A Prisoner in Malta (24 page)

Instantly Marlowe wished he could retrieve his name from the air, silence it from being heard.

A second later the praying man stood. He was dressed in some sort of an azure uniform and thick black gloves, crowned with an Arabic headdress. He drew his rapier. In that same second, three men in similar dress charged down the spiral staircase.

Marlowe's rapier was out and his dagger in hand and held high as he looked about wildly for the best defensive position.

Boyle, too, had a blade in each hand, and he was turning, trying to keep his eyes on everything at once.

Two more men rushed into the chapel from the tower entrance. Marlowe and Boyle found themselves surrounded.

“Were these men lying in wait for us?” Marlowe whispered.

“How could they have known we were coming?” Boyle muttered, mostly to himself.

Marlowe suddenly realized the answer.

“They saw me talking to Bartholomew in his classroom,” Marlowe muttered. “They were hiding in the side room. They followed me to your place, overheard what we said. I've been an idiot.”

“Who are they?” Boyle asked.

“I believe they're agents of the Pope.”

Boyle seemed to wake up at that suggestion.

“Ah,” he said, and then he smiled. “Well. Only five.”

“Yes,” Marlowe said. “Shouldn't take us long to dispatch them.”

“Agreed,” Boyle boomed. “Listen, would you mind very much if we had breakfast after we've killed these men? I really need something to eat.”

“I know just the place.”

As they had been talking, they'd backed toward the corner opposite the spiral stairs. The uniformed men were positioning themselves, moving slowly, without speaking a word. Each had a rapier and a dagger.

As they began to close in, Marlowe saw that their eyes were dim, rimmed in red. These men were under the spell of hashish.

Marlowe's heart beat faster. The attackers would be unpredictable, fearless, and largely insensate. They would be much harder to fight than ordinary opponents.

“Their eyes,” he whispered to Boyle.

“I see,” Boyle responded nervously.

Without warning, Marlowe began to sing very loudly.

“Oh, western wind, when will thou blow that the small rain down can rain?”

Boyle seemed to understand immediately, and joined in.

“Christ that my love were in my arms, and I in my bed again!”

Boyle spread his arms wide, as if he were entertaining on the stage.

The odd gambit worked. The uniformed men, momentarily confused, had stopped advancing.

Marlowe used that moment to fly forward, his rapier leading the way. He jumped high, his cassock roiling around him, and thrust the point of his sword directly into the nearest man's midsection. The man blinked, trying to comprehend what had just happened, looked down, saw blood, and roared. Marlowe landed hard on the stone floor.

The assassin grabbed Marlowe's rapier with a gloved hand, pulled the point out from its target, and swiped at Marlowe with his dagger, still clutching Marlowe's sword.

At that same moment, another of the uniformed men appeared near Marlowe's right shoulder. He loomed ominously, rapier and dagger in hand.

Marlowe thrust his blade again. It slipped through the first man's grip and drove deeper into the man's stomach, this time nearly going through to the other side, out the man's back just below his rib cage.

The man grunted, but seemed otherwise unmoved as Marlowe withdrew his sword.

The second man, the one to Marlowe's right, attacked with a sudden ferocity. Marlowe barely had time to pivot and deflect the second man's dagger with his forearm. The dagger cut into the cloth of the cassock but did little other damage.

Marlowe leapt backward, sucked in a breath, and attempted to disarm the second man, thrusting and then swirling his own rapier. The second man parried and took a step forward. Marlowe twisted, stabbed the first man again. That man had not moved, and was bleeding profusely.

The second man took advantage of Marlowe's momentary distraction to thrust his rapier at Marlowe's chest. Fortune and ill-fitting clothing saved Marlow again: the second man's rapier pierced the garment but not the man.

Without thinking, Marlowe dove to the floor, hit on his side, and rolled like a log toward the first man, toppling him in the direction of the second. Before either of the assassins could recover, Marlowe was on his feet again. He stabbed the bleeding man a fourth time, and, at last, that man went down. The second man ignored his compatriot and cocked his arm, suddenly sending his knife hurtling toward Marlowe's face.

