There was an abrupt discord which brought the choir to attention, and then the dot and carry one gait of Dr Thirling was heard making its way up the nave. A rustle of papers and a soft oath confirmed it was the choirmaster; despite climbing the shallow steps to the choir many times a day, the third one, slightly higher than the others by a merest whisker, almost always got him, to the perennial amusement of the choristers. After a short pause, the Fellow appeared in the gateway in the Rood screen and approached his lectern, his conducting staff in one hand, his music, all anyhow, in the other. His gaze raked the faces turned expectantly towards him.
‘Gentlemen.’ He smiled briefly and sketched a bow. ‘I am so sorry to keep you waiting, but -’ and he thwacked himself on the thigh – ‘this leg of mine needs exercise and I lost track of time on the Backs on this beautiful day. It doesn’t matter, does it, how often one revels in the beauty . . .’ a skirling chord from above brought him back to the task in hand. ‘Yes, well, enough of that, perhaps.’ He cleared his throat and began again. ‘Thank you for your time this morning. I would particularly like to welcome Master Marlowe, and Master . . . umm.’
‘Colwell,’ Tom called.
‘Colwell and Master . . . umm,’ he continued.
‘Parker,’ Matt said, quieter, waiting for the punch line.
‘Oh, Parker. As in Parker scholar? The Archbishop of . . .’
‘Yes. Canterbury. Grandfather.’ Matt was seriously considering changing his name. Something with no connection with anyone famous. He had quite liked the name Walter Ralegh; that would be a good one. No one had ever heard of him.
‘I see,’ said Thirling, turning to the decani side. ‘Gentlemen, would you like a short practice with just the men’s voices, or shall we just take it at a run?’
The rather decimated King’s gentlemen muttered between themselves, the general consensus being that on the run was fine by them and were they getting paid cash for this and was it time and a half? Thirling chose not to hear – finances were for other people, not artistes like himself.
The choirmaster tapped his staff briskly on the floor. ‘Gentlemen of Corpus Christi, are you familiar with If Ye Love Me?’
The three looked at each other and then nodded to Thirling. It had been a favourite with their choirmaster at Canterbury, a complex piece which when sung well reduced congregations to tears with its sweetness. When sung badly, tears sprang to the eye as well, but in response to the dissonances, which could break windows at quite a distance.
‘Thank you, gentlemen. On my count and . . .’ Thirling raised his staff to Falconer, who gave them their note, long, high and lingering. The cantoris trebles came in like larks, to be taken up in thirds by the decani and then the men. The words and the melody wound on to their conclusion, ending with a harmony so sweet that it sounded like one note, sung by the angels over the Rood screen, their wings pointing to God.
The note died away to silence and Thirling stood there, swaying slightly, thumb and forefinger pinched together, staff raised, eyes closed. The choir held their breath.
‘Beautiful,’ he said. ‘Absolutely perfect.’ The makeshift choir smiled at each other and relaxed. ‘And again,’ Thirling cried. ‘On my count and . . .’
Richard Thirling was quite right, the Backs were very beautiful on that lovely summer morning. Benjamin Steane strolled along, hands clasped lightly behind his back and felt he had not a care in the world. He had just had a note delivered that morning by a galloper from Canterbury to confirm his bishopric, and, though it was only Bath and Wells, rather than the Winchester for which he had hoped, it was still a bishopric and more than anyone else at King’s College had. It was not in his nature to skip, but had it been, he would have been skipping now. And add to that, he told himself, the fact that he was to be married in just three days. If his bride was not a beauty, then at his age, did that matter? She had lands, she had money, she was willing; ample attributes, he thought, ample. A smile played on his lips which his enemies would have immediately labelled smug – and they would have been right. A faint song was borne on the breeze from the Chapel, just odd notes, rising and falling. His smile broadened, thinking of the size of the choir at Wells, the sweeping steps to the Chapter House, the Abbey at Bath, sweeping to the river . . . the bishop’s palace, full of Ursula’s beautiful furniture. He stopped, rose up on his toes and took a deep breath. Benjamin Steane was a happy man.
Ursula Hynde stepped from her carriage at the end of Queen’s Green. Only Ursula could consider a few days at the sprawling Madingley being cooped up, but that was how she had described it to her long-suffering brother-in-law. She had not taken, as she had put it to her maid servant the night before, to Francis’ friends Sir Roger Manwood and that nasty Dr Dee. They were, in order of mentioning, fat and loathsome and scrawny and loathsome. It was something in the way they looked at her; they seemed to be undressing her with their eyes. Ursula Hynde was many things, but she was not a good judge of men’s expressions. Looping up her skirts out of the grass still damp from the morning dew, she strolled along the water’s edge towards the town. She had been so busy arranging the wedding – there was so much to do, Francis had let the place go to wrack and ruin, old curtains hanging in tatters, staff out of control, trees on fire . . . it was not work for a sensitive woman like herself, on the verge of marriage after so many years alone. She sighed, then brightened up. In the distance, she could hear a faint thread of song, coming from King’s College Chapel, grey and high and solid in the morning sun. How lovely it sounded, flickering in and out of hearing across the water. She allowed herself a smile; despite the work and the worries, Ursula Hynde, soon to be Steane, was a happy woman.
‘Ursula?’
Her head snapped up. Who was this, that he felt he could be so informal? Then she smiled. ‘Benjamin! How lovely to see you.’ She turned and beckoned her maidservant nearer. It was so easy to lose one’s reputation. She looked flirtatiously at the river flowing between them, she on the Town side, he the Gown. ‘How can I get across?’
The maidservant thought for one horrible moment that her mistress was going to throw herself on the mercy of the Cam, with its darkling waters and deadly currents but no; Steane was pointing to his right, to where a bridge spanned the river into the college grounds and the sheep munched the sweet grass.
‘Cross the bridge,’ he called. ‘I will open the gate.’
The two women walked briskly along the bank, keeping pace with Steane, who was walking quite slowly as he tried to cultivate a suitably bishoply gait. When they got there, he was wrestling with the gate latch. It was quite obvious from their side how it worked and Ursula Hynde had to bite back a peremptory remark, couched along the lines of what sort of idiot was he?
‘Just a minute, dearest one,’ Steane said, as the gate finally yielded and he flung it open so the women could pass through. He looked at the maidservant. ‘Must . . . umm . . . ?’
Ursula looked the woman up and down, as if to appraise her for sale. ‘Dorcas?’ she asked him. It wasn’t the woman’s name, but Ursula Hynde had better things to do than keep learning new ones and her maids had a strangely short tenancy in the job. ‘I’m afraid she must, Benjamin,’ she said. ‘I have my reputation to consider. You hear such things about these colleges.’
It was as well that Mistress Hynde was not a mistress of men’s faces, because the expressions which flitted across Benjamin Steane’s told a very clear story, which Dorcas – whose real name was Anne – could easily read. In deference to them both, she took a step back and turned to admire the view, but stayed within earshot.
‘Your maidservant has a sensitive soul,’ Steane murmured, taking the arm of his bride-to-be and retracing his former path along the riverbank.
Ursula looked down and simpered. Steane tried to find it attractive in this woman, overweight, overbearing and easily overwrought. He hardly knew her, had been introduced to her at Madingley the year before and had earmarked her as future bishop’s wife material. It was the way of the world. He had heard a fund of stories on the top table at King’s and other colleges, about senior men who had been seduced into taking a young wife, after years of celibacy, only to have her make a cuckold of him with any number of lusty young servants. He risked another glance at Ursula from under his lashes. Even if she tried, the servant would have to be particularly lusty to keep his end of the bargain with Ursula.