"I said, I'll buy your hat. A new one, is it not? You have execrable taste in clothing, Tom, and you always had," I was laughing, almost overcome by my own drunken humor. My companions exchanged glances and several bystanders moved closer, closing in to watch the kill.

"Why would you want it," Kyd asked sullenly, "if it's so execrable?"

"Why, it looks just like a p.i.s.s-pot, Thomas, and I'll use it so. I need to p.i.s.s and I'd as lief not leave the table just now," I said blandly, indicating the cards before me. The room exploded into coa.r.s.e laughter and his face flamed. "Come now, what d'you say? I'll give you a s.h.i.+lling for it. That's a handsome price for a p.i.s.s-pot, you can't say fairer than that!" I drawled.

Kyd shoved himself away, stumbling to the door, half-blind with tears of humiliation. I felt suddenly tired and heartily ashamed of myself for wasting my wit in such a coa.r.s.e and puerile way. Pus.h.i.+ng myself away from the table, I called out after him, but he only stiffened and kept going. I caught him just inside the door. "Come, Horatio," I said, nicknaming him for one of his characters as Nashe had often named me "Tamburlaine". "Come now, and forgive me. You know 'twas only the drink." He cursed softly, but took the half crown I pressed into his hand, the last gold coin I had in my purse. He left without a word, but with a backward glance that spoke volumes. He hated me, that glance said, hated having to ask me for money, hated being made the b.u.t.t of my vicious humor, and if ever he could do me an ill turn, he'd not hesitate. Ignoring the gibes of my companions, I returned to the table. Both the game and the company had lost their savor.

Bored with inaction, I spent my days amusing myself by living up to Marston's sarcastic sobriquet "Kind Kit", writing poisonous satires on the works of rival poets and playwrights, and circulating them where they would fall under the eyes of their targets.

I made the rounds of the taverns by night, drank too much, argued my unorthodox opinions a bit too glibly, and certainly, by hindsight, far too recklessly. Blasphemies designed merely to shock and disgust my listeners spilled from my lips, I picked fights and started brawls, and through all I thought of Rozsa. Several times I almost returned to Blackavar, but I held back, keeping that as a last resort. I heard that Thomas Kyd had been arrested, and shrugged. It was most likely for debt, I thought and if the fool had been too fastidious to use the money I had given him, then to h.e.l.l with him.

About mid-month a letter arrived from Tom, asking me to visit him at my earliest convenience. Let him dangle for once, I thought and purposely waited several days before riding to Scadbury, to arrive on the afternoon of the seventeenth. The house was filled with people and though Tom must have seen me in the throng, he never acknowledged my presence. By the morning of the nineteenth I was furious. I had started drinking as soon as I woke, but I was not yet drunk when I accosted Tom in the gallery that morning, catching his arm and swinging him about. "I would speak with thee," I hissed, my anger barely controlled, my fingers digging into his flesh through the heavy velvet of his doublet.

"Not now, Marlowe, and not here," Tom answered petulantly, ignoring my familiarity. "Anon." He tried to pull away but I tightened my grip.

"Yes now," I insisted. "Find us someplace private or I shall have my say here and now. You won't like it." I had retained my rank as dominant partner in our personal relations.h.i.+p, more by my own nature than Tom's intent, and his resistance crumbled. He motioned to a nearby room used for the estate's accounting and I bolted the door behind us. Tom seated himself behind the table, caught up a large book of accounts and began studying it a.s.siduously. After a moment I strolled over and took the ledger from him, handing it back right-way up; he had the grace to blush and lay it down.

"Why did you call me here if you only meant to abuse and ignore me?" I asked softly, seating myself on the corner of the table. "Do you mean to punish me? For what? For refusing to be the debauched p.a.w.n you and Frizer would make of me?" My voice was hoa.r.s.e with emotion. Tom's eyes flashed.

