Tamburlaine Must Die
Tamburlaine
Must Die by Louise Welsh. Book Jacket.
1593
and London is a city on edge. Under threat from plague and war, its a
desperate place where strangers are unwelcome and severed heads grin
from spikes on Tower Bridge.
Playwright,
poet, and spy, Christopher Marlowe has three days to live. Three days
in which he confronts dangerous government factions, double agents,
necromancy, betrayal and revenge in his search for the murderous
Tamburlaine, a killer who has escaped from between the pages of his
most violent play…
Tamburlaine
Must Die is the swashbuckling adventure story of a man who dares to
defy both God and State and discovers that there are worse fates than
damnation.
Louise
Welsh has published a wide range of short stories and articles. Her
debut novel The Cutting Room was a bestseller in the UK and has
already sold into sixteen languages. She was chosen as one of
Britains Best First Novelists of 2002 by the Guardian and won the
Saltire First Book of the Year award and The Crime Writers
Association Creasey Dagger for the best first crime novel. For
several years she worked as a dealer in second-hand, out-of-print and
antiquarian books. She lives in Glasgow.
TAMBURLAINE
MUST DIE
Louise
Welsh
CANONGATE
BOOKS
First
published in Great Britain in 2004 by Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High
Street, Edinburgh EH1 He 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Copyright © Louise
Welsh, 2004 The moral right of the author has been asserted British
Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this
book is available on request from the British- Library The publisher
gratefully acknowledges subsidy from the Scottish Arts Council
Hardback ISBN 1 84195 532 9 Paperback ISBN 1 84195 600 7 Typeset in
Van Dijck 12.5/18 pt by Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Polmont,
Stirlingshire Page Design by James Hutcheson Printed and bound by GGP
Media, Germany www.canongate.net
To
Karen and Best Boy Zack
What
is our life? A play of passion; Our mirth, the music of division;
Our
mother's wombs the tiring houses be, When we are dressed for this
short comedy. Heaven the judicious sharp spectator is,
That
sits and marks still who does act amiss; Our graves that hide us from
the searching sun Are like drawn curtains when the play is done. Thus
march we playing to our latest rest Only we die in earnest, that's no
jest. On the Life of Man, Sir Walter Raleigh Cut is the branch that
might have grown full straight. Doctor Faustus, Christopher Marlowe
LONDON
29TH MAY 1593 I have four candles and one evening in which to write
this account. Tomorrow I will lodge these papers with my last true
friend. If I survive the day, they will light our pipes. But should I
not return, he has instructions to secrete this chronicle where it
will lie undiscovered for a long span, in the hope that when these
pages are found, the age will be different and my words may be judged
by honest eyes.
Reader,
I cannot imagine what future you inhabit. Perhaps the world is a
changed place, where men are honest and war, want and jealousies all
vanquished. If so, you will wonder at the actions of the players in
this poor play of passion. But if you are men like us you may
understand, and if you are men like us you will learn nothing, though
I gift you the only lesson worth learning, that there is no better
prize than life. Whatever the future be, if you are reading this, you
read the words of a man who knew how to live and who died an
unnatural and unjust death. And what follows is the true record of
the circumstances leading to my assassination.
My
name is Christopher Marlowe, also known as Marle, Morley, Marly,
known as Kit, known as Xtopher, son of a Canterbury cobbler. They say
shoemakers' sons go barefoot. It wasn't so bad for us, but my father
had a fondness for style that stretched beyond his means and damaged
family fortunes. I inherited his tastes, but desired none of his
debt, so I have always been in need of money and have risked much
where other men might have scrupled.
I
was a clever child. My keenness was brought to the attention of a
local Knight who sponsored my early education. Years later he would
judge me on a murder charge, never meeting my eye though I knew he
recognized me well.
When
I was seventeen I persuaded an old Archbishop that my one desire was
to enter the Church. He granted me a scholarship to Cambridge
University where I was recruited into a strange shadow world, where I
was assured I could help my country while helping myself. So it
proved and when it seemed my degree might not be granted, due to
various absences and rumours which placed me where I shouldn't be,
the Queen's own Privy Council gave guarantees I had been on Her
business and must not suffer for doing Her good service.
Eventually
I moved to London as I always knew I would, and set the world of
theatre afire. Men left Massacre of Paris with their sword-hands
twitching. And when my Faustus was performed, some said Lucifer
himself attended, curious to see how he was rendered. Yes, it is no
vanity to say my plays were a triumph, and Christopher Marlowe so
famous they had heard of me in Hell. And so I made shift betwixt two
night-time realms and thought my life charmed.
I
am of an adventurous nature. I have often invited danger and have
even goaded men to violence for the sake of excitement. I like best
what lies beyond my reach, and admit to using friendship, State and
Church to my own ends. I acknowledge breaking God's laws and man's
with few regrets. But if I die tomorrow, I will go to my grave a
wronged man. Were this fate of my own doing, I would greet it not
gladly, but with a nod to virtue's victory. As it is, if I meet death
tomorrow I promise to face him cursing man and God.
My
story begins on the 19th of May, 1593. All of that month I had been
installed at Scadbury, the country house of my patron, Thomas
Walsingham. For reasons I will soon explain, it was after noon before
I woke, but when I drew back my shutters the day seemed new minted.
