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  For Pamela, Annelise, and Prof. John M. Bell

  Also for Erzsébet

  Act I

  1593

  Prologue

  [Thunder and Lightning]

  Three blood-covered riders charged into the darkness. The heavy drumming of their snorting horses shook the woodlands like thunder.

  “Halt!” their dogged leader called to his companions. He reared his steed and raised his lantern. With restless eyes, the horseman probed the endless forest around him.

  “What is it?” a second rider panted, his heart pounding. “Have we lost him?”

  “No,” declared the leader of the manhunt. “He is here.”

  “Where!” gasped the second.

  “Where…?” wheezed the wounded, barely conscious third man behind them.

  Seated high in his saddle, the lead rider’s eyes narrowed. He lowered his lantern, obscuring it with his cloak while drawing a small, shining blade from his belt. The patient hunter went silent and let his eyes readjust to the dark. Beside him, his winded companion breathed nervously. All he could perceive through the woods was a vast lifelessness. The dead of night.

  And then … a grunt.

  As quick as foxes, the two horsemen turned their heads. Their eyes raced across the black morass and onto a dark figure hunched in the grass. The creature’s huge, hideous face was staring straight back at theirs.

  Faster than the second rider could flinch, a throwing knife flashed through the air and struck the creature head-on. A wincing, earsplitting shriek shot through the night, upsetting both riders’ horses. Amidst the cacophony of whinnies and screams, the lead rider lifted his lamp and spotted the silhouette of their fleeing victim. The horseman grinned and the chase resumed with two riders in pursuit of their prey, only now with a fresh blood trail to follow.

  Still faint from his own wounds, the third rider limped onward.

  “He is stricken!” the leader shouted. He leaned forward while spurring his fatigued charger faster. He thrust his glowing fist forward and unsheathed his sword in a wide swipe. The rider swung the blade like a scythe, itching to cut down his enemy. Within the fleeting evening’s fading moonrays, the naked saber flashed like lightning.

  “You are mine!” the horseman thundered as he moved in for the kill. “You—”

  The lead rider saw the most unexpected distraction ahead on him: a head. A woman’s face, wreathed in flame. She was staring back at the horseman through the forest’s wooded halls.

  “What on earth?” the rider whispered.

  “What the devil?” spoke the second.

  The horsemen pulled on their reins, coming to a stop inside a small clearing deep within the ancient heart of the woods. A crackling campfire bathed the glade in a circle of light, washing over the riders with intense warmth.

  Beside the fire, two figures stood tall and resolute.

  They were women. Young women, albeit different in age. The elder was taller with wizened eyes and a faint scar stretched across her neck. The younger had sharper, more striking features, and was holding a small babe to her breast. Both women had piercing gazes, for neither one displayed fear. They were unflinching, unblinking, and unaffected. Completely unafraid of the blood-soaked men before them.

  Only the infant was moving.

  “Who are you?” the lead rider spoke. “What are you doing here?”

  “Killing swine,” replied the younger in a faraway accent.

  The two horsemen exchanged glances. Their eyes shifted this way and that: there were no pigs in sight. No knives, no spit, no chopping block; just a crucible in the fire. Puzzled, the lead horseman turned back to the women. “We chase a villain through these woodlands. An assassin,” he emphasized. “Be you friends or not, this man is a murderer who can and will kill you. All of you.” The rider’s eyes briefly fell onto the babe. “Where did he go?”

  The women glared at the horseman without saying a word. After this pregnant pause, the woman nursing the infant pointed off to the left. The hunter followed her naked arm to a thick bush at the edge of the clearing. A thin blood trail cut through the glade and into a shrub, where a crimson pool was forming under its thorns.

  The lead rider’s eyes widened. “We have him!” The horseman raced toward his adversary but then paused once he noticed his otherwise reliable partner’s unusual absence. The leader turned around in his saddle. “Skeggs?” he called out.

