‘Who took the decision to bury Kit without ceremony?’ Will pressed.
‘I cannot say.’
‘You do not know? Or you refuse to tell me?’
‘I … I …’ the coroner stuttered, his eyes darting.
‘Tell me,’ Will snapped.
A tremor crossed Danby’s face, the muscles twitching as if they could not decide which expression to sport. To Will’s astonishment, the coroner broke into a broad grin and then began to laugh. At first it was just a chuckle, but it rapidly transformed into a breathless bark. Yet Will could hear no humour in that sound and the coroner’s eyes were still scared and flecked with tears. A shadow of confusion crossed the man’s face as if he couldn’t understand his own strange response, and then, still laughing, he turned and almost ran across the garden to the path.
Will had never seen anything like it before. The Queen’s foremost coroner had acted like a madman, caught up in inappropriate emotions beyond his control. Was it fear of discovery? Fear of his masters? A passing lunacy?
Concerned, the spy made his way across the now-deserted garden. Before he reached the path, he glimpsed movement, high up on the lodging house. Spinning round, he looked up, shielding his eyes against the sun’s glare. Not even a bird flapped on the brown tiles, but Will was convinced he had caught sight of something large hunched on the edge of the roof, watching his passage.
Something inhuman.
CHAPTER NINE
The funeral procession arrived at Deptford Green to a chorus of hungry gulls sweeping low overhead. While the coffin rested at the lychgate, a young man stepped up to Will, glancing around, a sack clutched to his side. The spy recognized the red, tear-stained face.
‘Tom, I am sorry we meet again under these circumstances. We have both lost a good friend.’ Will went to shake the hand of Marlowe’s companion, but the man was racked by a silent, juddering sob of grief.
When he had recovered, Tom thrust the sack into Will’s hands. ‘Kit bid me give you this,’ he hissed. ‘I have spent two days searching for you, but you are hard to find.’
‘By design,’ the spy replied.
‘The last I saw of Kit, on the banks of the river near Baynard’s Castle at dawn, he … he was not in the best of humour. He feared for himself … feared that to be with me would bring about my death. I should … I should have known. Helped.’ The young man swallowed noisily.
‘Do not punish yourself. We can never know what is to be.’
In one tearful look, Tom communicated more than words could ever express and then he hurried away along the street.
Puzzled, Will peered into the sack. A sheaf of dog-eared papers lay at the bottom. He shrugged, and found his attention drawn back to the coffin as the pall-bearers shouldered it once more.
‘Will?’ In her black mourning dress, Grace gently touched his sleeve, her eyes still red from crying. ‘We both loved Kit. He was a kind and gentle man, for all his troubles. But now I worry for you. His death has burned into your heart, and I can see you change by the moment. Do not let it harden you.’
Although her face was flushed with grief, Will could see elements of her sister, Jenny, in her stance, and once again he was transported back to that summer’s day when his love was cruelly snatched from his life. He put the thought from his mind.
‘Kit deserves justice,’ he responded, his expression grim. ‘I do not believe he received it at the inquest this morning, and this poor excuse for a funeral only adds insult. He deserved better. If those who used him while he was alive cannot find it within them to give him justice, then that duty falls to me. And I will seek it out in a much harsher manner than they ever would.’
The procession wound its way into the graveyard. The parish church of St Nicholas was solid and unremarkable. The final resting place of one of England’s greatest playwrights was an unmarked grave near the church’s north tower, and there a small group of men waited. Will was puzzled to see Thomas Walsingham, the second cousin of Sir Francis, stylish in black and gold, his lithe, powerful build that of a fencer. How could he have arrived from his home in Chislehurst so quickly, when the funeral had been announced only that morning? Will wondered.
He knew Thomas, a year older than the playwright, and wealthy, had been one of Marlowe’s patrons. He had also been a longstanding friend of Kit’s through their service in the spy network, and Kit had been staying on and off at Thomas’s house for most of the last month.
Walsingham nodded to Will and gave a sad smile.
As they gathered around the hastily dug grave, Will left Grace to be comforted by Nathaniel and joined Carpenter and Launceston.
‘There are too many spies in this affair for my liking,’ he whispered to the other two men. ‘Poley, who was there at Kit’s death. Now Walsingham.’
Launceston stared deep into the hole as though he were considering jumping in. ‘We are a loathsome breed. Worse than snakes,’ he replied in a bloodless tone.
Once the funeral was over, Will sent Carpenter and Launceston on their way and then paused by the grave to throw in a handful of the rich Deptford soil. Thomas Walsingham broke away from the small group of Marlowe’s acquaintances to join him.
‘This is a harsh accident,’ the patron said as he stared at the cheap coffin.
‘An accident? You believe it is so?’ Will replied in a cold voice.
‘Ingram Frizer did not mean to strike the killing blow. I have spoken to him at length, beyond the evidence he gave at the inquest. Poor Kit was like a wild thing, driven momentarily mad by the pressures of his double life.’
‘That seems like an easy answer.’
‘Frizer would not lie to me.’
‘You know him well?’
‘I am his master.’
Will flashed a look towards Walsingham, but the man’s expression was emotionless, his gaze fixed on the grave. The spy felt cold at the revelation of yet another hidden connection. ‘Do you know what business they gathered here in Deptford to discuss?’
Walsingham folded his hands behind his back and raised his face to the sun. ‘Not in the detail. Frizer told me it was mundane matters, of loans and debts, and some dealings in the unpleasant world they were all forced to inhabit. Nothing of import. This is more about Kit’s state of mind than what transpired in that room.’ His tone was reasonable, but something about it did not ring true to Will.
‘I have my doubts.’
‘Oh?’ The other man glanced at him askance.
‘Come. We are all taught to accept nothing is ever as it appears in our world.’ Will paced around the grave to face the other man across the dark hole.
‘True. But it is wise never to delve beneath the surface too publicly,’ Walsingham said with a dismissive shrug. ‘None of us knows who can be trusted. And that is worse now than it ever was when my cousin Sir Francis was spymaster. His poor replacement, Sir Robert Cecil, has ambitions, as does his rival, the Earl of Essex. Why, I would not be surprised if there were a civil war. Fought quietly and behind the scenes, in the manner of spies, of course.’
‘And which side would you be on?’ Will asked with a cold smile.
Walsingham’s own smile was a mask. ‘I am loyal to the Queen, as always.’
‘Perhaps the war has already begun.’ Will glanced towards the gravediggers waiting impatiently to fill in the hole.
‘Spies die all the time. No one cares.’ The other man plucked a piece of lint off his fine doublet. ‘Their work is all that is important, and it is noted in files and stored away, paid for in blood and often forgotten before the blood is dry. Do you not find that our work is all like one of Kit’s plays?’
