A Prisoner in Malta (34 page)

“Claret,” Marlowe remarked, setting down the jug. “French wine. That's interesting.”

“The French,” Allen said softly, “see wine when they look at any grape.”

“And they see the Pope,” Marlowe countered, “when they look at any church.”

“Yes.” Allen looked up at last.

“You knew my father, once,” Marlowe guessed.

It was a good guess: unimportant if it were not true, significant if it were.

“He was of some small service to our cause in Canterbury,” Allen agreed. “But that was long ago.”

“And you wonder if time has altered his sympathies.”

“No,” Allen said, eyes now locked on Marlowe's. “I wonder if you share them.”

“I wonder if you know me at all, sir.”

“I know that you have been missing from your Cambridge classes for some time. I know that you are wanted for murder. I know that the man you murdered was in our service.”

“Would you happen to know,” Marlowe interrupted, “how I'll fare on my year-end examinations? I'm a bit apprehensive about them, having missed so much instruction, and you seem to know everything else.”

“I know that you are a degenerate poet,” Allen went on as if Marlowe had not spoken, “and I know that you have no honor.”

“Ah,” Marlowe interrupted again, “there's the one false note. You had the tone almost right, but you insisted on going a single step too far. Too clever by half.”

Allen took in a breath as if to speak again, but remained silent, staring at Marlowe.

“I understand that you mean to provoke me by saying that I have no honor,” Marlowe continued, “because you have heard that I am easily provoked. I was a boy six weeks ago, and might have leapt to my feet then, dagger drawn. But I've lived a strange life since then, and I better understand the odd things men do in order to manipulate the weak of mind. If I may say it: I possess the strongest mind you will ever meet in this life.”

Marlowe set his elbows on the table and leaned forward, a slight smile in his lips. He produced one of the pages given him by Walsingham and slid it slowly across the tabletop. It was a note of safe conduct from Mendoza.

Allen's eyes flashed for a second, and Marlowe heard a slight clicking sound behind him, a pistol being uncocked slowly.

“Well,” Allen said with a tilt of his head, “I won't kill you just yet.”

“Nor I you,” Marlowe answered, “for the moment.”

Allen sneered. “If you kill me you'll be dead the next instant.”

“But that won't bring you back to life,” Marlowe said lightly. “And it's all one to me. I'm ready to explore what lies out there beyond this life, the undiscovered country. Are you?”

“Maybe tomorrow.” Allen sighed. “I have work to do today.”

“Then may we get on with it,” Marlowe snapped impatiently, “and have done with all this bandy?”

“You want me to believe you'll help us?”

“I've already helped you,” Marlowe answered. “I've killed that idiot Pygott and rid you of a weakness in your scheme.”

Allen sat back. He tried to hide the look of surprise on his face, but it was too late. Marlowe had seen it.

“What's more,” Marlowe pressed on, “I have friends in your contingent of Basque troops.”

Allen's face betrayed him once more, telling Marlowe that he had been correct in such a wild postulation.

“Those men, the Basque men, have gone missing.” Allen steadied himself. “Perhaps you can tell me where they have got to.”

“They are men of strange conscience,” Marlowe answered. “Separatists. They may simply have gone home.”

“And you admit your responsibility for Pygott.” Allen sighed again. “Well.”

One of the figures that had been hiding behind the huge wine barrel racks rounded the dark corner into the flickering torchlight.

“So you did kill that sack of bones after all,” said Ingram Frizer, walking toward the table. “You almost had me believing you was innocent.”

“I had no idea whose side you were on,” Marlowe said to Frizer, though he kept his eyes locked on Allen's. “Best not to reveal too much to a double agent.”

Allen's eyes shot toward Frizer's approaching saunter.

“It's all right,” Frizer assured Allen. “The girl,
Lady
Walsingham, she most likely told him that. The trouble is, you see, Mr. Marlowe, once a thing is bent, it's difficult to tell which way it's pointing.”

“Yes.” Allen smiled. “Well, that particular person is no longer—Frances Walsingham—she is no longer a problem.”