"No! Do not dredge that up again-it's past and done. No," he said, his lips curling with disgust, "I want to know about that foreign drab you've been swiving! I've heard she's a bawd and that the von Popple knave is her pimp. What do you pay her, Kit? Less, I warrant, than I paid you! Or does she pay you? It must be a pretty price indeed to keep you between a woman's legs-" his tirade cut off as I slapped him smartly across the cheek. I raised my hand for a second blow, but Tom leapt to his feet, knocking over his heavy chair and setting his back to the wall, his hand dropping to the dagger on his belt. I stayed seated on the table, hands carefully kept away from my own weapons. I had loved Tom, offered my heart, and to be so spurned, to be compared to a prost.i.tute offering my body in exchange for patronage-but Tom was still a boy, for all he was a year older than I. I started to speak, to apologize, but Tom interrupted me.

"I wouldn't expect you to understand it, but I have responsibilities to my family. I must marry now, I must beget an heir and I must not be involved in scandal. But then how could you understand? When have you ever been responsible? When have you ever been anything but malicious? Malicious, lascivious, and base! Base-born and base in nature!" His voice had been rising steadily in volume and he screamed the final words.

"You've played that card too often, Tommy," I said coldly. "It doesn't hurt anymore." I lied; it still hurt, but I would be racked before admitting it.

He leant towards me, resting his delicate hands on the table. The harebell-blue of his eyes paled to treacherous ice and his voice dropped into a menacing whisper. "You talk too freely and far too much, Kit. I will not have you prating about us, do you understand? Court your own destruction if you must, but do not think to drag me down with you. It never happened, never! I was your patron, nothing more."

Red mist swirled in my sight and I heard my words as if spoken by another. "You! When were you ever anything but a boy? A petty, pretty, spiteful, irresponsible boy! You, responsible to your family? Hah! That would make a cat laugh! You could not wait to corrupt me, to add me to your collection, but took me straight from your uncle's office! Now, now, you come to me, boy! My boy!" I beckoned and Tom shook his head, but he came to me, step by unwilling step. I grasped his expensive bone-lace ruff in both hands and twisted it, drawing him into a kiss while I choked him. I could taste his tears; felt him fighting for breath, his feeble tugs at my relentless hands. Still I held him, until he gave a little whimper deep in his throat, no longer fighting the kiss, no longer fighting me, and then I released him, shoving him away from me. He stumbled back against the wall, pawing at his throat. I became aware of a pounding on the door and voices. Numbly I went to open it, turning back at the threshold to look at Tom.

"I came here to try to mend our differences-what a hope! It is you that never cared, always relying on someone else to do your dirty work for you. You could not so much as tell me honestly that it was over, you must needs force a new quarrel, goad me into a fury, to make the fault mine," I said with dull disgust and unbolted the door. It flew violently open and barely missed striking me. I staggered back as Frizer thundered into the room and grabbed me by the arm.

"The villain has hurt you, Master," he bellowed. I drew my dagger and he unhanded me with a speed that was almost comical. Though the mark of the slap was clearly visible on his fair skin and his ruff a ruin at his bruised throat, Tom shook his head. "No, no. He was just leaving. Let him go," he said hoa.r.s.ely.

"Well, no, I think not," Frizer gloated. "Someone has come for him."

A nondescript and soberly dressed stranger entered as I leant close to Frizer. "I was dissuaded from cutting your throat not so long ago, Ingram," I hissed, my words low-pitched but perfectly audible. "Be sure that I will not be so cheated again." Frizer glared at me with mixed hatred and exultation as the stranger stood forward.

"Christopher Marlowe?" I stepped forward. "I arrest you in the Queen's name," he said.

There was a gasp from Tom and the room seemed to fade before my eyes. My thoughts filled with images of my stay in Newgate Prison a few years before; the stinking rooms, the galling weight of the manacles on my wrists, the unnatural, halting steps produced by the leg-irons. I stalked up to Tom who quailed back against the wall. "I'll not go back to prison, Tom. See to it," I told him, and turned my back on his mumbled retort. "And you are?" I asked the man who had arrested me.

"Henry Maunder," was the terse reply.

"The charge?" Tom asked, his voice shrill with alarm.

"Blasphemy, sir," Maunder responded tonelessly. I nodded-I had guessed." I am ready," I said.

