Death by Disputation (A Francis Bacon Mystery Book 2) (9 page)

Chapter Thirteen

Clarady:

Murder is a pressing matter and justice must be served, yet we have a larger concern which must not be neglected. You must move forward with your primary task. I suggest you attend one of the churches favored by the Puritans at the university. Do not go alone. Use your vaunted charm to contrive an invitation. You know two godly persons well enough by this time: the Wingfield boys. You inform me that their father is a preacher; perhaps his church will be a good place to start.

Do not draw attention to yourself in any way. Merely attend. Listen and observe the manners of the people around you. Your first goal is simply to show your interest and your willingness to learn their ways. Let them draw you in gradually.

From Gray’s Inn, 12 March 1587

Fra. Bacon

P.S. Our mutual friend bids me instruct you to discontinue any and all inquiries into the actions and undertakings of Christopher Marlowe. He is a known quantity. I recommend you avoid him altogether.

Chapter Fourteen

The only way Tom could rid himself of the said Marlowe would be to commit his own act of murder. He’d thought about it, sometimes in lavish detail, but he couldn’t figure out what to do with the body. He understood why Leeds’s killer had gone to the trouble of staging a suicide. Unless you could catch your man in a dark alley, stab fast, and run faster, you’d be saddled with a large and soon-to-be-stinking corpse.

Friday afternoon, Abraham Jenney gave the in-college rhetoric lecture. His text was Quintilian. He was supposed to stop now and then to explain noteworthy prosodic devices. He was a painfully boring lecturer, his voice a nasal drone and his observations of the most elementary nature. He spoke as if they were children still struggling with their hornbooks. Tom and his bedmate, Philip, took the opportunity to work on their Tacitus translations, sharing Philip’s dictionary between them.

Latin was essential for a lawyer. Tom had been ashamed to discover how weak his language skills were during his first term at Gray’s. He’d made a complete ass of himself in the after-dinner legal exercises. The pack of lordlings he’d run with at St. John’s College didn’t need proficiency; their way was made the day they were born. Aping them, Tom hadn’t studied much, and it showed. He was woefully behindhand. This time around, he was determined to make good. He wanted to dazzle his friends at Gray’s with his rhetorical prowess when he went back.

He was struggling through a tortuous passage in the future conditional when he sensed a shift in the general mood. Jenney, as bored with Quintilian as his audience, had drifted into a blend of preaching and gossip. His voice changed too, becoming rounder and louder. He began listing assorted forms of deviant behavior at Cauis College, which was widely rumored to be a shelter for crypto-Catholics and Jesuit recruiters from France.

“Have you heard about the Divinity Fellow at Caius?” Jenney thundered, shaking his raised finger. “He baptized a cat — a mewling, pewling cat! He meant to use his foul magic to find buried treasure and spend those devil’s wages speeding Jesuit popelings into the very heart of England.” His piggish nostrils flared, as if he could smell the sin-soaked treasure from his podium.

“I’ve heard that too,” Philip whispered. “About the treasure, I mean.”

“How does the cat come into it?” Tom whispered back.

Philip shrugged.

Jenney surveyed the hall, his round eyes bright with zeal. “We must be diligent barkers against the popish wolf!”

“First cats, now dogs,” Tom muttered. Philip laughed.

Jenney trotted out every malicious rumor about Caius and Peterhouse that had ever scuttled through Cambridge, adding a few old chestnuts about Oxford for good measure. Tom had heard most of them before. He returned to his Tacitus. Jenney’s voice shifted into a rhythmic cadence, lamenting his own sinful ways, itemizing every pitiful violation. Letting his mind wander while reading the Bible seemed to be his worst offense.

“Is he trying to imitate William Perkins?” Philip asked.

Tom snorted. “If he is, he needs to get out and commit some decent sins. I’m not much inspired by his battle against daydreaming.”

Jenney saw that he was losing them and raised the stakes. He started listing other men’s sins, naming names and pointing his quivering finger at specific individuals where they sat open-mouthed in astonishment. Going fishing instead of to chapel, bribing the porter to get in after hours, drunkenness, gaming, congress with whores. Gluttony, sloth, lechery, pride; the whole college was riddled with sin. He ended his sermon in a roar, warning them of imminent damnation. The students sat in stunned silence for a long moment, then broke into an excited babble as they rose and filed out of the hall.

