The English Agent Read online

  “I have read this forged missive,” he said, “and have surmised the identity of the only person who could possibly have known the words included in it, the words from your new play. But your affiliation with the theatre prevents you from naming him.”

  The impact of Marlowe’s sudden realization was as substantive as a blow to the head. He sipped in a violent breath, and shivered.

  “Kyd,” he rasped.

  “Alas,” Walsingham confirmed, shrugging.

  “No.” Marlowe stood. “Why would Thomas Kyd betray me?”

  “You misunderstand,” Walsingham answered calmly. “Thomas Kyd betrayed England. You were merely in his line of fire.”

  “Why would our greatest playwright betray his country?” Marlowe demanded, something like anger growing in his brain.

  “Thomas Kyd has—proclivities.” Walsingham appeared to think better of continuing, for the moment.

  Marlowe exhaled. “‘He is a fool who likes not tobacco and young boys.’ I’ve heard him say it a thousand times. But the things he says, they are largely in jest. He is rarely of a serious mind, and most of what he says is intended as humor. Not to mention that his belly may be the largest single repository of finer ale on this continent.”

  “And in moments of excess,” Walsingham sighed, “a man may agree to do things that his better, more sober self might not.”

  “He’s been blackmailed, then,” Marlowe assumed, “because of his public statements. He’s agreed to help—not the Spanish. Certainly.”

  “No, of course not. He’s not valuable to Spaniards.”

  “Then to whom has he succumbed?”

  “That we do not know. But you must find out.”

  “Of course. I know how to find him.”

  “No,” Walsingham said, “you must not find him. He must find you. But not now. Now you must go directly to Mary. You must confirm what we suspect about Babington, and the scheme he has engendered. Mary is under strictest confinement at Chartley Hall, though few know it—I have let it be known that she will not be there until Christmas, but she is there now.”

  “That way,” Marlowe assumed, “the only people who would know about her imprisonment there would be your inner circle, or conspirators.”

  “Yes,” Walsingham confirmed. “She is quite guarded. Sir Amias Paulet is her keeper. He is a Puritan, and hates Mary. Among other punishments, Mary is forbidden any correspondence with the outside world. But we have reason to believe that she has subverted that condition.”

  “She has communicated with Babington,” Marlowe concluded.

  “Yes.” Walsingham held out a single sheet. “Here is one such missive. Study it. You may have need to recognize his handwriting.”

  Marlowe took the letter and stared at it.

  “You must go to Mary as a secret Catholic ally,” Walsingham went on. “Under the guise of confederacy, you will agree to transport her secret letters for her. Those letters, I believe, will contain the final elements of her downfall, and her death.”

  “I am to do this alone? Without Lopez or—”

  “Not exactly alone.” Walsingham held aloft the piece of paper which he had flourished upon entering the room. “This document is your companion, and your weapon.”

  Marlowe stared at the paper and thought, for a moment, he might be in a dream.

  “What is that page?”

  “It is the newly signed Act for the Surety of the Queen’s Person,” Walsingham answered confidently. “It is a law which permits the bearer great latitude in pursuit of anyone who would plot against the Queen of England. And there is no doubt that Mary is at the center of this plot. Your evidence from the mouth of the assassin Gérard permits us to take Mary, but we—that is, our Queen desires more tangible proof. She remains loath to condemn Mary. You must obtain something substantial.”

  “I—yes, but—” Marlowe stammered.

  “There are other assurances in this document,” Walsingham continued, “that may aid you in all of your continuing pursuits as an investigator for us. For instance, you are allowed to use any and all means to secure your ends with complete impunity.”

  Walsingham inclined his head toward Marlowe.

  Marlowe shook his head. “I’m not certain I understand.”

  Walsingham held out the paper, offering it to Marlowe, insisting that he take it.

  “Under this law, you will not be held liable for any illegal activity employed during the course of your investigations,” he told Marlowe. “Including murder. You are given license to kill.”

  Marlowe stared at the paper, then took it delicately, as if it might explode in his hand.

