‘That’s not fair.’ It came out as a school-yard whine. ‘That dagger against my whittle. It’s twice the length.’
‘I don’t like to boast,’ Marlowe said, ‘but before we start, might I have your name? I hate to kill a man I haven’t been introduced to. Such bad breeding, don’t you think?’
‘This is my intended, Master Marlowe.’ Meg dashed forward, wriggling away from the churl who held her. ‘Harry Rushe. He lives with us all on the farm, remember, I told you. He didn’t mean any harm, Master Marlowe.’
‘Is that true, Rushe?’ Marlowe asked. ‘You don’t mean any harm?’
‘Dickie,’ Rushe called to one of his confederates. ‘Give him your whittle. If you’ll fight man to man with me, Marlowe, we’ll settle this once and for all.’
Dickie produced his knife, hilt-first to Marlowe who shook his head. ‘If it’s an advantage you’re after, Master Rushe,’ he said, and slapped the hilt of his dagger into Parker’s hand. ‘Look after this, dear boy.’ Then he turned to face Rushe, open-handed and beckoning him forward.
Meg gasped. She’d seen her man in a knife fight before. It wasn’t pretty. But before she could intervene, talk some sense into the thick idiots, Rushe had lunged at Marlowe. The blade missed and the Corpus man grabbed the labourer’s wrist and, using his body as a pivot, twisted the arm backwards. The blade fell from his grip and there was a sickening dull crack as his forearm snapped. Rushe dangled there, on his knees and in agony, as Marlowe hauled him upright.
‘Stop!’ a voice boomed across the noises of the fair. Even before much of a crowd had gathered, Constable Fludd was standing by the duellists, his staff with its lead-weight end under Marlowe’s chin, prodding his ruff. ‘Let him go,’ he growled.
Marlowe looked at the Constable and smiled. ‘Certainly,’ he said and let the man go. Rushe fell with his full weight on his broken arm, gave one grunt of pain and passed out.
The midsummer sun never shone in the gatehouse of Cambridge castle. The tower stood below the old Norman motte, shaded by a copse of birch on one side and a cherry orchard on the other. The castle itself had long ago collapsed, as furtive Cambridge men, at dead of night, had silently lifted the building apart, stone by ancient stone, and carried it away to shore up their tenements in Jesus Lane, Market Hill and Slaughter Yard. Eventually, they had abandoned the night altogether and brazenly quarried the flint and chalk from the motte itself, often under the disinterested gaze of Joseph Fludd’s forebears, constables of the watch who didn’t do much more than that.
They had reinforced the gatehouse in the days of King Harry, adding bars to the windows and the various college Proctors took regular advantage of the brew house in the old barbican. So, despite the rats and the damp, mould-black patches on the Medieval walls, Cambridge gaol had something of a lived-in look.
An ancient man with pale, red-rimmed eyes stared at the young men striding past outside his cell. One was the Constable – the old man knew him well. He was a shit, but you knew where you stood with Trumpy Joe. The other was a well-dressed bastard, a roisterer by his cut. But the old man knew that a week or so in this place would pluck his feathers.
Kit Marlowe waited while Joe Fludd unlocked the charge room. Across the dimly lit passage from him, a harlot called out to him and hauled down her kirtle, waggling her ample breasts at him. Marlowe just smiled as Fludd shepherded him inside and slammed the door. He opened a heavy, leather-bound ledger on the table in front of him and spun it round, dipping a quill into an inkwell and holding it out to Marlowe.
‘I would say “make your mark”,’ Fludd said. ‘But I think you can do better.’
Marlowe took the quill and wrote with a flourish.
‘Machiavel?’ Fludd frowned. ‘Is that really your name?’
Marlowe looked up. The man could not only read, he could read upside down. Impressive. ‘No,’ he said, crossed out the dangerous nickname and wrote again.
‘Christopher Morley?’ Fludd read aloud. Not so good this time.
‘Marlowe,’ Marlowe said. ‘The name’s Marlowe. I think it must be my handwriting. Shocking.’ And he wrote something else alongside.
‘Corpus Christi,’ Fludd read. ‘I shall have to inform the College authorities.’
‘I wouldn’t have it any other way,’ Marlowe said. ‘What are the charges, Master Constable?’
Fludd looked at him. ‘Sit down, Master Marlowe,’ he said.
A little surprised, the Corpus man slid the heavy chair towards him and faced his inquisitor.
‘Tell me,’ Fludd said. ‘How well do you know Harry Rushe?’
‘Well enough to break his arm,’ Marlowe shrugged.
Fludd looked at him. He had looked at many men in his years as Constable. Cutpurses, nippers, foisters, coney-catchers, whores, he’d seen them all. Toothless old ladies who’d rob you blind; cripples who swore they’d lost their legs in France or Scotland and begged a penny to show their stumps; little girls who’d lift their skirts for a farthing; little boys who could slide a silver dagger from its sheath with no noise at all. And Fludd prided himself he could read men’s faces. But he couldn’t read Kit Marlowe’s.
‘Have you met him before today?’ he asked.
‘No,’ Marlowe said flatly. ‘Never.’
‘I have.’ Fludd leaned back in his chair. ‘He’s a troublemaker, Harry Rushe. Lives out by Fen Ditton with the rest of his ungodly brood. He’s broken more heads than I’ve fitted mortices.’ He smiled. ‘Looks like he met his match today, though.’
‘Are you going to lock me up or give me a gold purse?’ Marlowe folded his arms.
‘Neither,’ Fludd suddenly decided and the heavy bunch of keys he’d been toying with were scooped up and hung on a rack near his head. ‘God knows how much mayhem’s been going on at the fair while we’ve been walking here. I will be informing your master . . .’
‘Dr Norgate,’ Marlowe said, helping him. ‘Be my guest.’
‘Stay away from Rushe,’ Fludd told him, ‘and from the fair if you’ll take my advice. If I have to arrest you again, I won’t be so lenient.’
He rattled a wooden box in Marlowe’s direction. ‘For the retired constables’ benevolent fund,’ Fludd said.
Marlowe smiled and popped a handful of coins into the slot. It wasn’t very well-worn so presumably not many people looked on constables in a benevolent way. Then he held out his right hand.
‘Hmm?’ Fludd frowned. ‘Oh, yes.’ He rummaged in his Constable’s coat and hauled out the dagger. ‘Nice piece,’ he said. ‘You know if you’d killed that lout, this would have been the deodand, don’t you?’
‘I know how the law works, Master Constable. And yes, this dagger -’ he slid it back into its sheath – ‘is the most valuable possession I have. It cost more than all my books put together. That tells us a lot about the world, doesn’t it?’
‘Think yourself lucky,’ Fludd told him. ‘You chose a good day to transgress. If I hadn’t got bodies everywhere I look, I’d have shackled you tonight.’
‘Bodies?’ Marlowe asked.
‘Yes. Well, one body, to tell God’s truth. Woman. Fished out of the river yesterday.’
‘Accident?’ Marlowe knew Paradise and the Cam’s little ways. All the same, in his experience, women didn’t swim for pleasure. That was something stupid scholars did, in their cups and egging each other on. Fludd looked at him. This was official business and it was not the Corpus man’s. But something made him confide.
‘Who’s to say? She was found with a rosary tight around her neck. Of course, it could have got tangled with her clothing or the river weeds. But . . .’
‘But you don’t think so?’
‘No.’ Fludd shook his head. ‘No, I don’t.’
‘Tell me, Constable,’ Marlowe spoke softly. ‘Were there any signs on this woman’s body to show that she had been poisoned?’