For This Is Hell Page 4

  “Not so, dear lady, not so. No ale, thou. Rather,” he thought on his feet, looking for a suitable metaphor, “A delicate liquor, a fine wine, something to be sipped and savored. Thou art a true treasure worthy of being wooed and won—and kept safe at hand thereafter.”

  “You men always find such pretty words to raise a lady’s skirts,” Elissa said, some bitterness rising above the flirtatious banter, “yet surely thou knowest me not at all—you see my face, my shape, and it fires your blood. There is nothing noble there. So pray tell me how, then, can thou be so certain my vintage would lay sweet upon the palate?”

  Iarbas allowed himself a deep, knowing chuckle. “I have traveled the world, your majesty, supped many a vintage and seen far more, every shape and size of cask and bottle, and sights far beyond the normal ken. I am a man with a discerning palate, I assure you. One must drink the odd tapped cask to know a truly good vintage. Look at me. My eyes. With these eyes I can judge a soul upon an instant. Thee and I would fit together, certes, like a hand in a glove, so close none could tell one from t’other, our every movement as one.”

  “Would we now? And who then would be the hand, and whom the glove?” Elissa allowed a hint of iron to show in her tone. She was not some simple child to be bedded with a few clever twists of phrase. She was so much more than that. “Which would hold dominion? More telling, Iarbas, which surrender all will?” She arched an eyebrow. “For thou art a noble lord, wealthy and no doubt well-endowed,” she let that hang in the air between them a moment, the double entendre slightly labored, “Yet I am Queen of all Carthage!”

  “I meant no disrespect, majesty,” her suitor insisted, bowing low and long this time, “nor to suggest usurpation of those rights and duties conferred by royal lineage. I spoke carelessly. I meant only matters such as a couple might share, the delicious moments in which there are no rulers, no subjects—they are paired, a perfect match, neither ascendant o’er the other. Equal in all things, bested only by pleasure.”

  The queen nodded, satisfied by his answer. “Indeed, then to torture your conceit somewhat, the hand doth control all movement, yet the glove is guardian of sensation. Neither masters the other.”

  “Yet both strive to be the greater benefactor to their partner,” Iarbas claimed, “and in that contest, there can be no losers.” He dared a lascivious wink. “And even so, with you it is a contest in which I would most happily risk a rare defeat.”

  “Perhaps, perhaps, if thou dost continue to amuse me thus.”

  “Then amuse you I must, great lady.” He bowed once more, before straightening and making his exit in a flurry of cloak and cap and extravagant feathers.

  “Better! Much better!” Marlowe clapped from his place on the balcony. “Nobly aped, good Ned! Gracefully stated, dear Sam! We’ll make a play of this yet!”

  Ned turned and bowed up at him. “All thanks to you, my good friend!” He called out, his trained voice easily reaching across the distance. “You put the words in our mouths, and with these any dullard could put on a show fit for a barrister.” He smiled. “Though I flatter myself to think my recitation fit enough for a duke, at the least.”

  “Ha! Far beyond such pond scum, Master Alleyn!” Marlowe assured his friend. “The very Queen herself marvels at your histrionics, as you well know, for certes she has summoned you enough to perform before her.”

  “In all seriousness, these new lines are good, Kit,” Sam put in, his voice shifting back toward its natural register as he sloughed off the character of Elissa. It was a subtle transformation as first he resumed his own gait and then his mannerisms. “There is something wonderfully familiar about them—might I infer you found inspiration in your dalliance last night? She was a rather fine looking woman, that barmaid.”

  “That she was,” Jimmy Tunstall agreed. “And I did note how she returned shortly after you departed, soaking wet and smiling, and hummed and sang the rest of the evening, clearly well pleased with herself. Would that be the one?”

  “Aye, the very same,” Marlowe agreed. He sprung over the balcony rail and dropped down to speak more on level with his friends. “Lorelei, her name is, and believe me when I say she uncorked the fountain within me, gentlemen!”

  “Well, that’s one way of putting it,” Ned whispered to Sam, who giggled like one of the girls he so often portrayed.

