piss-pot, you can’t say fairer than that!” I drawled.
Kyd shoved himself away, stumbling to the door, half-blind with tears of humiliation. I felt suddenly tired and heartily ashamed of myself for wasting my wit in such a coarse and puerile way. Pushing myself away from the table, I called out after him, but he only stiffened and kept going. I caught him just inside the door. “Come, Horatio,” I said, nicknaming him for one of his characters as Nashe had often named me “Tamburlaine”. “Come now, and forgive me. You know ’twas only the drink.” He cursed softly, but took the half crown I pressed into his hand, the last gold coin I had in my purse. He left without a word, but with a backward glance that spoke volumes. He hated me, that glance said, hated having to ask me for money, hated being made the butt of my vicious humor, and if ever he could do me an ill turn, he’d not hesitate. Ignoring the gibes of my companions, I returned to the table. Both the game and the company had lost their savor.
Bored with inaction, I spent my days amusing myself by living up to Marston’s sarcastic sobriquet ”Kind Kit”, writing poisonous satires on the works of rival poets and playwrights, and circulating them where they would fall under the eyes of their targets.
I made the rounds of the taverns by night, drank too much, argued my unorthodox opinions a bit too glibly, and certainly, by hindsight, far too recklessly. Blasphemies designed merely to shock and disgust my listeners spilled from my lips, I picked fights and started brawls, and through all I thought of Rózsa. Several times I almost returned to Blackavar, but I held back, keeping that as a last resort. I heard that Thomas Kyd had been arrested, and shrugged. It was most likely for debt, I thought and if the fool had been too fastidious to use the money I had given him, then to hell with him.
About mid-month a letter arrived from Tom, asking me to visit him at my earliest convenience. Let him dangle for once, I thought and purposely waited several days before riding to Scadbury, to arrive on the afternoon of the seventeenth. The house was filled with people and though Tom must have seen me in the throng, he never acknowledged my presence. By the morning of the nineteenth I was furious. I had started drinking as soon as I woke, but I was not yet drunk when I accosted Tom in the gallery that morning, catching his arm and swinging him about. “I would speak with thee,” I hissed, my anger barely controlled, my fingers digging into his flesh through the heavy velvet of his doublet.
“Not now, Marlowe, and not here,” Tom answered petulantly, ignoring my familiarity. “Anon.” He tried to pull away but I tightened my grip.
“Yes now,” I insisted. “Find us someplace private or I shall have my say here and now. You won’t like it.” I had retained my rank as dominant partner in our personal relationship, more by my own nature than Tom’s intent, and his resistance crumbled. He motioned to a nearby room used for the estate’s accounting and I bolted the door behind us. Tom seated himself behind the table, caught up a large book of accounts and began studying it assiduously. After a moment I strolled over and took the ledger from him, handing it back right-way up; he had the grace to blush and lay it down.
“Why did you call me here if you only meant to abuse and ignore me?” I asked softly, seating myself on the corner of the table. “Do you mean to punish me? For what? For refusing to be the debauched pawn you and Frizer would make of me?” My voice was hoarse with emotion. Tom’s eyes flashed.
“No! Do not dredge that up again—it’s past and done. No,” he said, his lips curling with disgust, “I want to know about that foreign drab you’ve been swiving! I’ve heard she’s a bawd and that the von Popple knave is her pimp. What do you pay her, Kit? Less, I warrant, than I paid you! Or does she pay you? It must be a pretty price indeed to keep you between a woman’s legs—” his tirade cut off as I slapped him smartly across the cheek. I raised my hand for a second blow, but Tom leapt to his feet, knocking over his heavy chair and