The Devil Will Come

SEVENTEEN

London, 1586

THE YOUNG MAN cast nervous glances around a walled garden dominated by a mulberry tree which had grown too large for its small patch of greenery.

‘Who did you say owns this house?’ Anthony Babington asked.

‘A widow woman,’ Marlowe answered. ‘Her name is Eleanor Bull. She’s known to Poley. She’s one of us.’

They were in Deptford, on the south bank of the Thames. It was early summer and the preceding weeks had been overly hot and humid. Fetid organic river vapors hung unpleasantly in the air, causing the delicate Babington to sniff at a scented handkerchief for relief. He was twenty-four, fair and beautiful, even with his face scrunched from squinting into the afternoon sun. Marlowe overfilled Babington’s mug with beer and the froth ran onto the oak table.

‘I must say, Kit, that I don’t know how you find the time to do everything you do – engaging in your Master’s at Cambridge, writing your ditties and pursuing, how shall I put it, other activities.’

Marlowe frowned in displeasure. ‘I don’t deny that there scarcely seem to be enough hours in the day. But as to your first point, I have an arrangement with my Master at Benet to be away from college for certain periods as long as I maintain my academic obligations. On the third point, my conscience demands that I pursue these “other activities” and on the second point, I do not write ditties. I write plays.”

Babington showed his sincere mortification. ‘I’ve offended you. I did not mean to do so. I am overwhelmed, sir, at your industry and accomplishments.’

‘You shall come to my opening night,’ Marlowe said magnanimously. ‘Come, let us turn our attention to weightier matters. Let us talk of restoring the true Catholic faith to England. Let us talk of dear Queen Mary. Let us talk of that dry hag Elizabeth and what is to be done with her. We have vast sunshine, we have beer, we have our own pleasant company.’

They had met through Robert Poley, one of Walsingham’s men, not a run-of-the-mill toady but a choice cut of meat. Ruthless and cunning, he had matriculated at Cambridge in 1568 as a Sizar but had not received his degree because as an alleged Catholic he’d been unable to swear the necessary oath of allegiance to the Queen’s religion. Yet apparently he wasn’t so principled as to deflect the entreaties of Walsingham’s recruiters and he quickly became one of the Secretary’s most useful operatives, an informant who easily wheedled himself into Papist plots in England and on the Continent and for the right compensation even permitted himself to be imprisoned time after time. Her Majesty’s jails, he insisted, were the best places to meet Catholic plotters.

During Lent of that year, Poley arranged a supper meeting of young Catholic gentlemen at the Plough Inn, near Temple Bar on the western edge of the City of London. Anthony Babington, an acquaintance of Poley, was invited along with two strangers whom Poley had vouched for, Bernard Maude and Christopher Marlowe. Naive and hapless, Babington was the only one at the table that evening not in Walsingham’s employ.

Over ale, wine and whispers, Babington was made aware of certain plans. Mary, Queen of the Scots, had been imprisoned at Elizabeth’s pleasure for eighteen years for fomenting revolt against Elizabeth’s Protestant reign and for offering herself up as the rightful Queen of England and restorer of the Pope’s primacy. Following the collapse of the Throckmorton plot against the crown, Mary found herself in her strictest confinement yet, at Chartley Hall in Staffordshire, isolated from the outside world by Puritan minders who reported her every twitch to Walsingham.

Here was Poley’s news. Catholic agents in France, Holland and Spain were passing along their assurances that the Catholic League and the great Christian princes of Europe would commit a force of 60,000 men to invade the north of England, free Mary and assert her rule. Thanks to the genius inventions of Kit Marlowe, a brilliant young recusant recently allied to their cause, a method of communicating with Mary had been devised. Marlowe had imagined a way to smuggle letters to Chartley Hall, hidden and sealed waterproof within kegs of beer, and he had also devised a clever cipher to encrypt them in the unlikely event that they were discovered.

Letters from plotters had already been sent in this manner and Mary had given written replies of general encouragement. However, she had been cautious. None of the plotters were personally known to her. They needed someone whom she knew and trusted.

