Death by Disputation (A Francis Bacon Mystery Book 2) (4 page)

“Still, Clarady, you shouldn’t be in here alone, dwelling on these sad events.”

“No, sir. I won’t dwell. I’ll just finish up my letter and join the rest in the hall.”

“Good lad. We bear up, eh? We bear up. And I will take charge of this desk here. Leeds kept it locked, did he?”

“I wouldn’t know, sir.” But he did know. He’d tested the lid the day after he’d moved in, hoping to find notes about the secret synod or the seditious zealot. The desk had been locked then and every other time he’d snatched a solitary moment to give it another try.

“I’ll keep it in my parlor until we can appoint a new bursar. Dusty old college accounts. Dull but necessary, eh? I don’t suppose you know where Leeds kept his key?”

“No, sir. I’m sorry, sir.” Tom smiled apologetically. He waggled his quill to show his readiness to return to his letter.

“Ah, well. I have one, of course. But it doesn’t do to have keys to the bursar’s desk wandering about.” Eggerley’s expression shifted back to its usual genial vagueness. “Well. Good, good. Best be off. Hope the wife has packed my bags. I’ll be leaving right after dinner.” He lifted the desk and turned toward the door. “No brooding, now. We must bear up, eh, Claybrook?”

“Yes, sir.” Tom smiled, teeth together. His cheeks were tired. Would the man never leave?

The door squealed shut. Tom returned to his letter, quickly jotting a postscript about having said that Ben was his uncle in case Dr. Eggerley actually dropped in at Gray’s and asked questions. Then he stacked the pages together and folded the stack into thirds lengthwise and again crosswise, mashing the folds flat with his thumb. He lit the candle on his desk with a splint from the fire to melt wax for the seal.

He yanked a hair from his head and laid it carefully across the fold. Bacon had taught him this trick, so they would know if the seal had been lifted with a blade and replaced intact. He held the stick of wax to the flame until it softened and dripped a few drops onto his letter. He stirred the blob a bit with the wax stick, shaping it nicely. Then he pressed his signet ring firmly into the center. His youngest sister had given it to him last New Year’s Day. It bore his initials on either side of an anchor.

Done. He tucked it into the front of his doublet and got up to go to dinner. As he passed Leeds’s table, he wondered what could be in the bursar’s desk important enough for the head of the college to come and collect it personally.

Chapter Four

The Greek master read an edifying text by one of the early Christian fathers to the assembled college during dinner. His voice was pleasantly pitched, but he had a tendency to drift into ancient Greek, forgetting that only his own students were fluent in the language. Usually, there was a low drone of conversation in spite of the reading, but today the hall was muffled in a somber silence. When the reader came to the part about none being able to harm the man who did not harm himself, a boy at the sizar’s table burst into loud sobs. Mr. Barrow rose from the senior Fellows’ table to go comfort him.

Tom wondered if he shouldn’t have a quiet word with Diligence Wingfield to make sure he wasn’t harboring any fearful fancies about what he’d seen. Perhaps the boy would like to bunk in with Barrow’s crowd for a few nights. Or he could switch with Philip, putting one older boy with each younger one. Leeds’s empty bed would still haunt the middle of the cockloft though. He didn’t care much for that himself, if he were honest.

The reader paused to refresh his throat with ale. Tom turned to Philip to suggest they swap beds with the younglings. Then he noticed Dr. Eggerley rising to make his exit. Tom interrupted his chum in mid-question. “Sorry, Philip, but I’m feeling a bit —” He followed the Head out of the hall without a backward glance.

That was a spy trick he’d invented on his own: if you didn’t finish your sentences, your
interlocutores
would finish them for you. That way, you didn’t tangle yourself up with inventions you were sure to forget at the critical moment.

