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  She smiled fondly. ‘Ralph gets on with everyone,’ she said.

  Marlowe nodded. ‘He saved my life once, you know. In the river, back home.’ He had that faraway look in his eyes again, the one that Colwell knew and he shook himself free of the memory; the dreadful sound of the weir crashing in his ears, the pain in his filling lungs, the grip of the slimy weed round his legs. ‘We should have graduated yesterday, the boys and I,’ Marlowe said. He didn’t have to name them. Kit Marlowe and his boys were famous in every ale house in the city. ‘We’d arranged to meet Ralph on Tuesday, but he didn’t turn up. He didn’t turn up last night either.’ He looked at her closely, narrowing his eyes. ‘Do you know why?’

  ‘No.’ She felt more at ease with him now, now that she knew that Master Marlowe was a pot boy. She’d only seen the scholar, the flash drinker in his doublet and colleyweston cloak, the glib talker, the gambler who always won. She hadn’t known he’d once done the same job that she now did, alone in the darkness of an inn’s vault, dragging weights that were too heavy, straining her arms until they dislocated; her left shoulder would always hang lower than her right. ‘No, he missed you,’ she told him. ‘Come in wild-looking, breath in his fist. Said he had to find you. You in particular, Master Marlowe.’

  ‘Did he say why?’

  She shook her head. ‘I gave him a drink,’ she said, ‘and we . . . went outside.’

  Marlowe nodded and flicked his hand at her. He had no need of detail. There was more to this than a fumble with a barmaid. ‘And then?’

  ‘He went home, I suppose, said he wasn’t feeling too well,’ she said. ‘He’ll be back in college. You’ll find him there.’

  ‘Yes,’ Marlowe said. ‘Yes, I suppose I will.’ And he moved away.

  ‘Kit,’ she said suddenly, her voice sounding too loud as she spoke his name for the first time in three years.

  He half turned. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘if I hurt you.’ And he was gone, striding along Jesus Lane in the morning.

  TWO

  Kit Marlowe didn’t allow things like hangovers to rule his mornings. While the others lay in their beds in the old storehouse converted years ago for the Parker scholars in perpetuity – on their stomachs, to save their sore backs – groaning quietly to themselves, he was back in his college grey, breakfasting and planning the rest of the day. He sat on the edge of a bench, at the end of a table in the buttery, nibbling thoughtfully on a heel of bread, and toying with a mug of small beer. Several times he was spoken to, but since he gave no reply, and in fact didn’t even seem to hear the speaker, soon he was alone in a little circle of silence. Even the echo of the cavernous room seemed to stop dead at the invisible barrier around him.

  ‘Master Marlowe?’ A boy of about eleven stood in front of him, holding out a piece of paper.

  ‘Leave him alone, lad,’ one of the scholars called. ‘Machiavel is deaf today. Come and talk to us instead.’

  Everyone at the table guffawed and pushed each other, pointing and grinning. Some of them weren’t much older than the boy, but they were pretending to be men of the world.

  The child turned sternly to the table of louts and raised a treble voice to be heard. ‘I have a message for Master Marlowe,’ he said, firmly. ‘I was told to deliver it to no other.’ He set his mouth firmly and stood like an ox in the furrow.

  The boys at the adjoining table were starting to get up and move towards the lad when suddenly Marlowe came to life. He put down his crust of bread and looked up, identifying the ringleader immediately. ‘Master Moorcock,’ he said, affably. ‘I would be pleased if you and your rabble would take your squawks elsewhere. I would like to read my message in peace.’ He smiled pleasantly at the boy. ‘Is there an answer required, do you know?’

  ‘I believe so, Master Marlowe,’ the boy replied, with much nodding of the head, most of it caused by the knowledge that he would not now have to return to his lodgings without his hose, black and blue from the buffeting of the Corpus Christi scholars. The stallholders in Petty Cury were used to sights like that.

  ‘Then trot along to the Bursar’s lodgings, there’s a good lad and get me some ink and a quill. Unless you can remember it, perhaps, if I tell you what it is.’

  ‘I could try and remember, Master Marlowe,’ the boy said, standing proudly, and trying to look thoroughly reliable in every respect.

  Marlowe unfolded the paper and read, as best he could, the crabbed writing. He looked up at the boy. ‘This writing is appalling. Who is it from?’

