Suffer the Little Children (The Chronicles of Christoval Alvarez Book 5) Read online

  ‘I thank you.’ Simon looked puzzled, and peered at the paper in the poor light, then motioned slightly toward the stairs with his head.

  ‘Give you goodnight,’ I said to the landlady and led the way upstairs.

  The house was one of those which had been added to over the years simply by building first one extra storey and then another on top of the original house. Land was in short supply in London and now Southwark was suffering from the same problem. Simon’s room was on the second floor, mine was on the third. There were even two rooms high up under the sloping roof space above mine, reached by a ladder from the landing outside my room. I had never been inside them, but Simon had. They were so low, he said, that he could not stand upright. One was occupied by a little wisp of a woman, old and frail, who earned a few pennies spinning white warp. A water carrier had the other. He was a big man, as he needed to be to carry the huge water casks on his back from house to house. He must crawl about the room on hands and knees, or that is what it sounded like, over my head.

  ‘Come in while I light my candle,’ Simon said when we reached his room.

  As usual, his room was filled with untidy piles of clothes, dirty plates and tankards, rough pages of play scripts. I had long ago abandoned any attempt to reform him. My own nature, and the nature of my profession, have instilled in me a passion for order.

  Simon lit a candle standing in a holder on his clothes coffer and peered at the paper, which was roughly sealed with a lump of unmarked wax.

  ‘It looks like Tom Kyd’s writing.’ He prised the wax off with his thumbnail and ran his eye down the message.

  ‘It’s about Marlowe,’ he said.

  I frowned. I had no love for Marlowe, who took every chance he could to insult me.

  ‘What about Marlowe? I thought he was back in Cambridge.’

  Or on some errand for Sir Francis Walsingham, I thought, but did not say.

  Simon looked shocked.

  ‘He’s in Newgate Prison. Arrested for a fight in which a man was killed. He is charged with murder.’

  Chapter Two

  Simon had gone very white and his hands shook. ‘He will be hanged,’ he whispered. Marlowe had sought Simon’s friendship with an intensity I found disturbing, and I knew he resented the easy friendship I shared with Simon. I think somehow that made Simon feel responsible for him, which was an unenviable burden, for the man was violent, untrustworthy, even – so I had heard it hinted – a man who denied the existence of God.

  I had no love for Marlowe, but even so I would not wish him hanged. That he had been involved in a brawl came as no surprise. He had a vile temper, was puffed up with pride and quarrelsomeness. And he had been in trouble before.

  ‘Was it Marlowe himself who killed the man?’ I asked.

  Simon shook his head. ‘It was some dispute in Hog Lane between Marlowe and an innkeeper from Bishopsgate called William Bradley, which grew into an armed fight. Another man struck the fatal blow, one Thomas Watson. It seems there was some previous trouble between Bradley and Watson, involving Edward Alleyn and his brother. But if Kit Marlowe is accounted an accessory to murder, then surely he will hang.’

  ‘When did this happen?’ I asked. ‘Today?’

  While Simon and his fellows were performing some light-hearted comedy? And I was supervising the delivery of a premature baby by one of the hospital midwives. It was a girl and despite her untimely birth she seemed healthy and like to live. One fragile soul born into the world. One soul rent from it, bloodily, at the point of a sword.

  ‘Nay, not today.’ Simon shook his head. ‘Tom says the fight was a week or more since. We had not missed Marlowe. Sometimes he is about the playhouse every day, pressing Burbage to buy one of his plays. Sometimes he is off in Cambridge, though I think the term is not yet started.’

  ‘And sometimes he is abroad,’ I finished, ‘working for Sir Francis, though I had not heard that he was on any mission at the moment. Matters are very quiet in Seething Lane at present, for Sir Francis has been ill.’

  ‘If we had known about this, something might have been done. He’s been at least a week in Newgate.’

  ‘He will not suffer like the poor prisoners,’ I said. ‘He will have a gentleman’s room, with a decent bed and a fire. He can buy food.’