  Then Walsingham heaved a sigh so filled with emotion that Marlowe gasped.

  “Sir?” he said to Walsingham.

  “There is another matter.” Walsingham closed his eyes. The old man was in great distress, Marlowe read it on his face.

  Without a word Walsingham held up one of the golden cylinders used for the transportation of secrets. He removed the end of the cylinder and extracted the rolled up message. He stared at it, pinched his lips, and then looked up at Marlowe.

  “Something has transpired which—I—one of our agents—forgive me, I don’t have the words.”

  The old man was clearly shaken. He leaned forward heavily on the desk.

  Marlowe stared at Walsingham. “What has happened?”

  “There has been another murder, one of a more personal nature,” Walsingham said softly. “Leonora Beak is dead.”

  For a moment the words weren’t real. Marlowe was certain he’d heard incorrectly.

  “No.” Marlowe shook his head. “That’s wrong. She’s not dead. I just saw her, left her tending to her father at the Bell Inn.”

  Walsingham locked eyes with Marlowe.

  “She lies dead in Buntingford.” Walsingham’s voice strained to betray no emotion, but his eyes brimmed with great intensity. “A rider arrived an hour before your coach did. With this message.”

  “No!” Marlowe insisted. “It’s wrong. You have been misinformed!”

  “Marlowe!” the old man roared.

  “Who?” Marlowe demanded. “Who killed her?”

  “That is not known.”

  “Well it will be soon! I’m going to Buntingford, I’ll find the villain, and I’ll kill him!”

  “I—no, Marlowe,” Walsingham began.

  Marlowe stood. “Do not dissuade me!”

  But Marlowe’s legs gave out, and he nearly fell. His side was bleeding again, and his head pounded so hideously that he found it hard to see the room around him.

  “Sit down!” Walsingham commanded.

  “I’m going to—to the Bell,” Marlowe offered weakly.

  “Yes, Marlowe,” Walsingham responded, his voice was iron. “That is your assignment. Now be silent.”

  “Sir,” Marlowe objected, at last collapsing back into his chair, “I have not impressed upon you the greatness of this woman’s character, or her bravery, or—”

  “You will go to the Bell and discover the identity of the murderer! You have three days. Then you go to Chartley. No matter what. Whatever she may be, Leonora Beak is not more important than our Queen.”

  “I’ll need more than three days,” Marlowe pleaded. “You have other agents at Chartley, but there is only one man in England with a reason for finding Leonora’s killer. You did not know her as I did.”

  “I realize that she was your companion, and that you grew to care for her,” Walsingham began again, remaining calm only with great difficulty.

  “I cared for her more than you can possibly imagine,” Marlowe interrupted.

  “I think not, young man!” Walsingham suddenly raged. “Leonora Beak was my daughter!”

  The moment of silence that followed was absolute.

  Then, in a voice surprised by tenderness, Walsingham said, “No one knew it—not even she.”

  Marlowe saw the aura of suffering that surrounded the old man, an odd glow, a vapor.

>   “Then let me find the man who killed her,” he said at last.

  Walsingham closed his eyes. His head was quivering.

  “Yes,” he said to Marlowe in a voice so soft it was nearly impossible to hear. “You have three days. Then to Chartley. It is a command. You know what’s at stake, Marlowe. Now go.”

  ELEVEN

  Marlowe stood outside in the warm air, a half-moon sailing above in the sky. How could she be dead? How did she die? Where? Did Kyd have anything to do with it? Where was Lopez?

  Dizzy with such questions, Marlowe staggered to a small wooden bench and sat down. Several guards stood close by.

  Marlowe sat; the moon sailed. Then, no telling how much later, the young boy who had delivered the news of Leonora’s death came silently to Marlowe’s side. After a moment, he sat down next to Marlowe.

  “I’m to tell you there is a carriage prepared to take you to the Buntingford changing station,” the boy said plainly. “You’re to wait here for it.”