  ‘Master Tobin, the assistant organist of King’s College,’ the lad said. ‘He said it was really important.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Marlowe held the paper to the light, trying to make sense of the message. ‘Oh, wait, I think I have it.’ His forehead creased with worry as he read. ‘“Master Marlowe, could you please come and deputize for evensong today (Thursday). Rph . . .” What? Oh, Ralph . . . “Ralph Whitingside has absented himself these last two days and Master Thirling’s leg is somewhat bad again, causing him to fall in service. Dr Falconer is poorly again with his old trouble. We need an experienced chorister, both to lead the boys and to sing for RW. Please send your answer with the boy who carries this message. W Tobin.”’ Marlowe looked up at the boy. ‘You are a chorister, are you lad?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, Master Marlowe. Thomas Tobin.’

  Marlowe gave him a second look. ‘Yes, you have a look of the Tobin family about you. Do you lodge with . . . ?’

  ‘My uncle, sir. Yes.’

  Marlowe knew Walter Tobin to be a kindly man, surrounded by colleagues bedevilled with impediments. It didn’t altogether make for a quiet life and his request was a simple one.

  ‘Well, young Thomas, tell Master Tobin that I would be happy to deputize for Ralph.’

  The boy nodded and repeated the words under his breath.

  ‘God’s breath, Tom, you don’t have to tell him word for word.’ Marlowe laughed. ‘But, and this is something you must remember, Tom, tell your uncle that there are two conditions.’

  The boy looked eager and ready to commit things to mind.

  ‘One is that I get paid even if Ralph turns up.’

  The lad raised a finger and rummaged in his sleeve, drawing out a coin wrapped in a cloth.

  ‘Oh.’ Marlowe took it from him. ‘Well, you only have one thing to remember, then. And that is that, if Ralph does not show up, then Master Tobin will help me look for him until he is found.’

  Thomas looked at him with big eyes, then said, ‘Do I have to remember that word for word, Master Marlowe?’

  ‘Yes, Tom,’ Marlowe said, getting up and putting the paper in his doublet. ‘I rather think you do. Run along, now, and tell your uncle. Do you know the service for today?’

  ‘We’re doing a chant from Archbishop Parker’s Psalter and Gaude Gloriosa Dei Mater for the anthem.’

  ‘Master Thirling was in a somewhat Tallis mood when he planned today’s service, I see,’ Marlowe said. He’d been singing this stuff now for the best part of twelve years and could still practically do it in his sleep.

  ‘It shows his leg is bad, Master Marlowe. He can conduct us with one hand when we do Tallis, because we know it well. It saves him from so much falling.’

  ‘That’s a shame,’ Marlowe said, ushering the boy ahead of him as they left the buttery and emerged into the sunshine of The Court. ‘It livens up an evensong when Master Thirling falls over. Now, off you go and make sure you deliver my message properly.’

  The boy ran off through the archway and down the High Ward. Marlowe, deep in thought, made his way to his rooms, dodging behind a doorway to avoid the grey shade of Gabriel Harvey. There was only so much a man could take.

  Men like Marlowe didn’t usually list their favourite church services, but had he been brought to the sticking place, then top of the pile would have had to be evensong. The congregation was small, but devout, the boys rather better behaved, having endured a day of lessons, practice and a little admonitory beating as require
d. The service itself was short, with more music of a more gentle kind, and there could be no setting more beautiful than the Chapel of King’s College, with its angels, its quatrefoils and its intertwined initials of HR to remind everybody who the king once was. Master Thirling’s leg appeared to be holding up well, with only a minor stumble as the choir processed in. The dusty sunshine of a June afternoon filtered through the high windows and gleamed on the wooden panels of the choir, where the Tudor greyhounds and dragons coiled round the royal arms. The soft singing of the boys, underscored by the few men, swam in the motes and, had Marlowe believed in a God in Heaven, could almost have been heading straight for His ear. For an hour, Kit Marlowe allowed himself to be a chorister again, singing to the Lord with a clear voice that the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

  They had not yet been granted their degrees, had not yet drunk from the silver-mounted auroch horn that took pride of place in the college silver. But they were out again that night anyway, curfew or no, because Kit Marlowe had a funny feeling about Ralph Whitingside.

