‘That could be any one of the scholars in this town,’ she said with a laugh. But both she and Francis Hall knew that it could only be Kit Marlowe.
Francis Hall’s horse was a magnificent stallion and Marlowe, an occasional rider at the best of time, found that he had to concentrate every second of his time on its back to prevent it having its way and going wherever it wanted to. Its coat was deepest black and its mouth was as soft as silk. Once he and Marlowe had agreed to differ, the ride was smooth and, high above the cow parsley and ladies’ bedstraw, Marlowe was able to organize his thoughts, with the soft clop of the animal’s hoofs in the thick summer dust as counterpoint.
The sun started to go down just out of the corner of his left eye as he ambled towards Madingley and, with perfect timing, it slipped below the horizon in a blaze of sky blue pink just as the chimneys and copper cupola of Madingley came into view. There was still rather a lot of light in the sky to approach the house, especially on this horse, which had been drawing looks from everyone he passed on the road, so Marlowe started looking around for somewhere to tether him for a while.
Suddenly, the horse’s head went up and he gave a snicker. Marlowe hunkered down in the saddle and drew in his knees. Pulling the animal to a stop, he slid down from its back and looped its reins in the hedge as he went to investigate what had startled it. As he peered through the interlaced twigs of a quickthorn, he saw a low building in front of him, painted white, but crouching under such a heavy thatch that its walls were in permanent shadow. The small windows were lit with candles as the night drew on and a bench was attached to the wall, running the length of the front of the building to each side of the door, which stood open, invitingly. The raised voices which had made the horse shy were raised in friendship and, on the slight summer breeze, came a smell of ale and a whiff of a fragrant herb burning. He laughed quietly to himself out of sheer relief and crept back to the horse.
‘Come on,’ he said to it, clicking his tongue. ‘Here’s somewhere I can leave you, and wait until dark as well.’
The animal nudged his head with its nose and the two travellers walked round to the back of the inn, where the stable lad was delighted to take over the care of such a lovely creature. ‘I’ll be back for him later,’ Marlowe said. ‘Here’s a coin for you to be going on with. I’m not sure when I can get back.’ Then the reality of his situation hit him; he was going off to meet a murderer. ‘If I’m not back by tomorrow night, take him to Hobson’s in Trinity Lane.’
‘Ride him there, you mean?’ the lad asked, struggling under the weight of the saddle.
‘Or carry him, if you’d rather,’ Marlowe said.
‘Kit,’ came a quiet voice came from behind him. ‘That was unworthy of you. Apologize to the boy.’
Marlowe spun round, his hand on his dagger hilt, to see Manwood and Dee standing in the stable yard. ‘Why are you two here?’ he asked. Then, over his shoulder: ‘Yes, sorry, ride, of course.’ He stepped out of the stable and closed to the men. ‘I was on my way to Madingley,’ he said quietly.
‘We weren’t expecting you this early,’ Dee said. ‘We thought you would wait until dark.’
Marlowe looked at the sky which was getting darker by the minute. ‘It is dark, or would be by the time I got to the house. So, as I said, why are you here?’
‘Come into the inn with us,’ Dee said. ‘We have ordered some food and some more ale. We’ll eat and talk.’
‘Ordered food? Surely, there was the wedding breakfast all arranged . . .’
‘Come inside, Kit,’ Manwood said. ‘We can talk there. But meanwhile, have you discovered anything?’
‘I have discovered that Ralph was impotent just before he died.’
Dee nodded to himself.
‘I’m not sure whether I need that information,’ Manwood said, prissily. To him, Ralph Whitingside was still the lad he had sent off to Cambridge years before.
‘I need it,’ said Dee. ‘It is the last brick in the wall of my diagnosis. Although by no means a certainty, I think we can now consider that the cause of death of the two scholars is poisoning by foxglove.’
They all ducked their heads to enter the inn and waited a moment to get used to the light from the candle sconces on the walls. Looking back through the doorway, it was clear that night had finally fallen. The landlord scurried forward.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said, with a touch of relief in his voice. ‘There you are. I feared you had gone.’ And left me with all this food and ale already drawn, was the rest of the message, unsaid.
Manwood was immediately expansive. ‘No, no, my good fellow,’ he said. ‘We ordered the food and we will eat it. And now we have someone else to help us, so it will not go to waste.’ He looked around. ‘Where is it?’
‘I have taken the liberty of laying out the food in the back room,’ the landlord said, opening a door in the far wall. ‘I thought you would be more . . . private, there.’
The back room was small, but tidy, with a table set against the wall, groaning with sallets and capons, tongue and pie. A savoury custard quivered gently in a bowl to one side. The sight of the food made Marlowe realize how hungry he was; he hadn’t eaten that day at all and his memory of meals over the preceding days had been sketchy. There had been some soup and bread before the play, he remembered, but that had ended up tipped over someone’s head.
Dee noticed the gleam in the scholar’s eye. ‘Tuck in, Kit,’ he said, kindly. ‘Perhaps like me you think better on a full stomach.’
A smaller table had been drawn up at the end of the trestle, with wooden chargers on it, along with three wickedly-pointed knives. Obviously, the usual customers at this inn were not the kind to bring their own weapons, and for that all three men were grateful; it was good to be able to eat and drink without keeping an eye on the door.
‘So, Sir Roger, Dr Dee,’ Marlowe said, ‘what has happened at Madingley that has made you come here for your wedding breakfast?’ He knew it was not in Manwood’s nature to spend money where money need not be spent. ‘No Will Nicholson to put his hand in his purse?’
‘Up at the Hall,’ Manwood said testily. ‘Some maid or other had need of his services.’
The men looked at each other and then seemed to come to a decision. ‘Sir Roger will tell what there is to tell,’ Dee said. ‘He may have noticed things I missed.’
All three men knew that this was a polite fiction at best, but nonetheless, Manwood began. ‘It all started shortly after you left,’ he said, addressing his tale to Marlowe. ‘I’m not sure whether you noticed, but Professor Johns and the new Mistress Steane went off from the party to look at the Physick Garden.’
‘Is that where they were going?’ Marlowe said. ‘I saw them walk off.’
‘No one thought anything of it,’ Manwood continued. ‘Johns is well known as a very gentlemanly . . . er . . . man. So, after you had gone, everything went very well for a while. Hynde had arranged for some girls to circulate with wine, and of course it went to some heads rather more than to others.’ He smiled a reminiscent smile. ‘Professor Goad, for example, had to be taken inside to lie down.’
‘And Falconer and Thirling,’ added Dee.
‘To be fair to Dr Falconer,’ Marlowe said, ‘he was not well before we even began the wedding ceremony.’
‘Yes, I did discover that,’ Dee said, ‘when I examined him. Poor chap has been bedevilled by . . . but that is by the way and something which perhaps is best kept between him and his physician. Thirling, though, was taken very poorly, and I was hard pressed to tell if it was the wine or the oysters, but it was certainly one of those, as that was all he had taken.’
‘Oysters?’ Marlowe asked, with a raised brow. ‘Where did he get oysters from? There were none on the choir table.’
‘Ah, well,’ Manwood said, resuming his tale. ‘It seems that Dr Thirling is, like the oyster, a native of Whitstable and so whenever he sees them, he can’t resist. There was a whole dish of them on the table set for the servants, and he did rather make a pig of himself.’