A Prisoner in Malta (12 page)

Topside, in the day's final light, the sea was rough. The men secured everything on deck, and running lamps were lit. Marlowe caught sight of Argi tying a barrel to the rail, intent on his work. Marlowe moved silently and unnoticed, knife out. Once he reached the man's side, Marlowe took Argi by the hair and held the point of his blade just under the shorter man's jaw.

“Hello, Argi,” he said pleasantly.

“I didn't expect you so quickly,” Argi said calmly.

“I'd imagine not.”

“But I'm glad you got my message,” Argi went on. “We've got to get off this ship.”

“Your message.”

“Dead earnest, my friend,” Argi assured him. “Get the other two up here any way you can, and we're away. I have a longboat ready.”

“Again? Why are you always so interested in getting me off the water?”

“I heard that you hated the water,” Argi suggested.

“We're not going anywhere with you.”

Marlowe cast his gaze about the deck. Several other crew members had already taken notice of his knife; more were certain to follow.

Argi also saw that the deckhands were about to become a problem. He broke free from Marlowe's grasp, spitting in what appeared to be terror rather than rage, and shouted, “Yes! I stole your money! Here!”

With that he took out several coins and tossed them onto the deck.

“What the hell?” one of the older men said, coming toward them both. His uniform was a bit more kempt than most, and he had the air of someone in command.

“When he was helping us with the prisoner downstairs,” Marlowe snapped, “this man stole money from my pocket.”

“True?” the older man asked coldly.

Argi nodded.

“I'll fetch the captain,” the man said.

“He's down in the cabin,” Marlowe grumbled. “I'll take this man to him myself.”

Before the older man could respond, Marlowe took Argi by the arm and dragged him below.

Once down the stairs, Marlowe let go and whispered, “What in God's name are you doing?”

“I'm trying to get you off this bilge scow,” Argi said urgently. “You're wanted for murder!”

“I
know,
” Marlowe answered, more amused than concerned. “I'm really going to have to do something about that. But at the moment I have more important matters.”

“You don't realize that your ‘more important matters' have everything to do with your murder.”

“My murder?”

“The one you did. The man you killed.”

“I didn't kill anybody, Christ.” Marlowe rolled his head, snapping bones in his neck.

Without warning the captain of the
Ascension
swept into the corridor.

“Now we'll sort this out, by God!” he boomed.

Lopez and Richard appeared, flanking the captain.

“It's true,” Argi railed immediately. “This man, this Christopher Marlowe, he killed a fellow student in Cambridge.”

“No—” Marlowe began.

“He tried to hide it,” Argi went on, “but they found the body in Marlowe's room, stuffed into a mattress!”

“Stuffed into a—what manner of idiot would I have to be to hide a dead body in my own room?” Marlowe asked of no one in particular.

“Ask the crew.” Argi lowered his voice. “Some of them have heard this too! Or send out one of your birds. You know what I mean.”

The captain's scowl was a mask of rage and indecision.

“Like Cyrus in Persia,” Argi went on, winking.

“Do you mean that there are messenger birds on board this ship?” Lopez asked slowly.

The captain took a moment to decide exactly how he wanted to answer, and then said, grudgingly, “Only one left.”

“You sent out one to tell Walsingham that we had rescued the prisoner,” Marlowe assumed.

That seemed to surprise the captain. “How did you know?”

“How did I—Lopez, does everyone think that I'm feebleminded?”

“Not
everyone,
surely.” Lopez glared at the captain.

“The solution seems simple,” Richard suggested. “Send out your last bird. Find out if my rescuer is, indeed, a monster.”

“It's the only way, really,” Argi confirmed.

“Blast!” the captain bellowed.

Without further ado, he shoved Marlowe to one side, Argi to the other, and lumbered up the stairs, cursing.

“What are you doing on this ship?” Lopez asked Argi. “And why are you trying to get Marlowe thrown off it?”

“I was on my way back to my own ship, to meet with Captain de Ferro, when I heard the news.” He suddenly looked around. “Maybe we should go into the cabin.”

