The Playmakers (22 page)

Now, here she was in a London park, being
romanced by the new shining star of the literary world - although
some of his words were stretching her skills of comprehension.

“Scholarship?” said Rasa quizzically. “A ship
full of scholars? You surely mean sailors? I do not
understand.”

Marlowe laughed, the laugh of someone gladly
in love. He pointed to a seat under a large oak tree, and they
walked over and sat down. “It means that they pay for my education,
for me to be a scholar, instead of my father having to pay.”

“This is good?” said Rasa.

“It is good, in some ways. My father would
never have been able to pay the fees at school, thus allowing me to
go on to Cambridge. But it can be difficult in other ways.”

“How so?” Rasa said, angling her beautiful
face to one side.

“It is not easy being a scholarship boy,”
said Marlowe. “All the other students have noble or wealthy parents
who have no problem in paying - at least, they make out that they
don’t.”

“And?”

“They can smell a scholarship boy a mile
away.”

“Smell?”

“They don’t have to be told. They just
know.”

“So, what do they do, these boys with the
very good smelling noses?”

Marlowe burst into laughter. He stood up and
dropped to his knees before the African goddess and took her hands.
“Oh, Rasa, Rasa, you make me so happy,” he said. “You have such a
wonderful view on life. It is … unique.”

There was silence as they looked into each
other’s eyes.

Marlowe cleared his throat and continued.
“Well, what I mean is, they can sense who you are, just as your
father can no doubt sense whether a person riding across the
distant hills is an enemy or a friend. They know from the cut of
your clothes, the words you use, the body movements you make, even
the way you hold your head.”

Rasa flicked her head back.

“I hold my head up high,” she said.

“Exactly,” said Marlowe, “as we should, my
love. As we all should.”

“So?”

“So, they make life hard for you. They talk
behind your back, they sneer at you, they set you up for pranks,
they ensure you get the blame for anything that goes wrong. One day
they will pretend to be your friend, and the next day they are
cutting you off at the knees.”

“In Nubia, my father would have such a person
cut off at the neck.”

“Er, yes, well,” said Marlowe with a wry
grin. “I can think of a couple of people who probably deserved that
treatment. However, that’s not the way we respond here in
England.”

“How do you, then?”

“We take it on the chin, never complain, and
get on with life - do something better than any of them could ever
hope to do. Say to them, ‘There you are, you swine, take
that!’”

“And that is why you write the plays - to
prove the point.”

“Partly, yes,” said Marlowe. “And also to
make comment on our society, on our history, on the world and its
characters and their foibles.”

“Foibles?” said Rasa slowly, trying to get
her mouth around the word. “What is foibles?”

“Weaknesses,” said Marlowe.

There was silence. Marlowe clasped one of
Rasa’s hands with his left hand, and rubbed the back of it with his
right.

“Do you have these foibles, Christopher?
Weaknesses?” she said finally.

Marlowe was taken aback. He knew Rasa was
bright, intelligent, and forthright, but did not think she was as
upfront as this. He looked down at their clasped hands and then
looked up again, past the magnificent bosom, into the coal black
eyes of the beautiful face with the high cheekbones. The eyes were
drilling right through him.

“Rasa, you will probably start hearing many
things about me,” he said.

“That you are a spy? That you are, how do
they say it, a Free Thinker? That you may even be Catholic?”

Marlowe let go her hand and drew back. “You
have heard these things already?”

“Christopher, we have travelled all over
London promoting the two Tamburlaines. I see lots of people, hear
lots of things. It is often murmured in the crowd. ‘A play by
Marlowe?’ they say. ‘Isn’t he a spy?’”

“Well, I … ah …”

“Well?” said Rasa, leaning forward, “is the
Christopher Marlowe kneeling before me a spy or not?”

“I have done some work for her Majesty, yes,”
he said.

“Are you a Catholic?”

“Er, no, that is not entirely right. Although
the concept of Catholicism does not daunt me. I like to explore all
the options.”

“So are you a Free Thinker?”