  Marlowe looked at the boy, all of nine years old, relatively clean, dressed in adult clothing that had been tailored to fit him: a pale shirt, gray pantaloons, and very expensive boots. He was the son or nephew or cousin of someone in court, someone known to the Queen, in the queen’s favor.

  And to have a job of such importance meant that he was also, in some way or other, exceptional—exceptionally intelligent or remarkably slow-witted. Either would do for a messenger, though the latter was preferred.

  “What is your name?” Marlowe asked him.

  “Leviticus.”

  Marlowe smiled. “Your parents were cruel.”

  “My parents were Protestants,” he said immediately.

  “That explains it.”

  “I have not made up my mind, as of yet,” the boy went on.

  “About what?”

  “I can’t decide if our Anglican communion has gone far enough in its efforts to rid us of the tyranny of the Pope in Rome.”

  Marlowe examined the boy more closely. “When I was your age,” he said, mostly to see the boy’s reaction, “I did as my parents told me to do.”

  Leviticus looked up. “That was a wiser path than mine, Master Marlowe. I find that I am in desperate trouble most of the time because my brain will not allow me to do as anyone tells me to do.”

  “Alas,” Marlowe commiserated, “I understand that ethos all too well. Do you mind my asking what is your age?”

  “My body is eleven years old,” he answered, “but my mind is at least eighty, or so I have been told.”

  “And who has told you that?”

  “Lord Walsingham,” the boy sighed.

  “He would know. He knows everything.”

  The boy looked down. “He did not know that Leonora Beak would be killed.”

  “No.” Marlowe closed his eyes, and in his mind he could see her standing over him, tending his wound. “Did you know her? The sound of your voice tells me that you may have.”

  “I did. She was kind.”

  Marlowe opened his eyes. “No more? That is all you will say?”

  The boy stood. “I have been trained to say nothing, and I have ignored that training enough for the moment. I have delivered my message. I bid you good night.”

  He began to walk away.

  “You said your parents were Protestants,” Marlowe called softly.

  The boy stopped. “My parents are dead.”

  “And how did you come to your present position?”

  The boy did not move.

  “You are related to someone at court,” Marlowe surmised.

  “I would imagine,” the boy acknowledged, “though the identity of my kin or benefactor is unknown to me. I may even be related so someone of very high degree. But no one will answer my questions. No one.”

  “You are curious about the subject.”

  The boy turned to face Marlowe. “Some days, I can think of little else.”

  Marlowe stood, but did not approach the boy. “I shall find out for you.”

  “You shall not,” the boy countered, “because the answer is unknown.”

  Marlowe shook his head. “Any question devised by the mind of man has, as a matter of definition, an answer. That is to say: the human mind is incapable of conceiving any question which has no answer. You might as well say to someone, ‘Think of something that you can’t think of.’ The moment you think of it, the original statement is rendered meaningless because, you see, you have thought of it.”

  “It’s a tricky bit of philosophy, isn’t it?” The boy squinted. “Lord Walsingham says that you are clever, so you may be correct. But why would you do this thing for me?”

  “You are suspicious of me.”

  “I am.”

  “That is what a life in court does for you,” Marlowe mumbled. “But good. You should question my motives. So I will tell you: if I find out what you want to know, you will owe me a favor, will you not?”

  The boy made no reply.

  “Before your suspicions get the better of you,” Marlowe went on, “I can tell you that I am more loyal to Walsingham, and our Queen, than any man alive, and I would never ask you to betray a confidence or a royal trust.”

  Still the boy hesitated.

  “The thing is,” Marlowe sighed, “I would like to know the answer myself. I see wheels within wheels here at Hampton.”

  “Yes.” That was all the boy would say, it appeared.

  “I will say this: I have not done well, of late.” Marlowe observed that his voice sounded sick. “I have failed in my attempt to prevent a murder of national importance; I have lost a true and good companion to a second murder; my greatest theatrical mentor may well be a traitor to our country; and my greatest friend is missing—only God knows where he is. I have no idea why my intuition tells me that you know much more about all of that than you will tell me at the moment. But if I discover your heritage, you will answer my questions.”