Without waiting for agreement, Argi slipped into the small room. The others, unable to determine any other course of action, followed him.

Once inside, his voice lowered even more than it had been, Argi went on.

“There is a warrant for your arrest,” he said to Marlowe, “and more than usual effort is being employed to secure your capture. We believe that it is an effort to destroy this rescue mission; prevent you from getting your man back to London.”

Marlowe tried his best to see Argi in a new light. The intimation that he was a part of some larger scheme, one of which Marlowe was unaware, was startling.

“You said, ‘We believe,'” Marlowe exhaled slowly.

“Do you think you're the only one in Walsingham's employ?”

Marlowe looked around. “I'm beginning to feel that I was, until a few days ago, the only one who
wasn't
.”

“There is great concern that the warrant will result in your capture and the detention of our man here, the prisoner. And he is vital. Do you understand that?”

“I understand that better than you do,” Marlowe said quickly, “but do you mean to say that if I'm to be arrested, he might also be detained?”

“Yes. The doctor, of course, won't be held long, but you and this man, God knows what could happen to you.”

After a moment of consideration, Lopez nodded.

“There's a point in this,” he said softly.

“No.” Marlowe stepped back in the crowded room. “I have no confidence in this whatsoever. How are we to know that
this
isn't some ploy from the Pope's men? Take us off this ship, sent by Walsingham himself, and we're lost.”

“If you stay on this ship,” Argi said firmly, “you will be arrested the moment we land in England. There are men waiting. There will be no discussion. You three will be taken. What do you think was in the bird-message that this captain sent?”

“On the one hand,” Richard mumbled, “we stay on the ship, we arrive in England, we're arrested, I'm killed before I can relate my information.”

“Yes,” Marlowe agreed, “because the men waiting to arrest me in London are most certainly
not
Walsingham's.”

“On the other hand,” Richard went on, “we get off the ship, it's a trap, probably from the Pope's men, and I'm killed before I can relate my information.”

“And impossible to be certain which of your observations is true,” Lopez observed solemnly.

“Hang on a moment,” Marlowe said slowly.

He took three steps backward, as far as he could until the corner of the cabin stopped him. His eyes watched some vision of the mind, but they darted as if the vision were alive.

“If this were a play,” he began, nearly to himself, “I would know what to do.”

“What?” Lopez moaned incredulously. “Stop that immediately! This is no time for—this isn't a play, it's life and death!”

Marlowe shook his head. “No, Doctor. Theatre is the truest metaphor of life we human beings have yet invented. Better: this life
is
a play, you understand?”

“No, Marlowe!” Lopez exploded. “This isn't theatre!”

“Yes, it is. It has an author who has devised a plot, and characters, and dialogue—all to a purpose. And it's simple. What would I do if I ran up against a dilemma like this in writing a scene? How would I get the characters out of the quandary, in this case, off the boat? I only need to decide the author of this particular story, and I'll know what to do.”

Argi turned to Lopez. “Is it possible that he has lost his mind?”

“Entirely,” Lopez snapped.

But Richard seemed more willing to consider Marlowe's perspective.

“Walsingham knew what to do,” Richard said, “as soon as he found out that Throckmorton was the traitor, an author of the plot against our Queen.”

“Exactly.” Marlowe nodded once.

“I'm not certain I understand what's being said here,” Argi confessed quietly.

“Are you a character by Walsingham,” Marlowe asked pleasantly, “or were you created by the Pope?”

Before Argi answered, Richard began to pace the cabin, speaking quickly. “While you were on deck just now, Lopez told me that this man, this Basque, was a member of the crew that brought you part of the way to Malta.”

“And we were set off the ship because a Spanish war vessel was after us,” Marlowe said, falling into Richard's rhythm. “But that was suspicious to me at the time.”

“However,” Lopez said, wading into the rapid fire, “he smuggled us through Spain, no mean feat, almost single-handedly.”

“He could have killed us at any time,” Marlowe said.

“But you hadn't yet retrieved your prisoner,” Richard answered. “He had to wait until you'd accomplished your task.”

