All the Queen's Players Read online

  Thomas was looking at her quizzically and she realized that she was staring. “Kit, let me make you known to my little sister, Rosamund,” Thomas said. “I fear she has never seen your like before, judging by her ill-mannered stare.”

  “Forgive me, sir,” Rosamund said with a quick curtsy, stammering a little as she tried to extricate herself. “I didn’t intend any discourtesy.”

  “I perceived none,” the man responded. “Indeed, such scrutiny could be seen as a compliment, if I choose to take it as such.” He smiled. “Christopher Marlowe at your service, Mistress Walsingham.”

  The smile transformed him as much as the clothes. The rather arrogant cast of his angular features, a certain suspicious wariness in the brown eyes, disappeared. “I trust it was a compliment.”

  “Indeed it was, Master Marlowe.” Rosamund had recovered herself and responded with a smile of her own and another curtsy.

  “I swear, Rosamund, you grow into a flirtatious minx,” Thomas declared. “It’s past time we found you a husband, else you’ll be sporting a swollen belly the next time I come back.”

  “Not with the fare available in Chiselhurst, Brother.”

  Thomas frowned at her. “You must learn to put a guard on your tongue, miss. Not everyone appreciates a coarse wit in a woman.”

  Rosamund blinked in confusion. Thomas had never shielded her from his own coarse humor, indeed had always invited her to respond in kind, and since he was the only member of her family since earliest childhood to pay any consistent attention to her, she had never found anything in the least objectionable in the way he spoke to her, or considered the possibility that her own responses might be frowned upon as unbecoming.

  Master Marlowe came to her rescue. He clapped his friend on the shoulder, saying, “I for one appreciate an honest tongue in a woman, Thomas. The world is not a pretty place. Why should anyone, man or woman, have to pretend that it is?”

  “If they want to find a husband, Kit.” Thomas walked off towards the galleried landing. He turned at the end to look back at them. “We will dine at four, Rosamund. Join us, I have matters to discuss. Do you come now, Kit?”

  “Aye.” He moved off after his host, his stride lengthening.

  Rosamund turned aside to her own chamber feeling rather bruised. It was unlike Thomas to turn on her without just cause. That had been more their mother’s forte whenever her youngest surviving daughter had ever intruded upon her consciousness. She hadn’t known what to do with Rosamund, who had so unaccountably survived childbirth and early childhood, while most of her other babies had either been stillborn or had simply withered away within months. The tiny stones in the village graveyard made a pathetic line alongside one pathway.

  But Dorothy Walsingham had been dead for several years now, and her last years had been so marked with ill health that as far as Rosamund was concerned, her mother might just as well already have been in her grave. She had learned to rely on Thomas for the lessons of life, and he had generally obliged in a haphazard fashion, sometimes answering her questions, sometimes telling her the answers weren’t fit for a maiden’s ears. Their elder brother Edmund was never at Scadbury, even after he inherited. He preferred London, and his succession of mistresses . . . whores, Thomas called them, who according to Thomas had rendered him poxed and senseless for the most part.

  In truth it had been so long since she had last seen Edmund that Rosamund couldn’t summon up a clear picture of the present head of the family. She closed the door of her bedchamber behind her and took her slate to the scratched deal table beneath the window. Here she kept her precious supply of paper, quills, and ink. She set the slate down and gazed critically at her chalked sketch in the light from the mullioned window. It still seemed good to her, and she could see how to create just the right impression of fragility, the delicacy of the little tremors the blossoms made against the pale green foliage.

  Excitement coursed through her and she forgot her brother’s puzzling and hurtful criticism, forgot the scene in the orchard, forgot Christopher Marlowe, as she sat down on the stool and smoothed out a sheet of paper. She tested the tip of a quill and sharpened it quickly, impatient with a task that had to be completed before she could begin. Then she dipped the quill in the standish and began to draw.