Marlowe fended off the point of the missile by crossing his sword and knife in front of his face. The flying dagger hit Marlowe's hand, nicked it, but did little other damage.

Instantly Marlowe spread his arms, dagger and rapier out, and snarled, smiling.

Just as he was about to leap again, a gun went off.

Glancing over his shoulder he saw that Boyle had shot one of the assassins in the face. Another lay close by, stabbed through the heart, his breast a fountain of blood.

Unfortunately the effort had taken its toll on Boyle. He was red-faced, winded, and nearly done in. And there was a third man headed his way.

Marlowe returned his attention to the man closest to him just as that man thrust his blade, with the force of his entire body, directly toward Marlowe's heart. Marlowe only had time to squirm sideways, but his attacker had so expected to make contact that he was thrown off balance. Marlowe saw that and used it. He kicked the man's shin as hard as he could, then brought the hilt of his rapier down onto the back of the man's neck.

The man went sprawling, belly down, onto the hard gray floor of the church.

Instantly pouncing, Marlowe planted his boot in the small of the downed man's back, knocking the wind out of him, and flew to Boyle's side.

Boyle was gasping for breath, trying to speak.

“It's all right,” Marlowe began.

“My pistol,” Boyle whispered. “It has a second barrel. If the ball has not fallen out…”

Marlowe saw the weapon on the floor, glanced toward the last standing assassin, and nodded.

With a single motion he feigned forward with his rapier in the direction of the assassin, but dipped the point of his blade low at the last possible minute, managing to snare the pistol by its trigger grip. Flipping it high, the gun soared into the air. The assassin glanced up at it. When he did, Marlowe threw his dagger. The dagger caught the man in his throat, and stayed there. The man gurgled a vague complaint, and then dropped to the floor just as Marlowe caught the pistol and whirled in the direction of the fallen man, the one whose back Marlowe had stepped on. That man was rallying, had gotten to his knees. Marlowe cocked the pistol, aimed, and fired. Alas, the flint did not ignite, and there was no telling if the ball was still in the barrel.

The assassin was on his feet in the next second, vacant-eyed and hulking.

Boyle sucked in a deep breath.

“Right,” he said to Marlowe. “Shall we?”

As one they both exploded forward, rapiers ahead of them, and before the last assassin knew what was happening, Boyle and Marlowe had both stabbed him in the heart. He fell backward, dead before his head cracked on the floor.

Boyle was doubled in half and dripping with sweat.

Marlowe leaned heavily on one foot.

“This
bleeding
cassock,” he growled. “It's like fighting in swaddling clothes.”

“I hate my pistol,” Boyle managed to say, still unable to straighten up.

“Yes,” Marlowe agreed. “So do I. Now. Breakfast, did you say?”

 

TWENTY-ONE

Marlowe and Boyle sat in the public room at the Pickerel, backs to the wall. Boyle looked sick. Marlowe was angry.

“Those men weren't sent by the Pope,” Marlowe muttered, his eyes darting everywhere.

“Obviously,” Boyle groaned. “The Pope doesn't hire hashish-mad Arabs to do his work.”

The public room was quiet. A few men were dozing, dead drunk, at tables. Several other men were drinking quietly. Jen the barmaid offered ale, and Boyle argued with her for a full five minutes about breakfast. It was late for breakfast, Jen pointed out. Boyle insisted he would be dead without it. In the end, a handsome bribe won the day, and breakfast was on: boiled eggs, last night's beef, oat muddle, black bread and butter, and more ale.

That settled, Boyle closed his eyes and slumped in his chair, breathing heavily.

Marlowe seethed.

“I suspect Bartholomew,” Marlowe whispered.

“Hm?” Boyle muttered.

In his mind's eye Marlowe was standing in front of the professor, in the classroom, knowing that several shadows were lurking in the room just beyond, listening. Bartholomew had known they were there.

“Suppose Professor Bartholomew is not the man he seems to be,” Marlowe said, barely out loud.

“What man does he seem to be?” Boyle's eyes were still closed.

“He seems to be a doddering college professor, but let us suppose that he is, in fact, a spy.”

“What?” Boyle said loudly, his eyes flying open and lighting up. “A spy?”

