Death by Disputation (A Francis Bacon Mystery Book 2) (8 page)

Marlowe snorted. “Nothing, except it’s a lot smaller and poorer than the one you left. I have a friend at your old college, St. John’s. He remembers you.”

“Oh? What’s his name? Maybe I know him.” Maybe he could look him up and get another view of Marlowe.

“You wouldn’t remember him. Thomas Nashe is a nobody, a parson’s son. A poet, like me. You were running with a pack of lordlings back then, weren’t you? Some sort of retainer to that nitwitted whelp of the Earl of Dorchester.”

“Lord Steven Delabere.” Tom did remember Nashe: a short, skinny, gag-toothed boy whose clothes were as threadbare as Marlowe’s. He had a lightning wit and a razor-sharp tongue though; you mocked him at your peril. He wouldn’t be any use as an informant.

“Your father is a privateer, my friend remembers. A successful one, by all appearances.” Marlowe’s eyes flicked over Tom’s broadcloth gown and kidskin boots. His gaze lingered on the embroidered cuffs of the cambric shirt. He smiled admiringly. “There are either a lot of women in your household, or one with an abundance of leisure.”

“Both, actually.” All Tom’s linens were beautifully decorated, thanks to his mother, his sisters, and his aunts. And Uncle Luke, the one-legged b’osun who had lived with the family since Tom was a baby and was quite the dab hand with a needle. Their handiwork had kept soup in the kettle during the lean years when his father spent more to keep his ship afloat than he won from the Spanish. “Why shouldn’t my father prosper in his trade? He does his part for queen and country.”

“Admirable.” Marlowe nodded, his expression pious. “Laudable. We must all strive to do the same, each in our own little way. Did he experience his famous religious conversion whilst asea, if I might ask?”

“Yes.” Tom relaxed a trifle. He had told the story of his father’s supposed fictional conversion experience many times to explain his return to university to finish his degree. “There was the most fearful storm, you see —”

“That must have been terrifying. A risky business, traveling abroad, whatever the season. Then he wrote immediately to you at Gray’s Inn, did he?”

“Well, not immediately.” Tom hadn’t prepared this part. No one else had ever asked for details. “First he had to find a ship returning to England to carry the letter.”

“Of course, of course. So several months later —”

“About a month,” Tom said, calculating quickly in his head, hoping there was time enough for plausibility.

“A month. That’s quite fast, isn’t it? For a ship to sail from the Spanish Main?”

“He wasn’t on the Spanish Main.”

“The coast of Africa, perhaps?” Marlowe gave him a twisted smile, showing his disbelief. “Or the Canaries? Or might he have gone east instead of west? Venice? India? The golden shores of Arabia?”

Tom thought fast, mentally scanning a map of the Atlantic Ocean, trying to think of a place where his father could have been grounded by a storm but able to send a letter home inside a month. “He had only just left, actually. He was pushed back into Cornwall. It was late in the year, you see. The winds blowing from the southwest can be horrific.”

“So I’ve heard. But I believe Cornwall is part of England.” This time the smile was friendly, as if he were pointing out a common error in a translation exercise. Tom wasn’t fooled. Marlowe’s smiles were as variable as the March weather and scarcely more significant.

He chuckled, hoping to retrieve some part of his tangled tale. “Some people say that Cornwall is like another country. Did you know that they —”

“That must have been quite the storm for its cessation to cause a man to remove his only son and heir from the illustrious Gray’s Inn. Especially when it must have taken some doing to get him admitted in the first place. Isn’t Lord Burghley himself a member? They say it’s the surest route up the social ladder for the likes of us. Pass the bar, embark upon a lucrative practice as a barrister, possibly even a judgeship and a coat of arms down the road. What kind of father would trade that for some rude country parsonage?”

Tom wondered if Marlowe had snuck a peek into his commonplace book. He sometimes whiled away divinity lectures by drawing sketches for his future coat of arms, imagining ways he could get himself knighted. Rescuing the queen from a rampaging boar while Sir Walter Ralegh watched in helpless awe was a favorite fantasy.

“God’s light outshines any coat of arms,” Tom said, curving his lips into an imitation of Steadfast Wingfield’s smug smile.

Marlowe laughed, a genuine laugh of mirth that made him look like a schoolboy. “You’re a terrible actor, Tom. I’ve rarely met a man less suited to the clergy. Your stockings alone — which I’ll confess I covet — speak eloquently of worldly tastes and aspirations. And do you think Steadfast would stoop to frolicking with the wife of his headmaster?”