"Master Maunder?" Frizer's tone was one of command. "If you would be so kind as to delay your departure a short while, I have a letter to deliver for my master." He ignored the man's protests, turning to Tom. "Yes, yes, please wait," Tom agreed, weakly. As I left the chamber Frizer was speaking quietly to Tom, and eyeing the ruin of his linen.

By virtue of my university degrees I was a gentleman, even if a somewhat disreputable one. Master Maunder requested my sword, but left me my poniard. Nor was I yet in irons, being taken as I was from the house of a powerful protector who might take exception to the practice. Irons, irony-I grinned humorlessly. Tom was my protector no longer, and might indeed have relished the sight of me dragged off in chains if Maunder had but known it.

It was a full hour later before Frizer joined us, and we were able to start for the City. The day was overcast and threatening rain, for which I was grateful, as sunlight had recently been causing me savage headaches. We had not been riding long when Frizer pulled his horse up beside mine and began to chatter.

"They arrested poor Kyd, you know. Found heretical papers in his chamber. Good friend he was to you though: they had to rack him before he told them the papers were yours. Have you ever seen anybody racked? Sometimes the arms dislocate first and sometimes the stomach muscles tear loose. The gaolers bet on which it'll be. And sometimes, when you're stretched that tight, they'll bounce coins on your belly. Just the weight of one coin can do it, sometimes, rip you near in two." I had a sudden, sickening vision of myself broken and crippled, begging for my bread, my numbed and nerveless hands unable to hold a pen. Poor Kyd! I felt the color drain from my face as he continued; triumph and venom spurting from him like arterial blood. "Of course, it'll not stop there; if they can prove you an atheist or heretic, it's the stake for you! They tie you up and roast you alive for all to see and I'd make sure it's a slow fire and no mercy shown, when it's your turn. Strangling would be too quick for the likes of you." I suppressed a shudder as the relentless voice went on.

"Now if you're found a traitor, that's another thing altogether. You being a commoner, there'll be no gentle axe for you, lad. No, you they'll take to Tyburn and hang. You know the rest well enough, I warrant! Before you're dead, you're cut down, your c.o.c.k and ballocks gets sliced off, and I'll be bribing the hangman for yours, as a keepsake for Master Thomas! Then they gut you, but you're not dead yet-you get to watch them burn your living guts before your face. Oh, it can go on for hours with a man as knows his work, and say what they will about yon Master Topcliffe, there's none a.s.says he slacks his work! Then they cut you into quarters and take your head for a pole on London-"

"Enough!" Maunder must have observed the greensick expression on my face, and moving in to investigate, heard the last of Frizer's harangue. "Now either hold your spiteful tongue or be off with you!" To my immense relief Frizer glared for a moment then galloped off, his malevolent laugh floating back to us.

"And you, Master Marlowe, you can put that blade away, or I'll be obliged to ask you for it." I glanced in wonder at the dagger in my hand, which I did not recall drawing, and then to my jailer.

"I do thank you," I said, in a voice as shaky as my smile. Maunder shook his head.

"Do not think on it, man. Belike it's nothing at all." If only I could believe that, I thought, but much to my surprise, Maunder had the right of it. The next morning I presented myself before the Council, answered a few questions about the papers, a part of a treatise on Arianism I'd been using for research, and they let me go, extracting my compliance to appear before them early each morning. I readily agreed, although it meant lingering in a city that daily grew more plague-ridden.

Chapter 6.

Henry Percy, the Earl of Northumberland looked up impatiently at the interruption, but composed his features at the sight of his visitor. "You have news for me, Master Poley?" he asked, motioning the spy to take a stool near the table.

"I have, my lord," Poley said, looking expectant.

"News first," Northumberland replied shortly and Poley shrugged.

"It's arranged. Marlowe dies at the end of the week. He'll expect to meet with Walsingham in Deptford, but his host will be a somewhat grimmer one," Poley grinned, and outlined the scheme. Northumberland nodded, then took a small bottle from a casket on the table before him.

"You may need this," he told the spy. "It is a mixture of manicon and poppy-put it in his wine if his head for drink turns out stronger than you suppose. And here is your pay," he added, dropping a fat pouch beside the bottle. It c.h.i.n.ked comfortingly. Poley shook his head, but took the poison and the pouch and made his exit.

