Mephistopheles frowned. "I haven't brought you all this way to sit in an audience and suck an orange and applaud the lies a poet tells. There's work for you to do here."
"Well, of course," Mack said. "I thought not otherwise. What would you have me do?"
"Hearken," Mephistopheles said, and then desisted, for Polly, the serving girl, had arrived with the orlotan pies, which were actually made of sparrows, the wheaten bread, which turned out to be oaten, and the Malmsey, which was no more than vin ordinaire from Bordeaux. Still, it was as good as you could expect from a riverside pub in the momentous year of the Spanish Armada, with plague raging in the city and the duke of Guise with his thirty thousand Spanish veterans penned up in Scheveningen and snarling across the Channel. Mephistopheles and Mack fell to with good appetite. Presently Mephistopheles pushed his plate aside and said, "Now hearken to me, Faust, for you have work to do upon this day."
"I am all ears," Mack said, "and eager to do your bidding."
"Christopher Marlowe is the author of this play," Mephistopheles said, "and he will be in the audience tonight. After the performance—which will have notable success—he will meet with a certain man, and have a conversation with him."
"Aha!" said Mack, though he wasn't sure where this was leading.
"That man," Mephistopheles said, "is Thomas Walsingham, an old friend of Marlowe's. Thomas' father, Sir Francis, is secretary of state to Elizabeth, queen of England, and he also commands her secret service, by means of which the intentions of the various factions in this war-torn year of Europe's woe will be known."
"No, no," Mephistopheles said, "you are not to touch Walsingham. Just listen."
"All right, I'm listening," Mack said.
"Walsingham will ask Marlowe to serve once again in his father's Secret Service, as he did in bygone years. Marlowe will agree. That's the fact of it. It leads to Marlowe's premature death. But in this case, immediately after Marlowe and Walsingham talk, you will seek out Marlowe and convince him to do no such thing."
"I'll convince him, all right," Mack said. "Is this Marlowe skilled at arms? I guess I'd better have some weapons for this. Do you know where I can pick up a good cudgel?"
"Forget the cudgel," Mephistopheles said. "No man ever convinced Christopher Marlowe by force, and not much by persuasion, either. No, you will demonstrate to him what the consequences of his spying for Walsingham will be."
"And what will those consequences be?"
"Five years from now, on May 30, 1593, Marlowe will go to an inn with Ingram Frizer, Robert Poley, and Nicholas Skeres. He will remonstrate with them concerning evidence he has as to their traitorous actions on behalf of Henry the Third of France, asking them to turn King's evidence and throw themselves on the mercy of the Privy Council. Scorning such a course of action, these men will seize Marlowe and stab him to death, and then bruit it about that Marlowe irrationally attacked one of them, Frizer, who, hard-pressed, killed him accidentally and in self-defense. Thus England and the world will lose its foremost poet, dead at the age of twenty-nine, whereas, had he lived, he might have been expected to write many more fine plays exposing the pretensions of standard piety."
"I get it," Mack said. "You want this Marlowe to live, is that it?"
"Oh, I wouldn't go so far as to say I want it," Mephistopheles said. "It is but a suggestion, a choice for you."
"But you have laid out the course I am to follow."
"Certainly. But only if you want to. You could also steal the magic mirror of Dr. Dee. You have heard of the famous Dr. Dee, no doubt?"
"Of course," Mack said. "But just at this moment the name 'scapes my ken."
"Dr. Dee is the foremost necromancer and magician in England, a name to be spoken in hushed tones along with those of Albertus Magnus and Cornelius Agrippa. He has been asked by no less a personage than Elizabeth of England to cast her horoscope, and the queen is noted for her hardheadedness. Dee leaves presently to take up residence at the court of Rudolph the Second of Bohemia. And he will take his magic mirror with him. You must somehow get that mirror."
"What do I need this magic mirror for?"
"Oh, you might use it to convince Marlowe to avoid working as a spy for Walsingham. When he gazes into it, the mirror will show the bloody result if he should persist in that course. Seeing his death before his very eyes should change his mind. Do you understand all that I have told you?"
"My dear fellow," Mephistopheles said, "I can't be expected to do all your work for you. Ask him.
Should he prove obdurate, give him this." Mephistopheles took a small object out of an inside pocket in his cloak, wrapped it in a scarlet silk handkerchief, and handed it to Mack. Then he arose and gathered his long black cloak closely about him. "Farewell, then, Faust, I'll await your results."
He made as if to go. But Mack plucked him by the sleeve.
"What is it?"
"If you would be so kind as to settle the bill, if it please Your Demonship."
"Have you no money of your own?"
"I may need it. You can't tell what might come up on an assignment like this."
Mephistopheles contemptuously threw a handful of coins on the table and made as if to disappear. Then, remembering appearances, he stalked out of the tavern and found nearby a little cul-de-sac where his vanishment would not be remarked.
Mack put the handkerchief-wrapped object into his pouch without looking at it, then counted out the exact change from what Mephistopheles had left, pocketed the rest, made enquiry as to the location of Dr. Dee's house, and departed.
In the next booth, concealed from Mack and Mephistopheles by its high back, a muffled figure stirred.
He was a fox-faced fellow dressed in crimson and green finery, complete with large starched ruff. Azzie, for such it was, tapped his fingers thoughtfully on the oak table, and his long upper lip lifted in a humorless grin.
He had followed Mephistopheles here in a surreptitious manner, eager to get to the bottom of the mystery of the demon's behavior. So that was what Mephistopheles was up to! Cheating! And there had to be a way that Azzie could make use of that knowledge. He considered for a moment, then thought he found a way to go about it.
He conjured himself out of the tavern upon the instant, before the astonished publican could present the bill. Let the superstitious lout blame it on Marlowe's Faust. Azzie had devilish work to do. Swiftly he mounted to the starry firmament, bound for the spiritual regions, where he had something of interest to say to a certain former witch of his acquaintance.
CHAPTER 2
We shouldn't be meeting this way," Ylith said, looking around with worried glance. But it seemed she had nothing to worry about. This cocktail lounge, The Mixed Spirit, just inside the blue-black walls of Babylon, and just around the corner from the temple to Baal, was well known as a neutral place where the operatives from Good and Bad got together from time to time, exchanged information, and tried to suborn each other. Since each side thought it had the advantage in the suborning business, neither had gotten around to proscribing meetings. Babylon in those days, before the Hittites moved in and trashed the neighborhood, and before Alexander ruined the place for good as he did Thebes, was a fun place to spend some time. The city was famous for its musical revues, its great zoo where animals of all varieties wandered in a paradisaical setting, its hanging gardens, which were like a frozen Niagaras of vegetation tumbling down from the heights of the upper city. Although this information was later suppressed by the jealous Athenians, Babylon was the intellectual capital of the world in those days, a place where Phoenician and Jew, Bedouin and Egyptian, Persian and Indian, could meet in cheerful confab in one of the city's many coffee houses—for Babylon had learned the great secret of coffee, espresso style, the steamed water pushed through the fragrant brew by great bellows operated by the Nubians and Ethiopians who had a monopoly on the trade. Babylon was also a food capital, whose shish kebabs were second to none, and whose baby buns were famous as far as Asmara and beyond. And above all, Babylon was splendid with color and pageantry, a place given to public festivals and to kingly revels.