A Prisoner in Malta (38 page)

Not waiting for her father to speak, Frances took several steps toward him, face flushed, voice thick.

“It was not Bess Throckmorton,” she growled. “I told you it wasn't. It was Penelope.”

With that she thrust Penelope Devereux forward, keeping a tight grip on Carier.

Penelope nearly tumbled, caught herself, and sucked in a breath. It was obvious that she had been crying, and was only composed at that moment through great effort.

“Is this true?” Walsingham asked simply. “Did you pour poison into Her Majesty's cup?”

“No!” Penelope wailed. “It was a purgative! Tell them, Benjamin. I wanted—my desire was to induce an illness in Her Majesty and then come to her with the cure. It was all planned. This man, Benjamin Carier, he was helping me—along with a churchman, a bishop.”

“The Jesuit Robert Parsons,” Walsingham said.

“Yes!”

“Why did you wish to attack our Queen in such a manner?” Walsingham asked, staring Penelope in the eye.

“You know why,” she snapped bitterly.

“Do I?” he asked.

“I love Philip, you know that!” she wailed, letting loose her well of tears. “And she forced me to marry Robert Rich! She ended my life!”

“The Countess of Huntingdon proposed your marriage to Robert Rich,” Walsingham responded. “Not Her Majesty.”

“No!” Penelope was verging on hysteria, an odd, uncomfortable display in a courtly room. “The Queen did it. She did it because my mother married Robert Dudley and the Queen wanted Robert Dudley for her own! She did it to punish my mother!”

“I hardly see how your marriage to the first Earl of Warwick, a very wealthy man, is a punishment. The Tower is a punishment. Torture is a punishment. Slow death is—but what exactly was your plan, Lady Rich?”

Penelope was visibly stung by the use of that title, and she collapsed to her knees, her gown around her like a sea in which she was drowning.

“The Queen would be sick,” Penelope said weakly, “and I would cure her. She would be grateful. As she has been to Dr. Lopez under similar circumstances. She would release me from my prison, my Rich prison.”

“Ridiculous puppet!” Walsingham exploded.

Everyone in the room was taken aback by the force of that voice.

“You have been duped by our enemies,” he continued. “You poured poison into Her Majesty's cup, deadly poison!”

“Poison?” She raised her head, barely able to comprehend what Walsingham had said.

Carier shook his head violently.

“No,” he protested, “no. It wasn't poison. I know it wasn't. Robert Parsons told me what it was: a mild purgative, something to disrupt the Queen's digestion.”

“Robert Parsons is a traitorous monster,” Walsingham said calmly, “and my men will have him soon. He has made you his ignorant accomplices in a vile plot to kill the Queen and take the country.”

“Penelope is also responsible for betraying me at Coughton,” Frances interjected. “Walter Pygott did not find me out—she did. She told Pygott.”

Walsingham's face grew dark with barely controlled rage. “Take her.”

Two guards flew into the room; each took an arm, and Penelope Devereux was dragged away. She could not form coherent words, only soft sobbing sounds.

Marlowe watched her as she went, stupefied. It was only by chance that he happened to catch the look in Tin's eye. It was a look of abject horror.

Just as Marlowe began piecing together what that look meant, Walsingham forged ahead.

“And now for you, sir,” Walsingham said, bringing his eyes to focus on Carier.

“This man,” Frances trumpeted, shoving Carier to the floor, “is a traitor to his country and the murderer of Walter Pygott.”

Carier yelped like a small dog.

“Wait,” Marlowe interrupted, “I believe I have been in error concerning Benjamin Carier. He did not, in fact, murder Walter Pygott.”

Frances turned to Marlowe, brow furrowed.

“The mistake was entirely mine,” Marlowe went on. “Carier is almost certainly an innocent dupe in this entire affair. He is a secret Catholic. That much is true. But he had no idea what was in the packages he delivered to Penelope Devereux, no more than Penelope did. They were both manipulated by William Allen, whom, I fear, may already have left London.”

Everyone in the room stared at Marlowe. Frances was the first to find her voice.

“Carier did not kill Pygott?” she asked.

“No.” Marlowe sighed.

“Do you know who did?” Walsingham demanded.

