‘Damn you, Marlowe,’ Steane snarled, jumping from his horse on to Marlowe, his weight, not skill, carrying them both to the ground. The startled animals jolted away as the pair rolled in the grass. Steane’s knife flew into the darkness and his hands struggled in the excess material of his wedding clothes to find Marlowe’s throat.
‘You’re very strong, Dr Steane,’ Marlowe hissed. ‘But you are rather older than me and I think in a straight fight, I will surely win.’
‘But this isn’t a straight fight, Master Marlowe, is it?’ Steane gasped. He was straddling the scholar, his arm pressing down on his windpipe. He weighed almost half as much again as Marlowe and had taken him off his horse with Marlowe underneath him. And he knew from experience how to choke the life out of another human being. Marlowe wriggled and twisted like a fish on a line, scrabbling with his hands in the dirt to find anything he could use as a weapon. The field had not been ploughed that year and had been left to meadow, so not even a sod was hard enough to do any damage. But the soft soil could be his weapon even so. Gathering up as big a handful as he could, Marlowe raised his hand and rubbed the dirt, with the broken flints and shards of old corn stems, into Steane’s eyes. It wouldn’t blind him, but if it just made him raise his arm for a second, Marlowe’s youth and agility would do the rest.
The Fellow howled as a broken snail-shell scraped the cornea of his left eye and he let go with an oath. As quick as a flash, Marlowe had wriggled free, unsheathing his dagger as he did so.
‘Now, Dr Steane,’ he said, moving closer, the weaving blade catching the light as he twisted it in his hand, ever closer to the man’s throat. ‘It will be a long walk still into town, so I think we should start now.’ He reached down to haul the man to his feet.
‘I don’t think I want to go to town with you, Marlowe,’ Steane grated, still rubbing his eye. ‘I want you dead.’ He grabbed the scholar’s proffered hand and yanked down hard. Marlowe’s dagger pricked the older man’s sleeve and blood spurted, black under the moon. ‘Oh, oh, see what the wicked Machiavel has done to me?’ he shouted to the stars. Then he turned his face back to Marlowe and his eyes shone. ‘I think that the coroner’s jury at your inquest will be very sympathetic to see me, a Bishop-elect, sitting in the court, cradling my injuries. All I had done was to go for a ride to calm away the stresses of the day, when suddenly, I was set upon by a known roisterer, drunkard, pederast and liar.’ Suddenly, there was a second dagger glinting in his hand; in another second the point was at Marlowe’s throat. ‘Drop the knife,’ he growled.
‘Not very bishoply behaviour, some might say,’ Marlowe said tightly, trying not to move his throat too much. He let the dagger slip from his grasp.
‘Hmm, perhaps not. We’ll see when this night ends who has the sympathy, Marlowe,’ Steane said. ‘Now -’ he whacked each horse on the rump and they wheeled towards the road, one heading for Madingley, the other for the town where its owner waited patiently – ‘as I think I have already explained, we will go to those woods over there, where you will be so good as to hang yourself.’
‘I know when I’m beaten,’ Marlowe said dully and, turning, started to make his way to the woods.
‘And I know that means you’re not,’ Steane said. ‘Even so, I will not tie you up. You have been a challenge, Master Marlowe, and so for that reason we will walk along like old friends, talking as we walk. I shall enjoy that because the life I have been living and, I fear, the life I have yet to live, is a lonely one.’ He made an expansive movement that pricked Marlowe’s throat painfully and made a small trickle of blood run into his soiled ruff. ‘I will tell you the story of my life, shall I?’
‘I would prefer you not to,’ Marlowe said. ‘As a playwright, I might feel the need to use it some day and then where would that leave us all?’
‘I would enjoy watching that, Master Marlowe; what a pity you won’t live to write it. Let me tell you a story then, as though it is some other man’s life. Then tell me if you think it would make a good play. But keep walking. We are nowhere near the trees yet.’
Marlowe trudged on, his mind whirring. It must be possible to get away from the older, heavier man, but it would perhaps be wise to hear his story first. He would need the details to prove his case, when this was all over and done.
‘Once upon a time – you must correct me, playwright, if I use the wrong words – once upon a time there was a very young priest. He had known that he would be a priest almost from when he could talk. All second sons in his family became priests. It was just the way of things. If there were two daughters, the second would become a nun. So, one son to breed, one daughter to look after the parents when they were old, one son to be a priest and make his mother proud, one daughter never to be seen again. Any other children were extra, but in my family there were only two sons.’
‘This story is very slow,’ Marlowe said, carefully. ‘The audience would have thrown some rotten fruit by now.’
‘Patience, playwright, patience. Then, in this family, a terrible thing happened. The eldest son died, leaving just the priest to do all those things; to breed, to care and to make his mother proud. But before he had to decide whether to renounce the priesthood, a marvellous thing happened which solved everyone’s dilemmas. The boy-king Edward came to the throne and priests could marry. It was a wonderful solution, especially since a beautiful girl lived just over the hill and the young priest had loved her and she had loved him since they were children.’
‘So they married,’ Marlowe added. ‘And they all lived happily ever after. That play’s too short. No jester? No lover dying from a broken heart? You would need another one to fill the time, or the audience would want their money back.’
‘Ah, but wait. This is real life, so the story is not over. The priest and his lovely bride were married, but no sooner had they done so than the king died and his sister Mary came to the throne. The fires were stoked again, men were burned as heretics, priests must be celibate. There were many ways of managing this situation, many left the priesthood or just carried on as before, with wives become housekeepers and no one any the wiser. But this young priest and his bride were very devout. They saw the world in black and white whereas you and I, Master Machiavel, we know that it is all grey, don’t we, like cats in the night?’
Marlowe couldn’t nod, but gurgled assent in the back of his throat.
‘The priest left his wife back at her parents’ house and ran far away, to a town where no one knew his name or what he had done and he did well. Mary died and Elizabeth came to the throne and many priests married, but he had almost forgotten he had ever had a wife. She had probably remarried, he told himself. It would be best not to meddle with her life any more. He was clever and learned quickly and soon he rose in the church. Then, one day, when he was within an inch of what he had always wanted, a bishopric, with a rich wife in the offing, he was walking along the riverbank when a woman called his name.’
‘His wife?’ Marlowe asked. They were nearly in the trees and he needed to move this narrative along.
‘Indeed, his wife. She had entered a nunnery in France as a lay sister, but was back now to care for her old father. She didn’t want anything from me. Her life of contemplation had made her happy with her lot and she would not have said a thing. But . . . I am not a trusting man, Master Machiavel, I didn’t trust her then and so I killed her. I twisted her Popish rosary around her neck until she stopped breathing and I pushed her body into the river.’
‘You say that very easily,’ Marlowe said. ‘And I notice that the young priest has become a character much closer to home.’
The knife point pricked again. ‘Don’t play with me!’ the man snarled. ‘Now -’ he glanced up briefly to the towering elms – ‘do you want to die in the middle of this wood, or on the edge?’