‘One of these days,’ Johns said, ‘I shall ask you why. Why you go to Chapel so rarely.’
Marlowe turned, smiling. ‘One of these days, Professor, I might tell you.’
‘Professor?’ Johns laughed, his blue eyes twinkling. ‘We’re very formal today, Dominus Marlowe.’
‘Ah.’ The scholar held up his hand. ‘Not Dominus yet, I fear.’
‘This afternoon, though,’ Johns said. ‘I can be forgiven a little prematurity.’
‘Perhaps,’ Marlowe said. ‘But I shan’t take my degree until the lads get theirs.’ He looked at the man before him, and decided to speak what was on his mind. ‘Tell me, Michael, can you step in with the Master? On behalf of the lads, I mean?’
‘The Parker scholars?’ Johns resumed his seat by the window. ‘You’ve always been a father figure to them, haven’t you?’
‘I’m older,’ Marlowe said with a shrug. ‘It’s only natural.’
‘No, there’s more to it than that. They look up to you. Most of the student body does. What Marlowe does, they do.’ He paused, knowing that what Marlowe did was not always a good thing. ‘Were you with them last night?’ he asked.
Marlowe turned to face him. ‘Is the Pope the Bishop of Rome?’ he asked.
Johns laughed. Then, suddenly, he was serious. ‘Kit,’ he said. ‘Sit down, will you?’
Marlowe turned on one toe and flopped down on the window seat, leaning back against the transom and folding his arms, looking at Johns from under his half-lowered lids.
‘What are you going to do with your life?’ the Professor asked.
‘Do?’
‘Well, the Church, naturally,’ Johns said. ‘But somehow, I just don’t see you . . .’
‘In a surplice handing out the Eucharist?’ Marlowe chuckled. ‘No. Neither do I.’
‘The law, then?’ Johns suggested. ‘When your new classes begin . . . Or what about medicine? It’s a subject that’s the coming thing, believe me. All those potions and elixirs. Fascinating.’
‘The theatre,’ Marlowe cut in.
‘What?’ Johns blinked.
‘Drama. Poetry. Air and fire. That’s the coming thing.’
Johns looked as if somebody had just stabbed him in the heart. ‘Not coming to Cambridge, I hope,’ he said.
‘Oh, no.’ Marlowe chuckled. ‘All that’s coming to Cambridge is more of the Godly, the Puritan persuasion. If there’s a tavern standing come Lady Day, I’ll be astonished.’
‘Don’t joke, Kit,’ Johns warned solemnly. ‘You don’t know how powerful . . .’
‘The college authorities are? Oh, I’ve got a pretty good idea.’
‘No,’ Johns said, looking even more ashen than usual. ‘I didn’t mean that. Kit – promise me something.’
Marlowe shrugged. He didn’t make promises, not ones he couldn’t keep. It had something to do with his immortal soul.
‘Conform, Kit.’ Johns leaned forward to him. ‘Please – conform.’
Marlowe pushed himself upright from where he lounged on the window seat, then stood up, stretching. ‘Perhaps that word sounds better in Greek.’ He smiled down at Johns. ‘Or Hebrew. I’m afraid I don’t understand it in English.’ He crossed to the door. ‘Time for breakfast,’ he said. ‘Michael -’ he turned in the archway – ‘you’ll do what you can for the lads?’
And he was gone.
They stood in a hollow square as the sun sat high in the Heavens, nearly a hundred strong, the Master, Fellows and Scholars of Corpus Christi College. Only the servants were absent, busy with their duties and forbidden to watch what was to follow on pain of the same.
The scholars had all seen this before and some of them had felt it, the knotted lash with its nine tails. Gabriel Harvey stood four-square with the Master, the Fellows behind him in their tassels and gold lace, glinting in the summer sun. Funny how everybody dresses up for torture, to celebrate a Roman holiday.
The three stood in the centre, leaning forward with their wrists strapped with leather thongs to the rough wooden pyramid frame the Proctors had placed there. They were stripped to the waist, the points dangling from their woollen hose and their skin pale in the sunshine.
‘Scholars of Corpus Christi.’ Dr Norgate’s voice was strong over the rising breeze that fluttered gowns and headgear and took some of the heat from the midday sun. ‘Witness the punishment of three of your number who failed to obey the college curfew and were found the worse for drink.’
He let the words sink in, noting one or two of the older scholars who arched an eyebrow or eased a collar. This was to encourage the others; the lesson would not be lost.
‘Proctors, do your duty.’
Marlowe saw the relish on Lomas’ face as he began to lash. His right arm snaked back and the whip thudded across Bromerick’s shoulder blades, followed almost instantly by Darryl’s strike. There was a gasp from the younger boys as the knots bit home, the wicked tips of the whip cutting the pale flesh and leaving a slash of blood.
Bromerick’s body convulsed and he bit down on the leather pad that Darryl had shoved unceremoniously between his teeth. As the second blow fell and the third, a single tear trickled down Bromerick’s cheek. His hair was matted with sweat and his legs felt like jelly but he wasn’t going to cry out. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.
Before the last stroke, Lomas held back, shifting the haft of the cat in his hand, for more purchase for his encore. Darryl’s rope sliced the air and cut diagonally across the pulp of Bromerick’s back. As the scholar turned to stare defiantly at his tormentors, Lomas deliberately sent the whip high, slapping across his mouth and cheek so that the blood spurted in a sudden arc.
Marlowe moved forward, his jaw set, his body rigid. Only Michael Johns quietly standing in front of him and laying a hand on his chest stopped him. ‘Conform!’ he hissed.
Then, as the bleeding Bromerick slumped, exhausted and beaten on the triangle, the Proctors went to work on Colwell, then Parker. They had had to wait in an agony of helplessness and frustration, watching the pain inflicted on Bromerick and knowing it was coming to them. It seemed to go on forever, the whistling and thump of the whips, the grunts of exertion from the Proctors. In the far corner, near the Master’s Lodge, there was a brief commotion as a sizar fainted. The lad turned white and pitched forward on his face. He had been unable to watch and unable to look away, all at the same time. Somebody scooped him up and propped him, with his cold, sweating forehead lolling on his updrawn knees, against a wall.
Then, all was silence, except for Lomas and Darryl, who were puffing, red-faced from their hard work. No one was sorry to see that Lomas in particular found his breath hard to catch, and the tortured whistle as he drew air into his lungs was music to many ears in the hollow square.
Kit Marlowe was not a man to make promises, but he made one to himself that morning. There would be a reckoning.
Dr Norgate stepped forward as if he were taking the service in Chapel. ‘An offence like this,’ he said, his voice echoing around the courtyard, ‘would normally result in these scholars being sent down.’
Even the Proctors were silent now.
‘However,’ the Master went on, glancing in Johns’ direction, ‘representation has been made and these young men, fine young men as I know them to be, will be given their degrees when their wounds have healed.’
No one dared cheer or applaud. Somehow, the moment was not right. Marlowe nodded to Johns a silent thank you. Then he went to unhitch his lads from the triangle. The Master and the Fellows marched away, followed by the scholars, whispering urgently to each other about what they’d just seen.
‘Next time, Master Marlowe,’ Lomas sneered as he coiled his whip away.
Marlowe smiled at him, untying Bromerick’s hemp first. ‘Oh no, Master Proctor,’ he said. ‘In a few days I shall be Dominus Marlowe and if you lay a hand on me – or any of my friends – I will kill you.’ And there was something in his eyes that made Lomas believe it. Marlowe closed to him, grinning widely. ‘Not much moon again tonight, I’ll wager. You watch your back.’