A Prisoner in Malta (16 page)

Marlowe smiled. “Please forgive my cutting you, Pinch. It was a thoughtless response.”

Marlowe's dagger disappeared.

Pinch's head jerked sideways. “Well, then. I don't believe I've heard an apology in this place for ten years or more. After all, I took you by the throat.”

“You were only doing what any loving husband would do,” Marlowe assured him. “Nell, you are the most fortunate of women.”

At that Nell's entire demeanor softened. “Well, he's tall, I will say that. Good for reaching at things in high places.”

Pinch leaned down a bit and winked at Marlowe. “And not so bad at reaching a few of the lower places too, if you catch my meaning.”

Nell slapped Pinch's bicep and even blushed a little. Pinch displayed a largely toothless grin. Marlowe did his best not to be distracted by evidence of marital harmony in so base a couple. He paused only a second before daring the next question.

“One more thing,” he said, gazing boldly into Nell's eyes. “What about that room's previous tenant? Marlowe, I believe, was his name.”

Nell nodded. “Nice boy. Good manners. It's a shame that someone's got it out for him, but there you are.”

“Any idea what's happened to him?”

She shrugged. “If you believe the rabble, he's fled on account of murdering Pygott. But if you ask me, the same men what killed the fat boy killed poor Marlowe. Too bad.”

“Nice boy,” Pinch repeated, shaking his head.

“Well.” Marlowe straightened up. “I'll just have a seat by the fire, then.”

Without further comment, Pinch went back to work, and Nell caught the eye of one of her daughters. There was work to be done.

The rest of the bar's population had already resumed their previous behaviors: drinking, laughing, cursing, eating, and falling asleep in their food.

 

THIRTEEN

Marlowe strode to a table near the fire, settled back, and watched the crowd. Before long one of the daughters glided up to the table, winked, and rested her weight on one leg. Her skin was alabaster with a blush of pink. Her hair was plaited gold silk.

“Food or ale?”

“Why not both,” Marlowe said above the din.

“Indeed,” she agreed. “You've taken a room, have you?”

“I have. Not the most felicitous of chambers.”

“What with the dead body they found there, you mean.”

“Yes.” Marlowe smiled.

“I spot you for new in town,” she said, “so I'm taking care of you. I'll bring you the stew because it's fresh, if I skim the top away, whereas the joint of beef is older than me. We flavors our ale with rosemary and ivy, so as to make it go with stew, and it's only a halfpenny a tankard. There's manchet comes with it.”

“Manchet. Lovely,” Marlowe said enthusiastically. “I could murder a slice of bread.”

Without another word, she turned and slid away. Marlowe watched her go. She moved like a skater over frozen water, and he wondered why he had never noticed her before. Only then did he allow himself to consider how fortunate he had been that no one at the inn recognized him. Still, he renewed his determination not to engage too deeply with anyone, lest he be detected. His entire investigation of Pygott's death depended on anonymity.

Marlowe stared into the fire then, and could not prevent his thoughts from rushing to Frances Walsingham, her face, her hands—her ability with a rapier. He saw, in his mind's eye, the contour of her cheek, and thought of several exhausted conversations beside fires in the South of France. The sound that her blue dress had made as she took his hand in London, leading him out of the tiny chamber where her father sat, filled his ears, obliterating any other noise.

So it was that he did not notice when the girl brought his stew and ale.

“Here we go,” she said, breaking his reverie.

“Ah.” He rubbed his eyes. “Very nice. Thank you.”

“Manners,” she said almost mockingly. “I don't get much in the way of ‘thank you' around here. You've just won a bit of extra ale.”

She was off once more.

Marlowe devoured his stew, and the bread was gone with it before five minutes had passed. He sat back, oddly contented, only to be startled when a man grabbed the skirt of his serving girl and nearly sent her tumbling. The noise of the room abated, but only slightly.

“Come on, sweet.” The man began to bunch up her skirt. “Just a peek at the old bird's nest!”

The girl slapped his hand with a mummer's grace.

“No, Ingram,” was all she said.

