P. Chisholm - A Murder of Crows

Pure rage practically lifted Dodd from the ground. He could feel his neck going purple and his teeth grinding. The bastard. The ill-begotten limp-cocked, selfish popinjay of a…

Senhor Gomes was backing away from the counter and quietly reaching down for a veney stick behind him. Dodd folded the paper, his fingers clumsy with the urge to throttle the man for betraying him and leaving him in the complicated, confusing pit of iniquity that was London. Unfortunately, Carey was not immediately available so he stuffed the letter in his belt-pouch. Then he stood for a full minute, fists quivering, breathing hard through his teeth until he had calmed down enough to talk and act like a normal man.

“Ay,” he said. “Is that all?”

“Yes, senhor.”

Dodd walked out of the shop and stared up at the awning unseeingly. God damn it. God damn it to hell. On a thought he turned back. “Er…Thank you, Senhor Gomes,” he said. The old foreigner was again reading his book back to front and raised his hand slightly in acknowledgement. Poor old man, not knowing which way round you read a book. Even Dodd knew that.

He hurried up the street, keeping a weather-eye out for attacks as always, and came to Somerset House without a single person claiming him as their cousin. It must have been true what Pickering had said, that he had ordered his people not to try anything with Dodd.

Marlowe opened his door a crack and reached for the pouch, but Dodd held it out of reach and scowled at him meaningfully. Marlowe scowled back, his hand dropping to where his sword would have been if he had been wearing it. Dodd dropped his hand to where his own sword actually was and showed his teeth in as pleasant a smile as he could muster. In the temper he was in, he was half-hoping that Marlowe would try something on with him so he could have the satisfaction of beating somebody up.

Marlowe cursed and opened the door so Dodd could come in. He almost fell over a tangled heap of shirts by the door and then had to wade through screwed up papers, bits of pen, drifts of hazelnut shells and mounds of apple cores, and several books lying on the rush mats face down. The bed looked as if a pack of bears had played there and the desk was piled high with paper and more pens. The place reeked of aqua vitae, beer, wine, and pipe smoke, and someone who has been cooped up indoors for too long. At least there were no old turds in the fireplace, although the jordan under the bed badly needed emptying.

Marlowe was standing by the flickering fire with his arms folded across his embroidered waistcoat. He had his doublet off, presumably lost somewhere in the junk on the floor-no, for a wonder it was hanging on a peg-and his shirtsleeves rolled up and stained with ink. There were bags under his red eyes big enough to hide a pig in and his voice was hoarse with smoking.

“Well?” he demanded. “What’s so important that you’re bothering me with it?”

“Have ye been in here all this time?” asked Dodd, tucking the tobacco into his sleeve again.

From the contempt on Marlowe’s face it was obvious he thought this was a very stupid question. “Yes, of course I have. Where else would I be? I’m writing a play.”

“What’s it about?”

“Edward II, a King of England who loved boys and was not ashamed to show it,” snapped Marlowe.

“Like the Scottish king?”

Something in Marlowe’s face softened slightly. “Perhaps.”

“Ay,” said Dodd. “And what happened to him?”

“First his favourite and minion Piers Gaveston was murdered by his lords as happened in Scotland with the Duke of Albany. Then the King was murdered at the orders of the Earl of Mortimer. It is said, by a red-hot poker up the arse.”

“Ay,” said Dodd after a moment’s assessment to see if the poet was joking. It seemed he wasn’t. “Verra…poetic.”

Marlowe frowned. “It depends on your definition of poetic. Do you mean appropriate?”

Dodd coughed. He did, but wasn’t going to admit it.

“That was done so there would be no mark on the body, you know.” Marlowe explained in a distant tone of voice. “Since he was a king they wanted it to seem that he died of natural causes. However, his screams gave them away.”

He spoke in a disinterested way as if what he was describing was not quite enough to turn your stomach. He then took a sip from a cup of aqua vitae and Dodd realised that he was actually drunk. Not staggering drunk, nor fighting drunk, just thoroughly pickled. It surprised Dodd that anyone could write anything at all in that condition, but then Robert Greene had been able to scribble away when he was just minutes from death.

Marlowe sat down again at his desk, picked up his pen, and dipped it.

“Go away,” he said. “I’m busy. Leave the tobacco on the mantelpiece.”

God, the man was rude. Dodd considered simply hitting him and seeing what happened. No, he had to talk first. “I bought it because I wanted tae ask ye about a matter of spying as there’s naebody else I can think of.”

“Why not ask Will?”

“Ah dinna think he’d tell me. If he knows.”

Marlowe grunted, dipped, and wrote. It was amazing how fast he did it as well, all the letters flowing out of the tip of his pen as if he didn’t need to think about it at all and the pen not even catching a little, it was so well cut, just sliding smoothly across the paper. Incredible. Dodd enjoyed watching a craftsman at his trade. He noticed that Marlowe didn’t hold the pen the way he did, in a clenched fist that soon became dank with sweat, but lightly, as if it were a woodcarver’s awl.

“There’s code I need to work out. Ah need tae find out how to break a code? How do you work it out?”

Marlowe grunted again.

“Well?”

“Well what? Are you still there?” He was counting something under his breath. “Why don’t you go away?”

Dodd reached for patience. “Ah wis askin ye…”

“About codes. Why should I care? I only worked for Heneage because he has been known to pay well for it and I don’t want to go on working for him which is why I’m here, as well as the fact that this is the first time I’ve had the peace and quiet to write my play since I drank the money the Burbages paid me for it…”

Dodd sighed. Why did Marlowe always have to be difficult? The man was as spiky and arrogant as if he had his own tower and a large family.

“Is this your play?” Dodd asked idly, putting a finger on the pile of paper in front of Marlowe.

“Yes it is and you can leave it alone…”

Dodd picked up the pile of papers and wandered over to the fire with it. He crumpled up the first page and fed it into the flames, which made Marlowe jump from his stool with a yelp of horror.

“What the hell…?”

“Ah wanted yer attention, Mr. Marlowe,” said Dodd, judiciously feeding the next page into the flames. “Have I got it?”

“You can’t burn my play…I…”

“Ah can,” said Dodd, puzzled at this irrationality, “And Ah am.” Another curled into red and yellow and fell to ash.

“I’ll kill you.”

“Nay, I dinna think so,” said Dodd, smiling with genuine enjoyment at the humour of this idea. “Besides, there’s nae need. All I wantae know is how ye work out a code.”

“What code?” Marlowe was staring at the pile of papers in Dodd’s hand, particularly the fourth page which he already had near the fire. He knew enough not to dump the whole lot onto the flames at once because that would put them out. In any case, this method worked better.

“A code made of numbers. Ah ken that Carey worked it out and I wantae know what he found but I’ve nae experience of spying.” Dodd shook his head. “It’s verra annoying.”

Marlowe was actually trembling, although whether it was with fear or anger only time would tell. “And how the hell do you think I would know? Is it one of Heneage’s codes?”