  The second rider was motionless, save for the quaking charger beneath him. Neither male wanted to turn his back on the women.

  “Hoy! Skeggs!”

  His startled horseman snapped to attention. “Aye, Poley.”

  The lead rider stared at his comrade in disbelief. “Have you gone soft in the head? Get your stupid arse over here! Now!”

  The second rider obeyed.

  As the two turned away from the women, the infant murmured and kicked. “Hush, sister. Hush,” the younger woman soothed in an ancient tongue thought to be dead. Preoccupied, the men did not notice.

  The leader leaped from his mount with a spring in his step, but Skeggs climbed down from his with great difficulty. He had been riding for so long that he had nearly forgotten how to stand. After regaining his footing, the horseman found his more experienced friend circling the bush. The lead rider’s sword and lantern were raised.

  “Get ready,” the hunter whispered.

  Skeggs’s fumbling fingers found his dagger and rapier. The familiar sound of their unsheathed steel reawakened his confidence, and with callused hands, he followed his companion.

  The riders surrounded the bush with their weapons fixed on its center, at which point the leader of the hunt gave a nod. He threw his lantern into the bush, breaking it open. Its fires found fresh kindling, and the bush was soon roaring with flame. As the fires licked higher, a deep grunt bellowed from beneath its branches. And then, screaming. The same high-pitched horror these horsemen had been hunting for hours. The riders waited anxiously as the burning bush roasted their opponent alive.

  Then, a huge figure leaped out from the flames. It lunged straight at Skeggs with scorched skin and a blackened knife stuck in its face. Skeggs screamed and fell backward, holding the beast off with his sword while repeatedly stabbing it with his dagger. The two rolled on the ground amidst the foul smell of burnt hair and bacon until the master of the manhunt brought the fight to an end. He stabbed his sword through the creature, pinning it to the ground at its neck. He then seized his blackened knife’s bloodied handle and yanked it, tearing half the creature’s face off its skull. Unmasked, the poor player fell dead.

  The beast was defeated and the manhunt was over. There was only one problem: this villain they slew was no man.

  Skeggs scurried onto his feet while his partner stared at their opponent, aghast. “A boar?” said the second.

  The lead rider was speechless. It was a large boar, but no man.

  The two looked at each other, knowing full well that a lot more than their evenings were ruined. And unfortunately, things were about to get worse.

  Skeggs looked away from his partner. “Poley!” he cried.

  The lead rider spun around with his bloodied blade only to nearly drop it in shock. Both the women were gone, as were the men’s horses. All that remained in the glade was their fire, fo
r even the crucible had vanished. The men were as good as dead in the wilderness.

  As the riders combed over the clearing with mad eyes, their third, wounded companion finally emerged through the woods. He sat lifelessly in his saddle with fresh blood pouring down his face. He fell from his horse like a dead man while his comrades rushed to his aid. He was still breathing, but barely.

  “This is bad,” Skeggs observed as he raised the wounded man’s head.

  “This is the worst job we’ve ever done,” the leader confirmed.

  “The man…” the injured rider groaned.

  The lead rider crouched down and shook his head. “We lost him.”

  “But not all is lost!” the second rider promised the third. “Your master will take care of everything. You know he will! He said he would.”

  The third rider shook his head with hot tears streaming down his face. “God save me!” he cried. “I am dead! We are all dead!” The man sniffled and then shouted: “All will know me as the man who killed Christopher Marlowe!”

  Once more, the two kneeling horsemen exchanged glances. “It wasn’t you,” Skeggs assured his sobbing companion. “It was someone else.”

  The lead rider turned away in defeat. He was already dreading the creeping dawn.

  Far off in the distance, an infant’s cries filled the forest.

  Chapter I

  The Man Who Killed Christopher Marlowe

  Marlowe was dead! There was no doubt about it, and no one knew this better than the man who had put a dagger through the late poet’s heart.

