Murder by Misrule: A Francis Bacon Mystery (The Francis Bacon Mystery Series Book 1)

by Anna Castle

  Her fury was hot enough to scorch him — at first. He did step back. For a moment. She smiled. A mistake. His eyes narrowed and she saw his powerful hands curl into fists.

  Then she saw her landlady — no small woman — and all of the other lodgers, streaming up the stairs armed with pans and brooms and pokers. They stormed into the room, flowing around Caspar like an angry river roiling around a great gray rock, and ranged themselves in front of Clara.

  "You will leave my house," Surgeon Moulthorne said. "You are not welcome here."

  "She is my wife." Caspar glowered down at them.

  "Leave!" Clara, emboldened by her defenders, reached past them to push Caspar with her open hand against his chest. He gaped down at it in amazement.

  "Out!" she cried.

  He grabbed her wrist. She wrenched it from his grasp and pushed him again. This time the other women stepped forward also, brandishing their implements.

  Caspar looked from one to the other, shaking his head like a bear baited by snapping dogs. Clara pushed him back another step. Two of her neighbors got behind him and began to pull. He growled at them; one whacked him on the shoulder with her broomstick. Caspar flinched and flailed a fist at her. Another woman cracked her poker down on his wrist.

  They surrounded him and forced him down the stairs. Clara stood on the top step, vibrating with anger. She raised a fist in the air and screamed at the top of her lungs, "I'll kill you before I let you strike me again!"

  CHAPTER 25

  Francis Bacon struggled to focus his attention. He was writing an essay about knowledge — how to identify sham philosophers who substitute false coinage for the true — but his mind kept wandering back to the previous week when he'd stood in James Shiveley's chambers with his pupils. He could not repress the nagging feeling that he'd overlooked something important, dismissed some vital fact in his eagerness to relieve himself of an onerous task.

  A vision of a paltry number of shiny silver coins in a flat oak box kept pushing itself into his thoughts. The coins in his own cash box were of varied hues and shapes: some worn, some bent, some chipped about the edges. When had the last official coinage been produced? Not recently, he was certain. Then how had Shiveley managed to find a matched set of new coins?

  Francis shook his head to dispel the nagging vision. He had sent his final report to his uncle; the matter was closed. He must discipline himself to banish it from his mind.

  A knock sounded on his chamber door. His assistant, William Phelippes, rose from his desk in the corner to answer it. He spoke to someone briefly, closed the door, and returned.

  Francis's heart leapt. Could it be a letter from Lord Burghley, lifting his ban and inviting him back to court? "Who was it?" He tried to keep the sound of hope from his voice.

  Phelippes wasn't fooled. He was hopeful too since his father's suit was in abeyance while Francis, his chiefest friend at court, was in disgrace. Patronage had been his to give, in better times, as well as to seek.

  "Only the under butler. The benchers request the favor of your presence in the hall. They are ready to announce the name of the new Reader."

  "So soon?" A mere week: it must be a record. But the honor of Gray's Inn was at stake as well. A shabby Reading would shame the whole Society and Lent was fast approaching.

  ***

  One look at the stormy expression on Treasurer Fogg's face told Francis that his biggest competitor had not been chosen. He kept his eyes on the floor as he walked to his seat to hide the gleam of victory. He was now the only logical choice.

  When Fogg pronounced his name, George Humphries cried, "Impossible! Impossible! By all rights, I should be next!" Welbeck drowned him out with a torrent of invective.

  Francis allowed himself a small grin. With heroic effort, he would rise to this occasion and deliver a Reading that would cast the other Inns of Court into the shade. He ignored the protests raging about him and turned his thoughts to the enjoyable problem of choosing a statute that raised questions with both crowd-pleasing drama and intellectual interest. He should have little trouble outdoing whatever poor James Shiveley might have planned.

  The vision of shiny coins in a flat box rose again in his mind. He wouldn't have credited Shiveley with sufficient imagination for conspiracies. Nor with the courage to engage in clandestine deliveries, for that matter. But if Shiveley had not been the conspirator, how had Smythson's letter found its way onto his desk?

