The lad raised a finger and rummaged in his sleeve, drawing out a coin wrapped in a cloth.
‘Oh.’ Marlowe took it from him. ‘Well, you only have one thing to remember, then. And that is that, if Ralph does not show up, then Master Tobin will help me look for him until he is found.’
Thomas looked at him with big eyes, then said, ‘Do I have to remember that word for word, Master Marlowe?’
‘Yes, Tom,’ Marlowe said, getting up and putting the paper in his doublet. ‘I rather think you do. Run along, now, and tell your uncle. Do you know the service for today?’
‘We’re doing a chant from Archbishop Parker’s Psalter and Gaude Gloriosa Dei Mater for the anthem.’
‘Master Thirling was in a somewhat Tallis mood when he planned today’s service, I see,’ Marlowe said. He’d been singing this stuff now for the best part of twelve years and could still practically do it in his sleep.
‘It shows his leg is bad, Master Marlowe. He can conduct us with one hand when we do Tallis, because we know it well. It saves him from so much falling.’
‘That’s a shame,’ Marlowe said, ushering the boy ahead of him as they left the buttery and emerged into the sunshine of The Court. ‘It livens up an evensong when Master Thirling falls over. Now, off you go and make sure you deliver my message properly.’
The boy ran off through the archway and down the High Ward. Marlowe, deep in thought, made his way to his rooms, dodging behind a doorway to avoid the grey shade of Gabriel Harvey. There was only so much a man could take.
Men like Marlowe didn’t usually list their favourite church services, but had he been brought to the sticking place, then top of the pile would have had to be evensong. The congregation was small, but devout, the boys rather better behaved, having endured a day of lessons, practice and a little admonitory beating as required. The service itself was short, with more music of a more gentle kind, and there could be no setting more beautiful than the Chapel of King’s College, with its angels, its quatrefoils and its intertwined initials of HR to remind everybody who the king once was. Master Thirling’s leg appeared to be holding up well, with only a minor stumble as the choir processed in. The dusty sunshine of a June afternoon filtered through the high windows and gleamed on the wooden panels of the choir, where the Tudor greyhounds and dragons coiled round the royal arms. The soft singing of the boys, underscored by the few men, swam in the motes and, had Marlowe believed in a God in Heaven, could almost have been heading straight for His ear. For an hour, Kit Marlowe allowed himself to be a chorister again, singing to the Lord with a clear voice that the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.
They had not yet been granted their degrees, had not yet drunk from the silver-mounted auroch horn that took pride of place in the college silver. But they were out again that night anyway, curfew or no, because Kit Marlowe had a funny feeling about Ralph Whitingside.
Henry Bromerick took the Angel and the Brazen George, weaving his way through Petty Cury and Lion Yard. Tom Colwell got the Boar’s Head, the Cardinal’s Cap and the Lilypot, keeping his back to Corpus Christi until he reached the all-shielding angles of Silver Street. He even dashed furtively into the Eagle, hideously close to the college and Lomas’ watchful eye though it was. He covered up the pelican and lilies badge on his Corpus robe as best he could and peered through the gloom. Nothing. Matthew Parker took the Falcon, the Blue Boar and the Dolphin, beyond the Market Hall, but there was no sign of Whitingside and nobody had seen him for days. Marlowe had furthest to go. He’d hauled off his college robes and stashed them behind a bush in The Court. In his doublet, he’d get more attention from the right people in the town’s inns and the prowling Proctors would leave him alone. He crossed Magdalen Bridge as the lights twinkled double in the river’s eddies and the roisterers already began to roll home, ready for the nightly battle to sneak back into their colleges. He heard the watery rattle of the skiff oars as the punters and wherrymen strained at their boats under the dripping archway.
Somebody remembered Whitingside at the Falcon in Petty Cury, but that was probably last week. The innkeeper at the Black Boy swore the man still owed him for the ham and cheese supper he’d laid on after the Lenten feast. Come to think of it, he still owed him for a feast he’d put on for the Lord of Misrule back in the bleak midwinter, but by the time he’d remembered that, Marlowe had gone to the Devil.
The Devil’s Inn was as far north as Cambridge scholars chose to walk. It was uphill all the way, past the cherry orchard and the river meadows, under the shadow of the rotting castle with its black earthworks and its ghosts. Marlowe sauntered in on tired legs under the leering gargoyle of Beelzebub that looked about to vomit into the street below. For a while, his eyes failed to acclimatize. It was surprisingly chill in the hall where he stood, the huge fireplace dark and empty in its summer repose. But this was Cambridge and even in high summer the chills crept from the reeded river and the winds, men said, blew straight from Muscovy in the desolate east with no mountain range to block them and only the flat fens of the Low Countries for company.
Marlowe’s eyes narrowed as he found his quarry and he sat down heavily on a wooden stool alongside him.
‘Master Marlowe.’ The man looked up, surprised, clutching a hand of cards tightly to his chest.
‘Latimer?’ The scholar nodded. ‘Where’s your master?’
The servant blinked. He had the look of a pet dog caught with the family’s suckling pig in his mouth. ‘What’s o’clock?’ he asked. Will Latimer wasn’t the brightest apple in the barrel, but he’d been Whitingside’s man throughout his time in Cambridge and could place the man by the ticking of time.
‘Near midnight,’ Marlowe told him.
‘You’ve tried the George?’
Marlowe had not. That was Bromerick’s beat and of course Ralph Whitingside could be there as they spoke, holding court on the perils of Puritanism and debating all that was unholy. Somebody else would be buying the drinks. ‘No one has seen him for two days,’ Marlowe told him. ‘Why are you here, man?’ Marlowe had never had a servant in his life and couldn’t comprehend the fetch-and-carry way of life. Ralph Whitingside was born to it. All he did for himself was eat, drink and fondle whores. And gentlemen like him were increasing in the colleges these days.
‘Ah,’ Latimer blustered. His face was red and he’d sunk a few tonight. He glanced across at his companions and laid his cards carefully face down on the battered table in front of him. ‘A bereavement, I fear.’ He looked solemn and hung his head.
‘I’m sorry,’ Marlowe said. ‘Anybody close?’
‘My dear old dad.’ Latimer shook his head.
Marlowe leaned closer to him, nodding sadly. ‘Latimer,’ he said quietly, ‘if there is one thing I’m sure of, it is that you have no idea who your father was. So let’s try again, shall we?’
Latimer looked at the man, blinking. Bugger! The dark, clear eyes, the firm mouth; you didn’t get much past this man. The servant’s shoulders fell. He was pretty good at this sort of thing usually, but against a man like Marlowe? Well, best not to mess. And he had had a few. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘But you won’t say anything to the Master, will you, sir?’
When men called him ‘sir’, Marlowe knew the battle was as good as won. ‘Now, William -’ he spread his arms wide – ‘would I?’
Latimer took a chance. By now he had little choice, really. ‘There was a bereavement. But that was my mother’s cousin and it was five months ago. It’s summer, Master Marlowe. I just wanted some time off. You know what it’s like in the colleges – morning prayers at five, Aristotle, Aristotle and more bloody Aristotle until midday. Homer or Demosthenes or some other -thenes all afternoon. And that’s the good days. And what am I doing? Writing it all down for the Master. Like I understand a word of it. And that’s apart from the usual cleaning, scouring, velvet-primping and mucking out the stables. I just wanted a few days to myself. That’s not asking too much, is it?’