It was as if I had lighted in another land. A world riven with
sunlight. I stood by the window enjoying the lack of London's stink
as much as the freshness of the countryside, then repaired to my desk
where I worked like the finest of scholars, until the sun edged half
the sky and a shadow crept across my words. I let the ink of my last
poetry sink into the page and when all danger of smudging was past,
locked the manuscript safe in my trunk, slipping one of my own hairs
into the clasp, an old precaution, done more from habit than
necessity.
It
had become my custom to walk in the forest in the early evening. As I
write, I search my remembrance, wondering if the weeks cloistered in
the country, avoiding the Plague which once more threatened the City,
had made me restless. I was used after all to the bustle of
theatrical life, London's stews, the half-world of ambidextors and
agents. But it seems when I look back on this walk at the end of a
perfect day, that it was the most untroubled hour of my life. I
didn't know that every step I took was echoed by the beat of a
messenger's horse speeding along the London road towards Scadbury. My
fate galloping to meet me.
I
had much to muse on that late afternoon. The events of the previous
night should have been prime in my mind. But I thought of nothing as
I walked through the forest. That is, I thought of nothing in
particular. Pleasant images threaded through my daydreams: the verses
I was engaged on; what might be served for supper; the thighs of a
woman I had lain with last winter; the dedication I would compose for
Walsingham; how perfect clusters of purple violets looked snug
against the forest floor; whether a doublet of the same shade might
suit me well: All mingled with contentment at the good fortune of my
state. The assurance of my patron's affection, the vigour of my
blood, the good reception I felt sure would greet my poetry when I
returned at last to London. I see now there was a complacence in my
satisfaction and, were I prone to superstition, might suspect I
invoked misfortune by displeasing God with my conceit. But such
thoughts are nonsense. When making mischief, man needs no help from
God or the Devil.
The
sun slipped lower beyond the canopy of leaves. The forest's green
light deepened, tree shadows lengthened, intersecting my path like
criss-crossing staves. I registered dusk's approach and walked
through bars of light and dark wondering if I might employ them as a
metaphor.
Nature
hath no distinction twixt sun and shadow, good and evil. I saw no
one, but the forest was secretly as busy as any London street. Night
and daytime creatures crossed, invisible in the gloaming. Birds
whistled territorial tunes and small beasts, newly awakened for the
night kill, rustled beneath fallen leaves, fleeing my approach.
Crickets scratched out their wash-board song and the wind whipped the
treetops into a roar. But any crowd has its silent watchers and once
I glimpsed the feminine form of a deer, trembling at the edge of my
vision.
`That's
right,' I said out loud, `never let your guard down.' Then laughed,
because I had let my own guard down, walking unaccompanied through
these woods on the verge of night. I remember I paused to light my
pipe, trusting the smoke to repel the swarms of midges that hovered
around my head, then strode on confident I could reach the house
before dark.
So
passed my last untroubled moments. I didn't see the man ride
uninvited into the courtyard, hear the familiar clatter of hooves
against cobbles, nor witness the manic roll in the eye or the sweat
on the flank of the horse driven too fast. But I returned in time to
register the customary pomposity of the Queen's Messenger, who
greeted me with sarcastic civility and an order from the Privy
Council for Christopher Marlowe, playwright, to return to London
immediately.
Does
each escape increase or decrease a man's chances? Each time he
wrestles free or weasels beyond charges, does he advance his
expertise or merely shrink the portion of his luck?
That
I had previously appeared before courts and councils and escaped with
only a month or two's incarceration was scant solace as I jolted
towards London on a borrowed horse, under arrest again. I recalled a
middle-aged swordsman I had once seen confronted with a duel outside
a Shoreditch tavern. The man had a reputation as a sword-sharp, but
when the bout began, he was ill-equipped to parry what he had once
dodged with ease. His opponent's blade had found its mark and the
hero of a hundred bouts had folded with a groan, that was more
surprise than pain. His killer shouted in triumph. But I knew then
that champions' lives are often short and the thought returned now to
snatch any comfort previous perils might have granted.
Walsingham
had sent ahead to the city to check the messenger's credentials. It
had been confirmed he was no conycatcher come to diddle me with a
false fine or useless bribe, but the genuine article sent direct from
the Privy Council, the most powerful men in the country. Men that can
sentence you to death or torture, or to wait your life away,
anticipating charges that never arrive. A league who answer only to
God, the Queen and each other.
Perhaps
it was the rhythm of the horse that turned my mind towards the events
of the previous night. But then I have found fear often inspires
thoughts of love, and if not love, then lust.
My
patron Lord Walsingham is magnificent, well set in every way.
Strong-boned and evenfeatured, his ancestry shows in the ease of his
walk, the readiness of his laugh. He ruled our dinner conversations
with a charm that belied the steel in his eye. I remembered the other
Walsingham, his cousin the spymaster, spider at the centre of a web
of intrigue, and watched my words lest my patron, had inherited the
old man's craft.
We
had lived well at Scadbury. I had grown used to fine wines and august
company and knew I would be loth to return to the poet's life when my
time there was done. The night before my arrest Walsingham and I had
dined alone but the table was set for a feast. Spiced capons boiled
with oranges, roast lamb and conies, a dish of larks and a salad of
cabbage lettuce and rosemary. I didn't mark the composition of the
leaves that evening, but reflect now that a maid well versed in the
language of flowers would have noted them and realised what was to
follow.