Secret World by M.J. Trow

Author:M.J. Trow
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781780106700
Publisher: Severn House Publishers
Published: 2015-04-07T16:00:00+00:00

TEN

He limped into the alleyway that ran by Queen’s Hythe to the river. Drunks lurched past him on their way home, clattering over the cobbles damp with early morning dew. He saw the spars of the galleons black against the coming dawn. He tapped on the door three times, then once: the appointed signal.

He lifted the latch and went inside. This was another new meeting place, the fourth, or was it fifth, he had been told to find in the space of the last two months. There was no doubt about it, Benedict was a careful man.

‘Your usual, Shakespeare?’ The voice was like velvet in the darkness. A candle spluttered into life and lit the man’s face. Two goblets lay on the table. There was one jug.

‘It’s a little early for me, Benedict,’ he said. ‘Or is it late?’

‘Never too late,’ and he poured a drink for himself. ‘What do you have for me?’

The visitor sat down. ‘A tale of woe, I fear.’

‘Leonard Morton …?’

‘Wears an opal around his neck.’

There was a pause. ‘And does he wear it there, still? Or did you hack it free?’

‘I slit the throat of his man,’ came the answer, ‘but I was interrupted.’

‘By his people?’

‘By Kit Marlowe.’

Benedict paused in mid-sip. ‘That name again. Is the man everywhere?’

‘He would like us to think so, fire and air as he is.’

‘He is a man!’ Benedict slammed the cup down so that the jug jumped. ‘And I want him stopped.’

There was a silence between them.

‘Charles Angleton,’ Benedict said. ‘Not a stone’s throw from here. That’s where you’ll find the lapis lazuli. And no mistakes, this time, Shakespeare. I’m beginning to wonder what I pay you for.’

‘Lowestoft was expensive,’ the man replied, by way of a hint. ‘In more ways than one.’

‘I know,’ Benedict replied with a smile, but no purse appeared on the table. ‘Lowestoft always is. They’re a funny lot round there.’

Ithamore had only heard old Joshua use that word once before and that was when he had driven a spike into his thumb in a careless moment at his bench. Now he used it again, but he was not working. He was looking in disbelief at the state of his workshop, the hapless boy standing in the middle of it. Joshua scowled at him. What was it about the boy that made him look so guilty? He could be as innocent as a lamb, as pure as the first new snow that fluttered on to the roofs of the Vintry in the depths of winter, but there was something about his face that screamed a furtive guilt.

Joshua hit him around the head.

‘Ow!’ The boy’s breaking voice shot skyward with surprise – although perhaps he shouldn’t have been surprised at all. ‘What was that for?’

‘This!’ Joshua threw his arms wide to indicate the chaos. Every drawer had been wrenched open, every lock smashed, every pot overturned. Papers lay strewn in scrolls across the floor.

‘I didn’t do it!’ the boy protested, suddenly not caring whether the old Jew gave him his notice or not.

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