Perfect Shadows

chapter 3

I followed Rózsa into a small study off the main hall where her guardian awaited us. A table had been placed before the fire and spread with a sumptuous meal, but laid only for one. The heavyset man stood upon our entry and took my hand in both of his. “I am Nicolas von Poppelau, and I am so pleased to meet you,” he said, “so very pleased! Rózsa has talked of nothing but Marlowe for days! You have made her very happy.” I felt as if the floor had given a sudden lurch. What did these people want? Did he know of last night’s debauch? Did he expect me to marry her? I could barely support myself, let alone a wife, even if I’d wanted one, and anyway, they were obviously quality . . . I shook my head to clear it and von Poppelau laughed. “Your thoughts flicker across your face as plain as print, my boy! No, pardon me for laughing, it was not at you; sit and eat and I will try to answer some of your questions.”

“But do you not dine?” I asked, indicating the solitary place.

“No, no. It is our habit never to take solid food after sunset,” von Poppelau answered. “But we will join you in some wine.” Ashe poured; I studied my host’s face. It was broad and pleasant, the eyes deep-set and shrewd, the mouth wide and friendly, set under a prominent nose and over a firm chin. I found myself liking the fair-haired man and started to relax a little. The meat and wine were exceptional and the conversation excellent. The man had a penetrating grasp of political affairs and was most widely read, as was Rózsa, much to my wonderment and delight. My sisters, though sharp enough in the mathematics of money, had never shown the slightest interest in learning to read, and indeed had teased me unmercifully about my own studies.

Rózsa showed me the translations of Catullus she was working on and I promised to bring her my own translations of Ovid’s Elegies. As I reached for the sheaf of papers she extended, she started and caught my hand, turning it to examine the palm. She gave a short exclamation and said something in a language incomprehensible to me. That caused Nicolas to lean over and also stare at my captive palm for a few seconds. He spoke to Rózsa in the same language and she smiled ruefully at me, then put the papers into my hands with an apology for the rudeness.

“But what was that about?” I pressed them, laying the papers aside. Rózsa, obviously discomfited, looked to Nicolas, who considered a moment then spoke.

“You know of the theories of physiognomy? That a man’s character may be read in his face? Yes, well, there is a like school of thought that the lines in the hand will reveal much about a person.” He took my hand, turning the palm to the light. “You see here, this line indicates your emotions: you area person who loves greatly, passionately, but you are prideful and given to jealousy. This line shows that you are creative, but rash and reckless, withal. This cross here below your little finger is the mark of the writer, and here, this circle just below the ring finger, that foretells a brilliant success. Just something we have been studying, you see.” Rózsa began to speak then, but Nicolas gave a slight shake of his head and she fell silent.

They kept my cup filled and we talked for hours discussing astronomy, philosophy, and religions. “What is any church, save a business?” I found myself saying emphatically. “The priests call themselves shepherds, do they not? Well then, what is a shepherd’s business, but to fleece the flock in order to increase the wealth and importance of his masters? And here is Rome, the greatest wolf in shepherd’s array that the suffering world has ever seen, gobbling up the globe like a pig at trough, and for what? To save the savage souls? Hah! They’d not have nearly the interest in those souls if the bodies containing them came less often clothed in gold!”

“Do you find the Protestant church superior?” Nicolas asked with interest.

“I do not!” I said emphatically. “Old King Hal let Rome go, but not far enough! What, in the name of reason, can you expect from enforced celibacy, but secret vice?” I found myself telling them what I had told no one in all these years, of my own experience with the church, and with “celibate” churchmen.

I had been a sociable child by nature, but my father’s little house, with its shop on the ground floor, had become increasingly crowded with women as the years passed and my sisters were born. They meant no ill, I knew, but there were so infernally many of them and only one of me. I’d long since given up any hope that the next birth would bring a boy, and even if it did, by this time the child would be rather more a burden than a boon. I had to escape sometimes and the great cathedral had been my haven. I had spent my time therewith the choirboys, noting with smug tolerance the relationships between some of the other boys and their “gentlemen”. Though I had had offers, I had kept myself aloof, feeling that I was destined for greater things than these tawdry and winked at affairs. My friendships dwindled when I began to attend the King’s school as a paying student, easily outdistancing other boys who had been there longer, to their great resentment.

My special sanctuary I had discovered by a combination of accident and boredom during one interminable service at the cathedral. A space behind a pillar, lost in shadow, had proved not the shallow nook it seemed, but deep enough to hide some builder’s creaky and forgotten ladder, leading up into a small scaffold space above. There, in a quiet loft tucked under the roof and in among the vaulting, floored with a few planks and all but invisible from below, I would beguile the hours dreaming of futures that held no shadows of cobbler’s shops or unruly hordes of shrill females—futures that became less and less likely as time passed and I was not offered the scholarship that would lead to Oxford or Cambridge. I desperately wanted the university degrees that would allow me the title and rank of Gentleman, instead of the hated and lowly Yeoman, which even at the age of fourteen I felt to be beneath both my dignity and my worth. My feckless father and ambitious mother had stretched their resources to the limits just to send me to the King’s school; the university was out of the question without a scholarship.