“Of course! The scholarship boy had to seek
some way out, find something new, hitch his star to fresh thoughts,
in order to leap over his ennobled, wealthy tormentors and prove
his worth for ever and ever.”

Rasa leaned forward and took his hands.

“And do you love women?” she said evenly.

Marlowe stared blankly at her, and whispered
quietly. “I know I love you.”

There was another long silence, as they
calmly stared at each other.

“Tell me about your spying,” she said
ultimately.

“There’s not much to say, really.”

“Not much to say! They say on the streets
that you left Cambridge and went over to France.”

“To Rheims, yes.”

“Where there was a French Catholic plot being
put together to kill your Queen, what is her name again?”

“Elizabeth.”

“Yes, Elizabeth. Some say that you …”

“ … became a Catholic and joined the Papist
plot, the Babington plot they called it.”

“Yes! That is what they say.”

“But that is not true.”

“What is the truth?”

“All I can say is that I was there, I did
what I knew was right, that because of my help, the plot did not
eventuate, and that her Majesty wrote to my teachers at Cambridge
to say that I had done an excellent job and should be praised and
not castigated. Ultimately, I got my degree.”

“This is very good work for a Free
Thinker.”

“Sshhh,” said Marlowe, looking around the
park. “Of all things, don’t say that loudly.”

“What is wrong with it? It is a good thing,
is it not? We should all be free to think, that is why I ran away
from my father and his old-fashioned rules.”

“Yes, but it is a phrase that can be easily
misinterpreted.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Twisted around. Used against you. To make
you to look evil. For example, they link Free Thinking with heresy
and the worship of the wrong God.”

“You have your God; we, in the desert, have
ours. What is wrong with that?”

“Ah, if it was only as simple as that, my
beauty. If only it was that simple.”

They held hands and talked more, about his
student life, his passion for writing, and his important backing by
Sir Thomas Walsingham - all the while ignoring the stares of
passers-by, shocked by the sight of the handsome young man sitting
with the strikingly beautiful black woman.

As evening drew, and they felt they were
safe, they strolled beyond the park into a wooded area and came
across a small hideaway, obviously used at different times by
poachers. It was like a cave, made of branches and brush, with a
flat dry floor, on which Marlowe laid his cape dutifully and
stepped back.

“Now,” said Rasa, “let us see if the men of
England are as good the promise they state so loudly in the
street!”

While Marlowe struggled with the buttons on
his doublet, Rasa, the skilled entertainer, wriggled quickly out of
her dress and fashionable silk stockings. In the darkness, by the
light of a sliver of moon, Marlowe could see her perfect teeth
shining, and the dappled rays on the ebony skin of her shoulders
and breasts.

“One thing for sure,” she added, as Marlowe
finally got his doublet and shirt off, “is that they are very slow
off the mark.” She dropped to her knees, grabbed his trousers and
pulled them down with one swift movement. “Hmmm,” continued the
voice, “but at least there is enough of a weapon in here to carry
out the threat …”

And there, in a small hideaway in a park, the
rising star of English theatre stood, his head thrown back in
delight, his shuddering body and soul in complete control of the
beauty from the Nubian desert.

He often felt later that perhaps he should
have written down his recollections of that wondrous night. But he
was scared that such a revealing document might fall into the wrong
hands.

In these difficult times, when notation of
anything personal that ran against the norm was tantamount to
signing your own death warrant, what would the spies, informers and
the Court of Star Chamber make of such a personal narrative?

A document that outlined how this sensuous
woman had taken him and swamped him with her love – three times! –
as they lay on the cape. How they fell asleep exhausted. How they
awoke early morning, naked and in love.

Fortunately, Marlowe resisted the temptation
to write all this down.

Rather, inspired by the events of the night,
and his complete and utter falling for Rasa, he concentrated on
writing his plays.

He wrote at a prodigious rate, the words
flowing from the pen as quickly and powerfully as the life force
had poured out of him time and time again that night in the
park.

