Marlowe was stunned. He hardly knew that Cecil had even been aware of him. ‘I am honored, my lord,’ he said.
‘We live in troubled times, Master Marlowe. Since 1547 our state religion has changed three times, from the English Catholicism of Henry, to the radical Protestantism of Edward, to the radical Catholicism of Mary and now to the Protestantism of Elizabeth. The seeds of confusion among the populace have yielded many strange trees. Which is your tree?’
‘Our family has always followed the Queen’s example.’
‘Has it? Has it really?’
Marlowe’s excitement turned to misgiving. Had he fallen into a trap? ‘We have been loyal subjects.’
Walsingham put his glass down hard on the table. His elaborate ruff forced him to sit ramrod straight. ‘I know for a fact,’ he said, ‘that you are not true Protestants, though you find it convenient to ally yourself with them from time to time. I certainly know you are not Papists; you despise them utterly. Methinks you are something else.’
Marlowe stared at him, not daring to speak.
‘I’m told you excelled at the study of astronomy. You understand the stars well, do you not?’
‘I have a passable knowledge.’
‘Cecil is also an able astrologer. As am I. Neither of us, of course, rise to the level of the Queen’s astrologer, John Dee, but we know a thing or two. The stars cannot be ignored.’
‘Indeed not,’ Cecil agreed.
‘So I put to you, Marlowe, that you have a stronger allegiance to the lessons of the heavens than to the lessons of the scriptures.’
Marlowe had an urge to flee.
‘Hear me out, Marlowe,’ Walsingham said. ‘Perhaps there are men who thrive on religious conflict. Perhaps there are men who instigate conflict. Perhaps there are men who may be rather indifferent when Protestants are slain in Paris but purr like stroked cats when Catholics are butchered in York and London. Perhaps there are men who are ancient and determined enemies of the Church of Rome who live in perpetual hope of its destruction. Perhaps you are one of these men.’ Walsingham stood, prompting Cecil to spring up and Marlowe to rise more slowly. He was dripping with sweat. Then Walsingham surprised him by putting a hand on his shoulder in a reassuring manner. ‘Perhaps,’ he continued, ‘Cecil and I are also of this mind.’
‘I am without words, my lord,’ Marlowe sputtered.
‘I want you to work for me, Marlowe, even as you continue at Cambridge toward your next degree. I want everything you do to be in aid of our cause and our betterment. The Queen is not one of us but she ardently believes that Cecil and I belong to her. And to the extent that her hatred of the Papists is as acute as ours, then we are well and truly aligned. I want you to become one of my spies, to make mischief abroad in the service of the Queen but more importantly in
Marlowe felt lightheaded. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘Say nothing,’ Walsingham said sharply. ‘Follow me. Deeds speak louder than words.’
Marlowe trailed Cecil and Walsingham down a long hall to an old heavy door, which Walsingham pulled open. There were stone stairs leading to a cellar.
Torches illuminated the damp walls. They walked in silence and came to another door on which Walsingham leaned heavily with his right shoulder. It creaked on its hinges, opening slowly to reveal a large room, about the size of the Great Room above. A dozen people, seven men and five women between the ages of twenty and forty, were drinking wine and lounging on plush furniture in the soft glow of candles. They all stopped what they were doing and stood.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Walsingham said, ‘I present to you Master Christopher Marlowe, the young man I told you of. I wish you to make him comfortable and to demonstrate our full hospitality.’
As if on cue, they all began to astound Marlowe in a way he had not believed possible.
Women and men began stripping off layer after layer of their clothes. The rugs became strewn with doublets, peasecods and breeches, bodices, skirts and farthingales. Soon, there was pink flesh exposed everywhere and Marlowe trembled and stirred when he saw the full nakedness of twelve comely bodies facing him, the men in full tumescence.
When he turned to his host to register his incredulity he was further astonished to see that Walsingham and Cecil had themselves stripped off.
‘Show him,’ Walsingham ordered. ‘Go ahead and show him.’
In unison, all of them turned away from Marlowe and showed their backs.
Each of them, Walsingham included, had thick pink tails.
‘Good heavens,’ Marlowe gasped.
Walsingham leered at him. ‘Don’t be prudish, Marlowe. I urge you to show your natural state.’
Marlowe hesitated for a few moments, then did as he’d been commanded, first removing his shoes, then peeling off his garments until all that was left were his breeches. He let them fall to the floor.
The others broke into applause. They were showing appreciation for perhaps the longest tail in the room. Marlowe’s own.
‘Choose whomever you like,’ Walsingham said. ‘You’re among your own kind now. You can do what you like. You’re a Lemures.’
Marlowe slowly approached a beautiful fair-haired young man who encouraged him with a gleaming smile.
FOURTEEN
THE BASEMENT TILES of the St Andrea Hospital were a sickly yellow, making it difficult to say if they were clean or dirty. To the outside observer, the presence of a nun standing among policemen outside the morgue might have suggested a scenario of family grief and pastoral attendance.
But Elisabetta was tending her own garden, steeling herself to confront the face of death.
Micaela emerged from the morgue wearing her long white doctor’s coat. She pulled Elisabetta off to the side. ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ she asked.
‘Yes, absolutely,’ Elisabetta answered with a pretended confidence. Then, ‘I have to.’
Micaela gave her a hug.
Inspector Leone was there, his usual irascible self, looking like he’d slept in his uniform. ‘We’re coming in too.’
Micaela took on the posture of a fighting cock about to raise its claws. ‘The Chief Pathologist said only her. You can speak to him – don’t speak to me.’
Elisabetta found it odd how she herself was comfortable with ‘old’ death but shaky with ‘fresh’ death, how skeletons and mummified remains were slotted into a cool, academic part of her brain but new corpses were relegated to a more fearful place.
Maybe it was something primeval, feeding on the fear of diseased flesh. Or perhaps, she realized, it was as simple as a childhood memory: trying to reconcile the dead body of her mother in her casket with the vibrant life force she had been.
The man was lying face up on the slab, a small towel covering his private parts – no doubt, Elisabetta thought, in respect for the modesty of a nun. His torso was riddled with angry black holes, the entrance wounds of 9mm slugs. His eyes were open but curiously no more dead-looking than they had appeared during life. His face, fixed in death, was identical to the immobile one she’d seen the night before and again years earlier.
‘It’s him,’ she whispered to her sister. ‘I’m sure it’s the man who stabbed me.’
Doctor Fiore, the Chief Pathologist, asked whether Elisabetta was ready. She nodded and two thick-armed mortician’s assistants turned the body on its face. The exit wounds in his upper and lower back were horrific.
The towel was pulled away to reveal his well-muscled buttocks.
