by Anna Castle
"Now you're flattering me, which means you haven't yet learned what you came to ask."
He nodded, hesitated, and took another sip of wine. "In all honesty, I don't know how to begin."
Her laughter rose in a musical trill. "Ah, Mr. Bacon! If that's the case, I think I can guess your question. You're wondering about the nature of my friendship with Tobias."
"I am, Mrs. Sprye. And thank you."
She sighed and chafed her cup between her palms. "Let us say that Tobias discovered in himself an attraction to some of my less tangible attributes."
That was opaque yet candid. Francis admired her verbal agility. She knew, in other words, that Smythson was seeking influence rather than romance.
He pretended to study her, like a man appraising a work of art. "Yet the tangible attributes are so appealing. Your shining hair, for instance."
She batted her lashes at him. "My flashing eyes."
"Your Venus figure and your Athenaic wit."
Another trill of laughter. She beamed at him. "Mr. Bacon, you astonish me. Dare I imagine that I've acquired another suitor?" She snapped her fingers over her head, signaling Dolly for more wine.
"My mother would be horrified," Francis said, leaning forward confidentially.
"Not quite the demure young baroness she imagines for you."
"Not quite. But I believe you would be the superior companion." His mother persisted in urging him toward marriage, preferably noble, although even she was beginning to realize that his tastes ran more to lords than ladies. Though he wouldn't say no to a baroness with money.
Dolly returned with fresh supplies to make another round of drinks. Dogging her footsteps with a scowl darkening his brow was Treasurer Avery Fogg.
"What's going on here?" He stood before the table, dominating it with his bulk, his fists planted on his hips. He glared down at Francis. "What do you think you're up to?"
Francis blanched. He loathed physical confrontations. Fortunately, he was not undefended.
Mrs. Sprye swatted at Fogg's arm as if batting away an intrusive but beloved dog. "Fie, Sir Avery! What do you mean by this bluster?" She tugged one of his fists away from his hip. He resisted long enough to let her feel his strength and then allowed her to capture his hand. "Am I not allowed to have a quiet conversation with an old friend?"
"Doesn't sound like a friendly conversation to me," Fogg said. "'Venus figure and Athenaic wit?' Sounds more like courtship."
He stared daggers at Francis, who tucked himself well back on his stool. That bumped him against the lush-figured Dolly where she knelt beside the fire with her pipkin. So he pulled himself up very straight and folded his hands in his lap. Then he feared that the gesture might be misconstrued as coverage and refolded them on the tabletop. Fogg watched all of this with pursed lips and narrowed eyes.
"Stop it this minute, Sir Avery," Mrs. Sprye said. "You're frightening the boy."
Francis closed his eyes to shut out the humiliation. How had he gotten himself into this situation? He'd gotten confirmation, of a sort, that someone was smuggling Catholic literature to or through Gray's, but he hadn't managed to learn who, specifically, Smythson had suspected.
At least he had learned from unbearable personal experience how easily Avery Fogg's jealous temper was inflamed.
CHAPTER 16
Monday morning was the first real day of vacation and Tom meant to enjoy it to the full. They'd slept until daylight — nearly eight o'clock at this time of year — although the morning was darkened by an icy drizzle. They'd even skipped chapel on Ben's assurance that the benchers would be lenient during the season of Misrule. Tom's plan was to sit by the fire until dinnertime, composing a love song for Clara.
Sunday had not been restful in the least. After breakfast, the lads had gone with the men of Gray's to the burial service for Mr. Smythson. His children arrived from somewhere and went straight away again with most of Smythson's chattels. He'd left his books to the Gray's Inn library, excepting a few gifts to special friends. He left Ben a copy of Sir John Fortescue's De Laudibus Legum Angliae, bound in kidskin with gilt lettering. Ben was so surprised and flattered he could scarcely set the thing aside long enough to eat.
"I never would have imagined," Ben said, over and over, until the others started singing it back to him, in harmony.
Tom was glad that his friend had received some recognition. He deserved it more than anyone. He was also, if he was honest, a shade jealous. Nobody seemed to think Tom was good at anything except being handsome, which was scarcely to his credit. He privately believed that he was a fair student when he put his mind to it. He could argue a case with conviction and dash, if the matter wasn't too abstruse and Ben had quizzed him in advance. He had an ear for languages and he wasn't too shabby at rhetoric. He had a knack for persuasion.
