The guests were to arrive any day and it was irritating beyond measure that Roger Manwood had turned up like a bad penny, expecting hospitality on a royal scale. And even more galling that he’d offered that weird old cove from Mortlake a bed for a few nights. Hynde considered charging them, then lost that thought as the claret warmed his soul and clouded his brain simultaneously.
Dee and Manwood scuttled ahead of Ursula to Manwood’s room, but mayhem met them there. A confused dove, destined for part of the wedding service and then for a pie, flew in through the open window and was fluttering in terror around the ceiling as an equally terrified maid tried to shoo it away.
As he did an about-turn in the doorway, Dee’s swirling cloak did little to soothe either the girl or the bird and Dee and Manwood hotfooted it down the back stairs, to the consternation of Hynde’s steward, who had an overdeveloped sense of where the nobs belonged. He backed into his room at the rear of the house and took refuge in yet more of Sir Francis’s best brandy, despite the day being still very new.
Hurrying through the Physick Garden in their attempt to escape, Dee and Manwood eventually found the shade of a huge old oak and sank gratefully into the smooth-worn bark of the roots.
‘God’s wounds, that woman is unbelievable,’ grunted Manwood, peering anxiously round the bole of the tree. Despite putting some distance between themselves and the house, her hooting tones could still be heard.
‘You’ve even got to feel sorry for Francis,’ Dee said, rummaging in his pouch. ‘And that’s not something you’ll hear often from me. I know he’s a friend of yours, Roger, but . . .’
Manwood held up a hand. ‘Dear boy, I’m with you all the way. He’s not the Francis Hynde I used to know. Mind like a bodkin, witty, informed. Look at him now,’ he said, and he mimed swigging from a bottle in mid-air.
‘Her, do you think?’ Dee asked. ‘Ursula?’ It didn’t take much of a seer to offer that interpretation.
As if he had called her from the vasty deep, Ursula Hynde’s voice was suddenly very near. They cowered behind their tree.
‘Do you call that a ha-ha?’ she bellowed. ‘It’s a wonder my dear brother-in-law isn’t a laughing stock the length and breadth of the county. But there again, perhaps he is. Dig it wider. Deeper.’ There was a pause. ‘And five feet further from the house.’ In the silence that followed, the men could hear, above the petrified beating of their own hearts, the whistling of the breath in her nostrils. ‘Well?’ she yelled. ‘Get a spade, man. Don’t just stand there!’ It was all Dee and Manwood, married men of some standing and used to jumping to it, could do to stay hidden.
‘Is Francis making all these changes?’ Dee asked.
‘I hardly think so,’ Manwood said. ‘But, as you implied just now, she is the sister-in-law from Hell and the poor chap does seem to have taken to the bottle. But this chap she’s marrying – Steane, is it? Blind, is he? Deaf? Desperate?’
Dee shrugged. ‘This is no more my neck of the woods than it is yours, Roger. I only came because of Marlowe.’
‘Yes.’ Manwood became serious. ‘You and I both. That’s what I want to talk to you about. What are you doing, man?’
Dee had been occupied for the last few minutes stuffing dried herbs into a clay bowl with a stem attached. He now thoroughly alarmed the Justice of the Peace by striking a flint to a tinder and setting fire to the herbs.
‘Do you drink smoke?’ Dee asked him.
‘Do I what?’
Dee inhaled fiercely at the narrow end of the stem and proceeded to blow smoke rings to the bright-green leaves overhead.
‘Good God!’ Manwood looked horrified.
There was a distant cry of, ‘Look lively, you, man, there. That tree appears to be on fire. It will ruin the outlook if it burns down. See to it.’
‘Now see what you’ve done,’ Manwood whispered, and Dee lowered his pipe. Running footsteps over the grass alerted them to the approach of a gardener who appeared around the tree, carrying a skin of water. The two men shushed him frantically and he retraced his steps, eyes wide. They gave him a minute to get away and strained their ears for more shrieks, but all seemed quiet for the moment.
Dee raised the burning herbs to his mouth again, and puffed, looking at Manwood over that hook of a nose. ‘This is all the rage in London. Canterbury isn’t exactly a distant star, Roger. I can’t believe the craze hasn’t caught on there.’
‘Craze indeed.’ Manwood was still staring at the contraption in Dee’s hand. ‘What’s it for?’
‘It calms the intellect,’ Dee said. ‘Sharpens the wits and focuses the mind. This is the tobacco plant – from Virginia in the New World. John Hawkins brought it back, ooh, twenty years ago now. I have Penn’s and Lobel’s herbal at home, but their drawings leave a lot to be desired, I’m afraid.’ He puffed slowly, savouring the smoke. ‘Francis Drake thinks it might be a curative.’
‘What for?’ Manwood asked.
‘Oh, toothache. Worms, lockjaw, migraine. Umm . . . the plague, of course, cancer, labour pains. And bad breath.’
‘All those?’ Manwood was staggered.
‘None of them, dear boy.’ Dee shook his head. ‘That’s just what Francis Drake thinks. And off the deck of a ship, the man’s an idiot. Care to try?’
Tentatively, Manwood took the pipe and put it to his mouth. ‘What do I do now,’ he asked, a trifle indistinctly.
‘Breathe in, man,’ Dee said. ‘Deep as you can.’
Manwood did so and immediately wished he hadn’t, coughing, spluttering and sneezing all at the same time.
‘Stop that sneezing!’ came a distant screech. ‘I will not have my wedding day marred by illness of any kind. Find the source of the pestilence and have it removed.’ There were no running feet this time and the men relaxed against the warm bark of the oak.
‘God’s breath,’ Manwood finally managed to wheeze.
Dee chuckled. ‘I’m not sure whether it’s God’s or the Devil’s,’ he said. ‘It’s an acquired taste, perhaps.’
‘Acquired is the right word,’ gasped Manwood, passing the pipe back. ‘And I have no intention of acquiring it.’ He wiped his mouth and eyes, trying to focus again in the hot July morning sun.
‘Your loss,’ Dee said with a shrug. ‘Now, to cases, Marlowe. You knew this Whitingside well, of course.’
‘He was my ward,’ Manwood said. ‘But I’d be lying if I said he was like a son to me.’
Dee knew that. Roger Manwood was one of those people who made the bringing up of wards a business proposition. That was why they had a court for such things in London.
‘But he lived in my house for . . . ooh, let’s see . . .’ He let his head rest back against the tree trunk. ‘It must have been four years. He was one of several wards at the time. I’ve given it all up now of course. At my age I’m getting tired of young people. They’re too damned earnest and holier-than-you for my liking.’ He glanced sideways at his old friend; almost everyone was holier than John Dee. ‘I’ve just got the one now, Joyce. A couple of London merchants have expressed an interest, but I’m holding out for Lord Scrope; he’s in the market for wifey number three, you know, turning heads at Court, that sort of thing. Such a vain bastard.’
‘Whitingside,’ Dee reminded him. How this man was able to focus on the job in hand on the Bench was beyond him. Scourge of the night prowlers indeed!
‘I know what you’re after, John,’ Manwood said, sitting upright again. ‘You want a nice little motive on a pewter platter, all parcelled up with ribbon. Well, I’m afraid the sordid world of murder doesn’t work like that. Oh, you’ve got the easy job. Anybody can tell how a man was killed . . . well, almost anybody. No, the problem is why. The Ralph Whitingside I knew was typical minor gentry. Same class as you and me. He was a bit wild, you know. He and young Marlowe sowed a few wild oats, I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘But Marlowe’s younger, surely?’ Dee checked.
‘By two years, yes. Whitingside saved him from drowning once.’