  “You think I’d deny it? Damn, but she was something else, lads,” Marlowe admitted, chuckling along with them. “But so much more important, her words, the cut-and-thrust of her flirtation, acted as the spur my weary brain needed. She goaded me into a gallop in more ways than one, and these pages are the result, scribbled last night after I left your company—and hers.” He gestured toward the broadsheets Martin held. “And best of all, I’ve not run dry yet!”

  “Well, I should hope not, for her sake as well as ours, friend Kit!” Sam quipped, raising another round of laughter among the players. The mood throughout the theatre was far lighter than it had been for days—hell, weeks!—and Marlowe felt his own spirits blaze still brighter from the joy all around him. As he had stumbled back home last night, he had known that the words had come unstuck within his soul. He had crawled from the Thames reborn. He was Kit Marlowe!

  And action had proved him right. Upon returning to his rooms, stoking the fire, and pulling on dry clothes, he had begun to write.

  Really write.

  Like he hadn’t written in years, with the fire of the prose burning through his veins. The lines had flickered and flared to brilliance, sparking one another to greater heights, until the whole of the first scene had taken fire and blazed bright as a funeral pyre.

  Marlowe had thrown open the shutters on the morning sun and crowed like a cock. His gift had returned! He was alive again! Alive!

  They were still laughing when the Playhouse’s front door banged open.

  A short, stout figure stumbled in. The man looked as though he had been dragged through a hedgerow backwards.

  “Where is Master Henslowe?” He demanded, his voice hoarse.

  “Ed?” Marlowe squinted against the sudden glare of the daylight beyond. “What the devil is wrong, man?” Ed Juby was a part of their company, most often seen in the role of the clever servant whose job it was to cause endless jests at his master’s expense.

  “It’s bad, Kit,” Ed replied, shaking his head as he made his way across the gallery. The front door slammed shut again behind him, allowing the gloom to swallow the gallery once more. “Where’s Henslowe?”

  “I’m here, Ed,” Henslowe called out as he emerged from the office hidden away behind the stage area. “What is it, lad?”

  “John Cholmley, sir.” Ed paused and gulped for air, or perhaps something stronger—Ned obliged, handing the shorter man a small silver flask. Ed took it and swigged down a mouthful of fiery liquid from before continuing. “John Cholmley—is dead.”

  That was not the news Kit had expected, but it explained poor Ed’s fractured nerves.

  “Dead?” Henslowe sagged against a pillar. “How?” Ned stepped to his side to comfort the older man. Henslowe was not merely their friend, and their landlord—he was Ned’s father by marriage, binding him as tight as a parent to the whole troop.

  The others fell silent.

  Cholmley had been Henslowe’s partner years ago. The pair had bought a stretch of land known as “Little Rose” and built a small playhouse there. Henslowe had only recently renovated that into the spacious gallery and stage where they now stood. He had bought Cholmley’s share off him, ending their business relationship, but the two had remained close. And though no longer one of their landlords, Cholmley had been a good friend to the Admiral’s Men, too. He had never missed a single performance.

  Ed looked uncomfortable. “Threw himself in front of a horse, sir, or slipped and fell. Either way, it was quick, at least, if that’s a mercy—one hoof to the head and his spirit fled.”

  “This is ill news,” Marlowe commented quietly.

  Henslowe was cle
arly shaken.

  A pall descended upon the other players.

  “Who’s to say it wasn’t assisted by a push?” Ned asked. Kit turned to look at him. The thought had been in his mind, too, but he’d never have voiced it. Enough people out there wished him ill, it was not impossible to believe one might resort to a shove to get things done. Could the same have been true for the old gentleman? “Suicide? No. I cannot believe John Cholmley would have thrown himself under the hooves of a thundering horse! He was not that sort of man. He was always sensible. Logical. Why then so illogical in his last action?”

  Nods rippled across the gallery. “But who would wish to hurt John?” Pyk asked. “He was such a… such a decent man. A kind man. I don’t think I ever heard a cross word pass his lips.” Which was undoubtedly a lie, Marlowe reflected silently, but only in so much as even good men, kind men, lose their tempers and say things they regret. It is not the heat of words that defines them, he thought, but the cool calm rationality of the rest of their lives which far outweighs any fire. Men like him were ruled by heat, passion, fire, but men like Cholmley were water to his flame, placid, still, and running deep.

