- It is the monarch that presides, the Archbishop harshly said. Be mindful of that. One of her titles is Fidei Defensor.
- A papal bestowal, Kit unwisely said. Be mindful of that.
- How dare you, sir, the Archbishop cried. How dare he, the others seemed to mutter.
- I beg pardon, your grace. I should have said be mindful of that, your grace. I do not however beg pardon for the truths of history, your grace, my lord, gentlemen. The late King Henry was granted the title for his defence of the seven sacraments, of which his reformed Church appears to have lost two or three. I say no more on the matter. I am here not to question but to be questioned.
- Questioned, that, the Earl said. Questioned on your association with one that teacheth atheism. I mean the man Raleigh.
- Sir Walter, yes, my lord. He has never taught atheism.
- In the House of Commons he has been preaching it.
- I do not think that can be so, my lord.
- Confute your Arians, whatever they be, but not me, puppy. He speaks against the strangers in our midst and advocates riot, he follows with loud pleading for freedom of belief.
- That is not atheism, my lord, and I will not be called puppy. We are both grown to reasonable doghood.
- This, Sir Thomas said most reasonably, is neither time nor place for spleen and insult. If my lord of Essex would fire guns against Sir Walter, there are occasions and loci where we others would not wish to be implicated. With all due and most humilous deference, good my dear lord. This Mr Marlowe has been one of the faithful hounds that smell out treason and dissidence. He is a master of arts. He is known to be a most mellifluous poet. There are occasions for deference which are unconcerned with mere rank.
- Mere? Mere?
- Enough, the Archbishop said. Mr Marley, I am unhappy about the condition of your Christian faith. I fear a contagion unrelated to the present, though thank God dying, pestilence. I think you may well have been touched by heterodoxy. I think we require from you a deposition in writing concerning what you know of what has been diffused in a certain company.
- You mean, your grace, that I am to write down Sir Walter Raleigh as an atheist and all his companions, myself included, as such?
- That is most raw and brutal, Sir Robert Cecil said. We are all concerned solely with the safety of the realm.
- The craft of the playwright, Kit said, which alone I may be said to understand, though I have much to learn, must deal, alas, with the rawness and brutishness of the life of men. The safety of the realm, as you term it, is not best served by the terror of its subjects.
- What terror is this? the Archbishop asked.
- The terror of punishment at opening what has been too long hid, at voicing doubt which is man's natural state in a world that is God's enigma, at tearing off a mask of high-mindedness to disclose the nakedness of rivalry and hate.
- Tell us, the Earl said somewhat mildly, of this rivalry and hate.
You will know more of it than I, my lord. Of Sir Walter I will say this, that I admire and honour him. He more than any has consulted the safety of this realm, and not that only but also its wealth and the expansion of its territories.
- First to his own profit, the Earl said. Only traitors are sent to the Tower.
- So treachery is to be sought out in the making of a fair marriage with a most fair and estimable lady?
- You tread on very perilous ground, Sir Robert Cecil said. This is unseemly.
- This word doubt, the Archbishop said.
- You require a definition, your grace? Kit said, again unwisely.
-I must ask you, Mr Marlin, Sir Robert Cecil said, to consult your own situation as regards this present enquiry. You are being questioned on grave matters and you respond with reprehensible pertness and flippancy.
- I again beg pardon. I am not well schooled in the manner of comportment before Her Majesty's Privy Council.
- Doubt, you say, the Archbishop continued. The company you spoke of was concerned with the free resolution of doubt in matters of faith?
- I think this may be said.
- So doubt about the teachings of our divines was voiced so that it might be resolved through rational enquiry?
- I would not go so far.
- Very well, the Archbishop said. You admire Sir Walter Raleigh. In consequence you may not be relied upon to render a frank and candid disclosure as is required.
- I have told lies, your grace, to the Queen's enemies, but that was a matter of policy imposed by circumstance. You have no need to put me to any torture to impel true speaking.
- You are not as yet under arrest, the Earl said.
- But I will be, and then I will be tortured? What will the charge be, my lord?
- No talk of that, the Archbishop said. I think we may for the moment end. What must he now do, Sir Robert? You have the formula.