He couldn’t be that bad an actor if Marlowe had recognized his impersonation. He curled his lip, ready to deliver a satisfying retort, just as soon as he could think of one.

Marlowe forestalled him. “It doesn’t play, Tom. You want to be a parson just about as much as I do. The only book I’ve ever seen you study with real interest is Ovid’s
Art of Love
. That one won’t help you as a cleric — unless your parish is in Barnwell and your flock composed of Winchester geese.”

Tom smiled in spite of himself. That particular assignment could have its benefits. Barnwell was the brothel district on the eastern fringe of Cambridge; Winchester geese were the skilled practitioners found therein. Surely they needed spiritual guidance more than anyone.

“You didn’t come to Corpus Christi to be made a priest,” Marlowe said. Now his tone was low and dangerous. “You came here to spy on Barty. He’d been worried about something for months, I could tell, but he was more worried after you came along. I noticed it as soon as I got back in February.”

“Many things change at the start of a new term.” Tom felt the blood drain from his cheeks. How could he know? What did he know? He struggled to keep his voice steady. “That had nothing to do with me, if it’s true. He had that melancholy book about suicide —”

“That
book?
” Marlowe’s handsome features darkened. “If you think a translation of Seneca could drive a man to suicide, you should pack your trunk and go home to your needle working mama because you are too stupid for the job they’ve given you. Whoever they are and whatever the job may be.” He thrust his head forward, his furious eyes boring into Tom’s. “Don’t try to pretend to me that you’re an ordinary student, anxious to study hard and please his devout old Dad. I can smell it on you, the stink of a spy. Do you think I don’t know that odor?”

Tom stiffened in shock. His mind whirled as he reviewed his actions over the past six weeks. He had been careful to do what any ordinary student would do: the regular round of lectures, study, dining in commons. He’d avoided sports and taverns, perhaps too much? The business with Margaret Eggerley wasn’t enough to condemn him. He had a few wild oats left to sow. That would astonish no one, not even the Puritans.

Marlowe was watching him closely, his teeth clenched behind a hard smile. They both knew Tom had lost this round. What would Marlowe do with his knowledge? What did he want?

Then Tom had a flash of inspiration, a bold, new explanation of what had happened on Monday morning. Wrong, no doubt, but something else for Marlowe to chew on. His lips curved in a cold smile. “Here’s a question for you: What if Leeds drugged that wine himself, for you? To put you to sleep while he did the rest. He knew time was short — we’d all be coming back soon from the sermon — and he wanted your face to be the last thing he saw while he hanged himself.”

“Never!” Marlowe jumped to his feet, fists clenched, teeth bared. Tom leapt off his stool, knocking it sideways, raising his own fists, ready to defend himself. He heard a gasp, turned his head, and saw Simon Thorpe watching them eagerly, mouth hanging open. A sidelong glance told him Marlowe saw him too.

They couldn’t fight in front of that little toad; the very idea was repulsive. They glared at each other. Tom felt his heartbeat slow. They turned at the same time, Tom to pick up his stool and set it back in its spot, Marlowe to take his seat at his desk.

They faced each other again. Tom held his tongue. It was Marlowe’s turn.

He was silent for a long time. When he spoke, his voice was calm. “Barty would never have killed himself. He believed it all, you see, really believed it. God, heaven, hell, the whole absurd fantastical tale.” He shrugged. “I hope it’s true, for his sake. But know this, Thomas Clarady, if that’s your real name: Bartholomew Leeds was the first man to tell me my poetry had value beyond the ordinary. My own original English verse, not my Latin exercises. As a scholar speaking to an adult, not a teacher encouraging a youth. The first man I respected and believed.” He held Tom’s eyes in a steady gaze. “Someone drugged me, then strung him up and left him hanging for me to see when I awoke. Understand me, and doubt me not. When I find the man who did it, I will kill him, and not quickly.”

Chapter Eleven

Clarady:

In your last letter, you seemed to be confusing the butler with the bursar. The butler is a servant employed by the college. The bursar at a small college like Corpus Christi is one of the senior Fellows, elected by the others. (Large colleges like Trinity hire a steward.) The butler keeps the buttery books, a record chiefly of the consumption of food and drink. If he claims to be doing more than that, he is exaggerating his importance.