One hot afternoon I had stretched out in my sanctuary to dream, fondly believing myself unwatched and unseen. I laid upon a rough sack that I had purloined to pad my hideaway, stuffed with straw smuggled up bit by bit in my jerkin. The heat under the leads was pleasant and I stripped down to shirt and hose, wadding my jerkin and venetians into a pillow for my head, dozing in the incense scented stillness. I awoke with a startled realization that I was not alone, that the pleasurable sensations in my loins were produced by the large hand busied there, that attached to the hand was a man, kneeling over me, his breath coming in harsh gasps.

“Pretty, pretty boy,” the hoarse voice droned, while I panicked and tried to struggle free from the huge hands that held me down. Soft hands, but strong and conquering hands that swept all resistance before them. Later, still facedown in my violated sanctuary, I had wept for my loss of innocence, a loss the more poignant because I knew the man would come for me again, that I would be awaiting him, and not entirely unwilling.

That same evening, with the last ounce of will and virtue left in me, I had gone to see an under-choirmaster, one of the few priests that I trusted, one that had not boys of his own, and told him about what had happened to me. I was not prepared for the rage that shook the florid face of the middle-aged divine, nor yet the form that the reaction would take.

Father Justin commanded me to lower my breeches and hose and whipped me with a birch rod until I bled, for lying, he said, about a respected citizen, an alderman, and a deacon of the church. As I fastened up my clothing I had noted the damp stain soiling the front of Father Justin’s own gown. I left the chamber with much to ponder.

Only a fortnight or so later, back under the leads of the cathedral roof, I had waited for the alderman. I only came here now to meet him and I missed my retreat, but if things went not awry. . . . Soon enough he was there, settling on the sacking and offering me a gilded trinket. I spurned it sullenly.

“I care nothing for such trumpery, master,” I told him. His eyebrows raised: most of the pretty boys doted on such gifts and favors. “I wish the scholarship at the King’s School, sir, to go on to the University. But I must gain it soon, before I am too old,” I had continued in a rush, staking all on this throw of the dice. “You have influence, you could help me,” letting my tone convey the merest hint of a threat.

The man tugged at his beard thoughtfully before replying. I knew what he was thinking, that this course would take me away from Canterbury eventually and at about the time that I would become less attractive to him, too old. “I shall see what I may do,” he replied thoughtfully. “Perhaps my friend Manwood will help.”

And so I had got my scholarship, and in due time had gone to University, and there learned firstly to resent the way that blood counted more than brains, and only secondly the classics.

I told of the whipping that I had received my first year there at Cambridge. I had been caught bathing in the river with an older boy and making a sort of casual love. Bathing was forbidden, and that was the charge, no mention made of the other. My companion was the son of a lord and he was warned and let go, while I had been hauled before the assembled members of the college hall. My gown had been stripped from me and I was made to stand against a pillar therein my shabby hose while I was “severely whipped”, in accordance with the rule. The beating was not as rigorous as prescribed, the officer pitying my thin and shivering youth, but still it left me bloodied and weeping with humiliation. I was allowed no food that night and the next day the scene was repeated before my own college. I was then allowed to return to my room, where I lay feverish and sick, with my face to the wall. Cobbler’s son, they had jeered at me. Well that might be, but I would show them, I vowed by every welt, by every drop of blood.

Later I came to believe that the bathing in the river had only been an excuse. Others bathed and were not whipped: I had been punished for showing up the masters. I began to use my quick wits as a weapon after that, honing my tongue on the others’ most cherished convictions and beliefs. It was this combination of bitter wit and callousness that eventually had brought me to Sir Francis Walsingham’s attention, and that of his nephew, Thomas, but of that I could not yet speak.

The thought of Walsingham, dressed always in his puritan black brought my rant back to the church.

“And the Puritans! The puritans are even worse! If there is a more asinine concept than joy being sinful I’ve yet to hear it,” I snorted. “It’s not enough that they must shun delight, but they must be sure that no one else is enjoying the pleasures that they deny themselves! Indeed, it seems the only pleasure of which they do partake is that of making the rest of the world miserable. At least Rome offers a little pageantry and pomp in return for pillaging a man of his means!” I gulped the last of my wine, and went on recklessly.” And the so-called miracles themselves should convince any thinking man that Christ was no more than a conjurer! Why, I know a man, Hariot, that can do as much and more, yet no one names him the Son of God!” Nicolas drew his brows together and gazed at me in consternation.