Northumberland stood and began to pace. This would be the test, then. If the rash and improvident poet had been changed by his a.s.sociation with the ones Doctor Montague named as vampire, and he did meet his end there in Deptford, he would rise up from his grave like Lazarus, and he, Percy, would at last have immortality within his grasp.

The older vampires would be far too hard to catch, to use so and then be rid of, but Kit, wild, headstrong and impetuous Kit, would be easier meat. Always supposing of course that the victim did not smell a trap in Deptford and so delay his dying day. Not likely, Percy thought, not at all likely, and he began to lay his plans.

Chapter 7.

Not many days after my first appearance before the council I received a letter from Tom asking me in the friendliest terms for a meeting. He had heard of my restriction and suggested a lodging house in Deptford as a convenient meeting place, so I had promised to meet him on the thirtieth of May at Eleanor Bull's public house in Deptford.

I arrived just before ten that morning and was shown to a private room. It contained a table and chairs, a small cot against one wall and had a private entrance to the gardens. A jug of wine rested on the table, and I was left alone to await my host. Before long the door opened, but the man that stepped through was not Tom.

"Good morrow, Kit," Robin Poley said. "I happened to be at Scadbury and Tom asked me to tell you that he will be a little delayed. I told him I would keep you glad company until he comes," he added, pouring the wine. For a while we talked of "the old days", as Poley called them, and he kept my cup filled. When the jug was empty he went to fetch another and so the time pa.s.sed until about two, when I, feeling the wine, went to walk in the garden to try to clear my head. Since Tom could not be bothered to come by this time, I considered riding the few miles on to Blackavar, but the dazzling sunlight had induced another of the raging headaches I was lately subject to. I went back to the room and stretched out on the hard, narrow cot. It was so placed that if I lay with my head to its head, I trapped my left arm, my sword arm, against the wall. I unbuckled my sword and placed my head at the cot's foot, leaving my blade within easy reach.

"Ah, Kit, you don't trust me?" Poley asked.

"No, I don't," I replied shortly, and settled to sleep off the effects of the wine. After a time I became aware of low voices in the room, but could make but little sense of what I heard.

"-it took manicon and poppy in that last jug; the brandywine had scarce any effect at all-"

"-so I'll serve him as he threatened to serve me. I'll cut his throat!"

"-like an accident! Say he pulled your dagger from behind, like he did mine last winter and you was defendin' yourself-"

I recognized the voice of Ingram Frizer, and knew that I was lost; it was my own murder I was hearing plotted. The other newcomer was Nicholas Skeres. I fumbled for my steel, but it was gone. I tried to throw myself from the bed but my drugged body would not respond and I thrashed wildly. Skeres, with an oath, leapt towards the cot, catching up the heavy wooden flagon from the table and striking me a vicious blow to the top of the head, knocking me stunned to the floor; I had heard rather than felt the bones of my skull crack. I was still conscious but unable to move, then Skeres was on me. He placed a knee on my chest, pinning me down and binding my weakly twitching arms to the floor in an iron grip. I turned my head and saw Poley, my sword clutched to his chest, gazing at me in disbelief. "You should have heeded my warning, Kit," he whispered. I turned a little more and shuddered at the obscene glee on Frizer's usually solemn face.

"Go and watch at the door," Frizer snapped at Poley, then sauntered over tome, slipping his dagger from its sheath. "See this, Kit, my pretty lad? I bought this special, just for you. Cost me twelve pennies, it did, and worth every one of 'em. Oh yes indeed." Frizer's words, half-heard the day I was taken from Scadbury, echoed in my mind, suddenly clear: "Two may keep a secret if one of them is dead." I tried to laugh, but all that came out was a m.u.f.fled groan. True, I had not expected to live to grow old, but I had never thought that death could come for me so very soon, nor yet take me so very easily.

"Why?" The word was almost unrecognizable, but Frizer pounced on it.

"Why? Why, what did you think, sweet, kind Kit? That you could dance and drink and never have to pay? You'll pay right enough now, my lad. You've been winking at your d.a.m.nation for far too long! My master's head may be softer than his heart, but even he could see that you'd gone too far this time!"