  “Your question is too broad,” Ed mused. “Or perhaps too narrow. I very much doubt there is a ‘who’ involved.” He made the sign of the cross over his broad chest. “More like a ‘what.’”

  “I’ve got no time for riddles, Ed. Speak plainly or shut the hell up,” Henslowe said, pushing away from the column to confront the stout player. “So tell me, what do you mean, ‘what’?”

  Ed hung his head, forcing Marlowe to strain to catch his hushed reply. “They say—they say he was ranting as he stumbled into the street. Proper shouting and screaming, and lashing out and shuddering back from invisible foes like a man possessed. A man fighting ghosts. His cries were of serpents, said they were writhing about him, biting at his flesh. It’s not natural, you ask me. He never even saw the rider ’cause his eyes were fixed on sights unseen by mortal man.”

  Murmurs sprang up among the players.

  “This isn’t the first such tale I’ve heard,” Tom Downton observed quietly. They turned to him. “There was an old beggar woman, said she heard hisses at her ear every hour, felt coils about her limbs.” He waited, drawing them in with each unspoken word. Sometimes those were the strongest. “They found her drowned in an alley on a dry morning, no traces of water anywhere save for the dribble flowing from her mouth.” He shook his head. “They waved it away as she’d gone mad and drank herself into a stupor, then collapsed in a fit. But it was mere water on her lips, making her the first woman drunk on it. It’s not natural. But then, so much ain’t these days.”

  “Aye, there was a fisherman pleading for help the other evening,” Sam reported. “I was done and ready for home when I saw him. A pitiful wretch on his boat, begging for coin that he might take himself off the river for the night. I’ll be honest, I thought it a clever beggar’s ploy, but I couldn’t resist asking why he would require a room when he stood within a perfectly serviceable boat.” The young performer shuddered. “‘There’s a creature haunting these waters,’ the man replied. ‘She is clothed as a woman, all curves and peaks, a thing of beauty, but she is no woman, this—more a snake, sibilant and deadly. She calls to me with her siren song, and I grow weaker by the night. I can’t resist her forever. Soon, I’ll fall. All I ask is a coin, something to buy a night free of her song. Help me and I will repay you a thousand times!’” Sam looked away. “I gave him a coin or two, I’ll admit. I’m a soft touch, though it wasn’t enough for the price of a bed.” He shook his head. “The next morning his boat was there. He was not. I have not seen him since, though I have heard other fishermen whispering about the death of one of their own, drowned and washed up bloated like some diseased carp.”

  “The plague,” Ned stated plainly. “Tis the plague returned. What other explanation could there be? Fevers and the dreams that burn within them, nothing more.” Others nodded, clearly happy to believe him. Marlowe considered it a clear sign of their underlying fear that they would wish the Black Death back rather than seek another explanation.

  For himself though, he was less sure. No, that was mere caviling. He knew this was nothing so banal as a symptom of the Black Death. He had seen that particular monster up close and knew it all too well. Neither, though, was he a stranger to such tales as his men were now repeating. They had occurred before, though not here, and perhaps not within the living memory of any other present, but there could be no mistake. The fevers, the whispers, the visions, the waking dreams, the loss of control—

  These were the signs of a Beast.

  Somewhere in London, a Beast had begun to stir.

  But which one, he wondered.

  Serpents could be the device of several.

  And where?

  If these deaths were occurring all across the city, he would be unable to pinpoint their source. It was possible the Beast was already on the move. He would have to find it, Marlowe realized. But there lay the risk, because without knowing which Beast he faced there was no way for him to determine how best to bring it down. Each incarnation was different. Was it set to oppose his own plans? Or was it content to continue its activities and allow him the space for his? That was the question. He needed a fortnight, perhaps less. Then the play would be complete. That was all he asked. It was not so much, was it?

  Yet deep inside him, a sinking feeling, a smooth-sided pebble of doubt, reminded him that fond wishes seldom if ever came true.

