One Dagger For Two Read online

  One Dagger for Two

  Philip Lindsay

  © Philip Lindsay 1932

  Philip Lindsay has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1932 by Cassell & Co. Ltd.

  This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  LUCKY AT CARDS...

  Chapter III

  FALLEN AMONGST FRIENDS

  Chapter IV

  SCADBURY

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  “MY MASTER’S MINION”

  Chapter VII

  HID IN DARKNESS

  Chapter VIII

  DISMISSAL

  Chapter IX

  LADY OF THE MASK

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  For

  PHILIP OWENS

  not only because he loves

  Marlowe even more than I,

  but because the very heart

  of this book is his.

  …Where are you damned?

  …In hell.

  …How comes it then that thou art out of hell?

  …Why this is hell, nor am I out of it …

  Dr. Faustus.

  Chapter I

  NEW YEAR, 1593

  Under a black midwinter sky, London was very merry. There were lights in almost every street: lights stuck on window-sills, crackling on poles outside doors; there were lights in sober men’s houses that usually, at such late hours, were like solid ebony, unbroken by any colour; lights in taverns — but that was common enough —; lights in the churches, quivering under thick stained glass and dying through open doorways against the night. London was lit up as if packed with jewels, a joyous sight indeed!

  Leaning out of his narrow window, high up in the old house in Rother Lane — Pudding Lane, as it was usually called — on Fish Street Hill, leading to Thames Street, a man was gazing down at the lights in near-by streets. Silhouetted against the heavy sky, unmoving, he was like a handsome gargoyle, a monument to some old knight. His clipped brown beard, curling a little, was crushed against his ruff, his deep-set, dark blue eyes were half-closed, his thinnish mouth tightly set under a small, straight nose; heavy lines marked his broad forehead, wrinkled between thick brows. He was Christopher Marlowe, poet.

  Under him, the cobbles gleamed greasily as light wavered over them, flickering, exploding in bursts of yellow and red. He watched without a change of expression, without a movement. He saw men stagger around the corner, drunk, wandering from tavern to tavern; he saw the little painted wench from the house opposite trip out in all her finery, head back, handkerchief loose across her breasts; she made towards Little Eastcheap, turning the corner briskly as if to keep some momentous appointment. Then did Christopher Marlowe smile slightly, sadly, and the fingers of his right hand tapped on the window-sill. He knew the girl well, Nan Crabtree. Poor wretch, she had been flogged recently and her back must still be aching and open with the cuts.

  Marlowe sighed and shifted a little. He turned to gaze back into his little room, at the small table on which lay his papers under the austere light of the candle. He should be working; he had sworn to work to-night; yet he had written only two lines, and those unsatisfactory. Why should a man force himself to work when words refused to come? Yet he had promised Mistress Awdrey; she had chided him for being lazy and too heavy a drinker. “You love your tongue better than your hand,” she had said; “you talk, but you don’t write.” But how could a man write when words were like lead in his mind? They should be quicksilver, running swiftly, sliding from his pen in a careless ecstasy. She had muddled his mind, this Mistress Awdrey with her flickering eyelids and her habit of making half-finished gestures with white, lovely hands. Think of her as Hero and he Leander, then surely he could write? Surely then the words would come darting like fire from his pen? Yet, peculiarly, one could not write when in love, reality was too strong for the image…

  In love? Ay, why smudge the truth! He was no liar to himself, even though he lied with word and look to Mistress Awdrey. He loved her, and be damned to everything! He was a man who spoke his mind, who feared naught. He loved her. Let the venom of that thought sink into his heart. He, Christopher Marlowe, poverty-stricken poet, drunkard, atheist, braggart and thieves’ friend — he, Christopher Marlowe, loved Mistress Awdrey Walsingham, his patron’s wife. A jest for the gods!