"I only regret that the last thing I'll ever see is your ugly face, Ingram," I slurred. His habitually pious expression twisted into a snarl.

"This will mend both your manners and your mouth!"

"Murderers!" I gasped as Frizer pulled a white silk handkerchief from his sleeve, placed his knees to hold my head immobile and stuffed my mouth with it. Then, with a look of unholy relish, he slowly plunged the dagger into my right eye. I felt the searing pain, saw the tearing light, heard the guttural laughter of my murderers and my own stifled outcry dying away. Then there was nothing.

Chapter 8.

Nicolas sat and stared at the fire, waiting for Rozsa to join him, as they had so often awaited young Marlowe. As he turned at her footstep, she caught sight of his face and crossed the room swift as a shadow. "Nicolas?"

"It has happened-Kit died in Deptford yesterday."

"How?" Her voice was barely audible, her hands crus.h.i.+ng the velvet of the doublet she carried.

"I do not yet know how he died but I do mean to find out. I beg you to wait here, child, while I do."

"Wait," Rozsa said. Nicolas had expected her to ask to accompany him, but she did not. She stared at the crimson cloth bulging between her fingers for a moment, then looked up defiantly. "I made the exchange with him," she said flatly, and Nicolas nodded.

"Yes, I was almost certain you had. Did you tell him of the possible consequences?" She shook her head, and he sighed. "This does complicate things," he muttered, then kissed her forehead, and gave her a brief hug." We will save him, child. Never fear," he said, and went out.

Several hours later he returned and sat staring at the fire without looking at Rozsa, who still awaited him there. Finally she spoke, sharply. "Well?"

"I have learned how he died, from the one that engineered the murder and stood looking on while it was carried out." Tersely he gave her the dreadful details of her mortal lover's death.

"I trust you killed that treacherous, scabby little pimp!" she burst out, but he shook his head.

"You know I did not, and you know why-that is not our way, Rozsa. If he rises, the vengeance must be Kit's to work as he wills. If he is truly dead, then, and only then, will you and I see to it that this traitor's life, and the lives of all Kit's murderers are both very painful and very short. But our time runs out-the inquest is tomorrow and if justice runs its usual tardy course, we may have to steal his body away tomorrow night. I have set plans in motion for various contingencies and there is nothing more that we may do. Morning nears-we can but seek our beds and wait." She nodded and the tears that had filled her eyes overflowed, running down her smooth skin like liquid opals in the firelight.

"Will-will you hold me tonight?" she whispered. He nodded and put his arm around her shoulders to lead her to his bed.

When they woke, Nicolas' servant Matthieu stood at the foot of the bed, s.h.i.+fting from foot to foot in his excitement.

"I've got him, master," he said, breathlessly. "The inquest ended and the judges decreed that he should be buried at once with no witnesses, and I had bribed the s.e.xton, as you told me. Master Marlowe waits here in the chapel, sir." He beamed, until he remembered the funereal nature of his news and schooled his expression to match. Nicolas leapt to his feet, thankful that they had rested that day fully clothed. Rozsa scrambled after him, but he stopped her.

"No, my child, he died so violently-let us see to him first."

"No! I must know, do you not see? I must!" Nicolas gave way and allowed her to follow him to the chapel. The corpse lay on a hastily constructed bier before the altar and Nicolas bent to view the broken body of his friend. His gentle fingers touched the clotted blood that matted the fine hair of the shattered skull. He noted the heavy bruising on the man's wrists where he had been held immobile against his struggles, and on his chest, where it seemed as if a great weight had been placed.

"What was the verdict?" he asked in a strangled voice.

"Self defense, master," Matthieu answered. "That man Frizer had two small cuts on his scalp. Had they been on his chin, he might have got them shaving," he added scornfully, but Nicolas was no longer listening. He turned the dead man's head and Rozsa cried out when she caught sight of the ravaged face with its ruined right eye.

"I would have spared thee," Nicolas said softly, but she shook her head, tears falling freely. "You think of George, yes?"