  Simon gave a rueful smile. ‘You know Kit Marlowe! When does he have two sixpences to rub together? Or if he does, they’re soon spent on wine. It seems he was thrust into the Limbo dungeon, manacled, until someone else paid the fee for him to be moved to one of the upper cells.’

  ‘What does Tom Kyd say? Is he asking you to do something?’

  He thrust the paper at me and I tilted it toward my candle to read it. Kyd was asking for help in raising money to have Marlowe released on bail until he stood trial.

  ‘Would they let him go free until the trial?’ I said doubtfully, thinking that I’d as soon trust an adder as Marlowe. ‘On a murder charge?’

  ‘Look what he says there.’ Simon pointed. ‘Kit and this other fellow went and handed themselves over to the Constable. They claim they were attacked first and struck out in self-defence.’

  The note did indeed say that. It was undoubtedly the wisest action for them to have done, to surrender to the authorities.

  ‘You cannot help with money, Simon. You haven’t any.’

  Like all the players, Simon lived very much hand to mouth. He had enough foresight to set aside the money to pay his rent, but like the others he veered constantly between times of plenty and times of dearth. With winter coming on, the playhouses would be closed. There would be no work and no pay for the players, unless they were hired for performances at one of the Inns of Court, or a gentleman’s house, or at the royal Court itself. For the last few years Burbage had been speaking of buying an indoor playhouse for winter. It would hold only a small audience, but it would be more select and he could charge more. He had hoped to take over the boys’ theatre at Blackfriars, but nothing had come of it, and the players still had nowhere to perform in winter.

  ‘It is too late tonight for you do anything,’ I said. ‘Tomorrow, you should go to Burbage.’

  He nodded. ‘He might stand the bail money, though I know he thinks he has already put too much money in Marlowe’s pocket.’

  ‘Perhaps Sir Francis might do something,’ I said hesitantly. I was reluctant to approach Walsingham with such a request, for he had been ill for weeks now. When he came into Phelippes’s office at Seething Lane, where I had my own desk, he was gaunt as a famine victim, like the survivors of our Portuguese expedition. His skin had a greyish pallor and his eyes were deep sunk above jutting cheekbones, as some internal sickness sucked the life out of him. His wife Dame Ursula and his daughter Frances flitted about the house like ghosts, for they knew that he was dying. Even little Elizabeth, Frances’s daughter, was subdued and had lost her merry laugh.

  ‘If Marlowe had been caught up in some trouble while working for Sir Francis, then I am sure he would have paid the bail money,’ I said, ‘but this is some drunken street brawl amongst violent men. He may feel it is not his affair.’

  ‘But you will ask?’ Simon looked hopeful.

  ‘I will ask, but I think you and Kyd should approach Burbage first.’

  ‘Walsingham is much the wealthier man.’

  ‘Do not be deceived,’ I said. ‘Ever since he paid for his son-in-law Sidney’s lavish funeral, and paid off all his debts, I do not think Sir Francis is wealthy at all. He has also spent nearly every penny he owned to maintain his intelligencing service for the safety of England and the Queen. It is not the Queen who pays.’

  ‘I did not know that.’

  ‘Hmm,’ I said. I was sure I had told Simon this before, but perhaps not. ‘I am off to my bed. Will you be up in the morning before I leave for the hospital?’

  Like all the players, Simon saw no need to leave his bed betimes, unlike those of us in regular employment.

  ‘Knock me up as you go out, will you? Then I will f
ind Kyd and we’ll go together to see Burbage.’

  ‘Very well. Give you good-night.’

  I took my candle and headed up the last flight of stairs, realising that I was suddenly very tired. I closed the door to my little room and leaned back on it, letting my satchel slide to the floor. I braced myself as my dog Rikki leapt from my bed and flung himself against my chest as if I had been gone for weeks. While I worked in the hospital during the day I left him with the gatekeeper Tom Read and his old wolfhound, but I was training him to stay quiet in my room in the evening, for the night watchman at St Thomas’s was a surly fellow, whose own dog was a vicious brute, taught to attack on command. I would never trust him with Rikki.