  Henry Bromerick took the Angel and the Brazen George, weaving his way through Petty Cury and Lion Yard. Tom Colwell got the Boar’s Head, the Cardinal’s Cap and the Lilypot, keeping his back to Corpus Christi until he reached the all-shielding angles of Silver Street. He even dashed furtively into the Eagle, hideously close to the college and Lomas’ watchful eye though it was. He covered up the pelican and lilies badge on his Corpus robe as best he could and peered through the gloom. Nothing. Matthew Parker took the Falcon, the Blue Boar and the Dolphin, beyond the Market Hall, but there was no sign of Whitingside and nobody had seen him for days. Marlowe had furthest to go. He’d hauled off his college robes and stashed them behind a bush in The Court. In his doublet, he’d get more attention from the right people in the town’s inns and the prowling Proctors would leave him alone. He crossed Magdalen Bridge as the lights twinkled double in the river’s eddies and the roisterers already began to roll home, ready for the nightly battle to sneak back into their colleges. He heard the watery rattle of the skiff oars as the punters and wherrymen strained at their boats under the dripping archway.

  Somebody remembered Whitingside at the Falcon in Petty Cury, but that was probably last week. The innkeeper at the Black Boy swore the man still owed him for the ham and cheese supper he’d laid on after the Lenten feast. Come to think of it, he still owed him for a feast he’d put on for the Lord of Misrule back in the bleak midwinter, but by the time he’d remembered that, Marlowe had gone to the Devil.

  The Devil’s Inn was as far north as Cambridge scholars chose to walk. It was uphill all the way, past the cherry orchard and the river meadows, under the shadow of the rotting castle with its black earthworks and its ghosts. Marlowe sauntered in on tired legs under the leering gargoyle of Beelzebub that looked about to vomit into the street below. For a while, his eyes failed to acclimatize. It was surprisingly chill in the hall where he stood, the huge fireplace dark and empty in its summer repose. But this was Cambridge and even in high summer the chills crept from the reeded river and the winds, men said, blew straight from Muscovy in the desolate east with no mountain range to block them and only the flat fens of the Low Countries for company.

  Marlowe’s eyes narrowed as he found his quarry and he sat down heavily on a wooden stool alongside him.

  ‘Master Marlowe.’ The man looked up, surprised, clutching a hand of cards tightly to his chest.

  ‘Latimer?’ The scholar nodded. ‘Where’s your master?’

  The servant blinked. He had the look of a pet dog caught with the family’s suckling pig in his mouth. ‘What’s o’clock?’ he asked. Will Latimer wasn’t the brightest apple in the barrel, but he’d been Whitingside’s man throughout his time in Cambridge and could place the man by the ticking of time.

  ‘Near midnight,’ Marlowe told him.

  ‘You’ve tried the George?’

  Marlowe had not. That was Bromerick’s beat and of course Ralph Whitingside could be there as they spoke, holding court on the perils of Puritanism and debating all that was unholy. Somebody else would be buying the drinks. ‘No one has seen him for two days,’ Marlowe told him. ‘Why are you here, man?’ Marlowe had never had a servant in his life and couldn’t comprehend the fetch-and-carry way of life. Ralph Whitingside was born to it. All he did for himself was eat, drink and fondle whores. And gentlemen like him were increasing in the colleges these days.

  ‘Ah,’ Latimer blustered. His face was red and he’d sunk a few tonight. He glanced across at his companions and laid his cards carefully face down on the battered table in front of him. ‘A bereavement, I fear.’ He looked solemn and hung his head.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Marlowe said. ‘Anybody close?’

  ‘My dear old dad.’ Latimer shook his head.

  Marlowe leaned closer to him, nodding sadly. ‘Latimer,’ he said quietly, ‘if there is one thing I’m sure of, it is that you have no idea who your father was. So let’s try again, shall we?’

  Latimer looked at the man, blinking. Bugger! The dark, clear eyes, the firm mouth; you didn’t get much past this man. The servant’s shoulders fell. He was pretty good at this sort of thing usually, but against a man like Marlowe? Well, best not to mess. And he had had a few. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘But you won’t say anything to the Master, will you, sir?’

  When men called him ‘sir’, Marlowe knew the battle was as good as won. ‘Now, William –’ he spread his arms wide – ‘would I?’