"Oh, yes," she confessed, "but of poor Kit, too! How could they, how could they do-that-to him!" Nicolas just shook his head. He knew that she, of all people, needed no answer. Soon they had the corpse cleaned and dressed, and Rozsa sat with it while Nicolas returned to the study to write in his journal, as he did every night. He returned just before dawn.

"Has he-" he began, but Rozsa shook her head and Nicolas composed himself to wait. It was not long before the body before them convulsed with a shattering cry. Before either could reach him, he collapsed, lying as limply as if he had but newly died upon the bier. Matthieu pressed the veins of his right wrist to the man's lips, but to no avail. Rozsa stood with dagger in hand and Matthieu let her open a vein. When he pressed the bleeding wound against the slack lips, they closed upon it and the undead man fed eagerly for a short time, then fell back into his catalepsy. Nicolas cleared his throat.

"I will send word to Geoffrey to expect us in Brittany soon. Matthieu, see to the traveling arrangements. We must get him out of the country as soon as possible." Marlowe was transferred to the lightless room prepared for him and the others set about their various tasks.

The journey across the channel was not as difficult as it might have been. The winds were fair, but the sailors muttered about the sick man in the hold, telling tales of plague and derelict s.h.i.+ps sailing eternally on the chartless seas of h.e.l.l. They thankfully crossed themselves when the pa.s.sengers debarked in the gathering dusk and watched with relief as the stricken man was placed in the waiting litter and carried away into the night.

At last the cortege came to an old manor house, tucked away in a hidden valley between two rocky headlands. Geoffrey was not in residence, but the servants said that he was expected back before the end of the summer. Orders were swiftly given and Marlowe was put to bed. At Nicolas' insistence Rozsa went to stay with friends in Paris, though she protested bitterly. The very extent of the injuries the poet had sustained and survived made Nicolas uneasy and he did not wish Rozsa to be on hand should something go wrong. He prepared himself for what might be a long wait.

Long days and uneventful nights pa.s.sed, until one night the peace was rent by screams of terror, coming from Marlowe's chamber. The household converged to find the door bolted from the inside and heard the sounds of struggle weakening within.

"We must break it down," Nicolas shouted. He lent his strength to the servant's efforts and within seconds stepped into the chamber. Marlowe was there, crouching over the limp form of one of the serving wenches, Annette, who had come to check on him, as she did every morning and evening. Blood dripped from his lips, drawn back in a feral grin. The torchlight glittered in his remaining eye and there was nothing human in his face.

Nicolas s.n.a.t.c.hed a torch from a servant and used it to drive the snarling beast from his kill. When he was backed into a corner, batting at the torch and howling his pain and rage, Nicolas motioned and two of the grooms leapt in to drag the girl's body from the room. "She lives," someone said and Nicolas sighed in relief. With animal cunning, Marlowe was watching, looking for an opening. When one of the grooms returned, he glanced away just long enough for Nicolas to stun him with the b.u.t.t-end of the torch. They bound the unconscious man securely to his bed-frame, and Nicolas gave orders that the door be repaired and strengthened, and that the bolt be removed from the inside. He turned his attention to the injured wench.

She had been violated, he saw with disgust, brutally, and then almost drained of blood. More than ever he wished for Geoffrey's advice, his knowledge. Had their brilliant young poet become no more than a monster? Would this be the extent of his new life? If so, it would not be a long one. The servants took the girl away to care for her and he went to calm himself by writing. He had not been at it long when he heard horses; Geoffrey had arrived at last.

"You should have kept him bound-did you not receive my letter?" Geoffrey said, pacing by the fire. Nicolas shook his head. "This is but his animal nature that has awakened, his pa.s.sions and furies. It often happens so when there are such injuries to the brain as those that took his life; it was also thus with me. But, even so, he may yet heal and so we must watch over him and wait."

"My poor unfortunate friend! And if he gets no better?"

"Then, my old friend, we shall be forced to destroy him," Geoffrey answered, gently. "If his wits have gone, it would be no kindness to let his body live on as a ravening beast. Where is Rozsa?"

"In Paris," Nicolas said thankfully. "I shall send her word not to return yet awhile."

"I think that would be best."