  ‘Hush now,’ I said, as Rikki tried to lick my face. ‘I haven’t been gone above two hours.’

  My room was freezing. Frost flowers were already patterning the window glass and the hearth was, of course, cold. I could leave it unlit, but by the middle of the night I would probably be too cold to sleep, and that meant an exhausting day tomorrow, when I was due at Seething Lane after the hospital.

  I hung my satchel, my cloak, and my gown on the pegs I had hammered into the wall and prised off my boots. In my stocking feet I went to the window and drew the curtains across it, two bits of heavy woollen stuff I had bought in the market. They were faded and ragged at the hem, but helped to keep out the cold and draughts from the window. Then I knelt in front of my small hearth and laid a fire of kindling. With my tinderbox I soon had it burning through and added pieces of sea coal until there was a good blaze going. Sea coal fills the London air with filthy smoke, but it cannot be denied that it gives a good heat. My room began to warm through and Rikki settled comfortably, with his stomach stretched out in front of the fire.

  As I climbed the stairs I had thought of nothing but getting into my bed, but now that I had the fire going I did not want to waste it, so I poured some wine into a small pot and set it close to the fire, adding a cinnamon stick, a bay leaf, a curl of orange peel (carefully saved) and a few peppercorns. Recently I had purchased a small hanging cupboard, like the one where my father had kept his medicines. Mine I used for food. There was a colony of mice in the building, growing fat on the food scraps left lying about by Simon and some of the other tenants. I had no wish for them to move and take up residence with me.

  The new season’s apples were on sale at every street corner since the fruit harvest, and I had bought myself a supply. I munched one now as I sliced bread and cheese and stirred my wine as it warmed through. The room filled with the comforting scent of the spices and when I drew up a stool near the fire to eat my supper, I was warm enough to unbutton my doublet. I fished the cinnamon stick, peppercorns, orange peel, and bay leaf out of the wine, to be used again, poured it into a pottery beaker, and grated a little nutmeg over the top. Nutmeg is expensive, for it is believed to ward off the plague, but a single nutmeg will last a long time if you are sparing.

  The smell of food roused Rikki, who placed his chin on my knees and fixed me with a pleading look.

  ‘You can’t be starving, lad.’ I scratched him behind his ears. I knew that Tom Read filched a good bowl of scraps from the hospital kitchen every day for the two dogs, who probably lived as well as any gentlemen’s dogs in London, but I could not resist that look. I spread a hunk of bread with a little dripping I had saved the last time I had cooked myself a chop, broke it into smaller pieces and put it into a chipped bowl I had salvaged from a rubbish heap. Rikki fell on it with the same enthusiasm as the beggar children.

  During the weeks earlier in the year when I had lived at the Lopez house, I had eaten lavishly. After our voyage of starvation, I was ravenous, and Sara Lopez constantly pressed food on me. As a result, I had gained weight, and filled my doublet more than I could have wished. I feared I might not be able to continue passing for a boy. Since coming to live in Southwark, I had been careful to eat less. In the morning I took nothing but a cup of ale and a slice of bread. St Thomas’s gave all the medical staff a good dinner, and I was happy to eat it, for it saved me money and meant I had one substantial meal a day. In the evening I often had no more than an apple or a piece of cheese, but tonight I had felt chilled and saddened. Perhaps by the sight of those ragged beggar children. Perhaps by the thought of Marlowe in Newgate Prison. Perhaps also by the thought of Walsingham, who had played such a large part in my life since I was sixteen, and who was slipping away from us.

  When I had finished eating I tidied away all the food into the cupboard and made up the fire so that it would keep the room warm for a few hours. Then I locked and bolted my door before I undressed and donned my night shift. I did not expect to be disturbed, but I was always careful.