- Yes. Give daily attendance to their lordships until he shall be licensed to the contrary, thus remaining within close distance of this Palace of Westminster until the case under review is decided. So you may leave.
Kit bowed to all in the manner of a single wave of obeisance and left the chamber in some anger and disquiet. Outside the door he saw Baines waiting for entrance. Kit spat and said: No buboes yet? The devils of the plague know their own. Baines said:
- That is not friendly.
We may not yet accompany back to Scadbury fuming Kit, orphaned, with one friend in the world but of him he was unsure. We must, behind his bowed back, return to the chamber where the Privy Council deliberated on this Mr Marley or Merlin. The Earl of Essex said:
- This is my Mr Baines. Baines, read out your note.
- Baines read: A note containing the opinion of one Christopher Marley concerning his damnable judgment of religion and scorn of God's world. He affirmeth that Moses was but a juggler and that one Heriots being Sir Walter Raleigh's man can do more than he. That Christ was a bastard and his mother dishonest. That he was the son of a carpenter and that if the Jews among whom he was born did crucify him they best knew him and whence he came. That Christ deserved better to die than Barabbas and that the Jews made a good choice, though Barabbas were both a thief and a murderer. That all protestants are hypocritical asses. That if he were put to write a new religion, he would undertake both a more excellent and admirable method and that all the New Testament is filthily written. That the Angel Gabriel was bawd to the Holy Ghost, because he brought the salutation to Mary.
- Is there much more? the Archbishop asked, his mouth tasting a kind of spiritual vinegar.
- Yes, your grace. Much more. But I would ask you to note that Mr Richard Chomley or Chumley or Cholmondeley, that is also in his lordship's service, has confessed that he was persuaded by Marlowe's reasons to become an atheist but only in pretence that he might be the more persuaded, and he is now ready to testify to this and much in my note and other things besides.
- Fair copies of your notes are required, the Earl said. We will have a deeper perusal.
- Apart from the heresies, your grace, my lord, sirs, Baines said, there is other treasonable matter. I read from here. That he had as good right to coin as the Queen, and that he was acquainted with one Poole, a prisoner in Newgate who hath great skill in mixture of metals, and having learned some things of him he meant through help of a cunning stampmaker to coin French crowns and English shillings. And he said that all that love not tobacco and boys are fools. And that the holy communion would be best administered in a tobacco pipe. And much more.
- Very well, Baines, enough. Do as I say, we will peruse. You have done good work and may go.
- And so, the Archbishop said when Baines had left.
- And so, the Earl of Essex agreed.
KIT, much troubled, rode back to Scadbury. He had heard from Tom Nashe that the knives were being sharpened for the puritanical or Brownist persuasion. There was to be a trial before the King's Bench the next day, Nashe was unsure of whom, something to do with a book printed in Amsterdam or some such
outlandish place entitled Reformation No Enemy. The author? He knew not. It was full of the scourging of the bishops and even of the Queen as one that had turned against Jesus Christ. The London air had seemed thick to Kit's lungs; he smelt burning entrails and tasted the blood of a wrenched-out liver. He rode back to the sweet country, greeted by thrushes and larks and the bellowing of rams. The shepherd swains shall dance and sing for thy delight each May morning. A smeared May, a May defiled. The maypole gone for that it did resemble a man's prick, and Jack in the green a foul idol, and the hobbyhorse forgot.
Sitting with Tom Walsingham after supper, he spoke his troubles.
- I fear that next time it will be an arrest.
- The charge?
- They are digging out heresy and treason. I am no true target. I am the salty herring before the great roast of Raleigh. I saw this Baines go in with a paper. There is talk of the arraignment of Tom Harlot.
- So, Tom Walsingham said, chewing a piece of marchpane and showing a tooth in decay, they will be coming here to drag you off. And then to the torture chamber and your screaming that it was all the fault of Sir Walt the tobacco man. Well, we have tortured each other over the years, though to the end of pleasure. And you torture my nose and gullet with your damnable pipes.
- You have not said this before.