He caught up with the headmaster in the stables and gave him his letter. Dr. Eggerley promised to see that it was delivered to Gray’s Inn, adding that he might stop in himself on his way to Westminster. Tom felt a little squeamish about letting anyone from Corpus Christi handle his correspondence, but this was his best chance to make sure his letter reached Bacon in a timely manner. If the weather held and Dr. Eggerley met no hazards on the road, he could make it to Westminster in two days, arriving on Wednesday evening. The earliest Tom could expect a reply was Friday night.

Would his commission be canceled? He hoped not. He didn’t like to leave things unfinished and he wanted his reward. He wanted to go back to Gray’s as a full-fledged, legitimate member so he could pass the bar, become a barrister, and climb up a rung on the social ladder. Leeds hadn’t been any help thus far anyway. Tom could find his way into the godly community without him.

Besides, the hothead pushing the local Puritans toward open rebellion was morally responsible for Leeds’s suicide. He had to be caught and Tom wanted to catch him.

***

As he walked back across the yard, he saw a figure beckoning to him from the window of the master’s lodge — Mrs. Margaret Eggerley, the headmaster’s wife. Her timing, as always, was perfect. Her husband had just left for a week-long journey and Tom was feeling the strain of the morning’s events.

He tilted his head to signal that he understood. He walked at a normal pace almost to his own door and then abruptly dodged into the door to the hall on his right. He jogged quickly up the stairs to the parlor. This part of the headmaster’s lodgings was officially part of the college and thus furnished in a serviceable fashion with plain oak paneling and well-worn tables and benches. Portraits of college notables hung on the walls. A door at the rear opened into the new gallery leading to the headmaster’s private home, which was another sort of dwelling altogether.

Mrs. Eggerley stood before the window that looked down into the yard. She sailed toward him with both arms extended, palms turned, ready to grasp him by the hands. “Oh, Thomas! Tom, Tom, Tom! It’s so
good
of you to come!” She was a woman fully ripe, thirty or so years old, with abundant red hair, sensitive lips, and creamy skin displayed to advantage. She pulled him close and offered her cheek for a swift peck, bending forward to give him a full view of her well-rounded bosom. The heady scent of rose and civet perfume wafted up. Tom’s groin tightened in anticipation.

“Oh, Tom!” She breathed into his ear, sending a thrill up his spine. “I’ve been beside myself. Quite
beside
myself, as only you can imagine. Poor Mr. Leeds!” She stepped back, slowly withdrawing her hands from his. Her eyes darted to the stairwell and then the rear door. No servants were in sight, but someone might be just out of view. “And here in this time of anxiety and grief, I find myself bereft.
Bereft!
My husband felt the need to report this tragic news to the chancellor in person, so he’s left me all alone and comfortless.”

“I am honored to be of service to you, Mistress, in any way I can.” Tom folded his arm across his waist and executed a full bow. The pose had the advantage of extending his leg beyond the hem of his dull gown, displaying a firm, round calf in a yellow stocking.

Mrs. Eggerley’s brown eyes sparkled as her gaze lingered on the leg. Her tongue poked through her lips. “I hardly know what to do with myself. I fear to enter my own bedchamber unaccompanied. What horrors might await me there?”

“I shall see you safely to your chamber myself, Mistress. If you wish, I could administer a soothing draught, if you have any such prepared, and sit with you until you fall asleep.”

“Oh, Tom! Tom, Tom,
Tom!
You are so good to be kind to a poor old woman.” She batted her lashes at him, knowing full well that he thought her neither poor nor old. Woman, however, she most definitely was.

That should be enough to satisfy anyone who happened to be within earshot. Tom supposed her two small daughters were out somewhere in the company of their nurse and the other servants occupied with lengthy errands. They had the house to themselves.

Margaret glided across the room and through the door to the gallery. Tom followed a few discreet paces behind, enjoying the sway of her skirts. He knew she enjoyed it too, both the swaying and the knowledge that his eyes were firmly clapped on her figure.

The master’s new house was more like the manor of a country gentleman than the home of a humble scholar. The gallery would be most impressive once it was finished. Glazed windows on both sides let in quantities of light. Oak benches had been built under the windows and oak paneling installed between them. This was being painted in fits and starts, the benches and floor protected with sheets of coarse buckram.