The bursar is responsible for all of the college’s accounts. He oversees the butler’s accounts and pays out monies for things like nails, linens, and servants’ wages. He receives the income due from endowed properties. Most of Corpus Christi’s rents are from estates in Norfolk and Cambridgeshire, so your bursar probably visits them himself every quarter.

Any profit beyond the college’s normal expenses is divided among the Fellows. The headmaster naturally takes a larger share than the rest. In good years, this can be a tidy windfall for everyone. Years have been good lately since the price of corn is high.

Unscrupulous men have been known to abuse the bursar’s office. He might inflate a fee for renewing a lease, for example, and pocket the difference. If the tenant never complains, who would know?

A greedy man might kill for such an opportunity. He could put away a nice little nest egg during his two-year term, if he worked at it. But most Fellows wouldn’t want the position. It’s a great deal of work, and your average scholar isn’t much good with figures.

Find out if anyone is especially interested in the post. And try harder to get a look inside that bursar’s desk. You won’t be able to tell me much about the financial records, but something may stand out. Leeds may even have left notes about the secret synod we’re working to expose. It’s a pity you don’t know how to pick locks. I should think you would have acquired that useful art during your year at sea.

From Gray’s Inn, 9 March 1587

Fra. Bacon

Chapter Twelve

Tom spent the next several days, between lectures and studying, making a table of who was where during the time Leeds was killed. He questioned as many men as he could, racking his brains to find ways of asking without seeming to ask or to care overmuch about the answer. The effort was wasted. Fellows and students alike claimed to have been at the sermon in Great St. Andrew’s. “Everyone was there,” said everyone.

He asked a few students if they’d noticed anyone coming or going in Lutburne Lane behind the college. “What, in the
lane
?” they answered, as if he’d asked if they’d ever seen a horse in the High Street. He questioned as many of the college servants as he could catch up with, getting more or less the same result.

Marlowe dogged his every step. When Tom tried to talk to students, he’d come trotting up with a teeth-clenching grin and take over the conversation, charming everyone by making fun of Tom. Every now and then, he’d fling out a useful question. Sometimes Tom would think himself alone and snatch the opportunity to talk to a senior Fellow. Then he’d see Marlowe leaning against a wall, far enough away to be credibly minding his own business, but near enough to eavesdrop. He would shake his head or wince or nod at what Tom was saying, directing him from a distance.

Tom couldn’t tell if he was trying to help or hinder him. The one thing he learned was that sheer effrontery could be an asset for an intelligencer.

***

On Tuesday, Tom heard Mr. Barrow tell one of his students he was going up to the bookseller’s on Regent Walk. Barrow was one of the men Tom particularly wanted to interview because he had been one of the first senior Fellows to come up to the cockloft. He’d also been in the screens passage after breakfast on the fateful day. And he was the most approachable of the teaching masters. He might actually answer Tom’s questions about bursars.

Hoping for once to avoid Marlowe, Tom took the long way around. He cut through the market place to Petty Cury and on to Bridge Street, then walked down the High Street past St. John’s and Trinity Colleges, approaching the bookseller’s from the north. In spite of the detour, he got there before Barrow. The shop was narrow and deep, with shelves rising into the rafters. The lower ones were fully stocked with books in cheap paper bindings. Higher shelves held fewer volumes, more expensively bound in leather or cloth. The bookseller stood behind his counter. Fittingly, both his hair and skin were parchment colored, his eyes pale blue and his lips as pink as a girl’s.

Tom asked him if he had a copy of
Historiae animalium
. Bacon’s errand gave him an excuse for being here.

The bookseller blinked at him, surprised. “Aren’t we the well-informed undergraduate! That book just came in yesterday. I only have two copies, and one of them is already spoken for.” He frowned at Tom. “It isn’t needed for any lectures.”

“It’s for a friend. Is it terribly expensive?”

The bookseller shrugged one shoulder. “It’s new. And very interesting, or so I’m told.”

Tom sighed. Bacon managed to find ways of extracting the maximum gain from their arrangement. “Would you wrap it up, please? My friend is in London.”

The door opened and John Barrow strode in, a light of anticipation in his eyes. He shot a wary glance at Tom and jerked his chin at the bookseller to summon him to the far end of the counter. He spoke in a lowered voice, but Tom, pretending to browse among the shelves, could hear him well enough. “Is it here?” Barrow asked.

“Came in yesterday.” The bookseller went into the back room. He returned with a thin volume wrapped in hemp and slipped it onto the counter. “Cash, please. I can’t put this on the books.”