Tom waited for the crowd at the door to clear. A sizar slipped between the tables and tapped him on the shoulder. He was wanted in the Fellows’ combination room by Mr. Jenney for advising about his upcoming disputation.

Here was a lucky stroke. Abraham Jenney had just demonstrated that he was far hotter on matters religious than Tom had imagined. Although, he had learned that Jenney’s father was a Suffolk weaver. Bacon had told him to watch for such men. Apparently weavers were especially prone to nonconformity, for no reason that Tom could imagine.

Now he had an opportunity to curry the man’s favor. He made a bit of a fuss about stoppering his inkhorn with a wad of wool while he considered his strategy. Jenney would be feeling pleased with himself in the aftermath of his sermon, like a runner after a hard race. This might be a good time to push a little.

The Fellows’ combination room was entered from behind the dais. Its odd position allowed it to share the chimney that served the hall. Archbishop Parker, the benefactor who had endowed so many scholarships at the college, had also established a fund to ensure there would always be a fire here, so even the poorest scholars would have a warm place to read.

The room had few other amenities. One high window let in enough light for daytime reading. At night, the Fellows used whatever they could lay their hands on, leaving behind a messy strew of candle ends and
ad hoc
lamps. They weren’t fussy about fuels. Tom smelled sour mutton fat and rank fish oil under the smoke of coal smoldering in the hearth. The rushes on the floor were laced with bits of broken quills. The furnishings consisted of two scarred tables and a collection of mismatched stools.

Jenney sat in the middle of bench beside a long table. He had his copy of Quintilian and some other papers neatly squared in front of him. He sat with his hands clasped on the tabletop, watching the door. The room had only one other occupant, sitting in the chimney corner, leaning against the wall with his feet on the table and a well-thumbed book in his lap. He looked up as Tom came in and waggled his fingers in a little wave.

Christopher Marlowe. Who else? Obviously God’s idea of a joke.

There was nothing for it but to ignore him and proceed apace. “Mr. Jenney? You sent for me?”

“Yes, Clarady. Come in. Sit down.”

Tom set his writing desk at the end of the table and pulled up a stool opposite Jenney, positioning himself at a slight diagonal so he could keep an eye on Marlowe. “It’s kind of you to offer to help me.”

Jenney nodded once. “Dr. Eggerley asked me to check with you and Philip to make sure you’re both ready. We want the college to be well represented.”

“I’m anxious to give a good performance.”

“Of course you are. Since none of my pupils are graduating this year, Dr. Eggerley thought I would have time to advise you. Not that I don’t have my own work. I have an active correspondence with eminent scholars on the Continent.” He sniffed. “However, my disputation was widely acknowledged to be extraordinary. It’s still talked about in some circles.”

“I’ve heard about it,” Tom lied. “That’s why I’m glad he chose you to help me. I promise not to take up too much of your time. I’ve already decided on two of my
questiones
.”

Jenney frowned. “Only two? You need three. Leaving things a bit late, aren’t you?”

Tom shrugged in apology. “Yes, sir. But I have been working hard on these two.”

“Very well.” Jenney leaned back and folded his arms. “Let’s hear them.”

“The first is from natural philosophy, from Ptolemy: Whether the earth is the center of the cosmos, or whether there is a plurality of worlds?”

“And your position is?”

“That the earth is the center. I need an easy one, where I can be certain I’m in the right. For a sort of a rest, you understand, between bouts with the other two.”

Jenney wagged his head from side to side, his chin-length curls bobbing up and down. “A reasonable strategy. The burden of invention will be placed on your opponent.” He nodded. “Acceptable. And the second one?”

“Whether the contemplative life is preferable to the active.”

“Based on Aristotle via Aquinas, I assume. Your position?”

“I can argue either way, Mr. Jenney, but next week, I will stand for the active life.” He flashed a friendly grin, man to man. Jenney’s stern expression didn’t waver. Tom’s grin faded. “I thought it would be more fun to take that side.”

“
Fun
is not the purpose of this exercise, Clarady. Far from it. It is vital to the interests of both yourself and the college, which you will be representing — before the whole university, need I remind you — that you understand that crucial point from the outset.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Tom saw Marlowe pushing up the end of his nose to mimic Jenney’s piggish sneer. Tom fixed his gaze firmly on Jenney. When the lecture finally ran down, he said, “I’ll be on my best, Mr. Jenney, I promise. I plan to argue in favor of active citizenship and acts of charity, not, uh — not acts like sports or theater or other fruitless pastimes.”