Marlowe tensed before he could stop himself. Hoping no one had noticed, he quickly leaned forward and glared at Allen.

“You sent this man Frizer to enlist me in a cause,” Marlowe snapped, “to which I was already affixed.”

“
Affixed
?” Allen's head tilted. “What an odd way to put it. I had been told you were better with words than that. It was a clumsy turn of phrase.”

“It was a clumsy thing to do,” Marlowe countered, “sending Frizer, trying to force me into St. Benet's to retrieve your Bible. When, exactly, did you realize that Walter Pygott didn't have the brains or the guts to do your work?”

There was a commotion at the door to the tavern, and the man who had accosted Marlowe in the streets came rushing in.

“Queen's guard,” he muttered, heading toward the inner recesses of the crypt. “Something's happening!”

Everyone in the tavern stood and moved at once.

“This way,” Allen whispered to Marlowe.

Without further ado, the men in the crypt raced almost silently to the hallways behind the barrel racks, and into darkness.

 

TWENTY-EIGHT

Past ancient dead bodies, into a sewer, up stone stairs, Marlowe, Allen, and Frizer came out into the moonlight, near the river. The others had gone separate ways. The night was dark and the wind was high; clouds ran past the moon.

Allen's face betrayed a troubled mind. He was still trying to decide about Marlowe's true affiliation. So as he walked along the river's edge with Frizer and Allen, Marlowe chose to shove matters forward.

“I can't afford to be seen with you two,” Marlowe whispered, “especially not by the Queen's guard. I'll go my own way, and we'll meet again before dawn with Robert Parsons in Fulham.”

Without waiting for a reply, Marlowe headed in an easterly direction.

“Parsons?” Frizer called.

Allen immediately grabbed Frizer's arm, urging him to be silent.

Marlowe spun around.

“I hope he hasn't killed the Walsingham girl yet,” Marlowe rasped. “Frizer can tell you that she had a fondness for me. I might be able to eke a bit of useful intelligence from her if she yet lives.”

Marlowe held his breath.

“The girl did seem to like him,” Frizer said.

“You're an idiot,” Allen whispered. “Be silent!”

Marlowe's conclusions were equal parts deduction and gambling. Frances had gone to Fulham to meet with Parsons, according to Walsingham. Allen had just said that Frances was no longer a problem. That meant Frances had been captured or killed by Parsons.

If she was dead, Marlowe's path was simple: kill them all—Parsons, Allen, Frizer, Carier; anyone else who had played a part in her death.

If she was alive, the way was equally clear: secure her rescue.

Careful, Marlowe thought. His heart was pounding, and if the moon had been clearer, the other two men would have seen the flush in his face.

“Incidentally,” Marlowe said suddenly, willing the sound of his voice to be languid, “you wouldn't happen to know where Benjamin Carier is at the moment, would you? I need to speak with him.”

“Carier?” Frizer's face contorted.

“You brought him with you to London.”

“Not really,” Ingram went on, still confused. “We did come together, but his father hired me as his road companion.”

“His protection, you mean.” Marlowe nodded. “I know that he's a part of this. His sympathies are well known.”

“They are,” Allen answered. “And he is of some use to us. At the moment.”

It was impossible for Marlowe to tell if they were lying. The same lack of moonlight that had obscured his own feelings worked to conceal their faces as well.

“He's asleep in his uncle's home, most like,” Frizer complained. “Why do you want to know?”

“A trivial matter. He may have been at classes more recently than I have, and my year-end examinations are at hand. Have I already mentioned that? I don't like to waste my father's money. I thought Carier might tell me what I've missed.”

“College,” Frizer said, as if it were a curse word.

Allen was less dismissive. “This way, Mr. Marlowe. We'll meet Parsons, but not at Fulham.”

Without another word he led the way and Marlowe could only follow. Around several corners and through a foul-smelling alley, they moved quickly to a small storehouse behind several taller buildings.

Inside, the room was small and entirely bare, no rugs, no wall hangings, only bare cold stones. It was, however, quite bright, filled with ten or more wall torches.