The door opened again, letting in a chilly blast and, God rot him, Christopher Marlowe. He shot Tom a grin and sidled up to the counter.

The bookseller shook his finger at him. “I won’t lend you the Ortelius atlas again, Kit, so don’t even ask. You spilled wine on it last time. How am I supposed to sell it now?”

Marlowe shrugged apologetically. “I’d buy it if I could.”

“How often have I heard that before?” The bookseller leaned across his counter, lowering his voice. “You could let me publish that translation I hear you’re working on.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Ovid’s
Art of Love
? Be worth a little something, eh?”

The Art of Love
was the most sexually explicit work Tom had ever read — absolutely riveting. Marlowe’s English translation had been passed around the whole university in tattered, oft recopied, manuscripts. Tom had read bits of it to Margaret Eggerley in bed. He doubted the queen’s censors would ever allow it to be published, but the printer could probably sell copies to select patrons from under the counter.

Marlowe’s eyes glittered, but he shook his head. “It isn’t ready yet.”

Tom and Barrow paid for their purchases. Marlowe loitered near Tom as if he were a welcome friend. He pointed at Barrow’s book. “The latest
Admonition
from the Continent, I suppose?”

Tom startled. During the troubles at Gray’s Inn last Christmas, he’d stumbled across copies of a smuggled pamphlet entitled “Admonition to Somebody About Something.” He couldn’t remember exactly, but it had been a piece of nasty Catholic nonsense. Could John Barrow be a Catholic sympathizer?

Impossible! For one thing, Steadfast Wingfield wouldn’t follow a Catholic to the jakes, much less allow him to direct his studies.

Did Puritans publish Admonitions? Marlowe would know. But why wouldn’t they, come to think of it? Radical religionists wanted to influence people, whichever side they were on. And many strict Calvinists lived across the German Sea in places like Middelburg in the Netherlands. So their works would have to be smuggled in and might well find their way in plain wrappers to a university book shop.

“I can’t imagine you taking an interest in anything worth reading,” Barrow said. Marlowe grinned as if he’d scored a point. Barrow tucked his book into a large satchel hanging from his shoulder and said, “Walking back to the college, Clarady?”

“Yes.” Tom followed him out of the shop with Marlowe close at his heels. Marlowe slid Tom’s book from under his arm and leafed through it as they strolled slowly through the passing throng of black-gowned men on the High Street.

“Animals!” he cried delightedly, turning pages to look at the illustrations. “By my hopes of eternal glory! Look at this magnificent beast.” He held the book so Tom and Barrow could see a portrait of an armored, one-horned monster called a
rhinoceros
.

“Is that thing real?” Tom asked. Marlowe shrugged.

“That book looks expensive,” Barrow said.

“It’s a gift for my uncle’s master,” Tom said. The sharp look in Barrow’s eyes made him glad Bacon had asked for something harmless. No one admonished animals about their religious views, especially not ones as fierce-looking as that rhinoceros.

“A handsome gift,” Marlowe said. “You’re welcome to buy me one anytime you like.” He tucked the book under his own arm as they made their way through the dense foot traffic between St. Michael’s Church and Caius College.

When the way opened out a bit, Tom took the opportunity to change the subject. He’d learned that direct questions were often best with the scholarly types, so he jumped right in. “Mr. Barrow, I’ve been wondering. Do you have any idea who our next bursar will be?”

“Good question,” Marlowe said.

“An odd question,” Barrow said. “Undergraduates aren’t usually concerned about the business of a college.”

Tom shrugged, feigning an innocent smile. “I’m curious, that’s all. Will the next bursar live in my chambers like Mr. Leeds?”

“Ah,” Barrow said. “He might, but only if he also succeeds to Leeds’s fellowship. The new bursar will be elected at the general meeting in April. Until then, the headmaster will appoint an interim officer.”

Tom snapped his fingers. “I just remembered! Dr. Eggerley told Simon Thorpe he could do it. They were talking about it up there, after, uh —”

Marlowe’s lips curled in snarl, but he held his peace.

“Simon Thorpe, eh?” Barrow frowned, seeming to be working out the ramifications of that choice as they walked past Great St. Mary’s. After a moment, he said, “Well, I don’t suppose he can do much harm in only a month.”

“All that oily arse-kissing has paid off,” Marlowe said. “I hope he makes the most of it.”