  “I hope you will have a safe journey to Buntingford,” the boy said, his voice cold. “Your carriage is to leave at dawn.”

  With that he turned and vanished into the shadows on the dark side of the building.

  Before Marlowe could think what to do, a familiar form appeared in the moonlight, emerging from a door near the garden.

  “Is that John Bull?” Marlowe called out.

  The man hesitated, found the source of the question, and sighed.

  “Marlowe,” he said. “What in God’s name are you doing here at this time of night?”

  “I might ask you the same question.”

  Bull walked toward Marlowe. He was dressed in silver and black, a crisp new doublet, scrubbed boots, no weapon at his waist. He was a hale sort, ruddy but mannered, and in perfect health despite his prodigious consumption of French wines.

  “Me?” he said, nearing Marlowe’s bench. “I’ve got a commission. Real money.”

  “To write music for the Queen,” Marlowe surmised. Why else would he be so clean, and parading about without a sword or knife?

  “I cannot say.” Bull looked down at Marlowe. “You’re a mess, Marlowe. You’d best clean up before you go to see anyone in there.”

  Bull tilted his head toward Walsingham’s private door.

  “Good advice,” Marlowe said. “Listen, you wouldn’t happen to know where Kyd is at the moment. You know how it is: he owes me a tidy sum, and I need the money.”

  “You need a new doublet,” Bull agreed. “I think he’s over at The Curtain Theatre, rehearsing his new—whatever he’s working on now. Are you going that way? I’ll walk with you.”

  “No,” Marlowe demurred, “I have a few things to do before I see him. Congratulations on your commission, though.”

  “Thanks,” said Bull. “I’m in your boat: could really use the money.”

  * * *

  Too soon, the morning came, and Marlowe found himself falling asleep in a coach on the ragged road back to the Buntingford changing station. Alas, a deadly mixture of dreams, rage, a
nd self-doubt prevented all semblance of proper slumber, so he sat up and stared out the window of the coach.

  Trying to piece together the tatters of the previous few days, all he could see clearly was that he—and Lopez and Leonora Beak—had been deliberately led astray. The false message alleged to be from Walsingham could only have come from Kyd, or with Kyd’s aid. No one else could possibly have known the line from Marlowe’s play that was supposed to have been Leonora’s countersign. And now that she was dead, there was no way to question her more about the man who delivered the false message.

  At the first stop, a short bit of water for the horses, one of the two coachmen, a young boy in a woven hat, appeared in the window of the coach. He offered Marlowe a drink from a gourd.

  “You look like you could use a week’s rest,” the boy said, “if you don’t mind my saying so.”

  Marlowe nodded, took the gourd, drank it all, and said, “I can’t sleep.”

  “Well,” the boy said, taking the gourd, “you’ve got a lot on your mind, then, I’d imagine.”

  Marlowe closed his eyes once more and the coach took off.

  Possibly Leonora’s father might know something about the false message, but Marlowe was uncomfortable with the notion of questioning a wounded man whose daughter had just been murdered.

  There was also the question of sending Marlowe and Leonora to Delft in the first place. What if they had succeeded in preventing William’s death? That would have strengthened England’s position against the Spanish king, as well as providing more defense against any attempt to place Mary on Elizabeth’s throne. So much of the plot was confusing to Marlowe.

  “If I were writing this,” he thought to himself, “I would simplify the story. In general, audiences prefer not to be confused. The details of this current plot: obviously the work of an amateur.”

  And then he fell asleep again, and dreamed of Leonora Beak.

  She and Marlowe were swimming together in the ocean, near the beach. Lopez, a black horse, the Traveling family, Thomas Kyd, and Balthasar Gérard were all standing on the beach singing “The White Hare of Howden.”

  TWELVE

  Marlowe awoke with a start.

  Disoriented, he reached for his dagger without thinking. The coach had stopped. There were voices. Then, without warning, a door flew open and an arm reached in.