  Before getting into bed I drew aside the window curtains. There was a faint glow from off to the right – probably a torch in a sconce outside one of the whorehouses. Otherwise it was very dark and very still. I could almost hear the crackle of frost in the air. I hoped those children would keep warm. When I knelt by my bed to pray, it was in a wordless jumble of thoughts, for these days my faith was confused. Phrases from the Jewish prayers of my childhood were interwoven with the Christian prayers I heard every Sunday in the parish church. I prayed for the children, for the souls of my parents and my little brother, for my lost sister. I prayed for Walsingham in his pain and sickness. I prayed for my friend Sara and her family. I prayed for Simon and the other players. I prayed – for the first time in my life – for that rogue Marlowe, whose way with words was little short of miraculous, even though the man was despicable. Last and least, I prayed for myself, that I might continue to live my deceitful life undetected.

  My knees were aching as I rose and climbed into bed. Until recently I had owned only two thin blankets, but a few days ago I had bought a secondhand feather bed. It was thin, but provided some welcome additional warmth. Rikki leapt on to the bed and curled up against my back. I blew out my candle and watched the pattern of the firelight on the ceiling before I dropped into a deep sleep.

  The next morning Rikki and I clattered down the first flight of stairs at dawn. When I thumped on Simon’s door, there was at first no response, but I kept up my banging until a sleepy voice groaned in response, then I was down the stairs and out of the front door.

  I nearly went flat on my face, for the steps were icy and Rikki was tugging at his lead, eager to relieve himself against one of the scraggy trees which had found a foothold here and there along the river’s edge. This morning they were transformed. Like one of the sugar confections spun for a nobleman’s banquet, they sparkled in the first low rays of the sun coming up the river from Greenwich. Hoar frost had hung every twig with diamonds. Not all the leaves had yet fallen and every surviving leaf was rimmed with frost as if it had been dipped in sugar crystals. The road here was little better than an earth track, though where it tended to bog it was patched with rough cobbles. Along the centre it was worn down with the feet of men and horses, and carts had carved deep ruts, but, along the edges and in clumps on the roadway, grass grew, tired and withered at this late season of the year, but now – like the trees – transformed into sprouting shards fragile as glass, which crunched and shattered under my feet.

  Rikki found this change in his familiar world exciting, and kept wanting to dash off and investigate the new smells, cleaner smells, I suppose, than the usual street smells of Southwark, which can be unsavoury. The brisk walk along the river to St Thomas’s left me feeling invigorated, my cheeks glowing from the cold, and my lungs full of clean frosty air. This early in the morning the tanneries and dye-works had not begun to pollute the air, and with house fires smoored down for the night the sea coal smoke had cleared away. It would not be too troublesome even later in the day, in this clear frosty weather. When fog gathered over the Thames it trapped the smoke in a smothering pall over the City and Westminster and Southwark, caused old men and small children to die because they could not draw breath. It was the curse of London.

  When I had left Rikki
with Tom in his snug lodge, I went first to the lying-in ward to check yesterday’s premature birth. As always the ward was warm and clean. Mistress Maynard, governess of the nursing sisters, was strict with those under her command, though her iron discipline concealed a kind heart. The patients had already breakfasted on barley gruel with thick cream, wholesome bread baked in the hospital bakehouse, and our own small ale brewed in our own brewhouse. Those whose babies had already come into the world were feeding them, others were dozing or talking quietly. Mistress Maynard would allow no raised voices or foul language. It must have been quite a trying time for some of the Winchester geese.

  Not that all the women were prostitutes. Some were foolish girls who had been promised marriage and then abandoned. Mellie White, whose baby had been born the previous day, was a fourteen-year-old servant girl raped by her master. She was small and scared.

  ‘What will become of me and the babe, doctor?’ she pleaded, raising blue eyes swimming with tears. ‘I cannot go back there. I dare not. Though my term of service is not completed.’

  ‘Of course you shall not go back there.’ I sat down on the end of her bed and turned back a fold of the blanket in the wicker cradle which had fallen over the baby’s face. She was a good colour and breathing naturally. Mellie was not sure of her due time, but the baby was certainly early. Even so, she seemed just as likely to live as a full term child.

  I looked up at the girl, who was plucking at the edge of her blanket.

  ‘Our deputy superintendent will speak to him, your late master. By the time he’s finished with him, there will be no question of you working out your service. And no risk of his doing to another girl what he did to you. If you wished, you could take him to court.’