Authors: Anne C. Petty
The letter had promised a “humble repast in y
e
company of learned gentlemen,” with the promise of a showing of what remained of the fabled library known to many of the London
literati
and that still held untold rare volumes in spite of the thievery inflicted upon it. The letter concluded, “Very speedily written, this twelfth even, and twelfth day, in my poore Cottage, at Mortlake:
Anno. 1589. Your humble servaunt, John Dee.”
Bayard still had the very letter somewhere among his personal papers. While the offer of becoming a spy in Her Majesty’s service appealed to his sense of adventure, his strongest incentive to honor the invitation had been to see Dee’s famed library. He’d hoped the rumors of a break-in and plundering while the entire household was abroad hadn’t been as dire as reported. He remembered feeling intense loathing (as he did now) for knaves who held theoretical discourse of the thinking mind to be of little value and the books chronicling such thought worth even less, but it had then occurred to him that someone who knew the value of the books had probably taken and sold them to a collector much like Dee himself. In fact, it was highly likely many of the missing books would resurface years hence in someone else’s rare collection. Bayard smiled, seated on his metal folding chair in his theater basement in the twenty-first century, knowing now that this was exactly how things had turned out. You could even look it up on Wikipedia and find out where some of those missing Latin and Greek tomes had landed. Four-hundred-year-old hindsight had its perks.
He’d sent a response back to Dee almost immediately, accepting the invitation. Remembering the letter sent his thoughts arrowing back to the day when life as he’d experienced it had stopped forever. He could see it now, Threadneedle Street, set amidst a twisted maze of alleyways and crowded cobble-paved roads defining the London neighborhood where he rented rooms at the top of a five-storey timbered building—his landlord’s tapestry shop on the ground floor and living quarters rising two rooms per level above it. He’d stood at the window of his sitting room, surveying the hustle of life flowing through the narrow street below. The sun was still well above the line of trees and church spires across the river, but heading westward. He turned away.
It was time to set out. His stomach tightened with anticipation—one didn't visit the Mage of Mortlake without some trepidation, even on a formal invitation. The man might be the Queen's official astrologer and counselor, and she might even stop her palfrey at his front gate on her way to Richmond Palace, but villagers living within shouting distance of Mortlake House on the Thames kept their distance and averted their eyes as the infamous philosopher took himself across the street to St. Mary Magdalene's Church for prayers. Other acquaintances spoke of his kindness, generosity, even piety...but the fear of sorcery clung to the man's flowing scholar's robes like invisible smoke.
Marlowe shrugged into his jerkin and tied it shut over his least-mended doublet. He pulled his heaviest woolen cloak out of the chest at the foot of his bed. Despite the pallid light filtering through clouds, the day felt raw with the promise of rain or possibly sleet on the wind. The horse he'd hired to carry him to Dee's home in Mortlake was a fine beast that had cost him a purse of silver, but he had no intention of arriving on foot, looking dusty and road-weary. Likewise, his dislike of being on water (due mostly to his inability to swim, but also in part to the drowning death of an acquaintance near this time last year) prevented him from walking down to the nearest quay and shouting “Oars!” to hire a boat to make the eight-mile journey downriver beyond the city walls.
In addition to his cloak, he donned a new woolen cap with a hawk’s feather fitted rakishly into the band, and as a precaution against highwaymen, tucked a wheellock pistol into the waistband of his breeches. A short dagger hidden in a secret pocket, and he pronounced himself ready. Latching the door to his rooms, he took himself down the steep narrow staircase to the ground floor and out onto the street. Walking briskly, avoiding the usual detritus of horse dung and chamber-pot tossings fouling the town’s roadways, he reached the stables of his hostler friend, a fellow who'd been the stable-marshal for an aged viscount on an estate near Tewkesbury before the old man's death.
These days, stablemaster Kent Castorbridge kept a small mews of his own near the Bridge over the Thames, mostly hiring out carthorses for tradesmen and palfreys for riders. In addition, he stabled a courser and a destrier he’d brought with him from the old lord’s estate. The warhorse was a magnificent animal that could have been sold for enough gold to set the stables up in fine style, but for sentimental reasons, as he’d explained to Marlowe, he was unwilling to part with it. The courser, as powerful as the destrier but lighter and more agile, he hired out to riders with skill enough to handle it properly. Marlowe was that sort of man.
