by M. J. Trow
‘The Queen’s Magus?’ Johns whispered in awe.
Norgate was less impressed. ‘Her Majesty may confide in you, sir. I do not. And I am the law here in Corpus Christi and I’ll have no truck with fairground charlatans. You will kindly leave the college precincts or I will have you removed.’
‘Master . . .’ Johns began, but Marlowe cut him short.
‘Two friends of mine have died in the last twelve days, Dr Norgate,’ he said, levelly. ‘You’ll forgive me if I find this fact seriously disturbing and not a little odd. If you defy Dr Dee, sir, you’re treading on dangerous ground.’
‘Dangerous . . .’ Norgate was speechless.
‘Master Marlowe.’ Dee smiled. He had been in these situations before. ‘We must not presume on the good Doctor’s time. I remember my days at Trinity. The Master is God, even on this hallowed ground. Is there somewhere you could buy me breakfast? I always think better on a full stomach.’
Dee tucked into his new milk, hot bread and frumenty like there was no tomorrow – as of course for Harry Bromerick there wasn’t.
Joseph Fludd was no slouch either, waving at the serving wench in the Kettle to top up his milk. Only Marlowe didn’t eat. He sat nursing a pitcher of water and left it undrunk.
‘Tell me again,’ Marlowe said to the Constable, even though he had heard it twice over as the pair had jogged back along the darkened Cambridge streets, Dee stumbling behind them as best he could. Even leading the horses, Fludd and Marlowe easily outpaced the man and had reached St Bene’t’s ahead of him.
‘Master Bromerick was found here.’ Fludd placed a fruit bowl in the centre of the table. ‘This is Lion Yard.’ He looked up at Dee, as though explaining to a savage from the Frozen Sea. ‘Off Petty Cury.’
‘I know where it is, Master Constable.’ Dee raised a deadly eyebrow. ‘I was a Fellow of Trinity at its foundation. There are not many holes-in-corners of this town of yours I don’t know. Tell me, do the roisterers still warm their arses on the stools of Little Germany, or is the Cardinal’s Cap the place to be? Or perhaps –’ he nudged Kit – ‘I should ask Master Marlowe that.’
Marlowe smiled despite himself. ‘I understand from the more idle of my fellows that it’s the Blue Boar these days,’ he said.
Dee closed to Fludd. ‘There was a nest of Papists in Kettles Yard,’ he said, ‘and another on the Lammas Land south of the Causeway. You’ve wiped them out, I suppose?’
Fludd was uncomfortable. ‘I believe the university has, sir. Church matters. I only deal with the town, what happens in the street.’
‘And what happened in the street,’ Marlowe said, bringing the conversation back, ‘was Henry Bromerick.’
‘Yes.’ The Constable nodded grimly. ‘This was yesterday, a little after six of the clock. Witnesses told me he was took funny, went rigid sudden like and fell over. Hit his head against a handcart on the way down. There was some blood.’
‘What about the front of his robes, man?’ Dee asked. ‘You saw the body, I presume, where it lay?’
‘I did, sir. He’d been sick. Thrown up all down himself. Not a nice thing to see. A woman fainted dead away, apparently. By the time I got there, they’d picked her up.’
‘And moved the body?’ Dee checked.
‘I should imagine so, sir. They’d put him on a cart, in Gonville Alley, away from the crowds, as it were. It’s not every day a man drops dead in Cambridge. What was it, sir? Ague? Sweating sickness?’
‘Murder,’ said Dee, munching into a newly baked loaf he had liberally spread with honey.
‘Two in twelve days,’ Marlowe said. ‘And both friends of mine.’
Fludd sat upright with hands raised, not a little bewildered. ‘Sirs,’ he said. ‘I’ll be the first to admit I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.’
‘Ralph Whitingside,’ Marlowe said, swilling his water listlessly in the pewter pitcher. ‘King’s man. I found him dead in his college bed two weeks ago come Friday. He had stains on his shirt, over his bedclothes.’
‘And now,’ Dee said, taking up the tale, ‘Henry Bromerick, Corpus Christi man. You, Constable, found him dead, yesterday. He had stains on his robes. A mirror of the soul, Master Fludd, two men dead in the same manner.’
Fludd nodded. ‘It’s the sweating sickness. Can’t be anything else.’