  It took two hours to complete, and she leaned back away from the desk and gazed at her drawing. Such a small, delicate object was difficult to render with accuracy, much more difficult than a person, or a scene, but she thought she had succeeded. The sound of voices below her open window brought her out of her reverie, and she leaned over the table to peer down to the terrace below.

  Thomas was sitting on the low parapet of the terrace and Ingram Frizer was standing beside him, a sheaf of papers in his hands. Frizer always reminded Rosamund of some malevolent creature of the undergrowth. His skin had an unhealthy greenish cast, always with a slightly greasy sheen, his lank, dirty fair hair hung to his shoulders in rats’ tails, and his clothes looked and smelled moldy as if they’d just emerged from a crypt. His voice had a squeak to it, which reminded her again of a nighttime predator, but his eyes were what chilled her. Opaque, hard, tiny pinpricks of an indeterminate color, but a massive malice.

  He was presenting papers to Thomas, who was sitting at his ease, one crossed leg swinging casually, as he read. “You’re a fine man of business, Frizer,” he said with one of his infectious, booming laughs. “You’ll make me a fortune yet, my friend.”

  “As long as there are fools in the world,” the other responded with a dour nod. “ ’Tis no crime to take advantage of such.”

  “Well, some might not agree.” Thomas handed back the paper he held. “But I’ve too many debts of my own to fret over such niceties. See that they’re executed. You can be on your road to London within the half hour.”

  Frizer looked askance. “You’ll be rid of me then?”

  “Aye . . . about your business.” Thomas stood up. “What’s to do, man?”

  “What’s the stranger doing here then?” Frizer jerked his head towards the house behind him.

  “None of your business, my friend. He’s a man of words, a playmaker, a poet . . . and soon he’ll be joining our little fellowship. Leave him be.” Rosamund could hear a hint of threat in her brother’s voice. It would seem that Thomas recognized the need to keep Frizer in check.

  She moved away from the window back to her drawing. What did that mean? What was this fellowship? The little clock on her mantel chimed three o’clock, and she put the question aside for the moment, turning her attention to the armoire. Dinner at four in the company of her brother and his friend merited a certain degree of effort. Most days she dined in the kitchen with the servants, it was more cheerful than the solitary meals that would otherwise be her fate, but it required no change of dress from her usual simple country gowns.

  She examined the meager contents of the armoire with a somewhat disconsolate frown. It would have to be her Sunday gown.

  Chapter Two

  “THAT’S ONE FELLOW I wouldn’t want to meet in an alley on a dark night,” Kit Marlowe observed, draining his wine cup as the study door closed on the departing Ingram Frizer. “What is he to you, Thomas? No ordinary ruffian, I’ll wager.”

  “A man of many parts . . . Master Ingram, as some call him,” Thomas answered, taking up a flask at his elbow and leaning forward to refill Kit’s cup before attending to his own. “I grant you, not a man of the most salubrious appearance. But he’s very good at certain types of business, the kind that a man such as myself must needs embrace if he’s to keep decent clothes on his back and a good horse to ride . . . not to mention good wine in his cup.” He held up his cup with an appreciative smile. “More than treachery comes out of France, my friend.”

  “Oh, I grant you that,” Kit said, then drained his cup again and held it out for a refill. “Is this business to do with Master Secretary?”

  Thomas smiled. “Frizer runs errands for Sir Francis from time to time, but I employ
him on other matters concerning my personal finances. He is a maker and a breaker of deals par excellence, and he keeps us both solvent.”

  Kit’s eyes narrowed, but he let the subject drop.

  Thomas turned his chair at a light tap at the door. “Come in.”

  Rosamund stepped into the room. Her eyes darted in swift assessment to her brother’s guest, lounging at his ease in the corner of the deep window seat. A ray of sunshine caught a reddish glint in his brown hair brushed back from a wide forehead. He had a neat mustache but only the faintest outline of a beard, unlike her brother’s trimmed but luxuriant growth.

  She dropped a curtsy, aware as she bowed her head that the same ray of sun would illuminate the deeper russet tints in the smooth, rich fall of her own hair. “Am I too early? Shall I go away again?”