“Mind ye keep a tight hand on the reins w’ this one,” Kent told him as he slid into the saddle. “He likes to run.”
Marlow reached back and ran his hand over the horse’s powerful hindquarters. He’d admired the well-muscled chest and strong arched neck of the beast immediately upon entering the stable. “Likewise do I.” He grinned at the stablemaster. The horse danced sideways, impatient to be off.
“He taketh a liking to thee, ‘tis clear.” Pocketing his payment, Kent waved them off.
Marlowe guided the horse out of the stableyard, heading toward High Road that ran parallel to the Thames. On a mount like this, he was likely to arrive at Mortlake House somewhat sooner than he’d anticipated. Kent had given him directions to the village, although they weren’t really needed. Anyone with two wits to rub together knew how to find it—on horseback, you could head south and westward through the Southwark district where the Rose and Swan theaters and at least two bear-baiting arenas were located and keep going along the main road till you reached Mortlake, where you’d look for the three-storey stone house in a cluster of smaller dwellings that constituted the village, or you could put yourself in the hands of a ferryman who’d take you downriver to the small quay adjacent to the alchemist’s property.
Marlowe sat the horse with his knees holding it tightly and negotiated the crowded streets of the city around London Bridge, avoiding an overturned wagon and a pile of smashed wine barrels and narrowly missing collision with a carriage bearing some lord’s crest. Along the bankside of the road, teeming river commerce bustled about among quays on both sides of the waterway. The scent of the river was both fair and foul, with the foul lessening the further he traveled away from the town center.
He passed without incident through Southwark with its army of cutpurses, trollops, and knaves loitering out front of its taverns and brothels. Once he was well beyond the city walls, he gave the courser its head and let it gallop some distance before reining it in. It did them both good.
The sun had just begun to dip below the trees when he spotted the house long before his horse trotted up to the iron gate. Tethered to the fence was the tallest horse he’d ever laid eyes on—a dappled grey with smoky mane and tail, a magnificent Andalusian, if he was not mistaken. Under the Iberian saddle he made note of the dark red saddle blanket trimmed with tiny gold tassels. In front of the towering gray sat a sleek black carriage with a Royal crest on its door, harnessed to a handsome bay. The coachman sat on the bench with a heavy rug around his knees, clearly resigned to waiting till his employer’s business should be concluded.
The house was situated between two others facing the river, with a small courtyard in front, a windowless stone building at the side used for the deity knew what, a large informal tree-lined garden behind, bare now, that nearly abutted the walled cemetery grounds of St. Mary Magdelene’s Church. Across the narrow track that served as the “high river road” it was a mere couple of yards down to the riverbank where the aforementioned stone quay for tying up small boats thrust itself a dozen strides out into the water. The property of Mortlake House was clearly of better means than the dwellings around it, but it wasn’t what anyone would call a manor or an estate. A gentleman’s house, but fairly modest.
As Marlowe sat his horse thinking these thoughts, a young lad of no more than nine or ten, shivering in a thin doublet and wool jerkin, came around the side of the house.
“Be ye Master Marlow, then?” he asked in a squeaky voice, through teeth chattering with the cold.
Marlowe made to dismount. “Aye, and who might ye be?”
“Arthur Dee, your worship,” said the boy, taking the reins of his horse. “My father bids thee go in where ‘tis warm. I’m to take the horses down to the stable out of the weather.” He pointed toward a fairly new stable beyond the second house, its stalls packed with hay. “And to thee, sir,” he said to the coachman, “he doth bid me say thou’rt welcome to come round to the kitchen and have a cup of warmed cider.”
The coachman nodded and climbed down somewhat stiffly from the bench seat, and made to lead the bay off toward the stable. Marlowe turned his back to the boy, pulled the pistol out of his breeches and stowed it in a bag affixed to the saddle. Now that he’d arrived safely at his destination, there was no need to alarm the household with a display of weaponry.