‘It can be anything else,’ Dee assured him, ‘but it’s not. How long would you say, Constable, Master Bromerick had been dead?’
‘Er . . . I was up at the Castle when they called me, sir,’ he said. ‘I came straight away, so perhaps twenty minutes, half an hour.’
‘And Ralph Whitingside, Master Marlowe?’ Dee turned to him.
‘Hours? A day? Who knows.’
‘If that hedge priest had not come to drive off his demons, we might all know,’ Dee said ruefully. Fludd, even more confused, looked from one to the other, but no details were forthcoming. ‘What colour, Fludd, was the staining on the dead man’s robes?’
‘Green, sir. Bright green.’
‘Remind me, Master Marlowe, for Master Fludd’s information. How was it with Whitingside?’
Marlowe shrugged. ‘Green. As far as I could tell in the dark.’
Dee nodded. ‘It would have darkened with exposure to air and light anyway.’ He took a deep draught of milk and wiped his moustache free of it before he went on. ‘If I remember rightly, Master Marlowe, you told me Whitingside’s room was overturned as if there had been a fight.’
‘Yes.’ Marlowe nodded, frowning to recapture the scene. ‘A chair overturned, papers strewn, rugs kicked on the floor.’
‘And Henry Bromerick, Master Fludd, was “took funny”, you said.’
‘That’s right, sir,’ the Constable agreed, seeing a sort of pattern in the magus’s reasoning. ‘If there’d been any furniture to hand, he’d have kicked it over, I’m sure of that. He hit a cart as it was.’
‘And I am sure too, gentlemen,’ Dee said, untucking the kerchief from his collar and folding it neatly on the trestle, ‘Ralph Whitingside and Henry Bromerick were both poisoned with, unless I miss my guess, the common foxglove. The plant is frequently found near rabbit warrens, but you’ve none growing wild in Cambridge, gentlemen.’ He stood up. ‘I wish you luck in your searches.’
‘Wait, Dr Dee.’ Marlowe was on his feet too, gripping the great man’s sleeve. ‘Where are you going?’
‘To Madingley,’ he said. ‘To see my old friend Roger Manwood. I can’t stand Francis Hynde, but into every life a little rain must pour.’ He closed confidentially to Marlowe. ‘You’ll think me an appalling snob,’ he murmured, ‘but Hynde’s father was an apprentice bookbinder. Now, his lad’s lord of the bloody manor. It’s a mad world, my masters.’
‘But . . .’
Dee held up his hand. ‘Master Marlowe. You have a road to walk, sir, and you must walk it alone. These men were friends of yours. You owe them your keenest wit, your sharpest dagger. Someone killed them.’ He looked at Fludd and sighed. ‘Only you, Master Marlowe can solve this conundrum.’
He tossed a gold coin on to the table and strode for the door where a boy held his horse.
‘What about the showstone?’ Marlowe called to him. ‘Can you look into it for me?’
Dee could look into the showstone. Had looked into it on numerous occasions, the polished crystal of smoky quartz that foretold the future. But each time Dee used it, he felt afraid. And each time, he felt a little piece of himself vanish into it. He beckoned Marlowe over, clamped a hand on his shoulder and spread his other arm wide. Before him ran the turreted outer wall of St Catherine’s and beyond that the Gothic splendour of King’s. ‘Here’s your showstone, Kit,’ he whispered, ‘and you must look into it for yourself.’
Tom Colwell didn’t get much out of the Discourses that afternoon. Neither did Matthew Parker. It was a hot, sticky day, the sun burning on the thick panes of Corpus Christi and beyond them the hoi polloi of Cambridge went about their business. It was market day and the roads
in and out of the square were jammed with sheep, cattle and geese, the whole town like some mad Babel with its cacophony of street cries.
Neither man had slept. And both men were turning things over in their minds when they should have been concentrating on their lessons. A sizar had brought them the news a little after seven as the pair sprawled on their hard beds, wondering where Henry Bromerick was and when Kit Marlowe would be back. The sizar had been hysterical, white and shaking and Tom Colwell had sat him down and had held his shoulders, telling him to breathe deeply and to focus. By the time the lad had finished his tale, it had been Colwell who was shaking. He couldn’t look at Parker, not at first. Then they’d both run the gauntlet of the Proctors and clattered round to Bene’t’s Lane, cutting through St Edward’s Passage and on into Lion Yard. A knot of ghoulish bystanders had clustered at the entrance to Gonville Alley. The Parker scholars had hauled them away and stood looking at the remains of their friend. The Constable had been there too, peering at the dead man’s face.