  “No, no. Take a cup of wine.” Thomas waved her casually to a stool by the table. “I have some news for you anyway.”

  Rosamund took the cup he handed her and sat down, arranging the skirts of her green silk gown so that the hem revealed her dainty satin slippers and her trim ankles. She was proud of her slender ankles and feet, although she rarely had anyone to admire them. Not that she thought she had an audience here. Thomas was certainly indifferent to his sister’s appearance in general, and after what she’d seen and heard in the orchard, she rather thought that Master Marlowe was probably uninterested in such feminine details. Nevertheless, she wasn’t one to pass up a rare opportunity to show them off.

  “Are you come from London, Master Marlowe?” she inquired politely.

  “No, from Cambridge. I met your brother there some weeks ago and he was kind enough to invite me to visit him.”

  “Are you at the university, sir?”

  “At Corpus Christi. I have taken my BA and hope to be admitted for an MA shortly.”

  “Master Marlowe is a poet and a playmaker, when not at scholarship,” Thomas said, picking up the now empty wine flask. “He has more interest in the theatre than in the Church, for which, alas, he is destined.” His tone was ironic and he cast a quick complicit glance at his guest, who shook his head with a grimace of distaste.

  Marlowe said only, “Is there wine in that flask, Thomas? I’ve a powerful thirst.”

  “When have you not?” Thomas held out the flask to his sister. “Take it to the buttery and fill it from the cask marked Aquitaine, Rosamund. And tell Mistress Riley that we’re sharp set, and if it pleases her to feed us at some point before sundown, we’ll be eternally in her debt.”

  Rosamund took the flask and left the study. She had no intention of delivering her brother’s caustic comment to the cook. Mistress Riley was likely to throw a saucepan at her head and storm out of the kitchen, leaving Rosamund to deal with a half-prepared dinner, and she was no cook at the best of times.

  The kitchen was hot and steamy, fat spitting in all directions from the pig roasting on the spit over the fire, cauldrons seething and bubbling as if they were in hell’s furnace. The pot boy turned the spit, his eyes glazed as if mesmerized by the hissing flames. The stone floor was sticky underfoot and Rosamund trod as carefully as she could, conscious of her delicate footwear and the hem of her green silk gown. She went into the buttery to fill the flask. Mistress Riley was throwing dough onto the deal table, kneading it vigorously with her fists before turning and throwing it again. She glanced at Rosamund when she emerged from the buttery. “You can tell Master Walsingham his dinner’ll be on the table in ten minutes.”

  Rosamund contented herself with a nod and hurried out of the kitchen, accidentally treading on a cat’s tail in her haste. The cat let loose a howl of outrage that immediately set the dogs barking in the kitchen yard, and Rosamund fled, perspiration gathering on her forehead.

  She paused outside the study to wipe her brow with her sleeve and cool her heated cheeks before going in. She took a hasty gulp of the wine in the flask, then opened the door. Her brother and Marlowe were standing together at the window looking out over the park. Her brother had his arm draped casually over his friend’s shoulders and they seemed unaware of Rosamund’s return.

  “Dinner will be on the table in ten minutes,” she said, her voice pitched a little louder than necessary. She sounded awkward to her own ears and felt herself flush. But if the men noticed they said nothing, merely turned away from the window and returned to their seats.

  She poured the wine and served them, then drank rather deeply of her own. A current of tension, or something, was in the room that she couldn’t identify. But it seemed more exciting than menacing. “You wanted to talk to me about something, Thomas?”

  “Yes.” He cleared his throat. “You’re bidden to London.”

  “To London?” She could hardly believe her ears. “Why? By whom? What for?”

  “It seems that your existence has come to the attention of our august cousin, Sir Francis Walsingham,” Thomas told her with the same ironical tinge to his voice as before. “He wishes to see you.”

  Rosamund frowned. “But he’s the queen’s secretary of state. What could he want with me?”

