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  Is it ridiculous that almost every dedication is to Lee, or do people find that romantic? After a relationship that’s touched three decades, Lee, I can’t help it if I’m still in love with you. Isn’t that a Hank Williams song? Now I’m quoting Hank Williams? How will that play with the snooty theatre and academic types? Am I thinking about this too much? Am I over-worrying about a dedication that, let’s face it, maybe seven people will read? Should it just say: TO LEE and let it go at that? If you’re reading this, and have an opinion, tell me what it is. I really want to know: www.phillipdepoy.com.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks again to Anthony Burgess’s book Shakespeare, not just for great insider information, but for its tone and humor.

  I owe a debt to Thomas Dekker, especially his description of Elizabethan London street life, and to John Donne’s satirical elucidations of the Elizabethan Court.

  I also continue to acknowledge the debt I owe to Dr. Milton Goldberg who, at Antioch College in 1968, allowed me, as a freshman, to be in his upper-level Shakespeare class.

  Finally, I’d have to acknowledge that reading John Fowles novels, especially The Magus and A Maggot, forced me to write a certain way.

  PRELUDE

  “William the Silent is dead.” Walsingham let the words sink in.

  The Queen’s face remained unchanged, but her fist tightened.

  “When?” she asked.

  The small private chamber was silent, and a dozen candles failed to eliminate the gloom from Walsingham’s pronouncement.

  Elizabeth was seated next to a small desk upon which one of the candles suddenly sputtered.

  “Three days from now,” Walsingham answered at last, “if we do not dispatch our people to Delft today.”

  He stood silently, eyes fixed on his queen.

  Her face at last betrayed her thoughts.

  “You deliberately shocked me,” she snapped. “To what purpose?”

  “To convey the urgency of the matter.”

  She took a moment to control her ire.

  “You have his imminent assassination on good authority?” she demanded.

  “The plot is certain,” he answered.

  “It’s clever,” she sighed, “taking William out. He’s the only man who could stand against the Spanish in the Netherlands.”

  “William is our ally,” Walsingham agreed, “and were he gone, the Netherlands might be unstable enough to allow Spanish invasion forces to pass through to the coast. But it is not yet clear the intention of this assassination. It may well be a civil matter.”

  She nodded. “We must send someone to Delft at once to gather information, and to prevent William’s assassination, if possible.”

  “First things first,” Walsingham said firmly. “We need our people here in England, in case there is more to this business than meets the eye.”

  The Queen nodded. “You mean we must ascertain whether or not it has to do with us, with our person.”

  “Yes, Majesty,” Walsingham confirmed.

  “You have a devilishly suspicious nature, Francis,” she said softly.

  “Yes, Majesty,” he repeated.

  “Whom do you select for this investigation?” she asked.

  “Beak,” Walsingham sighed.

  “Of course,” Elizabeth responded softly. “But not alone.”

  “No.” Walsingham folded his hands. “I would not allow Beak to do this alone.”

  The Queen stood and turned toward the door. Walsingham bowed. The Queen hesitated.

  “I suppose I know whom you will associate with Beak,” she said without looking back.

  “Yes,” Walsingham answered. “It’s Marlowe.”

  ONE

  1584, CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND

  Christopher Marlowe sat at his usual table near the fireplace in The Pickerel public house. By his side: the most irritating mentor with whom God had ever cursed a poet, or so Marlowe was thinking at that moment. Thomas Kyd, dressed in blue frills, the highest London fashion, was fat, drunken, lewd, and smoking. To make matters worse, the noise of the place was maddening. A makeshift stage in a corner of The Pickerel was colorful but, alas, not the liveliest nor even the loudest spot in the public house. In addition to being a place for students to gather, it was the second best brothel in Cambridge. The clientele were ale sodden, rude, and entirely unencumbered by social restraint—and that on an ordinary day. To make matters even worse, the riverside location assured the presence of sailing men, cutpurses, traveling criminals, and general miscreants in addition to the studious young men on their way from better places to a class at the college.

  Still, Marlowe had always found the place comforting. The low ceiling and slanting afternoon sunlight gave a warmth to body and spirit, and the ale was flavored with rosemary. It was a home away from home—on most days. But this day, to everyone’s dismay, there was also a play at hand.

  There were actors on a stage, shouting to be heard.

  “Did ever men see such a sudden storm?” one of the actors howled. “Or day so suddenly overcast?”

  The audience shouted back. Louder. A man at the bar responded directly to the actor’s questions.

  “Did ever a man see such a sorry spectacle?” he hollered, “or a day so destroyed by a scabrous play?”

  The second actor on stage did his best. “I think some fell Enchantress dwells here, that can dive into black tempests treasury as she means to mask the world with clouds.”

  A large man in a green tunic near the stage bellowed a more concise critique. “Shite!”

  The general chaos of noise rose higher after that, pelting the actors with insults and laughter.

  At his table by the fireplace, Kyd leaned close to Marlowe and whispered, “Generally I like a play that attracts audience attention, but is this quite what you had in mind?”

