The English Agent Read online

  Kyd stood at once.

  “I understand completely,” he said. “I have to return to London anyway, they’re doing my new play in Shoreditch. In fact, there’s an excellent chance that I was never in Cambridge at all this week.”

  Kyd’s face had drained of blood, and his hands were shaking. In the next second he was gone, vanished around the next corner.

  “Was that necessary?” Marlowe sighed. “Despite his braggadocio, he is an easily frightened man.”

  “Braggadocio?”

  “Ah,” Marlowe answered, “it’s from a character that Sydney is trying to work out for a poem. I think he’s calling it The Faerie Queene—terrible title. But that word, braggadocio, is the name of an Italianate braggart who—”

  “Marlowe, stop talking.” Lopez took Marlowe’s arm and dragged him into the shadows.

  Marlowe nodded gravely. “I may be a bit in my cups. My play is terrible, you understand, and I drank too much, so I’ll need an hour or two—”

  “No time.” Lopez dragged Marlowe around the corner where two horses stood ready. “We are to meet with Walsingham’s agent in Buntingford before sundown.”

  “Yes,” Marlowe said hesitantly, “perhaps just a bit of cold water in the face or a—a very brief nap.”

  Lopez spun around, his face only inches from Marlowe’s.

  “Philip Sydney has taken your Penelope to bed,” Lopez snarled.

  They were only a few words, but no curse or spell could have worked any better to silence Marlowe, or to sober him.

  * * *

  The ride to Buntingford worked to further rouse Marlowe. Lopez did not keep to any road or path, so the riding was difficult and took concentration. There was no opportunity for idle conversation, so Marlowe had time to think about Philip Sydney in bed with his beloved Penelope Devereux. And the journey took four hours, more than enough time for any Englishman to recover from a little ale.

  Buntingford, on the River Rib, had little to recommend it save for the Bell Inn. Surrounded by lovely open meadows and abundant barns, room enough for lofts to house grooms and smiths, the inn was the perfect place for changing horses on the journey from London to Cambridge. Indeed, Her Majesty had stayed at the Bell several times. Its hospitality was widely known.

  The sun was near setting when the meadows came in sight. The evening was warm and the summer day was so long that it could well have been past nine o’clock. Everything was green, and there were brindled cows in the fields walking slowly toward the buildings. Sunlight was amber and gold in long low beams. Someone in a field, out of sight, was singing “The White Hare of Howden” and, after a moment, others joined in.

  Lopez slowed his horse and Marlowe rode alongside him.

  “The man we are to meet is called Beak,” Lopez said softly, his eyes on the public entrance to the inn in the distance. “He’s been told to expect me. Only me. You’ll go into the room first, take a table, order something, and wait. I’ll enter. He is to recognize my manner of dress. He’ll approach me. Watch to see if anyone else in the room takes notice. Do you understand?”

  “We don’t trust this Beak,” Marlowe answered.

  Lopez smiled but did not look Marlowe’s way. “We don’t trust anyone.”

  “Agreed.” Marlowe nodded.

  The inn was plain, two stories, lots of windows. As they approached, a boy of twelve or so appeared.

  “Shall I take the horses?” he suggested expressionlessly.

  “Where would you take them?” Lopez asked.

  “Stables,” the boy answered, looking over his shoulder toward the closest barn.

  “I’ll go with you,” Lopez said, sliding down from his horse.

  “I’ll go in,” Marlowe said softly.

  Lopez nodded, handed the reins of both horses to the boy, and walked by his side toward the barn.

  Marlowe rubbed his face, took a few deep breaths, and then ambled into the Bell.

  The place was quiet, a sedate, distant cousin to The Pickerel. The ceilings were high, and the room seemed large because of it. There were ten or twelve tables, neatly arranged, a wide stone hearth, and the floors were wooden. Windows faced west, so the setting sunlight was nearly blinding as it poured in. There was a bar set with several kegs, a rack of dishes, and a small door behind the bar which would lead to a kitchen.