Enter Babington. In 1579 he had been a page to the Earl of Shrewsbury who was then Mary’s keeper. She’d been fond of the boy and five years later he’d been entrusted to deliver several packets of letters directly to the hand of the Scottish Queen. Though he’d dropped out of the dangerous game to take up a gentleman’s life in London, his views were well known among her sympathizers.

So the question put to Babington that night was this: will you join with us? Will you help the good Lady?

His response delighted the spies. How could this treason succeed, he whispered, if Elizabeth remained alive? She was popular among her misguided subjects. Wouldn’t she be able to rally her armies and effectively counter the invaders? Wouldn’t the plot go better if she were brought to, as he put it, a tragical end?

The others assured him that one of their number, a John Savage, was planning to take care of just that and in a giddy response Babington sealed his fate by clinking his mug around the table. Marlowe, who was fresh game and unknown to the likes of Walsingham, would be his go-between. The two young men smiled at each other like fine co-conspirators and there followed another clinking of drinking vessels.

There were sounds from inside the house. Babington started to rise in alarm but it was only Mrs Bull returning from her shopping. She stuck her head out the window and asked if she should bring out a tray of food.

They supped and drank until the shadow of the mulberry tree grew long and dark. Marlowe had news to report which he told Babington had been passed directly to Poley from the French Ambassador to England, Guillaume de l’Aubespine. Invasion plans were taking shape. French, Spanish and Italian armies were committed to the holy task. There were strong indications that English Catholics would also rise to arms at the first sight of foreign troops carrying the Papal colors. What was required was the final assent of Queen Mary, to be obtained by Babington.

Marlowe withdrew the implements of his trade from the portable writing case at his feet. He shaved a quill with his best knife, opened the lid of his ink pot and amused Babington no end by blotting the beer from the table with his rump before placing the case upon the dry spot and laying a few sheets of parchment on its leather pad. ‘Would you care to dictate?’ Marlowe asked. ‘I am a most excellent scribe.’

‘You, Kit, are the author. We have well discussed what must be transmitted. Perhaps you can compose.’

Marlowe agreed, saying he would refrain from flowery prose in favor of plain language. As he scratched the parchment he read aloud:

First, assuring of invasion. Sufficient strength in the invader. Ports to arrive at appointed, with a strong party at every place to join with them and warrant their landing. The deliverance of Your Majesty. The dispatch of the usurping Competitor. For the effectuating of all which it may please Your Excellency to rely upon my service.

Now forasmuch as delay is extreme dangerous, it may please Your Most Excellent Majesty by your wisdom to direct us, and by Your Princely Authority to enable such as may advance the affair; foreseeing that, where is not any of the nobility at liberty assured to Your Majesty in this desperate service and seeing it is very necessary that some there be to become heads to lead the multitude, ever disposed by nature in this land to follow nobility, considering withal it doth not only make the commons and gentry to follow without contradiction or contention but also doth add great courage to the leaders.

Myself with ten gentlemen and an hundred of our followers will undertake the delivery of Your Royal Person from the hands of your enemies.

For the dispatch of the usurper, from the obedience of whom we are by the excommunication of her made free, there be six noble gentlemen, all my private friends, who for the zeal they bear to the Catholic cause and Your Majesty’s service will undertake that tragical execution.

‘Are you well satisfied with this concoction?’ Marlowe asked when he was done.

Babington’s throat seemed raspy with anxiety. ‘It seems to properly convey our knowledge of the affair and our requests for the Queen’s blessings.’

‘Then I will place it into a cipher forthwith. While I undertake the task you might ask the Widow Bull to bring us more beer. I will drink only for thirst. The process of substituting letters for numbers and words for symbols is ever taxing and my head must remain as clear as Narcissus’s reflecting pool.’

Babington shuffled off with the foreboding of a man heading to the gallows. When he returned with a full jug Marlowe said, ‘I will make as much haste as I am able. Poley will need to get this letter to the brewer in Chiswick tonight for I believe tomorrow is the day the next keg goes to Mary. Then we need only await the reply of the dear lady.’