She turned from him and continued on her way, but Marlowe saw that Pinch had taken notice, and Nell tapped her nose with her index finger, then nodded in the offender's direction.

Marlowe squinted in the direction of the man. Difficult to see in the lamplight, but that could have been one of the men who accosted him on campus, and on the road. He turned back to Nell; she affirmed his silent query with another nod.

Meanwhile, the man stood unsteadily and wobbled after the girl. She was almost to the bar by the time he caught up.

“No?” The misbegotten man she'd called Ingram roared.

He jerked her arm so suddenly that she dropped the handful of cups she was carrying. The clatter was like a cymbal's clash against the tables. What was left of the human noise of the place receded like water. Every eye was on the scene composed by Ingram and the proprietors' daughter. Menace radiated from Pinch, and Nell was already rounding the bar.

“Now, then,” Ingram went on.

Oblivious of the danger around him, or the crowd that watched his every move, he reached his hand up under the girl's skirt. The next thing Marlowe knew, old-man Pinch appeared beside Ingram, roaring. He had Ingram's arms pinned in the blink of an eye. There was no question of a struggle. Pinch was twice the size of Ingram, and only half as drunk.

At last Marlowe recognized the man. He was indeed one of the three that had asked him to steal from the church, and then, not much later, attacked the coach to London. This was the man that Marlowe had stabbed and left bleeding on the roadside.

“What was you saying to my daughter?” Pinch roared.

Nell stood by, bat in hand, eyes all flame.

“Pardon!” Ingram croaked, unable to move. “Drink takes a man out of himself. I see that now!”

“Out!” Nell bellowed. “And never come back here again, or my husband will snap you like a stick. Do you hear me?”

Pinch grunted and shoved the man toward the door.

“Ingram Frizer shall not return to this place!” He sounded more like a terrified schoolboy than a murderous villain. Frizer looked about, eyes unable to focus, and the steam of human noise rose up again, entirely filling the room.

The serving girl breezed close to Marlowe. “Mum says he's all yours now.”

Frizer managed to stagger out the doorway.

Marlowe laid money on the table, stood, and left calmly, with only a slight nod to Nell. Once outside, he followed the careening drunkard down the narrow street.

Noise from the river, and the smell of fish, filled the air. Frizer was easy to follow. He lumbered into people, hit walls; fell down twice. No one took much notice. Just another ale-soaked brawler.

After a few twists and turns, Frizer fell into a baker's shop. Marlowe quickened his step and arrived at the door just in time to see Frizer wave off the baker with a rude gesture and crash into the back room.

The baker cursed, shook his head, and went back to work arranging brown loaves of bread on a board.

Marlowe paused, trying to determine if Frizer would return. After a few moments, Marlowe entered the shop.

“Ah,” the baker said, acknowledging Marlowe's presence.

“I'm told you have an almond-and-ginger cake,” Marlowe announced softly.

Marlowe knew about that particular cake. He'd had one his first week in Cambridge. The bakery was well-known for it.

“Best in England,” the man asserted seriously. “I take a little gum dragon and keep it in rosewater all night, that's what gives it the character, you see. Then in goes almonds and sugar and ginger and cinnamon, beat into a paste. I dry it in the oven. Just dry it, mind. Makes my mouth water just talking about it.”

“I'll take one.” Marlowe reached for his purse.

“Sorry,” the baker said, eyes narrowed. “Haven't made any today.”

Marlowe looked up. “No? Are you certain? Perhaps your man in back could find one.”

“My man in back?” the baker asked in a loud voice. “You're quite mistaken. And I'm afraid you've caught us at a bad time, alas. We're closing.”

“Closing? It's three in the afternoon.”

“Nevertheless.”

“I see.” Marlowe secured his purse. “Another day.”

“Well,” the baker hedged, “the almond-ginger's more a winter cake. And spring's coming on. Don't know that we'll have it again until November, you understand.”

“Yes, I think I understand,” Marlowe answered, glancing toward the back room. “But tell Ingram Frizer that I came to see him.”

Before the baker could gather his wits or respond, Marlowe was out the door.