  A well-dressed older man at the bar and a primly adorned younger woman were obviously employees of the place. Only five customers were in evidence: three men at separate tables and a well-to-do couple in the corner having a quiet, wordless meal. Marlowe eliminated the couple instantly and concentrated on the solitaries.

  One man, very large, sat by the fire, clay pipe in hand. By his clothes Marlowe guessed he might be a baker: powdery flour on his cuffs and at his ample belly.

  Another man, older, was asleep in his chair, and had the look of Protestant clergy, though he wore no such identifying collar. His thick black beard and bushy eyebrows were almost a cliché.

  The third was young, nervous, looking all about, dressed in rough clothing, had the look of an apprentice of some sort. His hair was tousled and his cheeks were ruddy. He was drinking a large tankard of something or other.

  Marlowe might have ventured to guess that the third man was Beak, but recent experience had taught him that anyone in the room could be Walsingham’s agent.

  Marlowe took the empty table nearest the door, back to the wall and windows, momentarily hidden by the door to anyone who entered the room. It was a perfect vantage point.

  The serving girl headed his way. Her expression was only a little haughty, but enough to fend off initial warmth. Dressed in a plain green dress, allowed both upper and lower classes by the Sumptuary laws, she might have been the owner’s daughter, or wife. Her entire manner was meant to explain to the casual visitor that she was a proper young woman, no common tavern lackey.

  Without thinking, Marlowe began speaking before she arrived at the table—in French.

  “Bonsoir, mademoiselle. De vin. Le mieux.”

  She stopped short. “Dire: ‘s’il vous plaît.’”

  Marlowe tried not to smile. “S’il vous plaît.”

  “Your manners are as bad as your accent,” she scolded, turning away.

  “And your education is better than your circumstance,” he countered.

  That stopped her, but she did not turn around.

  “I have no idea why I spoke to you in French,” Marlowe continued. “Maybe I wanted to seem exotic. I suppose I wanted to distinguish myself.”

  She glanced over her left shoulder. “With poor behavior and a student’s charm?”

  “Tell me your name.”

  She was gone in a flash, without another word.

  A moment later Lopez appeared in the doorway, backlit by the setting sun. His entrance was, Marlowe thought, very theatrical. Apparently everyone else in the place agreed: a momentary silence reigned.

  Marlowe glanced carefully about the room, trying to discern the slightest clue as to Walsingham’s man. Lopez’s appearance affected each man differently. The one with the pipe seemed offended. The nervous young man wore a clear expression of fear. Only the clergyman seemed unconcerned; he merely opened his eyes.

  There, Marlowe thought, that’s our man, that’s Beak.

  Lopez strode into the bar as if he might be about to repossess it, or rob it. The owner reached behind the bar for something, obviously a weapon. The serving girl, her face grim, moved toward the doctor with easy grace.

  “Sir?” she said simply.

  “I’m famished. I have been riding all day without a bite to eat. What might I have to break my fast?”

  “I prefer the boiled rabbit,” she answered, “and there’s a muddle of goose blood that most of our visitors admire.”

  He nodded. “I’ll have both, please, and sack, if it’s good.”

  “Best this side of London,” she assured him, and vanished into what must have been the kitchen.

  Lopez sat at the bar,
his back to everyone except the man standing behind it. Lopez stared at the man; the man stared back. After a moment Lopez whispered something and the man behind the bar laughed, though softly. He relaxed, and both of his hands became visible once more—visible and empty.

  The clergyman smiled, which told Marlowe he might have overhead what Lopez had said to the barman.

  A moment later the girl appeared again with the sack and set it down in front of Lopez.

  “Muddle’s ready,” she said. “Rabbit’s on the plate, with turnips.”

  Lopez nodded, took the sack in his left hand and drained the cup in seconds.

  The girl appeared to be waiting for Lopez’s opinion of the drink, staring at him with funereal scrutiny.

  That’s when Marlowe noticed the knife in the clergyman’s hand. The blade was in the man’s lap, but it was clear that the clergyman was assessing his target, preparing to throw the dagger.

  Realizing that he wouldn’t have time to stop the blade, or to warn Lopez, Marlowe let his reflexes take over. He leaned back in his chair, got his foot just right on the underside to the table in front of him, and kicked with all his strength.