“My boy, I would that you not noise these opinions about too freely, or depend overmuch upon friends in high places to protect you. These opinions would be called blasphemy in most circles and could well bring you to the stake.”

I shook my head. “It is a pretty toy, to be a poet and a playwright. I am prudent enough to put these ideas into the mouths of my characters and hypocrite enough to send these characters all to bad ends. If I avoid the church, at least I pay my pence for penance,” I said, laughing, and was surprised to see that it was nearly dawn again. I stretched, vainly tried to suppress a yawn and shook my head. “I must go. I have to be at the theater all too soon and tomorrow I am expected at Scadbury.”

It was two weeks before I again returned to my lodgings and I viewed the shabby room with regret. Tom and I had lived under one roof and not spoken, except casually, in all that time. I had been but one of many guests and while Tom seemed to want the breach between us to be kept from public awareness, heal so seemed disinclined to heal it privately. Finally I had cited engagements in the city and fled back to London, hurt and bitter.

Little puffs of dust rose from the untidy piles of paper on my writing table as I shuffled through them. Tom had not recently made me any gifts of money and my purse was becoming slack indeed, but I could not seem to work. I dropped the pages and prowled around the room for a time, scowling at the greasy kitchen knave who brought my wine and lit my fire, then I sat down again.

I absentmindedly sharpened two quills into a heap of slivers then gave up entirely. I stripped off my clothing and threw myself onto the bed to sip the cheap Bastard wine, all I could currently afford. Thrift was not a natural virtue for me. I bitterly resented my forced economies, but with the pauper’s death of my fellow playwright, and bitter rival, Robert Greene as example, I fled any course that might land me in prison for debt. I had learned enough of prison in the time I had already spent in Newgate for dueling. My one tentative foray into supplying my wants by coining had led to an abrupt and embarrassing conclusion at the hands of Sir Robert Sidney, across the Channel in Flanders.

Though I had expected to toss for hours, sleep claimed me almost immediately that night, and I dreamed. I seldom had erotic dreams, but this night I dreamed of Rózsa. In reality I was an indifferent rider at best, but I dreamt that we were riding effortlessly through a wild and desolate countryside, her flowing hair unbound, red-raven-dark and burnished by the sun. She rode ahead, turning back to laugh and beckon, but try as I might, I could not catch up with her.

Things changed, as things will in dreams, and we were together by a waterfall that roared and shook the ground, where she once again undressed and took me, as though I were the woman and she the man. I woke with a start to realize that the room was candlelit and I was not alone. Rózsa was indeed here, just as I had dreamed. Her head was thrown back and I noticed her pointed canine teeth as she smiled, seeing that I woke. She leaned over, nuzzling my neck, never breaking her rhythm, and I felt the pain of her nipping teeth, fast followed as before by overwhelming bliss. As I drifted back to awareness I heard her dressing.” Please, stay,” I pleaded. “I—I’d fain not be alone this night.” Swiftly she crossed the room and took my hands in hers, leaning over to gently kiss my forehead and eyelids.

“I know, I know, my Kit. That’s why I am here: your pain called to me. I will return shortly—I am going for food and drink, for you have been neglecting yourself.” She donned her hat, swirled her cloak over her shoulders and with a backward wink to me was out the door. I lay back in my bed, the old, heavily-carved bed that had been an early gift from Tom, and waited. When she returned about half an hour later the watch was calling midnight and I was contemplating the stars over the rooftops. Orion had pulled on a ragged cloak of cloud as he sank into his western bed, trailed by Sirius, his dog, and Saturn, old Father Time. I leapt to my feet as Rózsa pushed the door open then sank back as the blood rushed from my head and the darkness grew on the edges of my sight. Instantly she was beside me, her arms around me.

“Steady, steady, my love. Did I not say that you had been neglecting yourself? When is the last time that you did eat? Yesterday you think? I think mayhap the day before. Come now and lie back and I will feed you.” She placed her long hand against my chest and pushed me resolutely back into my pillows. She had brought a dozen oysters that she expertly opened, tipping the shells against my lips. She alternated the shellfish with sips of dark red claret and bites of sharp crumbly cheese, occasionally leaning over to lick my lips and kiss me. It was pleasant to be waited on, to feel cared for and safe. She had shed the doublet and slops, and I could feel the hardness of her nipple against my arm through the silk shirt she wore, as I jestingly caught her hand after the sixth oyster.

“Succubus! I do know the reputation of these things; just what might you intend?” She laughed, opening another.

“I intend, my love, that you will not fail in rising to my will! What else?” I laughed, for I was indeed rising, drawn to her vitality, her assurance, as helpless as a moth before a candle. She drew the mismatched bed curtains with quick graceful tugs and enfolded me in her arms. When I woke the next morning she had gone.