He wished now that he had stayed at Cambridge to take his degree. He only lacked two terms. It would have meant missing that glorious year aboard his father's ship, but he needed all the honors he could get.
They spent Sunday afternoon helping other Graysians pack up their moveables for the end-of-term migration. Barristers with no desire to become benchers left without a qualm. Many students preferred to pay the fine for being out of commons and spend the holidays at home. Some men were moving to better chambers. Fully half the Society left on Sunday. A deep silence descended.
High up on the fourth floor, with icy rain clattering against the windows, the lads' chambers felt like a secret hideaway atop a Castle Dour. The crackling fire created a pool of warmth and light. Tom sat on a low stool before the hearth, working on a song about a limner conjuring her dream lover by painting his image. He wore only the long woolen shirt that he always pulled on when he tumbled out of bed. He stretched one bare leg toward the fire, drawing up the other to support his lute. His feet sported a pair of leather slippers so soft with age they showed the imprint of each individual toe. His uncombed curls were partly covered by a densely embroidered, long-tailed cap. As the only son in a household with three sisters, two maiden aunts, a doting mother, and a one-legged boatswain, Tom's linens tended to be richly decorated.
Ben sat to the right of the fire on a low-backed chair. He was dressed in a shirt and a pair of oft-mended breeches, with a dingy shawl draped around his shoulders and a pair of woolly stockings rumpled around his ankles. He leaned forward to toast hunks of dark bread stuffed with thin slices of hard cheese. Every now and then a drip of melted cheese hissed into the fire, sending up a tangy scent. A jug of small ale warmed on the hearthstone, adding a peaty aroma.
If there was a pleasanter way to pass a rainy morning, Tom did not know what it was.
Stephen stood by the window, sipping from a pewter cup. He had managed to get into most of the parts of his costume for the day but hadn't yet troubled to tie up all the laces. He gazed down into the rainy court with a surly look on his face.
Tom strummed his lute strings and hummed his tune. "I wish I could think of a word that rhymes with limner."
Stephen looked over his shoulder. "I don't know why you bother. She's a tradeswoman. She'll either be too prim to sleep with you or she'll fall on her back for half a shilling. Either way, you won't need music."
Ben clucked his tongue but wisely stayed out of it. Tom contented himself with a glower and a curled lip.
He had shared a bed with Stephen for the better part of the past seven years and could read his moods like a ha'penny broadsheet. Stephen was grumpy because he felt thwarted by the rain. He had little tolerance for thwarting because he believed that his father's rigid rules kept him from entering his proper sphere in life. Which was true, perfectly true. His father kept him on a very short leash.
The real problem was that Stephen was too weak-willed either to confront his father or to do what he wanted and take the consequences. The earl was a hundred miles away, for the love of a generous God! If it weren't for Tom's coaxings, Stephen would never go anywhere but the draper's.
But Stephen coul
d never admit that he relied so much on someone his family regarded as a jumped-up servant. He couldn't stand by himself; he hated having to lean on anyone; so he pouted and took his frustration out in little jabs at Tom.
"We need to get down to the hall and start planning the events of my reign," Stephen said. "You two have idled by the fire long enough."
"God's bones, Steenie," Tom said. "Haven't we earned one lazy day?"
They'd worked hard over the past week, building their case about the bastard and the heiress. Tom felt as if his wits had been taken out of his head, stretched in every direction, embroidered all over with extra bits, and then stuffed back inside his skull. He needed time to recuperate.
Stephen peered down the length of his pointed nose. "I think it's time you began to address me properly, Clarady."
Tom scoffed at him. "Can't I wait until I get my hose on, your most high and mighty lordliness?"
"Get them on, then."
Tom barked a short laugh. "I will not budge from this stool until the rain stops or I faint from starvation and fall off. My lord. If you want to go down, go. No one's stopping you."