At that moment the heavy oak door of the house swung open. On the threshold stood a tall begowned figure who could only be the famous—or infamous, depending on one’s opinion of astrologers and sorcerers—Doctor John Dee. He made an imposing figure framed in the doorway, thin of face with a salt and pepper beard that flowed down his breast but was meticulously trimmed to a point. He wore a heavy scholar’s gown of some dark material over his woolen jerkin, breeches, and stockings.
Marlowe was normally not intimidated by any man—and often in fact enjoyed exercising the force of his own considerable charisma—but for one instant he was speechless. Only for an instant, however. He moved forward quickly to greet his host.
“Christopher Marlow, at your service, m’lord counselor.”
Dee bowed slightly from the shoulders and his long arm swept gracefully toward the warmly lit parlor beyond the door. “Master Marlowe. Enter and be welcome.” His manners were elegant, reserved, and somewhat effete, an effect Marlowe supposed was the result of his years spent in foreign courts.
Dee led him through the parlor and into the main hall. Marlowe silently blessed the warmth radiating from a massive fieldstone fireplace blazing at the far end of the high-ceiling room. Two other men stood near, enjoying its red glow. The floor of the hall was set with well-fitted flagstones, a surprising discovery when he’d expected to find bare wood or mats made of rushes, which was typical of most country houses.
An ample young woman with straw-colored hair escaping from under her linen cap came out of the cavernous kitchen, accompanied by two ruddy-faced girls somewhat younger than the boy who’d met him at the gate.
“My wife Jane,” said Dee, “and two of my daughters, Frances and Margaret.”
They curtsied as if he were royalty, although Goodwife Dee gave him a steady gaze that let him know who really managed this domestic scene. He had no doubt that she was a wench who knew her own mind and kept a tidy household. Mistress Dee collected his cloak and folded it neatly before placing it on a chest beside two others.
Dee turned to the guests in front of the fire. “My Lord Sir Francis Walsingham, Secretary of the Queen’s Privy Council.” Marlowe met the man’s eyes and gave him a short bow, which was returned with a genial nod of the head.
Of medium height, the Secretary was dressed in somber black wool from head to foot with a lace-trimmed white collar. His features were equally devoid of humor—small suspicious deep-set eyes, tiny thin-lipped mouth partially hidden by a tightly trimmed dark goatee in a rat’s face. Marlow held his tongue as the man looked him up and down, and nodded again with a half-smile. He was a dangerous man to know, people said, especially if you were on the wrong side, which included Spaniards and anyone opposing the Protestant Reformation.
Dee introduced the other dinner guest as Magister Coronzon of Wittenberg, a university lecturer and dealer in rare books engaged by Dee to track down the “volumes stol’n from me during my absence when my family and I were abroad.” The man was the most elegantly clad and groomed of the four. His breeches and jacket were of dark claret velvet brocaded in thin silver and gold thread that shown like stars from one angle but looked flat ruddy black from another. Marlowe blinked several times to see if the effect was just a trick of the light, although he could not be sure. The man’s features, however, were even more unsettling. From one angle the sharp planes of his face seemed lined and world-weary, but from another the firelight lit him up with the exquisite beauty of youth. His pale hair was tied back at his nape with a velvet ribbon in a somewhat old-fashioned style. Marlowe had to force himself not to stare.
“Shall we sup first, then deal with weightier matters anon?” Dee stretched out his long-fingered hand toward a ponderous oak table laden with food. Four high-backed chairs, two to a side, awaited. It was clear that Mistress Dee had outdone herself, considering the high-ranking guests. River-caught mackerel and perch baked with plums and apricots were served beside mussels, oysters, and crabs piled on platters. A large basket of hard-crusted white bread sat beside a pot of wildflower honey. Pewter tankards of ale and cider marked each place. Marlowe salivated, having eaten only a hunk of cheese before setting out.
Dinner conversation ranged from the chance of snow to the cost of a perfectly matched pair of horses, to the writings of John Calvin and the perils of sea travel. Gradually the feast disappeared as their talk lingered over the intrigues of Court and Marlowe’s latest triumph at The Rose. Quickly Mistress Dee and an older daughter cleared away the repast and put in its place a porcelain compote filled with walnuts, hazelnuts, and candied dried fruits. The delicious aroma of sliced gingerbread spiced with cloves and cinnamon and crusted with anise seeds filled the room.