  Before he could add anything to the tales, the front doors opened for the second time to announce a new arrival. They slammed back with a loud clatter. This time the intruders would have been far less welcome, even if their news had been joyous—a trio of grim-faced and forbidding men dressed all in dark uniforms stood beneath the lintel. Marlowe had seen them only yesterday, and if he had never seen them again it would have been too soon.

  “If you have come to see us perform, gentlemen,” Marlowe called, detaching himself from the rest of the troupe. He strode toward the three to block their advance, meeting them just inside the gallery entrance, “Alas, you are premature by at least a week, more like two. You cannot rush genius—at least, I can’t. I urge you to return when we have polished our speeches and honed our wit, that you might better appreciate our art. So, as I would banish a demon, I say begone.” Marlowe smiled sweetly.

  “I believe we have sufficient appreciation for your art, Marlowe,” the silvered gentleman in the center mocked.

  “Why, such venom, good sir! You would think I bedded your donkey or some such.” Marlowe staggered back a step as though shocked. He made sure to keep himself directly in their path all the same. “So, what have I done to deserve such a treatment? I am Marlowe, decried as one of the foremost dramatists in all of England!”

  “Aye, that you are. And there’s a gent in the alleys by the docks who is the finest pederast in all the land,” the man to the left retorted, “but you’ll not hear him announcing his reputation quite so proudly!”

  “Well, no, obviously, a pederast would have shame, would he not? I am sure you intended to be scathing in your jibe, but perhaps the talking is better left to those more evolved?” Marlowe masked the anger he felt rising, a heat of rage blazing up from deep inside, but even so the fire in his eyes was bright enough to give the trio pause for thought. “If you would insult me, at least get the words right, sirrah. A pederast skewers a single boy, and then only with his flesh. I am far more potent. And more dangerous. My genius is such that it transfixes multitudes at once. Any fool can stick his cock in places it shouldn’t go. Just ask dear Pater.” He swept into a low bow, and was pleased to see when he straightened that he had stunned them into silence. Let that show the fools how dangerous it was to confront him in his own nest!

  “What would you here, gentlemen?” Henslowe asked, stepping forward to stand beside Marlowe. Marlowe felt a rush of warmth at the clear support from his friend. “Or have you come simply to bandy in
sults with my playwright? If so, a word to the wise, you will leave here badly bested. This boy’s tongue is vicious.”

  “We are here upon the Queen’s own business, and it’s none of yours, old man,” the man in the middle said flatly. He straightened to his full height, which while imposing fell far short of the towering Ned, who had moved to stand at Marlowe’s other side. “I carry here a notice,” he stated as he produced a broadsheet, which he thrust at Henslowe, “stating that this Playhouse is to be shut down at once!”

  “What? Why?” Ned demanded. “What possible reason could you have fabricated, you pathetic weasel?”

  The silvered man only smiled at him, his expression growing ever colder. The smile barely twitched his lips and was lost utterly in his neat goatee. “Concerns of public health,” he answered. “Gathering crowds in close confines such as this is unsafe given the recent reoccurrences of plague.”

  “What of the Theatre?” Henslowe asked, referring to one of their two rival playhouses. “Or the Curtain? I assume they are to be shut as well?”

  The man did not answer. After a moment’s pause, the gentleman to his left coughed. He licked his lips. “Each playhouse will be considered on its own merits,” he replied coldly. “And will be dealt with as deemed necessary.”

  “And in the language of the common man, you’re screwing us,” Ned snarled. “Despite the size of our gallery”—somehow he made that sound decidedly sexual—“which allows more space for the audience than either of the others. Plague fears, my arse. If you were truly worried about close quarters, you’d shut them first. There’s a reason they call ’em the stinkies. It’s a rancid pit. You’re crammed in so tight you can barely breathe.”

  “Indeed,” Henslowe agreed, inclining his head towards his son-in-law. “Ned has the right of it. When the Queen determines that all playhouses are unsafe for gatherings, we will comply with Her royal command. Until then, mark my words, gentlemen—this is an abuse of your authority, I assume for some personal vendetta against Marlowe, and I’m having none of it.” He raised the broadsheet in both hands and tore it asunder, throwing the two halves back in the trio’s startled faces. “Take your lies and stick them up your rectal passage, lad. Any more nonsense and I will take your villainy to the good Queen Herself!”