  “Sweet sister, there’s no knowing what his excellency the secretary wants with any of us until it pleases him to inform us,” Thomas stated, tossing back his wine. “I daresay he wishes to look you over, see if you might make an advantageous connection.”

  “But that’s for Edmund to decide.” Rosamund looked askance. She had seen little enough of her oldest brother in her lifetime, but he was the head of the family, and if she was to be given in marriage for the family’s benefit, then it was up to him to make the decision and the choice.

  “Edmund has no interest in you, girl. He has eyes only for his latest whore.” Thomas laughed and with a coarse oath stood up. “Let’s dine. My belly’s cleaving to my backbone.”

  The dining parlor was as simply furnished as the rest of the house, a plain pine table, stools, and a massive oak sideboard. It was so rarely used that it smelled musty to Rosamund, and she flung open the windows in the deep bay, letting in the scents of the early roses from the bed below.

  A servant entered with the joint of pork, which he set in the middle of the board together with a jug of gravy, a loaf of wheaten bread, and a bowl of buttered greens. Marlowe lifted the empty flask and looked plaintively at his host. “We have need, mine host.”

  Thomas nodded. “Fill it up, Jethro.”

  The servant took the flask and left. Rosamund sat down and reached for a manchet of bread. Thomas was already cutting into the joint with his dagger, an implement not available to his sister, who had to make do with a small knife beside her pewter trencher. Marlowe had his own knife, but he cut the thinnest of slivers from the meat and took but a spoonful of greens. His eyes were on the door, his hand circling his empty wine cup, and he only returned his attention to the room when Jethro returned with the recharged flask. He filled his cup to the brim and drank greedily.

  Rosamund forked a piece of meat into her mouth and chewed reflectively, her mind busy with her brother’s news. Her cousin Francis was an important man, the queen’s trusted councilor, a man of considerable influence. It had never occurred to her that he would take an interest in such an unimportant relative as herself. She knew that Thomas had dealings with him, but Thomas was a man, it made all the difference.

  She knew what her future looked like. She had no overly romanticized notions of a woman’s marital lot in life. If she was lucky, she might find a considerate husband. Maybe even a man with whom she could give and receive affection and companionship, but that would be the luck of the draw. Someone, presumably Edmund, would choose a husband for her, a match that would benefit the family in some fashion, and she would do as she was told. It was what women did. If Edmund hadn’t been so occupied with his own interests, he would probably have disposed of her long since. Seventeen was almost old to be still unwed. Thomas had clearly never given the matter a second thought, so she’d been left in undisturbed tedium in the Kentish quiet.

  If she wished to
, she could probably show herself to her cousin in such a light that he would wash his hands of her. He was only going to look her over, after all. But she had never been to London and the prospect thrilled her. If she pleased Sir Francis, then he might allow her to stay, at least for a while. She might even attend the court. Of course, if he married her off to some dull country squire, she’d be no better off than she was now, worse off with a swollen belly every year. And when would she have time to draw? She had seen her mother waste away, lose all interest in anything outside the needs of her family and household, until in the last few years she had had no interest in those either. But before that happened, Rosamund could enjoy the excitement of London, there was no knowing whom she might meet, or what opportunities she might encounter.

  She didn’t realize she was crumbling the bread between her fingers, while stabbing ineffectually at her meat with her fork, until Marlowe said, “I was under the impression the pig was already killed, Mistress Rosamund.”

  She looked up, startled. “Oh, forgive me. I was thinking about something else.”

  “That seemed obvious.” He refilled his cup again.

  She gave him a faint smile, noticing that while he was drinking deep, he was eating almost nothing. His eyes had a sheen to them, a brightness that was almost febrile, and his cheekbones were touched with red. He would have a hard morning, she thought, turning to her brother.

  “When are we to go to London, Thomas?”

  “A week, I should think.” He helped himself to more meat. “How long will it take for you to get ready?”

  “Less than half an hour,” she said a shade tartly. “My wardrobe is small.”