  Then suddenly, as if the sky itself smashed into laughter at this love of little Kit Marlowe’s, the night was noisy with music, was tinkling and baying and clapping metal hands; the bells of London swung their great mouths, lolling from side to side, rocking with gigantic laughter; all the bells of London burst into song. Higher rushed the music, seeming to rise and merge into one tumultuous rattle of delight; higher and higher, growing louder every second until one thought it could not possibly grow louder; yet louder still, merrier, the bells sang their hymn into the night until the ropes wellnigh broke and the metal cracked. The vergers sweated and strained their backs as they tugged on the ropes; a little drunk, mayhap, they were, each eager to outdo the rival church, shouting his music to the hidden stars, at the black unmoving sky of winter. Over the lighted city of London, the music rolled, echoing down narrow lanes.

  Amidst the uproar, Marlowe stood, face white, head up. The bells crashed around him. St. Margaret’s near by, on Fish Street Hill, flooded his little room with noise; St. Leonard’s in Eastcheap, higher up the hill, swung its throaty answer in defiance of its rival; then farther up Grass Street, Grass Church, St. Bennet’s, rattled to cower them both; big St. Magnus’s joined in, added his bellow to the orchestra and almost beat them all combined.

  Marlowe stood and listened, then he smiled suddenly. New Year! 1592 was done with. New Year was on him. The bells were flinging out the old year and ringing in the new. New Year, new life. With those bells, with that mighty singing, the old year fled; all the demons of the last year, all its sins and its shames, all went; and the virginal New Year, 1593, was born, unstained, with never a birthmark on her young body, a sweet and pretty babe that knew no harm, as yet. And he would keep her clean, he swore; he would work like Satan, he would hold in his angry, cruel tongue, he would drink but little, finish both Hero and Leander and Edward II, be kinder to women, would lower his eyes before Mistress Awdrey Walsingham, would speak no words of love to her; he would start afresh. His pen! He would not waste a second! Quick! What was that last line?

  Bells lisped to quietness, the music faded like last year; silence grew around the world, the sullen winter sky remained unchanged, the houses were the same sooty London houses, the streets had not brightened a cobble; still, the candle blinked, the few coals in the grate bubbled with a little tar and shone like fresh blood. No magic hand had polished the words he had written, they were soulless, dull.

  With the pen in his hand, Marlowe sat, his head still ringing with the bells. And the moment died. He was again the sinful creature of last year, the bells had woken him to ecstasy for one moment of orgiastic delight; and the orgasm was over; he was tired and his head rang with the hubbub of the bells. He sighed, flung down his pen, and sat back on his stool.

  Yet he would keep his oath, he would forget drink and Mistress Awdrey and his scoundrelly friends, he would start again, fresh with 1593…

  “Kit, Kit, I can see your light!”

  “Hey, y
ou lazy lozel, you, come out!”

  “Ain’t ye going to drink the New Year in?”

  “You asleep?”

  He did not move, but tried to recognize each voice. That was Ingram Frizer’s, that merry, gurgling voice; that Poley’s, that dog-like roar; and Chomley’s — which was Chomley’s? There, that was Chomley’s, the careless, mocking voice; and Nick Skeres’s, sharp, piercingly venomous. And the others? He could make out Tommy Nashe’s: angry almost, defiant. The other two voices were girls’: Meg’s, the whistling pipe, and Fanny’s, that throaty drink-ruffled contralto.

  “Hey, Kit, it’s damn’ cold; come to the tavern.”

  “How about a quart, old hound?”

  “There ain’t much left, we’ve drunk ten taverns dry.”

  “We’re going to the Boar’s Head.”

  “Put your head under water, that’ll wake yer.”

  “Throw us the key.”

  “We’ll sing to you if ye don’t come!”

  He flung down the pen he had just picked up, and darted to his feet. First, being pushed for money at the moment, he poured water on the few coals in the grate, so that they could be used again; then he snatched up his velvet cap and made for the door. At the door, he turned, went back to his manuscript, read a few lines and whispered them over to himself.

  “We’ll kick the door down!”

  “We’ve been to every tavern looking for ye.”

  “Frizer’s just hooked a sack of ruddocks.”

  “Shut up!”

  “Are ye coming or are ye not?”