  Marlowe, dressed entirely in black, turned to the older man and spoke very politely. “Find a raw carrot, lower your breeches, and shove it as far up your ass as you possibly can, do you mind?”

  “Time enough for fun later, Kit,” Kyd responded. “I thought you wanted me to watch your play.”

  “You’re too drunk to watch your thumb,” Marlowe answered. “I wanted Kyd the playwright, not Kyd the lout.”

  Kyd sat back. “Oh. Well. You should have told me that before I started drinking, don’t you think?”

  “You know I love you,” Marlowe complained, “but I can barely stand to be around you.”

  Kyd dismissed that pronouncement with a flourish of his right hand. “All of my friends say that.”

  The young boy playing the part of Anna, on stage in an ill-fitting dress and terrible wig, seemed to have forgotten the next line. Prompted three times, he finally gave forth, in a high-pitched squeak, “In all my life I never knew the like, it hailed, it snowed, and lightning all at once!”

  The place erupted in catcalls, howling, a general demand for the play to co
me to an end. Sooner than immediately.

  The man who had yelled “shite” was on his feet.

  “Come over here, sweetheart,” he said to the boy playing Anna. “Give us a kiss.”

  He staggered toward the stage.

  The other two actors moved instantly to protect the younger. One suddenly had a knife in his hand.

  “Now it’s getting interesting,” Kyd slurred. “I really like it when the audience is a part of the play.”

  Marlowe ignored Kyd and bounded toward the stage.

  “That’s enough for one afternoon,” he called out. “The play is ended.”

  The large drunk in green turned, slowing, in Marlowe’s direction. His beard was alive with ale and saliva.

  “That was a play?” he growled. “I thought my great ox had laid a pile of dung in that corner.”

  “Ah,” Marlowe said quickly, “well I defer to your superior knowledge of an ox’s ass.”

  A few in the room laughed.

  “How’s that?” the man asked more slowly.

  “I say the play’s over,” Marlowe answered, as if the man were hard of hearing. “You can go back to buggering your ox.”

  More laughed.

  “Right,” the man bellowed, drawing a long knife of his own.

  As he did he caught a nearby patron on the chin with his elbow. The patron objected loudly.

  “Christ!” the patron complained.

  That complainant drew a dagger of his own. His round, greasy face contorted in a grin.

  The man in green turned and punched the complainant twice. The complainant fell backward onto the floor and stayed there, dagger still in hand, grin gone.

  Then the man in green turned and lunged at Marlowe.

  Without warning, Kyd was there, placing his considerable girth between Marlowe and the marauder.

  “You’re a very rude person,” Kyd said to the green man.

  Then Kyd, holding a tankard of ale in one hand and his pipe in the other, simply stepped aside, nudging Marlowe out of the way. The man in green went sprawling across the nearest table. The men at that table objected. They were on their feet in seconds, all with weapons in their hands: two knives and a rapier.

  Marlowe drew his own rapier and stood next to Kyd, who took a sip of ale and then pulled hard on his pipe.

  The man in green was struggling to rise; the other three were not certain who had offended them the most.

  “Should we go on?” one of the actors called timidly.

  “No,” Marlowe answered before anyone else could. “Wait outside. I’ll bring you your money.”

  “But we just started,” the boy playing Anna complained.

  “That’s your play?” one of the three men asked.

  Marlowe nodded once.

  “Good enough for me,” the man said, and charged.

  The others followed.

  Marlowe found himself attacked on three sides. Kyd stood firmly at Marlowe’s back, tranquil as a summer’s day.

  Marlowe took the rapier first. He lunged forward, twirling his blade in small, wild circles. When he was close enough, he caught his opponent’s rapier in the vortex and sent the other man’s weapon flying. With one single, final sidestep, Marlowe stabbed that man in the forearm—his sword arm—and then kicked the man’s knee so hard that everyone heard it crack.

  Without stopping to think, Marlowe turned toward one of the knives. Before he could get his balance, the man rushed, snarling, blade forward, teeth bared.

  Kyd did not appear to move of a purpose, but a single dance-like stumble thrust his pristine boot forward at the other man’s ankle. As if by some odd spell, that man found himself facedown on the floor in the next instant.

  Marlowe turned his attention to the last man.

  That one stood, glancing around at the others groaning on the floor and blinking. He lowered his knife.

  “So that’s your play then, is it?” he said, only a slight quaver in his voice.

  “It is,” Marlowe responded, his rapier aimed directly at the man’s throat.

  “Well,” the man said, as if it were a complete philosophy.

  Kyd’s voice boomed out generously. “Truer words were never spoken!”

  Marlowe glanced at the stage. The actors were gone.

  Then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of red, a slight furling of a crimson cloak—and the barrel of a pistol. That was, it seemed, what had actually stopped the brawl. The last man standing had seen the gun.

  Marlowe realized that The Pickerel had fallen nearly silent, quieter than it had been in a decade.

  Marlowe took a deep breath. “I thank one and all for your indulgence. I will continue to work on the piece.”

