‘Where’s my dress?’ she barked. ‘Come along, I have guests to greet.’
Anne, the maidservant, bent her head and whispered to whoever was listening. ‘She’s back! I knew it wouldn’t last long.’ Then, louder: ‘It’s here, mistress. Will you step into the frame and we’ll have you downstairs in the shake of a lamb’s tail.’
After some lacing and squeezing and upholstering, Ursula Steane was ready and, like a galleon in full sail, she went out to meet her husband.
He was still in the knot garden, standing in the centre by the sundial, but was now talking to some much more congenial people. His wife didn’t know who they were, but she was pretty certain that they were more congenial, as they were not Roger Manwood or John Dee. Her skirts brushed the lavender bushes that lined the paths of crushed shell in the garden and the sun beat down. Steane either heard or smelt her arrival and turned to her.
‘Dearest,’ he said, extending an arm and drawing her into the group. ‘May I introduce Dr Goad, Provost of King’s College, who I believe you may already know.’
She inclined her head to the little wizened man. He was older than Methuselah. They hadn’t met, not in all the man’s nine hundred years, but she appreciated her husband’s nice manners in assuming that they had. ‘Dr Goad,’ she said. ‘So nice to meet you at last. Benjamin has often spoken of you.’
Steane raised an eyebrow. He had been right to choose this woman – she would make an excellent wife for a man in his soon-to-be-exalted position. He moved slightly to his left and said, ‘Professor Michael Johns, Fellow of Corpus Christi. A most excellent scholar and friend.’
Johns was slightly surprised to hear this accolade. Although he had known Steane for a number of years, they had never been what he would consider friends. He had occasionally passed a particularly able student on to him, when he found that the pupil had exceeded his master, but that was all. Nonetheless, he smiled at Ursula and sketched a bow. ‘Delighted to meet you at last, Mistress Steane,’ he said with a smile.
She bowed her head. She hoped this wouldn’t go on for too long. She’d never had much of a head for names and the sun was very hot on her back. Crimson velvet had been a bad choice for so warm a day.
‘And finally,’ Steane said, with the air of a conjuror producing a rabbit, ‘and if I may be so uncivil as to introduce them as a set, so to speak, Doctors Falconer and Thirling, who made such beautiful music possible at our wedding this morning.’
The two musicians bowed as one and extended their arms to where the choir stood in a motley group beside a table loaded with sweetmeats and flagons of drink. One of the King’s men was engaged in a tussle with one of the boys, trying to remove a beaker of ale from the child. Falconer coughed to attract their attention and most of them gathered their wits in time to bow prettily to the bride.
‘The choir,’ Thirling explained.
Ursula Steane realized that there had been music at the ceremony. She had no ear for it, and anyway at that point was almost catatonic with fear. But, she was a lady, and knew how to behave. ‘Beautiful singing,’ she said. ‘I congratulate you. I am sure my husband will make sure that there is a coin for everyone, before you return to Cambridge.’
Steane’s eyebrows both went up at this; he had after all married her for her money, not so that she could disseminate his wherever she liked. He smiled, though, and nodded. An awkward silence fell on the group. Across every face the desperation of the socially inept flickered. Johns came to the rescue.
‘Mistress Steane,’ he said, then realized that he may have made a gaffe. ‘Or should that be Lady Ursula?’
‘Not yet, Professor Johns,’ she said. ‘Not until my husband is enthroned as Bishop, which is not for a few weeks.’
‘Ah,’ Johns said. That would be a useful titbit to drop into the High Table gossip. ‘So, where will you be staying until then? Here?’
She smiled. ‘No, I think I have taken enough of my brother-in-law’s hospitality as it is. Although, had things been different, I would have been mistress here.’
Johns looked interested. All grist to the rumour mill. ‘Indeed?’
‘My first husband . . . but, no,’ she said firmly. ‘My first husband is a very old tale, Professor Johns, and often told. No, we will be staying in one of my . . . of my husband’s houses until the palace is ready.’
So, that was it. A rich widow. Johns arranged his smile to elicit more confidences. ‘But, you know this house well?’
‘Very well. I have spent many years here, all told, I should imagine. Let me show you the Physick Garden. It is quite unusual to find one in a private house, but Francis’ mother was very interested in such things, God rest her soul, and planted rather a fine one over there, behind that wall.’
‘I should be delighted,’ Johns said, falling into step with her. ‘My own mother was also rather fond of folk remedies. I well remember going to bed in winter with a mouse in a bag round my neck. It was a specific against the quinsy.’
Ursula clutched her throat. ‘Did it work?’ she asked.
Johns bowed, arms outstretched behind him. ‘I stand here, Mistress Steane, without a quinsy to be seen. But if the mouse kept it away, I could not say.’
She laughed and went on ahead, through the wicket gate in the wall. She liked this man. Perhaps dear Benjamin could find a place for him, after his preferment.
The others standing in the knot garden watched them go.
‘Johns is a very sound man,’ Norgate said. ‘Liked by everyone. A good scholar, too, although a little weak on Greek.’
‘Weak on Greek,’ spluttered the imbibing chorister on the other side of the planted square. ‘He just made a pome, did you hear that? A pome.’
Thirling peeled off from the group. ‘I apologize, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid young Kenneally is getting rather excitable. I will get the choir back to Cambridge now, with your leave, Dr Steane.’ Although still-smouldering Cambridge was not the place he would rather be just at that moment.
‘Oh, no, surely not,’ Steane said. ‘There are places for all of you at the table for the wedding breakfast. Please, do stay. Ursula will be so sad if you go.’
Thirling dithered. He liked a good blow-out as much as the next man and if the sweetmeat table was any guide, the dinner later would be a spectacular one. But, a chorister was drunk and had to be taken home. On the other hand . . .
‘Dr Thirling?’ A smooth voice carried over the lavender. ‘If you will permit me, I have a plan.’
‘Ah, Morley,’ Norgate said. ‘You seem to get everywhere.’ He had hoped to avoid this meeting. Gabriel Harvey’s words still rang in his ears – ‘the crime of Sodom’. For an old man, Goad could still think pretty fast on his feet. ‘The singing was exquisite, if I may say so, but I hardly think it appropriate . . .’
‘I was about to say,’ Marlowe said, ‘that the boys could be sent home in the cart that brought us and the men could stay to eat. They have, after all, given up a day for the wedding and they have been accommodated at the table . . .’
‘I can’t send the boys home alone!’ Thirling said, aghast. ‘Anything might happen. There is still a lot of unrest in the town. There’s talk the rioters have hanged the Mayor.’
‘I’ll go with them,’ Marlowe offered.
‘You?’ Norgate was puzzled and aghast in equal measure. This didn’t sound like the roisterer he knew and secretly admired for his cheek. But it did sound like the murderer and pederast of whom Harvey spoke.
‘Yes. I have had rather a sad time lately, if we take one thing with another. I think I may be a ghost at the feast and we don’t want that. It would be my pleasure to make sure the boys got home safely.’
Thirling and Falconer looked at one another. Neither of them wanted to make the journey home on a jolting cart, riding into God-knew-what and yet they, like Norgate, could not quite square their view of Marlowe with the offer he had made. But, a decent dinner is a decent dinner.