Barrow shot him a disgusted look. “I hope he doesn’t make a mess of it. I doubt he’ll be elected for a full term. There are better men for the job. Abraham Jenney, for example. He’d be an excellent bursar.”

“Does he want to do it?” Tom asked.

Barrow shrugged. “I don’t know.” He cocked his head. “I’ll suggest it to him. Thanks for reminding me about this, Tom.”

He didn’t seem to care much about the matter. Tom decided to climb all the way out on the limb. “Wouldn’t you like to be the bursar, Mr. Barrow? It must be quite an honor.”

Barrow burst into hearty laughter. “I’d move to another college to escape that particular honor!” He raised his eyes to heaven. “Lord, I pray you, spare me that burden at least.” He shook his head. “It’s an important job and someone has to do it, Tom, but I would sorely begrudge the time. I’ve got so many students to look after and my own writing to do.”

“I’ve heard the office can be lucrative,” Tom said.

“Where did you hear that?” Barrow asked.

Marlowe scoffed. “In the yard, in the hall, on the street . . . everyone knows bursars trim a little off every fee they collect. Maybe I should toss my name in the hat.”

“We’d toss it right back out,” Barrow said. “No one would trust you with confidential records.” He frowned. “Speaking of which, did anyone ever find Leeds’s key to the bursar’s desk?”

“Not that I know of,” Tom answered.

“Where did they look?” Barrow asked. “Who did the looking?”

“I don’t know.” Tom had, for one. That key had simply vanished. The headmaster had another, and presumably he’d make a copy for the new bursar. In the meantime, the desk remained out of reach in the master’s lodge. Tom wondered if either Dr. Eggerley or Simon Thorpe would recognize lists of secret meeting places, if Leeds had kept any such. What would they do if they found them?

Barrow wasn’t satisfied with his answer. “Bartholomew Leeds wasn’t one to misplace things. He was an orderly man.” He pursed his lips. “Did anyone search his body?”

“I don’t know.” Tom hadn’t. The idea took him aback, stopping him cold in the street for a minute. The others walked on a few steps, then turned back to him. Marlowe’s eyes glittered with something like amusement.

Barrow asked, “What are you thinking?”

“Sorry.” Tom shook himself and started walking again, catching them up. “I was just trying to remember. I don’t think it occurred to anyone at the time. But the laying out woman would have found it when she washed the body and returned his things to the chaplain.”

“Hm,” Barrow said. “Someone should ask her.” Then he flapped a hand and smiled. “But why bother, eh? Old Eggy will have a copy made for the new bursar. That mystery will simply never be solved.”

“A small mystery in a minor key,” Marlowe said. “Whatever is in there that has everyone so curious will be revealed soon enough — unless Simon’s too lazy to get all the way to the bottom of the box.”

Barrow shot him a dark look.

They turned onto Bene’t Street and walked into the shadows of the narrow path leading to their own gatehouse. Barrow clapped Tom on the shoulder and said, “Back to the old grindstone, eh?” He strode off across the yard.

Tom and Marlowe paused in front of the door to Marlowe’s stair.

“Did you learn what you wanted to know?” Marlowe asked.

Tom shrugged. “Just fishing. Say, do you happen to know what Barrow’s father does?”

“He’s a curate at a large church in Norwich, I believe.”

“Is he a Puritan?”

“The church isn’t, as far as I know, which isn’t very far.” Marlowe cocked his head. “Are we asking about fathers now?”

“Fathers are important.” Tom grinned. “Like mine, who wants me to become a curate. What do they do anyway?”

Marlowe rolled his eyes but answered, as Tom knew he would. He liked being the one with the answers. “At a big church, the curate is an underpaid, overworked, unappreciated assistant to the almighty vicar. He rings the bells and cleans the plate, rising early and retiring late. Ask Simon; he’ll fill your ears about his father’s sufferings. He might even give you a peek in that desk if you let him peek somewhere else.” He winked broadly, but Tom had grown immune to his endless insinuations.

He remembered another niggling oddity. “Say, Marlowe. Do you have any idea why a man would want blanchet and dried safflowers?”

For once, he caught the poet by surprise. Marlowe blinked and had to think for a moment. “Actors use them for painting their faces, especially when they play female parts.” He leaned toward Tom and stage-whispered, “It isn’t as delicious as you might think.” He smacked his lips, as if licking something from his teeth.

Tom groaned. “God’s bollocks, Marlowe! Do you never tire of rolling in your own shit?”