Marlowe's skin felt like sand and his spine was burning. He ground his teeth. Every muscle in his face stung from the effort of maintaining an appearance of composure. And no matter what he said out loud, the only prayer in his mind was “God, let her be alive” over and over again.

Allen sat on a small stool. Frizer tumbled into a corner of the room on the floor and began snoring almost at once. Marlowe stood by the door.

They were waiting, Allen had explained, for Robert Parsons. But Marlowe suspected that other work was at hand: someone was checking on Marlowe's story, his background; his father's affiliations. Walsingham was a genius at establishing false facts, but Marlowe recalled words his father had often repeated: “There's always someone cleverer than you.”

These men had mobilized a Spanish army at the border, Basque rebels in England, hidden Catholics in London, old families with ties to the Queen, and an innocent young girl, a lady-in-waiting, who would be the instrument of her monarch's death. They were not to be underestimated.

Without warning the door burst open. Marlowe's hand flew to grasp the hilt of his dagger.

Allen glanced at Marlowe and held up his hand.

“Robert,” Allen said.

The Jesuit took in the room at a glance. He wore a black cassock wrapped around his body and tied with a cincture, a black biretta atop his head, and a floor-length cape tied around his neck. It was a deliberately uncomfortable costume.

The priest stared at Marlowe.

“This is the student?” he asked softly.

“I am, sir,” Marlowe answered before Allen could, “a student at Corpus Christi Cambridge, and an admirer of your brotherhood.”

“Indeed.” It was not a question. “What is it that you know about the Company of Jesus?”

“The Jesuits?” Marlowe's eyes narrowed. “I know that it is a company but fifty years old, founded by Ignacio Lopez de Loyola, a Basque, in a crypt beneath the church of Saint Denis near Paris. I know that his guiding principle was ‘For the greater glory of God,' which glory is to be achieved by being
perinde ac cadave
—well-disciplined like a corpse. Possibly a dictum borne of your society's original meeting place.”

Parsons exhaled slowly. “Do you mean to mock my brotherhood?”

“Do you mean to challenge my intellect with elementary questions?” Marlowe answered calmly.

Parsons turned to Allen.

“You were right,” Parsons said. “This man is a dangerous weapon. One may never know which way he cuts.”

“A fair observation, your grace,” Marlowe began, “or is ‘your grace' the proper address? Among conspirators would ‘Robert' do?”

Parsons clasped his gloved hands behind his back. “Why do you seek to insult me?”

“I was just about to ask you the same question,” Marlowe told him.

“Were you.” Again, it was not a question.

“Before the coming day is done, Queen Elizabeth will be dead and we'll all be in a different county than this one.” Marlowe looked around the room. “And yet you waste our time.”

He wondered, himself, why he was being so aggressive. He heard the sentences as they came out of his mouth, heard the sound of his voice. No forethought prevented or encouraged a single syllable. He was comprised almost entirely of instinct. Like a mystic. Or an animal.

“Is it a waste of time to ferret out a traitor?” Parsons asked.

“You've already heard from Zigor that I am not a traitor,” Marlowe snapped. “You know that I have been in contact with your Basque legions. You know that I killed Pygott for you. So I am forced to wonder why you hesitate with me now. Do we not find that oddly suspicious, Mr. Allen?”

Allen watched the two men from his seat, trying to follow what was happening.

Marlowe's hand was still on the hilt of the dagger at his waist. Throwing Zigor's name into the room, and emphasizing the Basque involvement in the plot, might reassure the Jesuit. But there was no telling what the Basque men were actually up to.

“In fact we have not yet heard from brother Zigor,” Parsons said at last, “but you are correct in your assessment of our urgency. Our work is nearly finished. And even if you are not the man we think you are, it will scarcely matter. There is nothing you can do to stop the death of the Queen.”

“Fine.” Marlowe shrugged. “Then let me go back to Cambridge. I have my year-end examinations to consider, as I've told these other men. Direct me to Benjamin Carier and we'll travel together. I have need of his aid. I've missed too many classes.”

“Benjamin Carier is not going back to Cambridge,” Parsons said calmly. “Not tonight. He has work to do. And you're not going anywhere, Mr. Marlowe.”