“You're not going to like it,” Marlowe answered. “It's someone we all know.”

No one in the room moved.

“Well?” Walsingham boomed.

“Walter Pygott was murdered by Ingram Frizer.” Marlowe nodded once. “He is a double agent, but not for us. He works with Allen and Parsons. He killed Pygott with the intention of blaming me for the crime, which he did, thus eliminating me from the picture. I failed to cooperate. Frizer is here in London, and should be easy to find. I saw him in the garden at Fulham less than an hour ago. He can't have gone far.”

“Ingram Frizer killed Walter Pygott,” Walsingham confirmed slowly. “Is that what you would have me believe?”

“Yes.” Marlowe stood very still.

“And you are certain that Frizer has turned against us?”

“Completely.”

“Well.” Walsingham sniffed. “Then we shall have to fetch him. Now then, Benjamin Carier, you are detained.”

Without further utterance from the Queen's spymaster, guards dragged Carier away.

“No,” he wailed as he left, “I can't be detained. I have my year-end examinations!”

When the room was silent once more, Walsingham spoke again.

“Dr. Lopez, Mr. Marlowe,” he began, “you have done a great service to England. I give you leave to refresh yourselves and tend to your wounds.”

“They are of little consequence,” Lopez assured him.

“Then you are to meet in my official rooms. Shall we say an hour? I would discuss these events; one or two small items must be clarified. And I will also present a more significant demonstration of Her Majesty's gratitude.”

He turned at once—a strange, sudden move—and vanished behind a dragon tapestry. Guards went with him.

Frances, Lopez, Tin, and Marlowe were left to themselves. The air was filled with a palpable tension. Only the eyes moved.

“Ingram Frizer did not kill Walter Pygott,” Frances whispered finally.

“No,” Marlowe admitted. “He did not.”

“But he is a double agent for the Spanish,” Lopez suggested.

“Perhaps.” Marlowe shrugged. “Hard to tell.”

“Are you going to tell me who did kill Pygott?” Frances demanded.

In answer, Marlowe bent over and retrieved something from the small pocket inside his boot. He stood up and turned to Tin.

“I happened to notice that you had a button missing from that silver jacket of yours,” he told Tin calmly.

He held out his hand and produced the dull brass button, a perfect match for the others on Tin's jacket.

Frances could not stifle a sudden breath.

“Wait.” Tin was careful not to move. “That's been missing for weeks.”

“Yes. But I only noticed it missing from your jacket a few moments ago.”

“Where did you get it?” Tin's blush was deepening.

“It was pressed into the ground in the garden outside of St. Benet's. In Cambridge.”

Tin closed her eyes.

“It was pressed into the ground by the weight of a dead body,” Marlowe went on. “Walter Pygott's dead body.”

Tin's breathing was noticeably louder.

“Tin?” Frances stared.

Tin looked away.

“I also see that your jacket is frayed at the elbow,” Marlowe went on softly. “I believe I found the place in St. Benet's wall where you left some of the missing threads.”

“I thought that Walter Pygott had betrayed Frances.” Tin's voice was barely audible, her eyes were still closed. “And I heard the vile things he said about you every day at Coughton. When I discovered—thought I discovered—his treachery, I followed him to Cambridge. He didn't know who I was. He was a remarkably ignorant boy.”

“You fought,” Marlowe prompted.

“He denied knowing that Frances was
Richard
”—Tin nodded—“but he had more odious things to say about Frances. I drew my sword. He drew his. It didn't take long. He was dead before I knew it. Dead on the grounds of a church, beside some roses.”

Marlowe looked at Frances, whose face was drained of all color.

“I love you, Frances,” Tin murmured, opening her eyes at last. “When you were taken, I could not bear it. When I learned that you were so far away, in Malta, I lost my mind. You must believe me this: I was as much a prisoner in that place as you. My heart and my brain and my fevered dreams were all with you on that island, in that cell. Can you understand that? I love you.”

Tin's eyes were filled with tears.

“That,” Marlowe said softly, “is why I could not reveal that she's the one who murdered Pygott.”

“Yes,” Frances rasped, “but why on earth did you tell my father that Frizer was the murderer?”