‘Leave him alone!’ Matt Parker had shouted, suddenly overwhelmed by it all. He couldn’t stand the thought of some stranger handling Henry like a side of mutton in the market. He’d known this man since he was a boy, since they were babies together in fact. As long as he could remember, Henry Bromerick had been there, wrestling in the long grass, throwing stones at the weavers’ houses along the river Stour, rivalling each other in the choir stalls of the cathedral and daring each other to walk the whole frightening length of the Dark Entry.
Now, all that was gone. All that life, all that youth, all that hope. There was no one in Cambridge now who knew him like Bromerick had. He felt the space at his back, the lack of his friend in a way that he had never felt his presence.
The Constable had asked them their names, their business there and how they knew the dead man. One of them, and it may have been Parker, had mentioned Kit Marlowe to the Constable. And the Constable had stood upright on hearing the name and, telling them to take the corpse to the college, he had gone, shooing away the crowd at the alley’s end.
Men along the road had doffed their caps, women had bowed their heads. Here and there people had furtively crossed themselves as the sorry load creaked past them. Colwell with an iron lump in his throat, Parker convulsed with crying. Their dead friend on the bier between them.
At the end of the interminable Discourses, with the sun still high and the market only now winding down, the lads packed up their books and made for the buttery. A welcome sight met them in the entrance – Kit Marlowe. The three hugged each other silently, Parker weeping all over Marlowe’s doublet.
‘Kit . . .’ he began.
‘I know,’ the older scholar said. ‘We need to talk.’ He caught the eye of Gabriel Harvey sweeping the hall in gown and cap. ‘But not here.’
Benjamin Steane was annoyed. Very annoyed, in fact. His main aim in life was to ensure that everything ran on oiled wheels, that everything that happened happened both when and how he planned it. But, Goad, the old fool, had inadvertently pushed him down a path too soon. He had been forced to tell him of his impending elevation to a See of his own and then, the next day, of his marriage. He had taken the coward’s road in sharing his second secret and had sent a note. He had instructed his Mercury, an unfortunate sizar too slow to get away, to wait for a reply, but there was none. He wasn’t sure when he wrote his note, and now never would be, but he thought that of the two, his marriage plans would have shocked the Provost most.
During Steane’s time as priest and Fellow, priests and celibacy had been very much a moveable feast, depending on who was currently occupying the throne and most of his calling had found it easier to stay celibate for public consumption at least. The maelstrom that was faith in England over the last few years had left the clergy, as well as the laity, shocked and bewildered. Under the boy-king, Edward, some priests had been allowed to marry. Under his sister, Mary, they could not. Some had taken ‘housekeepers’, who kept all parts of the household warm and comfortable, including the bed. Others frequented ale houses of a certain sort, in heavy if often inept disguise. Fellows were always celibate, no matter who wore the crown and Steane doubted that Goad even noticed women. After all, the only ones he ever came across were serving girls and bedders and as such they were probably not even visible to him.
Steane had no vanity and didn’t really know whether he was attractive to the opposite sex or not. His Fellow’s robe more or less ruled it out. But he had met his future wife at the house of his sponsor for higher office and he had no doubt that purple was a very attractive colour to a certain woman. That she was a widow with lands and money of her own but no real status had suited him. A Bishop’s Palace could be a cold and lonely place without some serious gold to line the walls and keep out the draughts.
The wedding was to take place very soon, in the Church of St Mary Magdalene at Madingley. His wife-to-be was Ursula, a sister-in-law of Francis Hynde and had been married for the first time there and was eager to repeat the experience. Steane hoped that the marriage venue would be the only thing this union had in common; his beloved’s husband had dropped dead of an apoplexy within the first year of their marriage. Since then, she had been hunting for a replacement and she had found Steane just in time. The desperation was only written on her face for an experienced man to read; Steane had missed the signs completely.
