Dee sprang back, pulling Marlowe with him. ‘Give him room!’ he said, his eyes bright even in the near-darkness. ‘Let the dead speak!’
Marlowe jumped a mile as a voice in his ear shouted loudly enough to break the drums. Dee was expecting a reply, but nonetheless gave a small start.
‘Let the dead speak? Not in my parish!’ The priest of St Stephen’s, who had turned a deaf ear and a blind eye in compassion for Ralph Whitingside’s friends at the illicit burial, was having no truck with necromancy or any other -mancy, for that matter. The Reverend John Springer was of the new persuasion. He allowed no rings at his wedding ceremonies and there were no pews in his church. He had personally painted over the Garden of Eden on his vestry wall and was happy to throw the thigh bone of St Stephen into his rose garden, where it might do some good.
He had been watching these two for some time and, whilst a little gentle grieving by candlelight was all very well, although a little morbid for his own personal taste, he had been alerted by his serving girl as she turned down their bed, that there were dark doings in the churchyard. Not quite in the churchyard, but near enough and, dragging on his cassock, Springer had sprinted out of his house hard by the church wall and done his work.
Springer was built like an ox and toyed with banging the heads of these black magicians together before having them burned. The old man would be a walkover, but the younger one looked as if he might be able to handle himself and Springer’s Christianity was not as muscular as all that.
‘Get out of my parish and don’t let me see either of you again!’ he bellowed. The pitchfork he had leaned against the wall for extra emphasis decided the pair when in the hands of a religious maniac and they ran for it.
From what he judged to be a safe distance, Dee shouted back at the man. ‘Do you know who I am, hedge priest? I am John Dee, Magus to the Queen of England.’
‘Well done!’ Springer said. ‘I hope she would be proud, to know you were conjuring up spirits who should be allowed to sleep in peace. Go on with you, both of you, and do your nasty conjuring somewhere else. If I see you again, it’ll be the Consistory Court and then the stake.’ He shook the pitchfork for emphasis and Marlowe and Dee thought it best to resume their headlong flight, not really slowing down until they turned the corner of Bene’t’s Lane and cannoned into Constable Fludd.
‘I didn’t finish it,’ Dee hissed to Marlowe before the introductions were made. ‘God only knows what will happen in the Potter’s Field from now on. The banishing rite!’ He was shaking his head. ‘My God! My God!’
Back at the wrong side of the churchyard wall, the ground settled back into place with an almost inaudible sigh. For now.
Henry Bromerick lay pale and ghastly on the bier in the little room in St Bene’t’s, the temporary resting place of Corpus scholars before they were carried with cap and bells to the little graveyard that nestled next to The Court. Sometimes families claimed their dead and took them away to their homes, to bury them in their own churchyards with the yews and the mouldering stones for company.
No one was thinking that far ahead in the case of Henry Bromerick, certainly not Dr Norgate who stood bareheaded by the boy’s corpse. And certainly not Professor Johns who stood with him.
There was an unceremonious crash as the little door that linked the church to the college swung back and the sound of boots clattered on the stone outside. Kit Marlowe stood in the doorway, his cloak and hat gone, his doublet unlaced. He barely noticed Norgate and Johns and acknowledged neither of them, striding across the room and taking Bromerick’s cold hand. The boy’s thatch of brown hair was swept back from his face where the woman-who-does had brushed it for him. The face itself had been washed and the eyelids closed. Only the stains on the Corpus robe remained, a darkness spread over the pelican and lilies.
Bromerick’s jaw was set fast, the mouth slightly open, the scar of Lomas’ whip darker than the skin around it. His fingers felt like iron in Marlowe’s grasp.
‘Kit,’ Johns said softly, touching his arm. ‘We are so sorry.’
‘Yes.’ Norgate nodded, having forgotten his manners in the events of the last couple of hours. ‘Yes, Dominus Morley. Please accept our condolences.’
Marlowe looked up at them both, the soft kindliness of Michael Johns, the aloof, studied sophistication of Norgate. ‘I’d like someone else to see this,’ he said.
‘Someone . . . ?’
But before Norgate had finished his question, Marlowe had dashed back to the door and ushered in the man with whom he had tried to raise the dead. Dee nodded, but no more to the men in the room, Bromerick among them. Then he took the dead man’s hand, as Marlowe had done, and checked his finger nails. He placed his palm on Bromerick’s forehead and lifted an eyelid.
‘Sir . . .’ Norgate was outraged but Marlowe lifted a finger to stop him and it worked.
Dee frowned when he saw the stained robe front. ‘This man has been dead for some hours,’ he said in the treacly voice that fascinated Marlowe. ‘See, the stiffness of death is in his fingers, his jaw.’ He looked up to the little oriel window where the first light of dawn was creeping through the shadows. ‘He will be stiff as a board by breakfast time. By tonight he will be soft again, malleable – and we’ll know more. If I may have the body then?’ he asked the assembly. ‘On my own.’
‘Have the body?’ Norgate finally exploded. ‘Sir, this is Corpus Christi College . . .’
‘We must ask who you are, sir.’ Johns felt the need to support the Master.
‘This is Dr John Dee of Mortlake,’ Marlowe answered. ‘Doctor Norgate, Master of Corpus Christi and Professor Johns.’
‘The Queen’s Magus?’ Johns whispered in awe.
Norgate was less impressed. ‘Her Majesty may confide in you, sir. I do not. And I am the law here in Corpus Christi and I’ll have no truck with fairground charlatans. You will kindly leave the college precincts or I will have you removed.’
‘Master . . .’ Johns began, but Marlowe cut him short.
‘Two friends of mine have died in the last twelve days, Dr Norgate,’ he said, levelly. ‘You’ll forgive me if I find this fact seriously disturbing and not a little odd. If you defy Dr Dee, sir, you’re treading on dangerous ground.’
‘Dangerous . . .’ Norgate was speechless.
‘Master Marlowe.’ Dee smiled. He had been in these situations before. ‘We must not presume on the good Doctor’s time. I remember my days at Trinity. The Master is God, even on this hallowed ground. Is there somewhere you could buy me breakfast? I always think better on a full stomach.’
Dee tucked into his new milk, hot bread and frumenty like there was no tomorrow – as of course for Harry Bromerick there wasn’t.
Joseph Fludd was no slouch either, waving at the serving wench in the Kettle to top up his milk. Only Marlowe didn’t eat. He sat nursing a pitcher of water and left it undrunk.
‘Tell me again,’ Marlowe said to the Constable, even though he had heard it twice over as the pair had jogged back along the darkened Cambridge streets, Dee stumbling behind them as best he could. Even leading the horses, Fludd and Marlowe easily outpaced the man and had reached St Bene’t’s ahead of him.
‘Master Bromerick was found here.’ Fludd placed a fruit bowl in the centre of the table. ‘This is Lion Yard.’ He looked up at Dee, as though explaining to a savage from the Frozen Sea. ‘Off Petty Cury.’
‘I know where it is, Master Constable.’ Dee raised a deadly eyebrow. ‘I was a Fellow of Trinity at its foundation. There are not many holes-in-corners of this town of yours I don’t know. Tell me, do the roisterers still warm their arses on the stools of Little Germany, or is the Cardinal’s Cap the place to be? Or perhaps -’ he nudged Kit – ‘I should ask Master Marlowe that.’
Marlowe smiled despite himself. ‘I understand from the more idle of my fellows that it’s the Blue Boar these days,’ he said.