in Europe, and all it required was an English-speaking dragoman to meet these queens at their midpoint: Venice.