  The table flew through the air, crashed into the clergyman, knocked him off his chair and onto the floor.

  Grunting and cursing the man tried to get to his feet, but Marlowe was already standing in front of him, rapier drawn, the point in the man’s face.

  “Think you can do anything with that dagger,” Marlowe asked softly, “before I shove this rapier through your eye and into your brain?”

  The man exhaled. “We might both act at the same instant,” he answered, his strangely accented voice high and mincing. “I’d throw my blade and be dead, but so would the Jew.”

  Marlowe didn’t bother to look in Lopez’s direction. “Think so? Have a look.”

  The man looked. Lopez had vanished, along with the serving girl and the barman.

  “So you’d be dead for nothing, really,” Marlowe continued.

  Without another word, Marlowe kicked the man under his jaw, heard the jaw snap, saw the man drop his blade and fall back onto the floor. At the same time he sheathed his rapier and looked to the couple in the corner.

  “Apologies,” he said to them. “This man has no manners and is, apparently, religiously intolerant.”

  Marlowe picked up the man’s dagger and slipped it into his belt.

  There was a moment of silence, and then the couple continued eating as if nothing had happened.

  The nervous boy was glued to his table, a look of abject terror on his face. The baker, if baker he was, smiled.

  “And I cannot abide a clergyman so quick to throw a knife,” the baker said to Marlowe. “Makes you wonder what’s become of religion in our modern age.”

  “Indeed,” Marlowe agreed affably.

  With that the barman appeared once more; he had been hiding behind the bar. Marlowe glanced his way. Only the man’s eyes moved, but they indicated where Lopez had gone: into the kitchen.

  “Now,” the barman said softly.

  Marlowe nodded and headed that way.

  “I wonder what’s keeping my supper,” he said as he rounded the bar.

  The kitchen was small, hot, and well-occupied. An older woman stood over a cauldron cooking a lamb stew. The smell of it was intoxicating: rosemary, thyme, cinnamon, and cherries. Marlowe had never smelled anything like it, and was momentarily distracted. Then he noticed the serving girl standing in a far corner. Lopez was in front of her, red cloak tossed back over his shoulders.

  When Marlowe looked their way, the girl stepped around Lopez and narrowed her eyes.

  “If you’ve broken one of our tables,” she complained, “you’ll be paying for it.”

  Marlowe ignored her. “We’ve been betrayed by Walsingham’s man,” he said to Lopez. “He tried to kill you. There was a knife in his hand.”

  Lopez lowered his rapier.

  “Mrs. Pennington,” the girl said to the cook, “would you be so good as to help my father tidy up the public room? This ruffian has thrown one of our tables at a guest.”

  The cook shook her head. “The youth of today,” she mumbled.

  “I saved the doctor’s life!” Marlowe protested.

  The cook headed for the door. “We can always get another doctor,” she said, looking at no one, “but the man is dead who made those tables, and we’ll not see his like again.”

  With that she was gone.

  Lopez almost laughed, a rare phenomenon.

  “That assassin was not our contact, Chris,” he said. “Allow me to introduce Leonora Beak, Her Majesty’s eighth cousin.”

  Unable to hide his surprise, Marlowe glared. “This girl is Walsingham’s man?”

  “I saw the assassin get out his dagger,” she said sternly. “There was no need to toss our furniture about—but no matter. My father and Mrs. Pennington will take care of him. How much do you know?”

  “I know nothing,” Marlowe admitted hopelessly. “Obviously.”

  “We understand only that William the Silent is dead,” Lopez intoned solemnly.

  “Ah, well,” she responded quickly, “that is the rumor, but the fact is that there has been a threat on his life. London fears that William soon will be dead.”

  Lopez frowned. “But then I am not certain.…”

  “Why there has been such urgency to Walsingham’s summons? It is precisely because of the nature of William’s current work and the very believable plot to take his life.”

  “Still,” Lopez shifted uncomfortably in his seat. It was obvious that he hated being excluded from the inner circle of facts.

  “You may know that William married—for the fourth time—this April past. His wife is Louise de Coligny, a French Huguenot, the daughter of Gaspard de Coligny.”