  The renowned playwright now known as Christopher Marlowe, deceased, was born in Canterbury in 1564. His parents were a cobbler and a Katherine who, little to her knowledge, had given birth to one of the most important babes in the country that year. Her boy was handsome in his youth and grew into an even more handsome man: tall, dark, and dashing with a wavy mane of brown hair, large brown eyes, and a thin mustache perched atop a mischievous smirk. Considering his many endowments, the young buck had plenty to smile about—or at the very least, to flaunt. Marlowe acted as if the world were a stage and he its star player. But in all fairness, who could blame him? Some men and women just seem to be born loving life, as was clearly the case with this ill-fated poet.

  Before his death, Christopher Marlowe was the most lively person alive. He was strong for his frame, nimble, and as fit as a fencer. He had the agility of a cat, quickly graduating from climbing trees in his youth to scaling Roman walls and stone towers throughout Canterbury. When no one was looking, he even enjoyed a grand view of the country from atop the highest points of Canterbury Cathedral. The boy was daring, but also generous, gregarious, and gifted with a mind as razor-sharp as his tongue. A precocious student, young “Kit” attended the King’s School in Canterbury and Corpus Christi College in Cambridge—on scholarship, he would boast. By the time he was twenty, the bright lad was already a bachelor of arts, a master of six languages, and a Machiavel overflowing with ideas and ambition. However, the low rooftops of Cambridge soon proved a small summit for Marlowe. Like a conqueror, his thoughts turned to the Channel and how best to cross it. He wanted to climb higher and see farther than even he could imagine. He wanted an adventure. Fortunately, adventure found him in college.

  The trouble started during Marlowe’s fifth year, when his postgraduate studies were interrupted by frequent and mysterious trips to the Continent. The naughty rumor was that Kit planned to enter the priesthood, but the more accurate description was that Marlowe became involved “in matters touching the benefit of his country.”* Specifically, the clandestine kind. War had broken out between England and Spain, and students of promise quickly became important commodities to the Crown. In 1585, Marlowe was approached in his dorm room by Thomas Walsingham, an intelligence operative not much older than he was. The young man offered Kit a unique opportunity to experience how the world worked during wartime in the service of Thomas’s cousin Sir Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth I’s legendary secretary of state and spymaster. The eager young student graciously accepted, and so began Marlowe’s little-known but life-changing semesters abroad.

  Truth be told, Marlowe did enter the priesthood during these years, but it was more for the thrill and the money than for the wine or the women. He was an agent in Sir Francis Walsingham’s extensive spy network as the war between Protestant England and Catholic Spain exploded. Now on Her Majesty’s secret service, Marlowe crisscrossed the Continent under the guise of a Jesuit to gather intelligence about Spain’s plans to invade England. This wolf in priest’s clothes was in Florence when Mary, Queen of Scots was beheaded. He eavesdropped on the Vatican when Sixtus V granted Philip II papal authority to depose Queen Elizabeth. And when the Spanish Armada finally moved against England, it was Marlowe’s contacts in Italy who provided the Walsinghams with the information they needed to destroy the great fleet. The war made Marlowe a hero to the most powerful people in England, and for his services, the scholar returned to his studies with friends in high places and more money than even a college student could spend.

  So, how did such an upstanding young man ultimately find himself arrested for heresy, a capital offense? Simply put, Marlowe liked spending his free time getting himself into trouble.

  After completing his education at Cambridge and “elsewhere,” Marlowe quickly established himself as the most celebrated playwright in London—and the most controversial. His play The Jew of Malta featured a prologue delivered by the ghost of Niccolò Machiavelli himself. After that, he chose the seven deadly sins as his muses and Mephistopheles as his mentor for his inflammatory Doctor Faustus. His play The Massacre at Paris not only lived up to its title but contained a warning to the queen that the play might encourage murders—which it did. However, it was Tamburlaine the Great, a comedic discourse about the most brutal conqueror since Genghis Khan, that ultimately resulted in the brash playwright’s inconvenient demise.