His hands grasped for the ink and paper at
every opportunity. The only exceptions were either when Rasa
flashed those beautiful eyes at him and it was time again to
enhance their commitment, or the opportunity came to have a drink
at the inn with Kyd and his friends.

Indeed, it was a drunken Kyd who inspired, or
rather, goaded Marlowe into his next play.

“I will admit,” said Kyd one evening as they
sat in the noisy tavern of Percy Fletcher’s, “I will admit,
Christopher, that Tamburlaine has been a great success for you, and
I drink to that.”

“Thank you, Thomas. Thank you,” said Marlowe
raising his glass. “Let us drink to both versions, in fact.”

“Oh, yes, how could I not forget, Parts One
and Two!” replied Kyd with just a hint of jealousy. “Between your
brilliant words, the amazing promotion of Mr Shakespeare, and the
fantastic tits of your girlfriend …”

“Steady, Thomas, steady.”

“Let’s face it, Christopher, her
magnificently-proportioned body being paraded around the streets
had a not inconsiderable impact on ticket sales to a play about
some old geezer long since dead, did it not?”

“It helped. But what’s your point?”

“My point is, oh mighty shooting star of the
London literary firmament - not that that means much, seeing as
anyone with any brains, education or breeding dismisses what we do
as roughhouse ramblings for the lowest common denominator - my
point is …”

“What we do?” laughed Marlowe. “Did I hear
you say what
we
do? I haven’t seen too
many works of Thomas Kyd The Wonder Writer up on the London stage
as yet.”

“It’s coming, it’s coming,” said Kyd with a
wave of the hand. “You know I have a play on the way. It’s coming,
and when it gets there, it will astound the world.”

“So, my dear writer friend, what is your
point?”

“My point is, Christopher, Tamburlaine was
about a Turkish potentate who’s been in the grave for two hundred
years! Come on, Mr Author. This is 1588, the world is changing, you
even say that yourself. Indeed, you are one of the ones dreaming up
the changes. Write something about events that are happening now, I
dare you.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. You’re the playwright, the
star.”

“Yes, yes, the shooting star of the London
literary firmament, I know, I take your point.”

Marlowe slumped back in his seat. He didn’t
like what Kyd was saying. But throughout their friendship - and it
was a friendship that had stuck, despite Thomas’ mood swings and
flashes of jealousy - Kyd had an unerring, annoying ability to
point to the weaknesses in Christopher’s approach to life.

And now he was right again.

It is true,
Marlowe
thought to himself.
What have I done? Translated
old Latin poems. Written plays about people long since buried and
gone to their God, whoever he is.

The pair sat in silence, Kyd sipping his ale
and Marlowe staring into the middle distance, not even taking
notice of the performance on stage, involving strongman Samuel
Davidson displaying his newfound skills as a juggler.

Juggling Soho, that is.

The crowd roared as the big man threw the
little gargoyle up in the air and caught him, whirled him around,
and, using a leather contrivance that Shakespeare and Mr Mullins
had devised, bouncing him like a ball. The noise was so deafening
that Marlowe had to strain when Will came over and began talking in
his ear.

“Did you hear the news?” Shakespeare
said.

“News, what news?”

“Your friend Raleigh has had a bit of a
result. The ships he provided have been at the forefront of the
battle with the Spanish.”

“The Spanish?”

“The criers were out, spreading the news all
afternoon. The message just came through. Their armada finally
turned up to hand us the defeat they have been threatening us with
all these years.”

“Armada?”

“Hundreds of boats, packed with men and
cannon, ready to do their duty for their Catholic king and crush us
so-called Protestant infidels. But now they lie in a watery grave
off Portsmouth.”

“We won?”

“Many of them were wiped out by a storm, but
Drake finished them off. Mr Budsby is going to get up on stage at
the end of this act and announce the news. Hang around - he might
even put on a few free drinks.

“Wait, Christopher, where are you going?”

This last sentence blurted quickly from
Shakespeare’s lips, for no sooner had he outlined in loose terms
the English defeat of the Spanish Armada, than Marlowe was up onto
his feet, grabbing his hat and heading for the door.