- You have not listened or, listening, taken notice. Much may be pardoned in a poet. I shall not be stifled with the reek of it again. At least not here.
- You smile, smirk or leer at the prospect. So I am to leave?
- I did not think this would be the manner of your going. I shall marry soon, I think you have guessed that, I need the dowry. You would have to go, but I did not think your departure would be enforced by the Privy Council. Nor did I think your new and final home would be a tree. No, no, I but jest. Poley is your best protection.
- Poley takes orders from Heneage and Cecil, both of the Privy Council.
- He can plead with them, though not, I think, with the Earl of Essex. Poley can defend your great shouts of atheism and disaffection as the mere cloak of a deeply loyal purpose. You were provoking the true dissidents. And if Poley fails you, well, there is always a ship to board. He fails you at Deptford, you sail from Deptford.
- Sail whither?
- You are expert in theology. You can lecture on divinity abroad. Catholic divinity at Rheims or Douai. Calvinist divinity in Scotland. Or perhaps both there. And you can write your plays and send them on hot horseback to Alleyn or Henslowe.
- I am done with plays.
- You are done with a lot of things. You knew this would happen. There has been a deal of jealousy around.
- So. We are to part. One should always pay attention to the future. My sole future so far has been the writing of Finis to a play or poem. When do you think they will come for me?
- Dirty men rattling their manacles here in the unpolluted manor house of Scadbury. It brings me low. I know not. I think not before you meet Poley. Poley will have discussed a possible mission for you with his masters. Fear not yet. All will be well. We shall eat together in Southwark the day before. There is something to show you.
- What?
- A small secret. You would not begrudge your dear friend a small triumph? Ask no more for the present.
And so on May 29 they rode into London, with, to Kit's dislike, Ingram Frizer on his nag at the rear. They ate their noon dinner at the New Tabard - soup of boned beef, roasted veal, and a medlar tansy. Frizer was served apart in the kitchen. Tom, made merry by red wine from Bordeaux, said:
- It may then be Scotland for you. You recall our visit together? I had to see his dribbling majesty with a small request from the Queen and the Archbishop. He was much taken by me. He toyed and pawed and mauled, it was not pleasant. He moaned in his pleasure and then leered in the little death, his silken breeches were soaked. Ave, laddie, ye see that a king is mickle like movie anither mon. Well, the request was fulfilled, though very late.
- What request?
- You hear the bell of St George's? That is not for a plague burial. It is for the passage of a prisoner of the Bench prison to his condign end on the gallows. You know St Thomas a Watering?
- A place to drench horses for the Canterbury pilgrims. Who are, of course, no more. What happens there?
- You will see all. Come. Frizer shall come too.
- I may speak boldly about Frizer now. If there is any pleasure in leaving Scadbury it is that I shall see Frizer no more.
- A wonderfully necessary man. So devoted. He has been my perambulating moneybag. Of course, he ever disapproved of what you and I did together. You, he always said, seduced me into evil ways. But then he came to believe that it was in the nature of a poet to court perversion. Poesy, he argued, is a perverting of words, and one thing must come after the other. Come.
The gallows at St Thomas a Watering was new erected, and two boys apprenticed to Harley the hangman were completing the hammering, nails in their mouths. "There were but a few onlookers, idle artisans, a legless soldier, some small urchins. Why here? It has not been well announced, here is not usual, he has a gift of words and might inflame a Tyburn assembly. Who? Then Kit saw. Penry, that had eaten herring with him at Edinburgh, that had begged him to look to his soul, that desired a lover's embrace from his blessed Lord, was dragged to the ladder on a hurdle of wattles. He did not look at the lookers; his eyes were on an inward vision. Tom said smiling:
-- Penry has evaded capture for long. Over the border and back. The Scotch slobberer has been true to his word. He has caught him and faithfully delivered. A proof of amity.
- You call this a triumph?
- I gave my body that it might be done. Or so I wish to believe. Here is evidence that Scotland's king is no menace. Look, Kit, you see here what will not happen to you, whatever you may fear. The poet of Tamburlaine will not have his guts wrenched out. Such things do not happen to poets.