Babington drank two tankards in quick succession. He had no such desire to keep a clear head.

The Palace of Whitehall was a city unto itself. It surpassed the Vatican and Versailles in sheer size and pomp and it was no small task to navigate among 1,500 rooms. To find one’s destination required prior knowledge or the good graces of a friendly gentleman or lady to take you by the hand and lead you through the labyrinth of offices and private residences.

By now Marlowe well knew his way around the palace and eagerly presented himself at Walsingham’s privy chamber, his pulse racing, his face triumphant. Walsingham’s private secretary greeted him cordially and announced his arrival.

Walsingham was in conference with Robert Poley, severe as always with a sun-beaten face and his greasy black hair pulled into a knot. In this state one would take him for a brigand or a soldier, not a gentleman who had matriculated from Cambridge.

The first words Marlowe spoke to them were ‘I have it!’

Walsingham looked down his narrow nose. ‘Let me see.’

Marlowe opened his writing case and proudly slid the parchments across the desk. Walsingham plucked them up like a hawk swooping on a vole. While he pored over them, Marlowe stood, pinching white hairs from one of Mrs Bull’s cats off his doublet.

‘This is good, very good,’ Walsingham said. ‘I’ll have the cipher sent to the brewer immediately. Mary possesses the new code?’

‘She has it,’ Poley said. ‘It was in her last keg. She will safely believe that no others could have deciphered it.’

‘May she answer soon and reply forcefully,’ Walsingham cried. ‘Once we’ve intercepted her letter we’ll have her fucking Catholic head, by the stars!’

‘I’d like to be there when it happens,’ Marlowe said, imagining the bloody denouement.

‘I’ll see to it that you are. And you’ll be there to see Babington with his insides out, howling to his God. And the other plotters too. Then the serious game will begin. The Pope’s lot will want their revenge for Mary’s downfall. You know what that will mean?’

‘A war, I should think,’ Marlowe said.

‘Not one war, many. Europe ablaze, and in due course the world. And ourselves as the only clear winners. Taking pleasure in the growing piles of Catholic corpses. Seizing land and commerce from all parties. Swelling our coffers.’

Marlowe nodded, still standing.

‘Sit,’ Walsingham said. ‘Have some wine. You’ve done well. You always do well. Whatever task we’ve given him, be it in Rheims or London, Paris or Cambridge, he’s handled it with dispatch, wouldn’t you say, Poley?’

Poley stiffly raised his glass. ‘Yes, he’s quite the marvel.’

‘Thank you, my lord,’ Marlowe said. ‘I seek only your pleasure and the furtherance of our cause. But to continue to do so I will need a letter from the Privy Council to the Master’s of the University excusing my absences. They aim to deny me my Masters for they believe that I go to France to mingle with and encourage the Papists.’

‘That’s because you are a convincing actor,’ Walsingham said. ‘Poley, give him the letter we’ve prepared.’

Marlowe read it in gratitude. It was perfect. Short and authoritative, leaving no doubt that Marlowe had been serving abroad in the service of Her Majesty. ‘That will do nicely.’

Walsingham took back the document and began to heat some wax to affix the Privy Council seal. While he was fussing with the wax and candle he said, ‘Let me ask you something, Marlowe. I am most curious to know why you seek to engage in the frivolous business of writing plays. I hear the Admiral’s Men will perform one of your works before long. How does this most effectively further our cause? I can set a brilliant mind such as yours to a hundred tasks that will credit the Lemures. How can this be a higher priority?’

Marlowe poured himself a goblet of the Secretary’s wine and tasted it. It was excellent, far better than his own usual swill. ‘Have you ever been to the theater, my lord?’

Walsingham nodded disdainfully. ‘I do so only because the Queen is keen on such things and oft requires her Privy Council to attend her. What about you, Poley? Are you a theater man?’

Poley snorted. ‘I’d rather spend my evenings with a whore.’

‘Yes, I’ve heard of the trail of destruction you leave when you go a-whoring.’

‘I can’t very well leave them alive once they’ve seen my arse.’

‘Hardly,’ Walsingham chuckled.