They didn’t linger there. Margaret took Tom’s hand again, pulling him so close behind her that her skirts brushed his feet. They hastened down the gallery into a narrow corridor and up a half stair to her bedchamber. She had spared no expense here in her private domain. She’d even had a bow window jutted out, framed with draperies and fitted with a padded bench. She owned two chests carved in the Italian style and a cupboard displaying her collection of silver plate. Her wide bed with its lofty pile of feather mattresses was hung with velvet curtains in a dusky pink that made her red hair look like living flame. The bed was piled with pillows, which Tom had learned to deploy with some skill under Margaret’s expert tutelage.

She had chosen him, Tom later learned, almost the day he arrived. She had seen through the squint hole in her gallery. Another squint gave her a view into the chapel. They were originally made so the headmaster could monitor his Fellows and students unobserved. Now they gave a lonely lady a bit of entertainment and a way to keep in touch with the college since she wasn’t allowed in hall, chapel, or yard.

Once she caught sight of Tom, she knew she had to get to know him better. His golden curls, long legs, and dimpled grin had captured her heart. She also told him, between kisses, that he seemed older than the average undergraduate. Wiser. More mature.

Who was he to argue? She certainly had a gift for arranging these matters. The first time, she had caught Tom’s sleeve on his way out of the hall, asking him to help her move some boxes. After that, she would hang a pink scarf in the parlor window if the coast was clear and Tom would march through the gallery as if bearing a message. The coast tended to be clear two or three days a week. Corpus Christi, like all colleges, ran on a fixed schedule, easy to work around. And Dr. Eggerley was often away on college business.

Tom neglected to mention Mrs. Eggerley in his reports to Francis Bacon. A man had a right to keep some parts of his life to himself.

Margaret led him into her chamber and closed the door, turning the key in the lock. “Gown,” she said.

Tom pulled his gown over his head and tossed it aside.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing him against the door with the full weight of her body, and engaged his lips in a kiss laden with pent-up need. Tom returned it in full, releasing the shock and grief and doubt of the morning. He wrapped his arm around her waist, reveling in her solidity and warmth. And his own strength. He tangled his other hand in her thick hair, pulling out pins and tossing them to the floor.

She broke the kiss with a sigh. “Oh, Tom.” She nibbled at his ear and fireworks exploded in his brain. “I’ve been so worried about you. I know you’re too strong to show it in front of the men, but you can talk to
me
.” She gazed up at him, her brown eyes limpid. “Tell me everything. That will purge you of the horror.”

He smiled down at her. Perhaps she was right. He told her more or less the same tale he’d told the headmaster and the Fellows. As he spoke, she unlaced his doublet and smoothed it from his shoulders with artful hands. He helped it off with a shrug.

“Was my husband there?”

“Of course.” Tom didn’t want to think about her husband at the moment.

“When you first went up?” Her deft fingers found the opening in his slops and probed within.

Tom gasped. “No, no one was there. Except Marlowe.”

“Christopher Marlowe? He was in the room when you went up?”

“Mm-hmm.” Tom tightened his arm around her waist and walked her backward to the bed. He hoisted her up onto it. She arched back, leaning on her elbows, a pose that thrust her breasts up and out. He bent over her and nuzzled into the top of her dress.

“Did you see anyone as you came through the gate? Anyone in the yard?”

“Only you.” Tom stopped nuzzling and grinned at her. “I’d forgotten. You were standing right on the threshold to the lodge. Were you coming in or going out?”

“Neither, silly boy. Why would I go into the yard?” She tossed her head, giving her bosom a little shake. “I was watching for my husband.”

Then why go all the way downstairs? She could see the arched gate at the north end of the yard more easily from the window in the parlor on the first floor.

“Tom?” she crooned. “Have I lost you?” She hitched up her skirts and wrapped her legs around his waist. She might have said something else, but Tom was no longer capable of speech. He turned his full attention to the bounty spread before him.