  “What’s it called?” the last man standing asked quietly.

  “Dido,” Marlowe answered. “It’s about a queen of Carthage.”

  The man nodded. He clearly had no idea what Marlowe was talking about.

  Marlowe sheathed his rapier, took Kyd by the arm, and headed for the door.

  “You should try your hand at a Hamlet play,” Kyd said, sucking on his pipe. “Everyone’s doing it.”

  Marlowe moved faster, nearly dragging Kyd along. “No,” Marlowe complained, “you’ve done the definitive version of that story. Who would pay attention to any other?”

  Kyd finished his ale and set his tankard down on one of the tables as he was being rushed out the door.

  “True,” he mused. “Why are you shoving me outside? I need more drink.”

  Once in the street, Kyd froze. He saw why Marlowe had rushed him out of the inn. In one of the shadows across the narrow dirt street there was a flair of red cloth, and a pair of familiar eyes.

  “Oh.” Kyd would not be moved further. “Dr. Lopez.”

  Rodrigo Lopez, Portuguese Jew, remorseless assassin, and Queen Elizabeth’s Royal Surgeon, was also Marlowe’s boyhood tutor.

  “What’s he doing here?” Kyd whispered, unable to disguise the fear in his voice.

  While most other men lived in terror of the doctor, Marlowe considered Lopez his only genuine friend.

  “He’s come to see me,” Marlowe answered apologetically, then he glanced around. “My actors seem to have vanished.”

  “That’s a shame,” Kyd lamented absently. “I was hoping to get to know the one who played Anna a little better.”

  “Leave that one alone, Kyd,” Marlowe warned. “He’s barely twelve years old. And put out that pipe, it stinks.”

  Kyd sniffed, partially regaining his swagger. “How many times have I told you? Only a fool does not like tobacco and young boys. The former is good for the health, and the latter is superior for the spirit.”

  But Marlowe was already halfway across the street. Lopez did not move.

  “Doctor,” Marlowe said softly as he approached his old friend. “You didn’t need to break up that brawl. Kyd and I would have handled it.”

  “Kyd is a brilliant tactician,” Lopez agreed, stepping slightly into the slanting ray of golden light from the west. “I’ve never seen a greater adept at his style of combat.”

  Marlowe hesitated. “I can’t tell if your intent is to praise him or to ridicule, but I assure you—”

  “I am in earnest,” Lopez interrupted. “I’ve seen Thomas Kyd’s tactics before, in London. His ability to use force and intention against any opponent is unparalleled. I saw him best five men, barely laying a hand on a single one. He had no weapon and never spilled his drink. When his attackers tried to strike, he simply wasn’t there.”

  Marlowe smiled. “Yes, he can get out of the way better than any man in England.”

  Lopez remained cold. “And: he’s not a bad playwright, as I understand it.”

  “That man,” Marlowe nodded, glancing in Kyd’s direction, “despite some very obvious difficulties, is one of the finest poets I know, and the greatest playwright in the world. Our age will be remembered for its female monarch and the plays of Thomas Kyd.”

  Kyd had foun
d a convenient barrel outside the inn and was seated filling his pipe. Grinning and singing to himself, he looked very much like the village idiot.

  “Your Queen requires you,” Lopez said.

  “I know.” Marlowe’s voice betraying a certain wariness. “Why else would you have come unannounced? What has happened?”

  “An assassination of worldwide consequence,” Lopez said with a dead voice.

  “Who has been murdered?” Marlowe swallowed. He had rarely seen Lopez in so strange a mood.

  Lopez leaned close to Marlowe’s ear.

  “William the Silent,” he whispered to Marlowe, “is dead.”

  TWO

  William the Silent could not be dead. He was too important to England.

  When William was eleven he became Prince of Orange under the condition that he be given a Catholic education. By the time William was in his thirties he stood by the side of the gout-ridden King of Spain, Charles, who abdicated his throne in favor of son Philip. But William began almost immediately to criticize Philip’s campaign against non-Catholics. His famous quote, repeated across Europe, was, “I cannot approve of monarchs who want to rule over the conscience of the people, and take away their freedom of choice and religion.”

  He eventually aligned himself with the French Huguenots, most especially by marrying one. William was subsequently declared an outlaw by the Spanish king in 1580, making William an ally to England, albeit surreptitiously. William’s knowledge of the inner workings of the Spanish court—and its secret plans to invade England—could not be replaced.

  Kyd called out from across the road. “Do you know why they call him Silent? He wouldn’t talk about Protestants during a stag hunt.”

  “No,” Marlowe said without turning to face Kyd, “it’s because he refused to discuss the Inquisition. If only you would be Kyd the Silent.”

  “Oh, yes, I shouldn’t be talking about this so loudly,” Kyd looked around at the rabble in the streets. “There could be Spanish spies.”

  Lopez growled his disapproval. “Thomas Kyd, you must leave us now. Back to London. Drink until you cannot remember this meeting. If I hear that you have recounted what has been said here, you will find yourself in the Tower. Do you understand?”