“Why?” Marlowe fired. “If the point was to keep you from giving Walsingham your information, why risk having you rescued and then trying to kill you? Why not just leave you in prison and let you be taken care of there, in Malta?”

“Which is nearly what happened,” Richard agreed.

“Which means that Argi wanted us to succeed in rescuing you,” Marlowe went on. “He was instructed to help us do it.”

“I was!” Argi insisted.

“If Argi were a Catholic agent,” Marlowe concluded, “he would have killed us in Spain, or turned us in to Catholic authorities there. That would have been easy. And either way we'd be dead now.”

“And when I heard of the danger for you, as I was making my way back to my own ship,” Argi interrupted vehemently, “I got to this boat, got on, and now I'm trying to save your lives! Again!”

Marlowe nodded. Richard stopped pacing. Lopez smiled.

“I believe you,” Marlowe said simply. “Let's get off this rotten log.”

Without another word, Marlowe headed for the door.

“I don't know what just happened,” Argi said a little helplessly.

“We're leaving this ship,” Richard said.

“Ah.” Argi turned at once. “Good. This is good.”

Seconds later the odd quartet appeared on deck only to be confronted by the captain of the
Ascension
and several of his more formidable men.

“Where do you think you're going?” the captain demanded.

“You can't be serious,” Marlowe railed. “Not five minutes ago you told me to get off your ship. That's what I'm doing.”

“No,” the captain grunted. “The Basque was right. I sent out a pigeon. We'll wait for an answer.”

“You've got to make up your mind, Captain,” Marlowe said, deliberately setting his voice at an irritating pitch. “Do you want me on or off? This indecision ill befits a captain.”

The captain was at a momentary loss for a response.

“Let's go,” Marlowe said to his compatriots.

“Wait. Wait.” The captain appeared to be using every bit of his brain power to reason out a proper handling of the situation. “You can go. You're the wanted man, the murderer. The rest? They stay. Especially the prisoner. Sir Francis has been most specific on that account.”

“I'm not staying on this ship without my chief protector,” Richard said firmly.

“Oh, yes, you are.”

“And I'm not leaving without Richard,” Marlowe added.

The captain turned to his left and spoke to a very large man. “Throw the man in black over the side, Albert. Put the rest back down in the cabin.”

Albert was nearly seven feet tall, bursting from his uniform, eyes like an insensate bull. When he received the captain's order, he groaned with what sounded like pleasure.

But before he could move an inch, Marlowe had drawn his dagger and rapier.

Lopez took two steps backward and drew out his rapier. He was smiling in a way that could freeze blood.

Argi instantly sat down, folded his arms behind him, and skittered away toward the rail like a crab.

Richard lunged forward and grabbed two pistols from the captain's belt, cocked them, and pointed them both directly at the captain's face.

“Please don't throw me over the side, Albert,” Marlowe said plainly to the man on the captain's left. “I could probably swim back to Malta, but I've already said a proper good-bye to my new friends there, and if I show up again so soon, you understand—it would be rude.”

No one moved for a moment.

Then, from the railing, a small voice all but whispered.

“The longboat is ready,” Argi called out softly. “Let's go.”

Eyes locked on their targets, the unlikely trio—Marlowe, Lopez, and the Maltese prisoner—backed slowly toward the sound of that voice.

“Blast,” the captain muttered under his breath, seething.

Without warning, the captain dropped, drew another pistol from his boot, and fired it.

A ball nicked the side of Marlowe's thigh.

Without hesitation, Richard fired both guns, and two of the captain's men fell to the deck, groaning.

The crewman Albert dove toward Marlowe. Marlowe easily stepped aside, but found he lost his balance on his wounded leg, and toppled to the deck. Lopez leapt to his side, standing over him.

Marlowe rolled and got to his feet just as Albert got his bearings and flew forward again. Marlowe thrust, and the rapier found flesh, but Albert was already in motion, and his sheer size carried him on. He landed on top of Marlowe, nearly crushing him.