“Sh,” Marlowe insisted harshly.

One of the unconscious men moved. Marlowe tried not to look directly at him, caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye. The man had his head down on the table, feigning sleep, and Marlowe saw that he had a knife in his lap.

“I posit, at least,” Marlowe said, whispering even softer, “that Bartholomew's a villain. There were men in his class antechamber, and they followed me to your rooms, overheard you say we were going to the church, and set about to attack us there.”

Boyle barely lifted his head.

“That old man hired Arab assassins?” he managed to say. “Not likely.”

“You don't understand,” Marlowe began.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, Marlowe saw the man with the knife move again.

Boyle rested his head on the table once more. “I have a much simpler explanation. Someone has seen through this ridiculous disguise you're wearing, and reported you to the local authorities, and they sent men after you.”

“Those men weren't from Cambridge!”

“Here comes my food!” Boyle sat up.

Jen, smiling, was on her way with enough food for five men. Boyle's bribe had been substantial.

As she wafted past the man with the knife, she bumped his table very slightly. The man did not move or speak.

Jen danced easily the rest of the way, loudly clattering the plates and bowls onto the table in front of Boyle.

As she did, she leaned close to Marlowe's ear.

“Did you notice the gent at the table what I bumped?” she whispered quickly.

Marlowe nodded slightly.

“Did you notice he's got a dagger in his lap,” she went on, “and he's only just pretending to be asleep?”

“You are a remarkable girl, Jen,” Marlowe said. “I think I would kiss you this moment, if I weren't afraid.”

“Afraid?” She straightened up.

“I know how to fight a man's dagger,” he whispered, eyes heavy-lidded, “but there would be no defense against the taste of your mouth.”

“Oh.” Jenny tried to steady herself, but the girl was unused to the poetry of seduction. For a heartbeat or two, she forgot how to breathe. Still, she did her best to seem unaffected. She looked down at the table, then back up to his eyes, and finally composed her flushed face.

“Well, at least let me get out of your way before your friend starts his breakfast revelry.” She managed a wink. “And you go carving up that boy over there.”

Marlowe's eyes did not watch her leave. He simply looked down at the food in front of him. But under the table, in that relative darkness, his right hand found the small knife he had tucked in his boot.

Boyle attacked his food with the same ferocity that he had killed the assassins in St. Benet's Church. Marlowe's eating was only slightly more sedate. He hadn't realized how famished he was until he'd tasted the first bite of egg.

With one eye on the mystery man, and the other on his plate, Marlowe continued to puzzle out what had happened so far that morning.

“Those men who attacked us were hired killers,” he said softly to Boyle, his mouth full.

“Yes.” Boyle nodded and went back to his plate. His cheeks were puffed out and his face was only inches from his bowl of porridge. “Bartholomew had nothing to do with it.”

“I don't know that,” Marlowe snapped. “In fact, I have some reason to believe that Bartholomew would betray me.”

Boyle hesitated for an instant, glancing Marlowe's way.

“You mean,” Boyle whispered slowly, “that he knows your true identity.”

Marlowe nodded once.

“By the way,” Boyle grunted, once again resuming his bacchanalia, “have you noticed the man over there with his hand on his knife?”

“As it happens, I have,” Marlowe answered. “So have you, and so has Jenny, our barmaid. That poor man may be the worst actor in this scene. I suppose I'll have to go and tell him that.”

“
Actor?
God in heaven.” Boyle shook his head. “You really ought to get your head out of the clouds, Marlowe. Forget the theatre. Maybe go to sea.”

Ignoring Boyle, Marlowe stood and announced, “Got to piss. Don't eat my breakfast while I'm gone.”

“No promises,” Boyle answered.

Marlowe noticed, just as he stepped away from the table, that Boyle's left hand disappeared, though he continued to eat with his right.

Marlowe, his eye on the alleyway door, nodded to Jen, who was behind the bar. As he did, he seemed accidentally to bump the table where the bad actor was pretending to sleep.

Once again, the man didn't move a muscle.

Marlowe, louder than necessary, leaned close to the man and said, “Pardon.”