  CHAPTER 26

  Tom Clarady tried to see Clara twice during the following week. Both times he was rebuffed by the uncharmable surgeon and told to return on the date appointed. No sooner. So he contented himself with sending daily gifts of sonnets and trinkets: a blue satin ribbon, an Italian glass bead, a lock of his own hair.

  His friends urged him to distract himself from his lovelorn state by joining in the revels at the Inn. At first, he refused to play any game of which Stephen was the captain. Then Ben convinced him that the season of Misrule was a hallowed tradition at the Inns of Court in which all gentlemen participated as a matter of honor.

  Stephen was in his element. That his princedom was a mere figment deflated his puffed-up self-importance not one jot. He attracted a new circle of toadies and began to prattle about taking up some role at court. Tom wished he would pack up and leave, although he felt a cold clench of dread about his possible parting shot. Would the benchers throw him out on his arse? His only plan was to lash himself to the mast and hang on. Something would turn up. Something always did.

  Tom gave himself over to a week of unfettered revelry and swiftly earned the respect of his fellow Graysians for his willingness to risk life and limb in pursuit of mischief. He stole a flag from the court of the Middle Temple in broad daylight, racing up Chancery Lane with a pack of furious lawyers at his heels. He bodily ejected no fewer than five spies from Lincoln's Inn who were laboring under the delusion that Gray's kept its official secrets stored in the wine cellar.

  Trumpet was the chief onsetter of their more perilous forays. The boy was fearless and had a gift for strategy that Tacitus would have admired. He and Tom were well matched in spirit and found themselves having twice as much fun without Ben and Stephen slowing them down. No debate, no quibbling— just dive in and start punching!

  The only low point in the week came when Tom's Lay of the Limner was laughed off the dais, handing the prize for best ballad to newcomer Thomas Campion. He could only hope that Clara liked it better than the finicky lackwits at Gray's.

  ***

  Later that week, Stephen commandeered the benchers' dais after supper to conduct a review of the men he had chosen for his embassy to the Inner Temple. He sat in the center seat, with his privy council on his left and his new toadies on his right. Each would-be retainer was obliged to array himself in the costume he proposed to wear and present himself for the Prince's approval.

  "Cross garters? In 1586?" Stephen scoffed. "What's next, a codpiece? Are you perchance on your way to the annual dinner of the Fishmonger's Guild? Away with you! Your ensemble pains my eyes even by candlelight."

  The hall was lively that evening. Half of the room had been cleared for dancing. Flutes and tambors wove a musical thread through the general tapestry of noise. The other half of the hall was devoted to gaming: dice, tables, and primero. Tom preferred to spend his money on things that he could keep, like gloves and buttons, but the house took a percentage of every bet. Another cut went into the pockets of the butler and under butler. The rest was used to fund the revelries; so, in a sense, all losses were gains.

  Stephen judged costumes with the zeal other men gave to Parliamentarian debate. He ought to have been born a tailor. He had an impeccable eye for line and color and an intuitive sense of when a man had gone too far with his embellishments. "A ruff should frame the face, not block the doorway," he pronounced. Tom quite agreed.

  Many men were eager to receive his advice. The season of Misrule was a welcome opportunity to shed the gloomy hues legislated by the benchers. A ma
n could scarcely cover his naked frame without perforce dropping a shilling in the box. Were they monks? They were not. They were men of the world. Tom was grateful for Stephen's tutelage in this area. Knowing how to dress for every occasion was likely to be more useful to him in the long run than the forms of action or Aristotle's rhetoric.

  Tom, Trumpet, and Ben contributed to the judging by tossing dried peas at the worst sartorial offenders and whistling and stamping their feet for costumes of exceptional artistry.

  Bacon and a group of barristers sat at the ancients' table working on the Christmas Eve masque. Trumpet's uncle, Nathaniel Welbeck, kept waddling over and quacking insults. Humphries pattered behind him as usual, bleating short laughs. He'd gotten bolder lately; he even dared a few jibes of his own. Bacon treated them both with supercilious disdain, but Tom detected a tremor of effort in the display.

  "He doesn't seem to be having much fun," Tom said. "I thought he wanted to be Reader. You said it was a huge honor."

  "It is," Ben said, "but it's also a huge amount of work. And it's stirring up all the old resentments with the other ancients. I'm honestly worried about his health. But he insists on driving himself to write this masque on top of everything else."