Marlowe leaned forward, ignoring Poley. ‘So, my lord, you’ve seen then the effects that plays have on the audience. How they stir emotions like a cooking ladle stirs stew. How they evoke all manner of passions – mirth, rage, ardor, fear – and make those in attendance think as one. I will use my plays, my lord, to stir discord, to start fires in men’s hearts, to set Protestants against our great enemy, the Catholics. With my plays I can make mischief on a grand scale. And I am good at it. No, more than good.’

Walsingham walked slowly around his desk and sat beside Marlowe. He took some wine and began to laugh. ‘I cannot disagree with your ideas, Marlowe, or the confident state of your mind. It is not our usual way but there was one of us, a very great one, a long time ago, who fancied himself an artist. Do you know of whom I speak?’

‘Was it Nero?’

‘Yes, indeed. He was, it is said, one of the great performers of his age. But you know what happened to him? He went mad. All his gains came to dust. You won’t go mad, will you, Marlowe?’

‘I would hope to remain sane.’

‘That’s good. If you were not to do so, I might have dark words to impart to Mister Poley.’

Summer passed and then the autumn. The new year came and, with it, frost on the fields and ice on the ponds. And in February, with the winter winds howling across Northamptonshire, Marlowe arrived by coach at Fotheringay Castle.

The stabbing air couldn’t chill his hot excitement. These had been heady months. From the day he’d drafted Babington’s letter in Mrs Bull’s green garden to this moment when the massive doors of Fotheringay were cast open for him, he’d felt as though he was living his destiny. His bloodlines and his intellect had always given him a sense of mightiness but the actual wielding of real power was truly intoxicating.

After Walsingham intercepted Mary’s reply to Babington he quickly rolled up the plotters. Marlowe was there at St Giles in the Fields on the late-September day when Babington’s confused stare found him in the crowd moments before the unfortunate young man was hoisted by the neck onto the scaffold and then strapped to a table, very much alive. His executioner used a none-too-sharp knife to slice open Babington’s flat belly. The brute in his bloody butcher’s smock slowly roasted Babington’s entrails and his severed penis as his screams finally faded to silence and his eyes went mercifully dull. Some of the crowd that day were sickened by the ordeal. But not Marlowe.

The trial of Mary followed and though it was conducted with all the proper formalities that great matters of state required, the outcome was never in doubt. The hour of her execution inside the Great Hall of Fotheringay had come, the same chamber where her trial had been held.

Marlowe, for obvious reasons a keen student of theater, marveled at this particular stage. A black-draped platform, five feet high, twelve feet wide, had been erected beside a log fire which blazed in the huge fireplace. Mary stood between two soldiers, her ladies weeping behind her. The hooded executioner stood, hands clasped across his white apron, his ax standing against the scaffold rail.

As Mary prayed in Latin and wept, Marlowe pushed his way through the crowd to be near the stage. When the time came for her to disrobe, she managed to say, ‘Never before have I had such grooms to make me ready nor ever have I put off my clothes for such a company.’

The audience gasped at her petticoats: blood-red satin, the colors of her Church, the colors of martyrdom.

Marlowe held his breath as the executioner raised his ax high over his head and brought it down with all his might.

Nonetheless, the blow was clumsy. It missed its mark, hit the knot of Mary’s blindfold and glanced off, cutting deeply into the back of her skull. The Scottish Queen made a small squeaking noise but stayed upon the block, still. The second blow found a better mark and the blood gushed as it should, but even that blow failed to completely sever head from body. The executioner was forced into a crouch, whereupon he used his ax like a knife to cut through the last bits of gristle.

He grasped her head by its pinned cap, rose and held it high. But as he shouted his practiced line – ‘God save the Queen!’ – her head fell from his grip and he was left holding the cap and an auburn wig.

It had been known only to herself and her ladies but Mary had gone almost completely bald. Her bloody head rolled off the scaffold and landed at Marlowe’s feet.

He watched her mouth open and close as if she were trying to kiss his boot, and with each deathly movement he felt his tail twitching with life.

I am a Lemures, and I have helped kill the Catholic Queen.