  “Ay, I’m coming!” They cheered him when he waved from the window, and Meg and Chomley danced together. They were very drunk, he noticed; and a flush of coming pleasure warmed his veins. Then he paused, remembering the bells, the bells and Mistress Awdrey…

  To-morrow; this would be his last drink; tomorrow he’d start afresh.

  “Coming!” he shouted, blew out the candle, swung open the door and rattled gaily down the stairs, holding up his sword so that it would not catch in the railings.

  To-morrow…to-morrow? It was to-morrow already…

  Dawn came over London, a dirty greyish dawn striving to eat its way through a leaden sky that was pregnant with rain. Dawn soaked its way sulkily through dun clouds, and pencilled the church-steeples with silver like a snail’s track. It came upon the sluggish Thames and eddied there in snakish ripples, showed up the green slime on the piles, the barnacles and muck around the flat pointed bases of the bridge. The unwashed windows of the warehouses against the wharves glinted like huge eyes rolling their whites. Dawn over London, the dawn of the first day of 1593.

  Marlowe and his friends paused in their merriment to watch it come. They had been racing through the darkness in stolen wherries: Marlowe, Chomley, Nashe and Meg against Frizer, Poley, Skeres and Fanny. Now they stopped their sport and, with flushed faces, watched the dawn come up the east. Marlowe feathered his oar under his elbow and saw his friends grow out of darkness like colliers washed in thin rain. He saw big Chomley, with his fat belly and friendly red face, blinking and wiping the tears of laughter from his blue eyes; Nashe, tall and thin with hard sharp features and fair tousled hair; Meg, bloated and pockmarked. In the other boat, Poley, a dumpy white-faced man with cropped yellow hair and the thinnest of beards, sat in his shirtsleeves, his yellow doublet tied to his oar like a flag; Frizer, plump, round-faced with slightly sunken pale blue eyes, thin mouth under a brown pointed moustache, his delicate chin hidden by a carefully clipped beard, his round head going prematurely bald, was leaning over his oar, very drunk, grinning inanely; behind him, thin little Skeres, with narrow head and black beard, glowered up under heavy brows; Fanny was a thin wench with a look of constant astonishment in her saucer-eyes.

  Marlowe gazed at his friends in the pale light of dawn; these were they whom he had sworn to abjure and had drunk with ever since; he tried to recall that midnight moment of repudiation, but failed. He liked them all, he loved them, they were very dear to him — particularly quick-witted Nashe and the bulky, amiable Chomley. Rogues, all of them, but sweet rogues.

  “Hail to 1593!” cried Poley, waving his oar, “may it bring conies to the catcher and ruddocks to our purses; may God grant us plenty of sack and simple countrymen; may the horse-stealers ride over justice and may Bridewell burn and burn and burn! All hail to this blessed year of roguery!”

  The others laughed, but Nashe muttered under his breath: “Another cursed year. Greene went last year, which of us’ll die now?”

  “Who touches one, touches all!” cried Chomley, jumping to his feet, the boat almost capsizing under his weight. “Brothers in roguery, by 1593 I swear that which of us is killed, the others’ll avenge him!”

  “Depends who does the killing,” said Skeres.

  But the others swore to that oath in the dawn of 1593 as it came tremulously from the east, as it climbed up London Bridge, over Bridge Gate, polishing the skulls of traitors poised there on spikes, along the sharp ridges of the houses; it glinted on masts and spars of ships moored against the wharves; all Southwark shone as if new-scrubbed, the great four-spired tower of St. Mary Overie’s seemed crusted with glancing opals. It was very beautiful. But Marlowe, dulled with drink, could see no loveliness in it. It seemed to him a reproach, and he gazed sullenly at the sky.

  Over the Bridge to London went the dawn. All church-steeples, London seemed, a city of churches. Their spires were the first to quiver with light — a jagged city floundering at the base of steeples, steeples, steeples everywhere; and mighty St. Paul’s with its square-windowed tower, although damaged, dwarfed every other building. He could see even the tip of St. Margaret’s near his home on Fish Street Hill.

  “It makes me sick,” he growled, “to see nothing but churches. I hate this town, I’m getting out of it.”