  "He should have turned down the Readership," Trumpet said. "My uncle says —"

  "Your uncle is the chief offender," Ben retorted. "He and Humphries will drive poor Mr. Bacon into an early grave."

  Tom tuned them out. He didn't care a fig about politics at Gray's. He wanted to think about Clara, to invoke her beauty in his mind's eye and remember the shivery thrill of her muted consonants and voluptuous vowels. He felt full of thrumming energies, straining to be unleashed.

  "Her lips are too big." Trumpet broke into his reverie. He sounded like he'd been pondering the topic for some time and had reached a final ruling. "They seem unwholesome, like overripe fruit."

  "Her lips are magnificent," Tom said.

  "Her eyes are too deeply set," Trumpet said. "They look secretive, ill-tempered. That type doesn't age well. Trust me, in a few years, she'll look like a hag."

  "Angels never age." Tom's love was imperturbable.

  "The thing that bothered me," Ben said, leaning across Trumpet, "was that she never answered the question about her marital status."

  Tom shrugged. "Stephen frightened her. And you confused her, barging in with your questions. English is not her native tongue, may I remind you. If it were, she couldn't say Tom in that delightful way." He pronounced it again, softening his voice and rounding his lips: "Tom."

  Trumpet groaned. "I need more wine." He waved at the under butler who was monitoring a boisterous game of dice. The man raised a questioning hand and Trumpet mimed filling a cup from a pitcher. The under butler nodded and drifted off toward the buttery.

  "She was evasive," Ben said, unconvinced. "Something isn't right. And what of that last?" He looked at Trumpet.

  "I wondered about that too." Trumpet met his gaze. "I thought she said, 'But he was neither.'"

  "That's what I heard," Ben said. "Meaning that the second barrister was neither tall nor redheaded. Meaning it couldn't have been Mr. Shiveley. Didn't you hear it that way, Tom?"

  "No. And if I did, why would I care? It's over. Case closed."

  Trumpet and Ben traded dour looks. "It isn't over," Ben said. "Shiveley may have been the Catholic conspirator, but I don't think he was the murderer."

  "I don't think so either," Trumpet said. "Not the murderer, I mean. He was probably the conspirator."

  "Mr. Bacon said the matter was closed and we were free to enjoy the revels." Tom shot a sly grin at Ben. "Are you disputing the foremost legal mind of his generation?"

  Ben frowned. "No, of course not. But —"

  "Cheer up," Tom said. "Maybe someone else will die mysteriously and we'll get to investigate again. I'll be the first to volunteer. However —" He held up his index finger. "Dead men do not love."

  "Oh, spare us!" Trumpet pretended to be choking on Tom's rhetoric. The pretense turned into a real cough. Luckily, the under butler arrived with a fresh pitcher of wine. Trumpet opened his purse and drew out a few coins to pay for it.

  "Those are nice and shiny." Tom plucked one out of Trumpet's hand to examine it. "Like the ones in Shiveley's box. Where'd you get them?"

  "From my uncle."

  Tom turned to Stephen. "Look, Your Grace, what do think of these? Nice, no?"

  "Very nice." Stephen took the coin and turned it over and over, admiring its silvery sheen. He said to the under butler, "Let's hold back a supply of these, as you find them. I'll use them for special tips."

  "Very good, my lord." The under butler held his palm out to receive the coin. Stephen made him wait; he loved to make people wait these days.

  Tom snatched it from him and dropped it in the servant's hand. "Let the man get back to the tables, Your Grand Purpoolishness. You need the revenues."

  Stephen treated him to a display of earlish disdain. Tom marveled at how little it impressed him. Once upon a time, it would have had him scrambling to make up.

  Now all he wanted was to gaze endlessly into a pair of sapphire eyes. He murmured to himself, rounding his lips in a kissable pucker, "Welwet welts."

  Ben chuckled. Trumpet groaned. "Here we go again."

  "He can't understand anything but poetry," Ben said. "We'll have to speak his own language. Let's see . . ." He thought a moment and began a verse. "Not Cupid's arrows cause my heart to melt, nor— uh—" He waved his hand in a circle as if summoning a line. "Nor Cupid's footsies tread my wool to felt?"