He stumped crossly over cobbles towards the choir school. His dearest had asked, or some may say insisted, that the full panoply of King’s College Chapel be brought to Madingley, choir and all. Francis Hynde’s social climbing father, the bookbinder, had installed a small pipe organ and in Ursula’s ignorance she assumed that Dr Falconer, the King’s organist, would delight in playing it. Thomas Tallis and William Byrd, already approached, had sadly been busy on her wedding day. In fact, they were sure they would be busy on every day for the next few years, such was the pressure on the Masters of the Queen’s Musick. She had fetched Tallis a playful whack around the ear and told him he should rest more. The temporary deafness certainly slowed him up for a while.
So now, Steane was on his way to try and persuade Falconer and Thirling to provide some music for his nuptials. Steane was not a sensitive man by most people’s standards, but he was beginning to feel a slight snarl of unease deep in his gut. It was as if a buried thought were tugging lightly at some deep sinew, trying to remind him of something which he had once promised himself but had now forgotten. Fortunately for his beloved, though, Steane’s ambition was stronger and stifled the little niggle before it could be properly heard.
As he entered the choir school, the ringing silence echoed through his head. Falconer and Thirling were together in one corner, heads together and the ghost of Thirling’s laugh hung in the air. The boys and men of the choir were sitting, all leaning towards them as if in a high wind, trying to hear the gossip, as had been the way of choristers since a voice was first raised to praise God. Steane knew that he had been the subject, but was senior enough and fierce enough to stamp out any ribaldry at his expense.
He raked the room with his eyes and the choristers all fell to studying their anthem for the day with a will. ‘Dr Falconer, Dr Thirling. If I may have a word with you outside for a moment?’ He stood in the doorway of the School and waited for them to cross the room. Just as they were about to go through the door, he swept in front of them, leaving Thirling quite literally wrong-footed. ‘I would like to ask you a great favour,’ he said, in tones that said that they had no choice but to comply.
Thirling, leaning heavily on his cane, was the first to recover his poise. ‘Of course, Doctor. What would you like us to do?’ His smirk was well-hidden.
Steane studied their faces and decided that if he watched for every nuance, he would be here all day and he had other fish to fry. ‘As you may know, I am shortly to be married . . .’
Falconer and Thirling proved themselves to be a loss to any troupe of players one cared to name. Innocence spread across their fac
es, arms were outstretched in mute amazement. Falconer went so far as to pat the Fellow lightly on the back.
‘You may wonder how I am to do this, as a Fellow of this College?’ Steane felt the conversation would be incomplete without this rhetorical question. They raised their eyebrows and smiled in unison. ‘I am to become a Bishop,’ Steane said. ‘I have not shared this with the College Convocation as it has only just been confirmed. Upon that confirmation, I asked Mistress Ursula Hynde to become my wife and she has graciously accepted.’
Falconer raised a quizzical eyebrow, hastily lowered before Steane could see. He himself had been the unwilling recipient of Mistress Hynde’s attentions one summer’s afternoon in the organ loft and had been lucky to escape virgo intacta. It had brought on an extra virulent visitation of his old trouble. She could block a lot of exits, could Steane’s intended, most of them at one and the same time. He patted the man on the back again, in overt congratulation, in covert sympathy.
‘So, to my request. My intended bride would like there to be music at Madingley, where we are to marry. I wondered if you gentlemen and the choir could provide something. An anthem, perhaps. A psalm, always nicer sung, I think.’ He smiled encouragingly.
Falconer didn’t hesitate. He knew the organ at Madingley would fit nicely in the ophicleide of the King’s organ, but the sight of Benjamin Steane being joined in holy matrimony to Ursula Hynde was not something he would willingly forego. ‘I would be delighted!’ he cried. ‘Richard –’ he turned to the choirmaster who thought the organist had taken leave of his senses – ‘it will be such fun, don’t you think? A small choir, quite select, I feel, would do the Chapel at Madingley the most justice. Tobin’s nephew . . . he must come along.’ He turned again to Steane. ‘Such a sweet voice, the boy has. In fact, perhaps just trebles? Hmm, Richard?’
‘Oh, no,’ Steane said. ‘I’m afraid my bride is set on a full choir.’
Thirling, who had lost the gist of the conversation several twists before, shook his head. ‘I’m afraid I cannot provide a choir, Dr Steane.’ Suddenly, he gave a cry and fell over, clutching his leg. Falconer had kicked him sharply on the ankle and it had undone his delicate equilibrium. While he scrambled back to his feet, Falconer answered for him.