  In the year 1593, someone in London began posting unfriendly comments about Protestant refugees living peacefully in the city. The bills were written in blank verse—Marlowe’s favorite—referenced several of his most famous works, and were suspiciously signed “Tam-berlaine.”* Whether Marlowe was behind these vicious libels or not, a warrant was issued for his arrest on May 18. Two days later, the dramatist surrendered himself without any drama. With Sir Francis Walsingham dead and any chance of a pardon unlikely, the situation appeared grave for the ill-fated poet.

  As Marlowe awaited his impending trial, torture, and death, he was taken to a Deptford establishment owned by Dame Eleanor Bull. The building was a safe house for government agents and its owner was well connected to the Crown. With London under lockdown due to plague, the otherwise teeming Deptford Strand was deathly silent and still.

  It was May 30, 1593. The coroner’s report said it was still daylight, but it was actually nighttime.

  Christopher Marlowe’s last meal was wine. Lots of wine.†

  Three armed men guarded Marlowe as he dozed on his bed. They played backgammon on a table while the condemned playwright snored loudly behind them. All three guards at some point had worked for the Walsinghams. Robert Poley was the largest and most dangerous man in the group: a seasoned spy and double agent, and the English government’s unrivaled expert on the London underworld. Sharing his bench was Nicholas Skeres, a con artist and saboteur who occasionally proved a reliable henchman for Poley. Together, the two had played key roles in exposing the Babington Plot, which ultimately cost Queen Mary her head. Ingram Frizer was the only man in the room who had never worked for the great Sir Francis Walsingham. His employer was Thomas Walsingham, the same operative who had recruited Marlowe at Cambridge nearly ten years before. Thomas had spent the greater part of the last decade foiling Catholic plots against England, but with his famed cousin dead, even those days were reportedly behind him. Frizer was nothing more than Thomas’s business agent, and as he played backgammon that evening, he knew Marlowe’s death would be a painful fi
nancial loss to his master. Thomas had been Christopher Marlowe’s chief patron ever since they retired from the secret service. But then, how could anyone retire from the world of espionage without being dead?

  There was a knock at the door, and the three guardsmen looked up from their game.

  “Who goes there?” called Poley.

  “Ale!” came a voice from behind the thick door.

  “I pray you remember the porter?” Skeres teased.

  “Of course I do,” Poley snapped. “Skeggs, go open the door.”

  “I move for no man,” Skeres scoffed. “And don’t call me ‘Skeggs.’ I’m only Skeggs when I’m working.”

  “You are working.”

  “No, I’m not. I’m playing ‘tables’!” Skeres smiled with a roll of the dice.

  “The only thing you’re playing is yourself for a fool, so get off your foolish arse and open the door.”

  “Even my foolish arse moves for no man,” Skeres replied with a wink.

  At an impasse, the squabbling guardsmen looked down to small Frizer, who sat cheek by jowl between the two larger men. The agent struggled on his bench. “I cannot move left or right.”

  “Then fly!” Skeres laughed.

  Frizer grimaced as he pushed himself up from the table, careful not to bump his twelve-pence dagger into the silent playwright behind him.

  “Morley, you still with the living?” Skeres asked while Frizer walked toward the door.

  The dramatist snored in response.

  “He’s sleeping,” observed Poley.

  “Ah, sleep … Perchance to dream?” Skeres mused.

  “Not while we’re working,” spoke the expert.

  “Aye, there’s a rub!” Skeres sang as he scratched at his crotch.

  Frizer opened the door and a thin, dark-haired porter entered the room carrying four frothy beers on a tray. He placed three beers on the table and balanced the fourth on his tray as he waited for Ingram Frizer to sit. However, something made the otherwise indifferent third man go rigid. He turned his head and fixed his eyes on the window above Marlowe.