Penry on the ladder spoke:
- I address your Queen, may my words carry. You are turned rather against Jesus Christ and his gospel than to the maintenance of the same. Your bishops are no more than a troop of bloody murderers of souls and sacrilegious robbers of churches. And I would - But here he was swung from the ladder. The hangman Harley was not skilful with his cutting off of privities and the tearing out of heart, for Penry saw nothing, dead swiftly with the cracking of his neckbone. The small crowd had been foolish enough to expect a Tyburn performance, and it turned away soon enough from the mesh of bloody entrails exhibited. Tom grinned, though little, but Frizer cried displeasure at the lack of art. He saw nothing, it was ill done. Kit thought he would deliver a damned clout but contented himself with a damned kick with his heavy riding boot on Frizer's shin. Things may be better done, he almost said, when they deal with me at Tyburn, you may be pleased then. He turned his back on Tom while Frizer whined. He did not want the horse that was not his. He took from the saddle the leathern bag in which his few possessions lay. He walked away, very sick: have us all up there on the scaffold, all except Archbishop Whitgift and perhaps the Queen, we are all schismatics and heretics whose inner light contradicts the outer. They would certainly have Jesus Christ up there, had they not done so already?
The lodging of Tom Nashe was in Southwark. Kit found him there, dashed down his leathern bag, sat heavily on the tousled bed. He said:
- Brightness falls from the air. Does that have a meaning?
- It was meant to be hair, not air. To most there is no difference. The less a meaning can be ascribed the better the poetry.
-Yes, yes. Shadowing more beauty in their airy brows Than have the white breasts of the queen of love. Meaning above meaning. So meaning means little.
- Where do you come from?
- A hanging and drawing. I did not stay for the quartering.
- Martin Marprelate, yes, I heard it was to be today. Well, I did no more than vilify him in those plays already forgotten. Do we all bear blame for the poor wretches that are give
n a lesson in anatomy before dying?
- Penry missed his lesson. He is now embracing the Lord Jesus in a kind of spiritual physicality. What have you to drink?
- Sour wine. Have you money?
Kit counted what was in his purse. PS1 lls 5d. It would not take him far. He asked: May I stay here the night? I must be at Deptford tomorrow.
- You are welcome to the floor and a blanket. And a bundle of books for a pillow. You travel?
- That is to be seen. We can afford a bottle of something. But I must be sober in the morning.
Cheese and bread and some shallots in aliger. And some Rhenish.
- I taste Robin Greene's death when I drink Rhenish, Tom Nashe said. Is he too embracing Jesus Christ? The stink of his breath must be a handicap. But of course he is now purified.
- And so the less Robin Greene. Is there truly anything after?
- You are the divinity scholar.
- To be dissolved in elements. To lose all that is or was Christopher Marlowe. I have a great name, though not many call me by it. I bear Christ on my back. And who or what is Christ?
- A fine poem, though burdened with too much meaning. The only true meaning is syntax.
- There is a fine heresy.
- Heresy pushes us forward. Church and State drag us back. Now you may report me to the Privy Council.
- So we hang together.
- Brightness falls from the air. That could be Lucifer or Icarus. Or both in one. But it is also greying tresses.
Grey hair is a privilege. The badge of him who survives.
- Pretty countryfolk survive. And grave senators with influence. I know of no greyheaded poets.
- The dissolution will be a relief.
- You are gloomy, Kit. Drink, Christopher.
MORNING Deptford and the shipbuilders early awork. The chandlers' shops busy. Hounds from the Queen's kennels howled bitterly. A faint stink from the Queen's slaughterhouse. But was not the whole land her slaughterhouse? A firmer stink from the tanneries. Inland gulls wove over the waters and crarked. Sails, sails, a wilderness of them. Ships - the Peppercorn, the Great Venture, the Majesty, the God Shield Us, the Neptune (a safer god) - would leave with the morning river tide. And there the Golden Hind lay, to be chipped of its timber by the new pilgrims. Kit walked in the clean air to the house of Mrs, Widow rather, Eleanor Bull. She greeted him at the door in her plain black. Doubtless, unmolested, she visited the Brownist houses to worship a plain God. She said: