Death by Disputation (A Francis Bacon Mystery Book 2)

by Anna Castle

  “He never told me that.” Tom felt gratified. Bartholomew Leeds was a real scholar, right down to his fingertips. His Latin was as good as Francis Bacon’s, but he liked poetry as well as philosophy.

  “He didn’t have time, did he?” Straw rustled as Marlowe shifted his position. “He was sparing with his praise, which made it all the more valuable. At any rate, there you were, a new student, studying away at rhetoric as if your absurd story were true. I noticed you at once, of course, when I came back, but if Barty hadn’t sent you to me for Latin lessons, I would never have thought twice about you. And if he hadn’t died, I wouldn’t have cared enough to pursue the oddities in your story.”

  “Don’t pursue them now. Your uncle wouldn’t like it.” Assuming he had an uncle. Tom still didn’t know what Marlowe’s game was. “Let it drop, Kit.”

  “Oh, it’s Kit now, is it?”

  “Yes. I think spending a night in gaol together imparts a degree of familiarity.” Tom scratched his stubbly chin. “But while we’re on the subject of names, if you ever call me Tomkin again, I’ll make you eat your own foot.”

  Marlowe chuckled. “Fair enough, Thomas. But I do mean to find Barty’s killer, and the only trail I have starts with you.”

  “Isn’t that a funny coincidence? Because I’ve found no one with a better motive than you.”

  “Me!” Marlowe’s outrage sounded genuine. “I had no reason to kill Barty; quite the contrary. He was a true friend. You may not have noticed, but I don’t have many of those.”

  “I’ve noticed. No close friends apart from Nashe, though you’ve lived in Corpus Christi College for six years. You do have admirers, like Thorpe.”

  “My watchdog.” Marlowe blew out a dismissive breath. “He has his uses.”

  “Until he bites you. The senior Fellows run about half in favor and half against. Mostly only mildly against, but John Barrow distinctly dislikes you, and Abraham Jenney hates you with a passion.” Tom paused to consider. “It’s probably the poetry. Leeds, on the other hand, was generally liked.”

  “As much as any of them likes any of the others. Haven’t you noticed the bitterness and envy running through the college like an oozing slime?”

  “I’m neither blind nor deaf, thank you,” Tom said. “If you could kill a man by muttering snide remarks under your breath, that college would be a charnel house. You still have the best motives that I can discover.”

  “And what, pray tell, might they be?”

  “Jealousy, for one. Maybe Leeds got tired of you and wanted to break it off.”

  “Impossible! I’m always the first to leave.” He said it jokingly, but it was probably true. He was a man of loose attachments, ever ready to pack up his neat leather cases and depart for destinations untold.

  “And you have secrets,” Tom went on. “Those unexplained absences. I think you have an uncle like mine, though possibly not on the same side, who sends you here and there to do odd jobs. Maybe Leeds found out about you, whatever it is you do, and was going to spill it to someone else.”

  “No. Never.” Marlowe’s tone was crisp. “I didn’t ask what he was up to, and he returned the favor. We shared a love of poetry and Latin literature. We left modern politics outside.”

  “That was discreet of you.”

  “Discretion is part of the job. Haven’t you learned that much yet?”

  “I’m learning it from you,” Tom said.

  “I should charge you a fee.”

  “I’ll be paying your fine, presumably. Take it out of that.”

  They sat in silence for a while. A cold stream of moonlight cast the cell into eerie relief, pale silver on black.

  “I’ve told you all my secrets,” Marlowe said. Now his voice was low and soothing, almost a croon. “It’s your turn, Tom.”

  “You’ve told me nothing!” Tom gaped at him in the dark. “Whose side are you on, Kit? Tell me that much, at least. Let me cross you off my list.”

  “You have a list? Can I see it?”

  “It’s in my head.”

  “Oh. A short one, then.” Marlowe chuckled at his own paltry joke. He leaned forward, the moonbeam striking the top of his head like a ghostly halo. “In all seriousness, Tom. When will we ever have a chance to talk like this again? No one is listening. Tell me why you’re here. What brought you into Bartholomew Leeds’s life that bitter January evening?”

  Tom laughed out loud, shaking his head at the ceiling. “Why not? Shall we begin at the beginning, when I first went down to Gray’s? God’s bollocks, Kit! Do you truly think me such a blithering bottle-head? Granted, I’m new at this game. I’m friendly. I like a good laugh and a rousing song, and God knows I love the women. But I’m not quite the helpless waxen imbecile you seem to think me. I won’t tell you anything. You should know better than to ask.”

  “Habit.” Marlowe was unremorseful. “Push a little; see what shakes loose. I can guess enough anyway.”

  “What can you guess?”

  “I know what sorts of things uncles are interested in, generally. Religion, trade, Spain, France. Religion, mostly. I know where Barty stood on those questions. I also know that your uncle — or your uncle’s master, was it? Your story changes every time I hear it.”

  Tom said nothing.

  “Practicing your discretion, I see. Good lad. That’s another tuppence for your tutor. I know that the uncle in your original story was one of the Bacons. Sons of the Lord Keeper who endowed Barty’s fellowship and was renowned as a stalwart servant of the queen. Your Bacon is the youngest one, I believe?”

  Tom saw no harm in making that small concession. “My uncle Benjamin Whitt’s master is Francis Bacon, and yes, he is the youngest son of the late Lord Keeper.”

  “That didn’t hurt, did it? One gathers the Bacons are not a comfortable family. Not close like yours, I imagine. At any rate, Francis has never been to any of our college dinners. The Bacon fellowships are approved by the eldest son, Nicholas the younger, and the second son, Nathaniel. But your Francis has enough influence to get you in where your talents are required.”

  “You seem to have given my doings a lot of thought.”

  “I’m a thoughtful man,” Marlowe said. “So I think about the well-known Bacons and their relations, and that brings me to a selection of possible uncles.”

  “That’s far enough.” Tom was certain that Francis Bacon’s very real uncle, Lord Burghley, would very much dislike being mentioned aloud in this context. “The lummox across the passage stopped snoring an hour ago.”

  “Let’s hope he hasn’t died,” Marlowe said. “He’ll start to stink before morning.”

  “Then may God preserve him, at least until tomorrow. He’s probably well enough oiled.” Tom seized the opportunity to change the subject. “Where are the guards anyway? Don’t they come around to check on us from time to time?”

  “How would I know?”

  “Haven’t you been in here before?” Tom would have pegged Marlowe for a chronic offender.

  “I have not. I am an industrious scholar in good standing.”

  He seemed willing to let the question of uncles and enterprises slide, to Tom’s relief. He’d gotten perilously near the mark with his shrewd guesses.

  Tom got to his feet to stretch his back. He was sore from the fight and stiff from sitting on the hard floorboards. He swacked at his backside and down his legs to shake off some of the dust and straw. Wasted effort. He’d have to fling himself head first into the laundry woman’s largest tub tomorrow and paddle around like a duck.

  He crossed the cell in two steps and peered into the greater darkness beyond the grate in the door. “Do you think they’ll bring us anything for supper?”

  “You’ve never missed a meal in your life, have you?” Marlowe’s tone was more curious than scornful. “All those women you have at home, devotedly embroidering your cuffs and collars. Father away at sea, no senior apprentices laying down the law in his absence. I’ll bet no one ever tanned your little bottom
and sent you up to your cot without supper.”

  “I’ve missed a few meals.” Tom felt no need to explain the rises and falls in his family’s fortunes. “I’d rather eat, if it’s an option. Don’t we at least get bread and water? And I wouldn’t say no to a little beer.”

  “Nor would I.” Marlowe smacked his lips. “I imagine these guards are as fond of coin as the next man. Do you have any money on you?”

  “Some. Enough for a couple of pies and a pitcher of beer, maybe.”

  “Then give a holler out the grate and see if anyone answers.”

  Tom suited the deed to the words, raising echoing shouts along the passage. He hadn’t realized the place was so full. Who was in the cell next door? More importantly, how much could they hear? Tom hadn’t heard a peep from them. They’d either been asleep all afternoon or the walls were thick enough to block ordinary talk.

  The barred square in their door glowed faintly, then stronger, casting a bobbing yellow light around the walls of their cell. Someone was walking toward them with a lantern. A guard, at last.

  Two guards, it turned out, with two boys to fetch and carry. They brought a pail of fresh water, two loaves of bread, and an empty piss bucket. Tom negotiated for a couple of meat pies and a pitcher of beer to be delivered after the other inmates got their rations. That plus a stub of candle emptied his purse. He hadn’t been expecting to pay so dearly for his supper that day. The gaolers charged twice the rate at his favorite ordinary.

  They gobbled up their food, leaving few crumbs for the rats. Tom held the candle high while he scuffed what straw Marlowe had left him into a hump by the wall on his side of the cell. There wasn’t enough for a proper nest, though it would be cold that night. He placed the candle in the center of the floor and divided the remainder of the beer, passing Marlowe his cup.

  They sipped their drinks in silence, watching the flickering shadows, listening to the occasional clunk or grunt from the other cells. Soon, all Tom could hear were the church bells tolling. He counted eight. Ten hours, at a minimum, before anyone would come for them.

  A rumbling snore resonated from the cell across the passage. “At least someone can sleep,” Tom said.

  Marlowe leaned forward and nipped out the candle flame with his fingers. “Why waste it? I have a tinder box if we want it again.”

  “Are you going back to sleep?”

  He was silent for a while, then came a soft slurp as he took a sip from his cup. At last he said, “Have you given up on finding Barty’s murderer?”

  “No. And I never will. He was my tutor. God’s eyes, Kit! He was murdered in my bedchamber, practically under my nose. Do you think I can let that go unanswered? I have an obligation to pursue another commission, which I can no longer delay. But I believe both trails will lead me to the same man.”

  Marlowe drew in a long breath and expelled it in a sigh. “In that case, I’ll tell you what I know about Barty’s life at Corpus Christi. Maybe that will help.”

  “You could have done that weeks ago.”

  “I had to decide whether I could trust you or not. I didn’t know how you were involved.”

  “And now you do?” Tom asked, not believing it. He doubted Marlowe trusted anyone, not even Thomas Nashe.

  “I know enough. You’re not after Catholics; they’d have sent you to Caius or Peterhouse.” Marlowe chuckled. “And I doubt you’re here to count the spoons, although most of us think someone is skimming profits from the college coffers.”

  “They’d find someone who could read an account book for that.”

  “Indeed they would. So I ask myself, what else at Corpus Christi College might interest your uncle? And then I see you making friends with that earth-creeping dolt, Steadfast Wingfield, though I can’t believe you like him much.”

  “He has qualities, once you get used to his manner.” And learn to take a punch now and then. Tom hadn’t forgotten how he and Steadfast had first gotten acquainted. “I can watch out for myself.”

  “Watch yourself too while you’re watching,” Marlowe said. “You may not be waxen, but you’re out of your depth, Tom. This life is not for you. It’s a delicate balance, becoming one of them on the outside while remaining your old self on the inside.”

  “I have excellent balance,” Tom said. “Ask my fencing master.”

  “I threw you off with an obvious insult just this afternoon.”

  Tom had no answer for that. It was true; he had trailed Marlowe’s every move like a fish with a hook in its lip.

  “You see,” Marlowe said. “It’s not an easy game for beginners. I also watched you grinning like a juggler’s monkey at Abraham Jenney’s idiotic blathering.”

  “He is a hot one,” Tom agreed.

  “And hot ones are what you’re looking for, unless I miss my guess.”

  He paused, a waiting pause. Tom let it lengthen.

  Marlowe chuckled. “Another tuppence for your tradecraft tutor. Jenney is the hottest of the hotheads at Corpus Christi in my estimation, although he has managed to intertwine self-love with the love of God to a wonderful degree. I’m not sure he makes any distinction between God’s will and his own.”

  “Sounds dangerous.”

  “It could be,” Marlowe said. “So then I ask myself, why would Abraham Jenney need to dispose of Bartholomew Leeds?”

  Another opening for Tom to speak. He let it widen.

  “Tell me this much at least, Tom: Do you not answer because you don’t know, or because you do know but don’t want me to know that you know?”

  “Wait, let me parse that.” Tom pretended to count words in the air. “The latter, I think.”

  “You still don’t trust me.” Marlowe sighed dramatically. “Your uncle should be proud. I’ll frame the argument myself, then. Once upon a time, Barty was almost as fervent as your friend Steadfast. Let’s see . . . I first came up to Cambridge in ‘81.” He laughed softly. “I loved everything about it. I was so proud of myself for winning the Parker scholarship. My own money, earned by the sweat of my brow and the ink on my fingers. Barty was a junior Fellow then, on the Bacon endowment. He shared a room with Jenney and Barrow. I didn’t pay much attention to them back then. I was here to learn the classics, not fight about hats and wafers and all that adiaphora — the things indifferent. But some of their antics did look like fun. There was one fellow who trained his dog to leap up and snatch the caps from priests’ heads.”

  “Why?”

  “Hats, Tom. Hats! The surplice and the square cap are the pope’s attire. An honest man should wear a sturdy hat, a plain one and a true; brown, for preference, in church and out. Anything else smacks of Romish frippery, disguises to delude the gullible. You really must learn these things if you’re going to convince the likes of Jenney.”

  “I find it hard to remember the sillier parts,” Tom admitted.

  “Don’t memorize it. You have to feel it in your bones. It’s like acting. You must convince yourself you really are King Richard or Queen Guinevere.” He held out a flat palm, his hand gleaming pale in the moonlight. “Another tuppence. This is turning out to be a profitable night.”

  “Don’t forget the fine. You’re still in my debt.” Tom finished his beer and tucked the cup next to the water bucket so he wouldn’t step on it if he got up after the moon set. “I never saw Leeds knocking off caps or hissing at readings of the Gospels.”

  “Barty changed. His ardor cooled. He was never my tutor, but last year I started going to him for help with my translation of Pharsalia and we got to be friends. Then I showed him some of my own poetry and we became better friends.”

  “Are you the reason he changed?”

  “No.” Marlowe laughed again but sadly. “My personal allure is tremendous, I grant you, but it doesn’t induce major conversions. No, I think he just grew weary of the absurd excesses. He spent less and less time with his old chums. Whether they noticed or cared that he was no longer one of them, I couldn’t say. But if you’re here for the reason I think y
ou’re here, one of them must have, mustn’t he? Whoever he is, he must have moved beyond foolish antics and boring everyone with his obsessive Bible babbling into something more dangerous. Maybe Barty learned about it and sent someone a warning, hoping to protect himself when it all blew up, as these things inevitably do. That someone sent you, with your friendly smile and your easy ways, to keep your eyes and ears open. So our unknown zealot moved to stop the leak at the source.”

  Tom felt a chill beyond the dank cold seeping through the stone wall at his back. “Am I that obvious?” He tried for nonchalance, but his voice sounded plaintive to his own ears.

  “No.” Marlowe chuckled softly as Tom exhaled a sigh of relief. “I happen to be interested in religious politics. My uncle, partly, but also for my own reasons. Theatrical reasons.”

  “Whose side are you on, Kit?”

  “Side? A playwright doesn’t take sides. He creates both heroes and villains. His job is to present them both and let the audience choose.”

  “That’s not a good enough answer,” Tom said.

  “It’s the best you’re going to get.”

  Stalemate. But they weren’t really even. Marlowe’s guesses had hit the center of the target; Tom wasn’t even sure if Kit’s masters were English. Nothing he had said or done ruled out the possibility that he was working for the Jesuits. Thorpe said he’d missed most of every Easter term for the past two years. That was long enough to escort a group of graduates to Rheims in the north of France and linger while they settled in.

  On the other hand, eight or nine weeks was oddly long for such a short journey. You could walk there and back again in two. What had he been doing the rest of the time? Mr. Bacon had said Marlowe was “a known quantity.” If Lord Burghley knew all the Catholic spies, he’d have no need for intelligencers. That must mean Marlowe was working for someone in the queen’s government, probably a member of the Privy Council, possibly Burghley himself.

  He couldn’t stop Marlowe from making shrewd observations — as well try to stop the moon from rising in the east — but he could refuse either to confirm or deny his guesses. And stumble on to the next phase of his commission as best he could.