  “Churches aren’t bad,” said Chomley, “many a prig makes a fortune out of ’em, cutting peoples’ purses.”

  “Is that all churches mean to you?” asked Marlowe, “a place to cut purses in?”

  “They don’t mean much else,” said Chomley, shrugging. “Not that I do that kind of thing myself now.”

  Marlowe laughed. “Why do they mean so much to me?” he asked. “Why do I hate them so?”

  “Because you’re a fool,” said Nashe. “Wish I’d taken orders. I’d have had a fat living now instead of making a skimpy trade at book-writing. Look at Harvey, he does nothing but booze all day and tell lies to his parishioners.”

  “That’s what they all do,” said Marlowe. He felt suddenly weary, and lifting his oar, dipped it into the water. He pulled a few strokes, swinging the boat round towards the Bridge. “Hell! he said suddenly, “we’ll have the watermen chasing us for their boats before long. Let’s go to the Tabard.”

  “And from the Tabard?” asked Nashe.

  “To the devil,” said Marlowe. “I’m going to roll in hay before to-day’s out, I’m getting a horse and going into the country. I’ll find a milkmaid with a skin like velvet and toss her amongst the violets. Who’s coming?”

  “We’re all coming,” cried Chomley. “Milkmaids, ho! Milkmaids and sack!”

  “Yo ho!” shouted Poley. “Race ye to the wharf!”

  “Loser buys drinks!” cried Frizer. “ Ready, boys! … Let’s go!”

  Poley’s boat got there first, and they tumbled out on to the Surrey steps near London Bridge, slipping on the weed-covered stone and rotting wood.

  “Ingram,” said Marlowe suddenly, and Frizer turned to him. “When are you going to Scadbury?”

  “To the Walsinghams? In a day or two. Are you coming with me?”

  “Ay! I’m sick for green fields and Kent!”

  “You’ll find no milkmaids there,” said Frizer with his look of childish innocence. “Are there other wenches you think of?”

  Marlowe swung round guiltily. “What do you mean?” His hand reached for his sword, his face flushed. “What the hell
do you mean?”

  “Nothing,” said Frizer. “One of these days that temper of yours will fling you into a grave.”

  “Not while he has friends,” said big Chomley, pushing forward.

  “Friends die,” said Frizer. “But why this talk? Let’s to the Tabard!”

  But all the fun seemed gone from them, and they walked gloomily up the steps into Southwark. Poley, Skeres and Frizer went first, and Marlowe followed, biting his moustache, his face red with anger. He did not trust Frizer, yet he liked the man.

  “I must throw this all over,” he thought. “I must start afresh.”

  It was full morning now, and carts were lumbering in from the country for London markets. Shopmen were putting out their stalls, apprentices taking down the shutters and screwing sleep out of their eyes with dirty fists, the maids throwing slops into the street.

  Full morning, first day of the New Year…this year would be different.

  Marlowe swore it in his beard as he strode, frowning, behind the round-shouldered figure of Ingram Frizer with the babyish face and innocent eyes, bailiff to Master Thomas Walsingham, of Scadbury, Chislehurst; to Master Thomas Walsingham, the husband of Mistress Awdrey.

  Chapter II

  LUCKY AT CARDS...

  What was New Year but a calendar date made by priests? Man’s life flowed on- ward towards death undisturbed by hours or seasons or dates. He may be gayer in spring or more melancholy in the autumn, these were recurring humours, inevitable turns in the wheel of life, spinning towards the grave. But could New Year, January the First, make any difference to life? He had sworn his oath, but could he keep it, this Christopher Marlowe, poet, atheist and gambler?

  In Rother Lane — called Red Rose Lane because of the Red Rose tavern midway down its right side, called Pudding Lane because the butchers stacked their black puddings and other muck of animals in a shed there, ready to be carried to the dung-boats on the Thames — Marlowe’s room was high up, an attic, with sloping roof and smoke-grimed walls. It stank because of the offal in the near-by butcher-sheds, its windows saw but a sickle of sky, so narrow was the lane; so close were the houses opposite that he could almost touch hands with the wench in the room facing his.