‘So Marlowe feels he owes his soul something.’ Dee was gazing into the middle distance, beyond the warm stone that was Madingley with its green cupolas and the stable wing beyond, trying to establish events in his mind.
Manwood always became uneasy when John Dee started talking about souls. If the Queen died tomorrow, the Privy Council might have the magus burnt. The scourge of the night prowlers liked to keep a back door open in this relationship, just in case. He didn’t press the point further. ‘There was talk of a girl,’ the Justice suddenly remembered. ‘Some bad feeling between Whitingside and Marlowe. What was her name?’
‘Marlowe and a girl?’ Dee frowned.
Manwood raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
‘And of course you knew the other one – Broderick – didn’t you?’
‘I did. Nice enough lad, I suppose, but there was always something . . . bovine about him. He didn’t sparkle like the other King’s School lads.’
‘Marlowe most of all.’ Dee puffed his pipe.
‘Ah,’ Manwood chuckled. ‘There’s no one like Kit Marlowe. Mark my words, John, that man has greatness in him.’
‘Or a short end,’ Dee said.
‘You spoke to this local Constable, didn’t you?’ Manwood asked. ‘About Bromerick, I mean?’
‘I did,’ Dee confirmed.
‘Any good?’ Manwood asked.
‘For a provincial Constable, very,’ Dee said. ‘But he’s got his hands full with some woman found in the river.’
‘Any connection?’ Manwood wanted to know.
Dee puffed deep on the pipe, much to his friend’s disgust. ‘I can’t see how. Constable Fludd has found her relatives – they came from Royston, I believe. There’s no evidence she knew Whitingside or Bromerick or any of them. It is, as the Papists used to have it in connection with the Eucharist, a mystery.’
Manwood leaned forward. ‘I told Marlowe he was on his own,’ he said.
‘So did I,’ agreed Dee.
‘And yet, here we are, on a summer’s day, nonny-nonny, trolly-lolly, fretting about him.’
‘Oh, I’m not fretting about Marlowe,’ Dee said, blowing smoke again. ‘But I’m a man who likes answers to riddles, Roger. I can’t let things go.’
‘Riddles, eh?’ Suddenly Francis Hynde was there, still clutching his bottle, joining them where they lolled in the sun in his best hiding place. ‘I love a good riddle.’ He smiled beatifically at them. ‘I have a good one. Wait a minute . . . it’s about . . . no, it’s gone.’ He tipped the bottle up, a proof of hope over experience as it had been empty for some time. He frowned at the men, seeming to register them for the first time. ‘You shouldn’t be here, you know,’ he announced. ‘It’s very dangerous. This tree’s on fire.’ And with that, he passed out neatly across their legs and began to snore.
Dee glanced down at his host, then pointed to the edge of the Physick Garden where dear Ursie was still marshalling her troops. ‘And talking of riddles,’ he said, ‘what are the odds of foxgloves growing at Madingley, when they shouldn’t be here at all?’
ELEVEN
No one went out that night. At least, not the Parker scholars. A couple of sizars from ‘F’ staircase had sneaked out behind the night soil men and Marlowe had watched them go, holding their noses at the same time as keeping their eyes open for the prowling Proctors. He had tutted and shaken his head. Each generation had to learn their own lesson; it was no use telling them. Not only would Lomas and Darryl be waiting for their return, the smell of them would make the hunting easy.
‘And you say he asked for me by name?’ he said, turning from the window where his reflection flickered for an instant, four times in the thick, uneven panes.
‘He did.’ Parker was munching an apple. ‘When we asked him why he wanted to know, he said he’d heard the name somewhere, from someone in London and he couldn’t remember who.’
‘Who do you know in London, Kit?’ Colwell asked, plucking idly at his lute.
Marlowe shrugged. ‘Nobody,’ he said. ‘What did you pair of innocents abroad tell him about me?’
‘Nothing,’ Parker said, perhaps a shade too quickly.
‘Liar,’ Marlowe muttered.
‘Well . . .’ Colwell was working out his defence, long learned in the School of Logic. ‘He seemed such an honest fellow. Ex Granta man. One of us.’
‘One of us is dead, Tom,’ Marlowe said softly. Any further conversation seemed pointless after that. Colwell twanged the lute strings once, twice more, then put the thing down. They all heard a dog barking in the distance, out along the High Ward in the July darkness and the rattle of a cart creaking its way home.
Marlowe fished idly in the bag that Dr Steane had brought them, handling Ralph Whitingside’s handkerchiefs and gloves. He hadn’t really noticed the mirror before. None of the Parker scholars had one and the teaching of the churches now was that such things smacked of vanity and vanity was fast becoming a sin above all others, even though Marlowe was constantly telling the boys that the only real sin was ignorance. Marlowe found himself smiling, not at his own crooked reflection in the mirror but that Ralphie would have checked his own very carefully before slipping over the wall for a night on the town, combing the elegant moustache, curling the well-placed ringlet. What a waste it all was. Marlowe tossed the thing casually among the papers on his desk.
Suddenly, he stiffened, catching his breath despite himself.
‘Kit?’ Colwell caught the movement.
Marlowe grabbed the mirror again, angling it against the parchment. Then, he brushed it all aside – his scribbled poetry, his jottings on the Queen of Carthage, even some university lecture notes that he was supposed to be working on. And he hauled out Whitingside’s journal. He nodded to himself, smiling grimly.
‘Kit!’ Colwell shouted. ‘What the Devil . . . ?’
‘Tell me about the Dark Entry,’ Marlowe said.
‘What?’ Parker had stopped munching and waited, not noticing the trickle of juice working its way down his chin.
‘Come on, Kit,’ Colwell said. ‘You know as well as we do. This is not the time for schoolboy reminiscences.’
‘Oh, but it is, dear boy. Matt? The Dark Entry?’
Parker sat upright on his bed. He put down his apple core and wiped his chin. He was as game for riddles as the next man. ‘It’s the name we all had, all us King’s scholars, for the entry to the school from the cathedral cloisters, through Prior Sellingegate.’
Marlowe nodded. ‘What do you remember of it, Tom?’ he asked.
Colwell hadn’t moved.
‘Come on, man!’ Marlowe was shouting now. ‘You walked through those arches every day of your life for five years. Think!’
‘There were five arches,’ Colwell said, quietly, sending his mind back in time, ‘from Prior Sellingegate. It was very dark in winter. In the freezing mornings. I used to run.’
‘Why?’ Marlowe asked.
Colwell looked at him, then at Parker, then away, looking at no one, confronting his own past. ‘I didn’t like it,’ he said. ‘When you’re eight, silly things frighten you.’
‘Henry knew that,’ Marlowe said. ‘He’d tease you, wouldn’t he? Play jokes. Jump out at you in the darkest recess?’
Colwell nodded and shuddered, as though someone had walked over his grave. ‘I’d forgotten all about it,’ he said, ‘until now.’
‘What’s all this about, Kit?’ Parker wanted to know.
‘Come here,’ Marlowe said and the boys clustered round him. He held up the mirror against the page. ‘Who was working on this bit?’ he asked.
Colwell looked shamefaced. ‘I should have been,’ he muttered. ‘But . . . Henry was. This was the bit he gave to Johns who said he’d pass it on to a colleague.’
‘Well, Professor Johns should be ashamed of himself.’ Marlowe tapped his arm affectionately. ‘Matthew Parker, how is your Greek?’
‘It’s backwards!’ Parker roared as if he’d discovered the origins of the universe and the elixir of life in one rapturous moment. ‘Ralphie wrote this bit backwards. That’s why we couldn’t make sense of it!’