 

FOURTEEN

Marlowe turned his attention to the next possible source of information: Professor Bartholomew. As he passed St. Benet's Church, he was suddenly seized by a very bad idea. What if he allied himself with this Ingram Frizer and agreed to steal the documents from this church? That way he would be privy to the Catholic plans, at least to some extent. He might even make a confidante of Frizer, which could lead to more intelligence, though the word
intelligence
scarcely seemed applicable to Frizer at all.

He pocketed the idea, and hurried past the church, around the corner, and into the campus yard. There he was struck by a scene at once familiar and foreign. Students were rushing to class, but it seemed a decade ago that Marlowe had been one of those boys. A wave of intense sadness took hold of him as he stared at the spot where he and Lopez had stood, Lopez enjoining him to leave the college for a wider world. The man who saved his father's life was gone, and Marlowe was not the same person who had stood on that spot only a few weeks earlier.

Realizing that such thoughts might capsize him, he shoved them out of his mind, quickened his step, and hurried toward Bartholomew's offices. Into the stone building, up the stairs, and down the silent hall, Marlowe tried not to think of what he'd say to his old professor. Spontaneity was best for lying.

To knock on the door or to simply barge in? He chose the latter.

“I do beg your pardon, Professor Bartholomew,” he began as he opened the door.

The sight of the president of the college stopped him. William Cole was reviled among so many of the more conservative faculty because he was a Puritan and a married clergyman. He glared at Marlowe.

Cole was standing in front of Bartholomew's desk with a fistful of papers. Bartholomew was seated.

“Yes, I beg
your
pardon, young man,” Bartholomew said quickly, “I am past my time for our appointment. Do come in. President Cole was just leaving.”

Cole's face reddened and his hand crushed the papers he was holding. He clambered past Marlowe, utterly ignoring him.

“If I had known that the president—” Marlowe began again.

“Close the door, young man,” Bartholomew admonished harshly, “and lower your voice!”

Marlowe stepped inside and shut the door behind him. The offices were comprised of two large working rooms, a smaller private water closet, and a curtained alcove that Marlowe took to be a sleeping cubicle. The stone walls were high, and there was a tapestry on the one beside the entrance door, but the rest were obscured by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves overflowing with volume after volume. A slight haze of dust hung in the air, and the silver motes floated in the sunlight from a large arching window. There was a desk with a chair where the professor sat, and only one other chair beside the window.

Bartholomew looked Marlowe up and down, then shook his head. Easily, in a single movement, he produced a cocked pistol from a drawer and laid the gun on his desk directly in front of him. He kept his right hand near it.

“What is the meaning of this ridiculous costume you are wearing, Mr. Marlowe?”

Taken aback, Marlowe was momentarily struck dumb.

“I suppose it has something to do with the assertion that you've murdered that idiot Pygott, yes?” Bartholomew went on.

Marlowe could only nod.

“Sit,” the old man commanded. “I'm afraid our time must be short for the moment. I have a class and I think it best not to be seen with you.”

Marlowe sat. “You recognized me right away: bad news for my disguise.”

“I've been expecting you,” Bartholomew told him. “I know you've been away, to London at the very least. And it was easy to deduce that a stranger barging into my offices might be Christopher Marlowe since that stranger spoke in a voice I knew and wore boots I recognized, though a face that I did not. There is also the matter of your dagger, which is quite distinctive, that filigreed hilt.”

Marlowe glanced down. “Yes. Someone else pointed that out.”

“You ought to conceal it better under that cassock,” Bartholomew concluded.

“I should.” Marlowe nodded. “How on earth would you know I've been to London?”

“I happened to see your little imbroglio with Pygott,” Bartholomew said with a wave of his hand. “I saw him leave. I saw you get into a coach. And then you were not in classes after that. Not only does it stand to reason that you were not in Cambridge when Pygott was killed, but I surmised that you went to London on royal business. I know the Queen's conveyance when I see it. But, to the point: I have been expecting you, as I say. I have learned information that may prove quite startling to you.”

“You—you have already given me several surprises,” Marlowe stammered. “Would you be willing to swear to what you've just told me—about seeing Pygott alive, as I left for London—in a court of law?”