“I should hope not!” Jenney’s whole body recoiled from the horror of such depravities. “Focus on the acts of charity and you might be able to make your case.
Might.
You’ll meet some pretty stiff challenges, however. They’ll come at you hot and hard and keep right on pounding.”

Tom had to bite his lip to ignore the rude gesture Marlowe was making to illustrate that scenario. “Yes, sir. Acts of charity. I’ll remember that advice.”

“It’s a well-tried question,” Jenney went on. “It won’t be easy. You’ll need all of Sunday afternoon to practice. Have you chosen your sophista?”

The sophista was a second-year student who stood beside the disputant as a sort of esquire of rhetoric. He helped the disputant remember key points and maintained order among the challengers but was mainly there for moral support.

“I’ve asked Steadfast Wingfield to stand beside me.”

“Have you?” Jenney smiled. “An excellent choice. He’ll be a solid support for you. Now what about your third question?”

“I haven’t been able to think of a good one,” Tom said. “I want something that will stand out. Attract attention of a certain kind, if you know what I mean.” He squared his jaw and put a fervent gleam in his eyes.

Jenney regarded him appraisingly for a long moment. When he was sneering at something — his usual expression — he looked exactly like a pig in a wig. Sneers lifted his upper lip and rounded the end of his upturned snout. But a level gaze like the one he held now emphasized the roundness of his face, the blackness of his eyes, and the tightness of the dark curls hanging just below his ears. He looked more like a cow than a pig.

Tom glanced out of the corner of his eye at Marlowe, who was watching them with an alert expression.

Jenney smiled slowly. A certain slyness in his gaze now made him look like a cow with a crafty plan. “With Steadfast Wingfield beside you, I think you might try something a bit daring.”

“Daring is what I want.” Tom scooted his stool forward an inch and leaned in.

Jenney said, “How about this one: Whether any sentence given by a judge may be examined by a man in light of the word of God, whether to obey or not, if he finds it disagreeable?”

“Jenney!” Marlowe lowered his legs from the table and rose to his feet in a single fluid movement. “You’ll get him thrown into the Tolbooth.”

That was the prison in the guildhall in the center of town. Tom was still trying to work through the question. “Do you mean, whether a man can refuse to submit to a judge’s sentence?”

“That’s exactly what he means,” Marlowe said, pulling up a stool. He tossed his book on the table:
Le Prince
by Niccolo Machiavelli. Was the fact that Marlowe could read French a useful piece of information? Bacon would know.

“Wouldn’t that just add to your punishment?” Tom couldn’t see the point of the question. “The authorities have gaolers and guards. How can you refuse?”

Marlowe laughed. “Bless you, my boy, for your innocence.”

Tom’s ears burned. He was nobody’s boy. Not even Francis Bacon was so condescending. Bacon could be arrogant, but he was never deliberately rude.

“I was only joking.” Jenney tittered. “You wanted something daring.”

“Not that daring,” Marlowe said. “What good will it do you to have him locked up?”

“I’m not afraid,” Tom said. He pounded his fist on the table. “I’m ready to stand up for our beliefs.”

Marlowe’s sardonic gaze flicked him up and down. “So that’s why you’re here.”

Tom shrugged. It couldn’t be helped. He had to be obvious, open and ready to be recruited. But his gut told him that Marlowe wouldn’t give his game away. He’d want to exploit the knowledge for his own purposes, whatever they were.

Jenney, oblivious, offered him a bovine smile. “I’d like to see someone in this college stand for a question with some importance. If Dr. Eggerley had his way, no one would venture beyond ‘the active versus the contemplative life’ and other such mealy-mouthed tripe.”

He seemed to have forgotten that was one of Tom’s questions. He galloped off again on another diatribe. “It’s no wonder, of course. The college chaplain does nothing but mumble-jumble, spouting stale texts from the Book of Common Prayer with his eyes closed. How are our students to find the inner light, to feel a true connection to God, with his lazy aping . . . um, his aping . . .”

“Toys of popery?” Marlowe suggested. “Puddles of superstition? Latin gibberish?”