  “Of course,” Lopez interrupted impatiently.

  “William is currently at his home in Delft,” asserted Leonora Beak. “Or at least he will be there on the tenth day of July, the day after tomorrow, in order to dine with his guest, Rombertus van Uylenburgh. They are to discuss matters concerning the Frisian state.”

  Marlowe felt certain he understood what that meant. Frisia alone in Europe had managed to escape all feudal structure introduced by Charlemagne and established throughout the western world since that time, in one way or another. “Frisian Freedom” had become, in the current century, a common phrase, though somewhat coded. It was a call to arms among certain philosophical elements—students, peasants, pirates—to rid the world of the so-called ruling classes.

  Almost entirely to see how Leonora Beak would react, Marlowe said, simply, “Pier Gerlofs Donia.”

  Pier Gerlofs, folk hero, the last Frisian rebel, had fought and won many a battle to maintain his nation’s famous freedoms, but could not withstand the constant forces of Burgundy. His battles ended in 1519, he died in his bed in 1520—what life does a rebel have outside of his cause?

  “Bûter, brea, en griene tsiis,” Leonora responded.

  Marlowe smiled. “Butter, bread, and green cheese,” he said. “If you couldn’t pronounce those words properly, Pier would know that you were a German spy, and no true Frisian.”

  “Our nation stands at a precipice,” Leonora snapped, “and you’re talking about the history of pirates.”

  “What is it that our Queen would have us do?” Lopez said coldly, his eyes piercing hers.

  Marlowe had been the recipient of that gaze from the doctor. He knew its effect.

  She reached down behind the kitchen table and retrieved a small parcel wrapped in plain brown cloth. She handed it to Lopez.

  Lopez unwrapped it to discover a small, familiar-looking golden cylinder: Walsingham’s device for secret communiqués.

  Marlowe stood so that he might better see what was written on the thin, rolled paper which Lopez was drawing from the cylinder.

  An instant later, a short burst of laughter was torn from his throat.

  The missive began: Bûter, brea,
en griene tsiis.

  Lopez shook his head. “Is it possible that Walsingham is a seer?”

  Marlowe contained himself. “Well, there are certainly those enemies of our nation who believe that he is in league with the devil.”

  Leonora wore a look of desperate curiosity. Marlowe interpreted it to mean that she had often sat in meetings of this sort. How many times had she been so close to momentous information, yet excluded from its revelation? He sensed her anger, and her yearning.

  Knowing that Lopez might object, and realizing it was a breach of protocol, Marlowe nevertheless told Leonora, “This note begins with the very words we just quoted from Pier Gerlofs, green cheese and all.”

  Lopez seemed not to hear. His eyes were fixed on the rest of the letter from Walsingham. Leonora Beak’s face contorted in a rushing sequence of reactions so demonstrative that Marlowe immediately wished he might capture them in some net of words. An entire play was offered by that face, and in the span of several seconds.

  But she did not say a word.

  Lopez, however, exclaimed, under his breath, in Portuguese.

  “It seems, my friend,” he said to Marlowe, “that you are to go to Delft and prevent the death of William the Silent.”

  “You’re not going with me?” Marlowe asked. “I’m supposed to go alone to prevent the death of a man who is already dead, by most accounts?”

  “No,” Lopez said softly, “you will not go alone. This woman is to be your companion.”

  Marlowe and Leonora both spoke, at the same time, a single word: “No.”

  “The dictum is clear,” Lopez told them. “It says, ‘The woman who proffered this note, one L.B., will accompany M. on his journey. When they arrive in Delft, they are to say to W. the words with which this missive begins: Bûter, brea, en griene tsiis.’”

  Lopez looked up, then, at Leonora Beak. “And then there is a phrase written here, the words which you have been instructed to say to me, in proof of your identity.”

  “How do we know she hasn’t read Walsingham’s note already?” Marlowe complained.

  Lopez shook his head. “I watched her. She was clearly surprised by the contents in this letter. She has not read it.” He looked into Leonora’s eyes. “So. What are the words you are told to say to me?”