  Latimer took a chance. By now he had little choice, really. ‘There was a bereavement. But that was my mother’s cousin and it was five months ago. It’s summer, Master Marlowe. I just wanted some time off. You know what it’s like in the colleges – morning prayers at five, Aristotle, Aristotle and more bloody Aristotle until midday. Homer or Demosthenes or some other -thenes all afternoon. And that’s the good days. And what am I doing? Writing it all down for the Master. Like I understand a word of it. And that’s apart from the usual cleaning, scouring, velvet-primping and mucking out the stables. I just wanted a few days to myself. That’s not asking too much, is it?’

  Marlowe ignored him. ‘So when did you see your master last?’

  ‘Three days ago. I felt a bit of a shit, really. He gave me an angel and wished me every condolence. Nice man. Nice man.’ Latimer seemed lost in contemplation of the dregs of his drink, then suddenly looked up. ‘But he’d have been at evensong tonight, Master Marlowe. You could have caught him then.’

  ‘I could have,’ Marlowe agreed. ‘But I didn’t. He wasn’t there.’

  Latimer frowned. ‘Now that is peculiar,’ he said. ‘Likes a good sing song, does the Master.’

  Marlowe stood up, taking in Latimer’s fellow card players. They wore rough linen and leather – stallholders, grooms. They were Town, not Gown. Even so, he crouched close to Latimer as he said, ‘How do I reach Ralph’s rooms?’

  Latimer hesitated, his little piggy eyes swivelling around the room, just in case. ‘Fourth staircase to the west,’ he hissed. ‘Your best bet is the Tit Lane entrance. And you didn’t hear it from me.’ He patted the side of his nose.

  Marlowe nodded and turned to the door. At the steps he paused as Latimer resumed his game. ‘I wouldn’t play that king, Will,’ he said. ‘Not with your luck.’ He winked and had gone before Latimer hurled down his hand among a cacophony of laughter and the servant gave vent to a string of profanities that would make a cardinal blush.

  Trinity Lane was deserted at that time of night. This was not the best way into King’s for roisterers. There were too many angles and sharp drops for a man who’d downed a few. Better to take your chances via the shrubbery and the Proctors; on the balance of things, a striped back was preferable to a broken neck.

  Marlowe knew that Ralph Whitingside had changed his quarters recently. Whitingside was no man’s ward now, but a gentleman pensioner in his own right, and that gave him a new status with which the Fellows o
f King’s and the Provost had to live. The man’s old rooms were in the farthest corner from the Chapel, but now, in the new scheme of things, the fourth staircase was behind the great Gothic masterpiece of Harry VI, quieter and more secluded. All to Marlowe’s good.

  He’d toyed briefly with doubling back to Corpus to collect his robe and see if the lads had had any luck, but that would have brought him into the lair of Lomas and Darryl again and he knew they’d be doubly watchful after the events of the night before – still out to catch the man the other scholars called Machiavel, before the ceremony of the degree put him out of their reach forever. Besides, the lads knew where Marlowe would be and if they’d found Whitingside, they’d have brought him word by now.

  So, he’d gone, capless and doubletted, rising on his toes and trying not to clatter on the cobbles in the lane. The black angles of King’s reared up above him, but he’d stayed sober all night and he’d done this before. He grabbed the ledge above his head and hauled himself upwards. There was no moon tonight, no Heavenly lantern to shine God’s eye on the ungodly. And anyway, for once, all Christopher Marlowe was doing was trying to find a friend. It was the rank stupidity of the university that you couldn’t just walk in and say ‘hello’. A formal visit would mean paperwork, questions asked and answered, snooping. And there were too many men in Cambridge recently who had stood up to be counted, filled in the paperwork, answered questions. Some of them were dead now, screaming hymns of hopelessness as the flames seared the skin from their writhing bodies.

  He caught the next parapet, slipping once as a piece of masonry chipped off under his boot-sole. Hand over hand he crossed the wall’s face, checking each window to make sure the shutters were closed.

  The sizars, poor miserable sods, would be asleep now, huddled together for warmth in the Great Hall, dreading the clang and scrape of the Chapel bell. But these rooms, whose walls he clung to now were the gentlemen pensioners’ quarters, large and well-appointed. He hoped none of them had dogs that would catch his shadow and bay the lack of moon.