Marlowe drew in a slow breath.

“Difficult to say.” He looked at the floor. “Tin did what she did for you. I can understand that better than anyone else on the planet. The instant I knew that she had done it, I couldn't let her die for it. But I needed someone to be guilty. Frizer's a traitor. Hardly innocent. Now the authorities will forget about me. And Walter Pygott is just as dead either way.”

“I killed Walter Pygott.” Tin sobbed once, as if she had only then realized her crime. Unable to control herself, she sank to the floor.

Frances rushed to her, knelt beside her, cradling her head. She looked up at Marlowe.

“This may be the best thing you've done in your life,” she said, her eyes filled with a terrible gratitude, “saving this girl.”

“Although I'm not certain that lying to your father was the
wisest
thing I've ever done,” Marlowe answered.

“About that,” Lopez said, breaking his silence. “You and I must go now and prepare to meet with Lord Walsingham. We have much to discuss beforehand, and I am in dire need of wine and food.”

Marlowe turned to Lopez.

“I'm
famished,
” he told the doctor.

“Then come with me,” Lopez told him, heading for the door.

Marlowe followed, not looking back. He was, however, haunted by the sound of sobbing, and soft whispered comfort, even as the door closed behind him.

 

THIRTY-ONE

Lopez hurried down the corridor toward the smell of baking bread.

“You were lucky,” he said softly to Marlowe.

“In what regard?” Marlowe asked, distracted by the prospect of food.

“A button is a very tiny thing upon which to hang a murder,” Lopez told him.

Marlowe took a moment to examine the side of Lopez's face. The man looked ten years older than the last time Marlowe had seen him. And there was a barely healed cut across his jaw, the kind a dagger would make.

“Well,” Marlowe allowed, “the possibility of Tin's being the killer had been building in my mind for some time. First, I systematically eliminated all other suspects.”

“By which you mean you guessed incorrectly several times.”

“Yes,” Marlowe plunged ahead, “but one of the suspects, Father Edmund, was a witness to the murder, as it turns out, and offered a few salient observations about the murderer.”

“To wit?”

“He saw an oddly dressed hooded figure with yellow hair.”

“Hardly a perfect portrait.”

“Yes,” Marlowe agreed, “but Tin's manner of dress, when she's parading as a boy, is singular—all that gray.”

“Possibly.”

“And there is the observation, also from Edmund, that the attack on Pygott was particularly vicious. A simple murder for elimination would require stealth and speed, not ire.”

Lopez nodded slowly.

“
And
the killer did not take the Rheims-Douai Bible, which was the prize. It contained a coded message outlining certain parts of this Throckmorton plot. Pygott was not killed for it.”

They rounded a corner. The smell of bread was almost overwhelming.

“Then you found the button.”

“Yes,” Marlowe said dismissively, walking faster toward what he assumed would be a kitchen, “but
clues
were not as important as my instinct.”

Lopez slowed. “What?”

Marlowe took Lopez by the arm, urging him forward.

“Instinct,” Marlowe repeated. “Tin would have done anything for Frances. That was obvious. When we locked eyes, Tin and I, an understanding passed between us. In later contemplation I realized that I would kill anyone who tried to harm Frances, so Tin would do the same.”

Lopez shook his head. “I wouldn't put too much stock in that sort of thing.”

“It produced a confession,” Marlowe snapped. “Walk faster. I'm famished.”

*   *   *

Within the hour, Lopez and Marlowe had eaten, washed their faces, smoothed ruffled clothing, and presented themselves to Lord Walsingham. Absent all guards, the three men stood in a large room bereft of tapestries or hiding places. There was a blinding array of candles, and several windows high above them let in the morning light. An enormous rug designed like a forest floor covered the stones beneath their feet. Several tables lined the walls.

Walsingham had changed his clothing for some reason. He wore a grand dark purple robe, fit for important courtly business, and a small but crisp ruffled collar. The skullcap had been replaced by a ceremonial miter.

“Christopher Marlowe,” Walsingham announced formally, “the Queen, in gratitude for your service to her person and to our country, hereby wishes to award you the rank of commander in the Royal Navy, with a salary of two hundred pounds per annum.”