  Trumpet, giggling in short spurts, added, "Nor Cupid's farts which here we've surely smelt."

  Stephen laughed in genuine mirth for the first time that evening. He intoned the final line: "Nought sears my soul like Clara's welwet welt."

  Tom sat in silence for a full half minute, staring into his cup of wine, nodding his head with a half smile playing about his lips. Then he said, in a mock Italian accent, "I will draw and quarter each and every one of you and stake your heads over the Temple Bar."

  CHAPTER 27

  The next day was fine; at least, it wasn't raining. Tom penned a short love note to send with his daily offering to Clara. Today, it was a ruff his mother had embroidered that was too small for him but very nice. Then he joined the other lads in the fields behind Gray's to practice shooting and archery. According to Ben's father, it was incumbent upon all gentlemen to maintain the skill. Longbows were well enough for traditionalists, but Tom was a modern man. He preferred his pistols. He liked the bang and the flash and the sharp stink of the smoke.

  After dinner, Stephen summoned his court for a short conference. Tom, Trumpet, and Ben were directed to meet with their counterparts at the Inner Temple to plan the procession for the upcoming embassy. Ben grumbled about stealing time from Mr. Bacon, but the others persuaded him.

  "The fresh air will revive your mind," Tom argued. "You're no use to him if you're all stale and fusty."

  The meeting was entirely successful. They quickly agreed that the Inner Temple embassy would await the delegation from Gray's at the Temple Bar, the traditional point of entry for monarchs into the City of London. This quadrupled the length of the journey from Gray's since in order to arrive on the western side of Temple Bar, they would have to ride up Holborn all the way to Broad St. Giles, then down Drury Lane to the Strand.

  Stephen would be immensely pleased. Where is the grandeur in a procession that processes directly from point A to point B? And the open fields along their route would allow ample space for spectators.

  Trumpet made a note: round up an impressive number of spectators.

  Their labors done, they were able to devote their attention to the drinking of a goodish quantity of a quite superior ale. Tom found the Inner Temple men to be most hospitable. He felt himself truly in his element amongst these sophisticated wits, especially after the fourth pitcher.

  "S'wunnerful gennelmun," he declared, as the lads staggered outside.
A cool riverine breeze danced out of the Temple gardens and slapped him on both cheeks, dashing off some of the stupor laid upon him by the drink and the overheated chamber.

  "Treated me like a gennelmun," he added.

  "Why wouldn't they?" Ben asked. He'd had to turn himself around twice to get aimed toward home.

  Tom shrugged. "When'm with Stephen, it's always 'Lord this, Lord that, oh, no trouble, Clarady here will pay.' M'a purse wi' legs."

  "Stephen's not here," Ben astutely observed.

  "People take their people's faces at face value," Trumpet said, almost comprehensibly. He stopped and burped voluptuously. He smoothed his moustache. "Better. Tom. You dress like a gentleman. You talk like a gentleman. Ergo, you are a gentleman."

  "It's that simple?"

  "Simplicity is often the sign of truth," Ben quoted, raising his right arm for emphasis. The gesture sent him reeling sideways. Tom steered him forward again.

  They reached the arch that broached onto Fleet Street and paused to collect their wits before diving into the traffic. Sunset was nearly upon them. Shopkeepers were taking in their wares and pulling up their shutters while shoppers pleaded for one last purchase. Coaches rattled down the center of the thoroughfare, splashing muck with scant regard for people on foot.

  "Look there!" Ben cried. "It's Clara's husband!" He pointed across the street at a blocky man with a heavy sack slung over his shoulder.

  "He's still got that sack," Trumpet said. "Perhaps he's some sort of porter."

  "Whatever he is," Tom said, "by my mother's virtue, I'll speak to him. I want to know what he means, spreading lies about my angel."

  Ben grabbed his arm. "Don't even think of it, Tom. You're too drunk."

  Tom grinned. "F'weren't drunk, I wouldn't have the stomach to try him."

  He dashed across the street, squeaking past an oncoming coach. The driver cracked his whip after him, cursing fluently. Tom twisted in midstep, gave the driver a half bow, then stuck up a finger and jogged on.