‘Never!’ Marlowe was mock-outraged on his patron’s behalf. You couldn’t help but love Sir Roger Manwood. Yes, he was the scourge of the night-prowler. Yes, he took bribes for England. Yes, he burnt heretics. But he wasn’t a bigot – Catholics and Puritans both fried on his command. They were all the same to him. But he lived at Hawe, not two miles from Marlowe’s home at the West Gate in Canterbury and he’d put the boy forward for the King’s School. The rest was history.
‘Nicholson.’ Mister Justice Manwood clicked his fingers and pointed to the horses. ‘Find somewhere to put those, will you? Then join us. Christopher’ll get the drinks in.’
That was how they’d first met, in fact. Kit Marlowe was only eight when he’d tipped half a flagon of ale over the great man’s boots in the Star. He’d expected a cuff round the ear but instead he got kindness and a lifelong friend in the passageways of power.
Soon they were all three tucking in to cakes and ale at the Kettle. Roger Manwood looked around him vaguely. ‘Nicholson. Did we not have some parcels when we set out? For Christopher.’
Nicholson reached under the table and brought out two objects, wrapped in rough cloth. He gave the larger to Marlowe. ‘Shoes, Kit,’ he said. ‘From your father. Made on your old last, so I hope your feet haven’t grown.’
‘I think not.’ Marlowe smiled. ‘What’s in the other parcel?’ He reached out for it.
‘Hmm.’ Nicholson was in a quandary. He knew from Ann that it contained hand-knitted stockings from Katherine Marlowe, Kit’s beloved mother. He also knew that Mistress Marlowe was no great fist with the needles, so from the outside there was no way to tell. Best to keep counsel. ‘Could be anything, Kit. It’s from your mother.’
‘Ah.’ Marlowe pressed it, and then shook it, holding it up to his ear. ‘Well,’ he said, thoughtfully. ‘It is quite hard in places and soft in others. It is a very odd shape.’ He shook it again and then smelt it. ‘It isn’t food,’ he said and gave it one last squeeze. He looked up at the two with a broad smile. ‘It’s stockings! Look -’ and he held the parcel out – ‘that thick bit is where she turned the heel.’ He loved his mother, but with her stockings on his feet, he had no need of shoes. He tucked the parcels behind his chair. ‘Thank you for bringing these.’
Manwood had sat patiently through the procedure, a fond smile on his face. Now it was his turn. ‘Tell me about dear old Ralph . . .’
By the time the tale was told, the afternoon sun was gilding the worn oak trestles and glinting dully on the pewter ware. Marlowe had missed three lectures and Sir Roger’s gout had pinned his left leg in one position, around which the Kettle’s serving woman had to tread warily.
‘So what’s your best guess?’ the Justice asked.
Marlowe bent his head lower, staring into the dregs of his tankard. ‘Ralph Whitingside was murdered, Sir Roger. I’d stake my degree on that. The question is, how? And the next question is, who?’
Manwood sighed. ‘Indeed,’ he said, nodding. ‘The lad was my ward. Under my roof at Hawe for four years.’ He brushed away a tear, he who never dealt in sentiment. ‘I owe him.’
‘I’m glad to hear you say that, sir,’ Marlowe said.
But Manwood held up his hand. ‘Don’t pin your hopes on me, boy,’ he growled. ‘I’m an old man and I have no jurisdiction here. I’d do more harm than good. You, on the other hand . . .’
‘Sir Roger,’ Marlowe explained. ‘I’m a scholar, sir. Still on the cusp of graduation. I have no skill, no money, no power.’
Manwood looked at him and frowned. ‘I’ve heard it said the others call you Machiavel.’
‘Where did you hear that?’ Marlowe asked.
‘Never mind.’ Manwood chuckled ruefully. ‘Is it true?’
Marlowe shrugged.
‘Then live up to the bastard’s name. If I’d had Nicolo Machiavelli in my ward in Canterbury, I’d have nailed his ears to a post, cut out his entrails and fed them to my dogs in front of him. But I concede his ideas got results. You must do the same.’
Marlowe shook his head. ‘I don’t . . .’ and he felt Manwood’s iron grip on his forearm.
‘It’s July,’ the Justice said. ‘As it was some . . . what . . . eight years ago, I remember two boys playing in the river at Hawe.’
‘Sir Roger . . .’
‘One of them took a tumble, landed in the current. And the current carried him away.’
‘Sir Roger . . .’
‘The other jumped in, without a second’s thought for his own safety and dragged him from certain death. Now, what were their names? Ah, how the memory plays tricks.’
‘Sir Roger . . .’
‘What, sir?’ Manwood snapped. ‘Would you deny your Lord three times, blasphemer? Ralph Whitingside saved your life, Christopher Marlowe. Find out who ended his. You owe him that much, at least.’
The silence lay heavy between them.
‘Two questions, Christopher,’ Manwood grated. ‘How? And who?’ He took a draught from his tankard. ‘The who is your responsibility. But the how . . . I can’t help you myself, but I know a man who can. If anyone can explain Ralph’s death to you, it’s my old friend John Dee.’
‘The Queen’s Magus?’ Marlowe looked up.
Manwood nodded. ‘The same. You’ll find him at Mortlake, along the Thames. Nicholson here will get you a horse. And William?’ Manwood half turned to his man, smiling and laying a hand on his sleeve. ‘Something decent, please; not just four legs and a hole to put the hay.’
In the event, William Nicholson did Christopher Marlowe proud and Friday morning saw him trotting south over the hard-rutted road past Constable Fludd’s carpenter’s shop through Trumpington on the highway to Royston. The rains of the early summer had gone and the hemlock and bryony alongside the road bore a creamy frill from the thick dust thrown up with the passing traffic.
Marlowe’s bay gelding moved easily, hoofs raising dust at his high-carried tail. He travelled light, his blanket cloak wrapped round Ralph Whitingside’s rapier bouncing on the saddle cantle behind him. He had not ridden in a while and when he dismounted to pee behind a gorse bush, felt the muscles in his thighs like lead.
It was nearly noon as he neared the town and saw before him, plodding on the road, a funeral procession winding down the gentle hill. They had rigged a makeshift bier to a cart harness and a shaggy-coated pony plodded ahead of its sad load. A black cloth wafted occasionally in the breeze and every few yards an outrider rang a handbell for any slower traveller to clear the way. This was clearly not a cortège bound immediately for the grave and by the dust on the sombre pall Marlowe knew the party had been on the road for more than a day.
A grim-faced yeoman and his wife sat inside a carriage in front of the bier and nodded to Marlowe as he trotted past, doffing his cap in respect. This was no plague victim, he knew, since no plague victim could leave the town in which they died. And he never knew their names. It was Jeremiah and Jane Butler bringing their drowned kinswoman home for burial.
Marlowe reined in his horse at the market house and pressed a coin into a scruffy boy’s hand to hold the animal for him. He downed a pasty and some ale before finding the midden in the yard, and rode on, thudding under the ruined wall of the ancient priory of the Austin Friars, demolished and despoiled and taken away to provide new buildings for Royston town.
The sun was already low over the harvest fields as he clattered across the meandering Lea into the high street of Ware. Again, the ruined grey, this time of a Franciscan priory, sitting like a rotten tooth beside the town. Dogs barked, snapping at his horse’s heels as he took the rise. He dismounted in the cobbled yard of the Saracen’s Head and found the innkeeper, a surly individual who would have turned away Joseph and Mary themselves.