They glared at each other. Tom felt an undercurrent of uncertainty. They had rarely fought, at least not openly. Their connection had been arranged by their fathers, but they'd rubbed along well enough until they separated last year at Cambridge. Tom's spirit led them into fun; Stephen's status got them out of trouble. That had always been their modus operandi, sharing Tom's father's money and Stephen's father's influence. A man needed both to succeed in the world. Could either manage without the other?
"If I go," Stephen said, his tone as icy as the sleet, "I'll have them throw you out. They only let you in to Gray's because of me." He wasn't talking about going down to the hall now. He meant moving out of the Inn altogether.
Tom's heart froze. Could he do it? Would he dare? Lord Dorchester would never allow Stephen to leave so soon. Would he? But whether or no: was the threat true? Would Gray's really expel him at the whim of an earl's son? Probably not, but what if Stephen told his father that Tom was leading him into sin, dicing and whoring? A vile slander, at least the part about the dicing. But if Lord Dorchester demanded his expulsion, could the benchers resist him? Why would they? He wasn't at all certain that Francis Bacon would stand up for him now that his debts had been settled.
He saw the satisfied smirk on Stephen's face and wanted to strike it off with the back of his hand. He pulled up his legs, ready to rise. Stephen backed up to the windows.
A knock sounded on the door, snapping the tension between them like a musket ball slicing through a bowline.
"Intro!" Ben called.
Trumpet slipped inside and shut the door quickly to keep in the warmth. He looked at the others with exaggerated shock. "Not dressed yet! It's nearly nine o'clock!"
Tom drew in a long breath. Crisis averted . . . for now. "I'm working on a song for Clara."
"Oh, Clara." Trumpet rolled his eyes. "Let's hear it, then."
Tom played a bit of his new composition.
"Oh, limner fair, can you paint my heart,
Give color to my love for thee?
Enform my longings with your art,
And tell me how I must be?"
Trumpet winced. "Perhaps she'd like a nice fan?"
"Huh," Tom grunted. "What do you know about it?"
"More than you think."
Tom cocked an eyebrow, ready to pursue the topic of the Pygmy's putative knowledge of women. Ben interrupted to offer the boy a hunk of cheese-toast.
Trumpet shook his head. "I breakfasted in hall. My uncle wanted our new chambers to himself. He says he has work to do."
"It's vacation time!" Tom objected.
Trumpet shrugged.
"How are the new chambers?" Ben asked. He crunched into his overstuffed toast, dribbling crumbs onto the bricks.
"Warm. Blissfully warm. Our building shares a chimney with the kitchen, so we have heat day and night. Gratis, which Uncle Nat likes best."
Stephen said, "Trumpington, could you give me a hand with these laces? Those two haven't budged from the fire since they stumbled out of bed."
"That explains the soot on their faces." He half turned and mouthed Trumpington? at Tom, who moved his head in a barely visible shake.
"Were there many in hall?" Stephen asked, turning to give his new valet access to the laces that tied his doublet to his hose in back.
"Nearly a score." Trumpet's nimble fingers deftly threaded satin points and tied the ends in small bows. "Everyone wants to know what's toward. They're ready for fun and waiting for you to lead them into it."
Stephen shot a dark glance at Tom. "I have some ideas. We need music, obviously. Real music. And we must have some pranks." He plucked at his trunk hose to puff them out more fully as he sketched some of his thoughts on the matter.
Tom set his lute in a turned-up hat in the corner beyond the fireplace, stretched his legs forward and his arms straight over his head, yawning in a drawn-out roar.
Trumpet cowered behind Stephen, feigning terror. "A bear! Oh, horrible! Slay it, my lord!"
Stephen laughed. Good humor restored. Trumpet had a gift for managing the noble temperament. But he was far too bouncy. He was ruining Tom's lazy mood. And now that there were two fully dressed men in the room, he was beginning to feel a bit behindhand.
"I feel like a bear. I had the most appalling nightmare about escheats and torts, with old men in coifs and murrey gowns chasing me round and round the bencher's table."
Ben chuckled. "Wait until you actually have to argue a case in court. That'll tie your stomach in knots."
Tom flashed him a grateful grin. At least there was one person in the world who believed he had a future in the law. If only they could move Stephen out and Trumpet in. The boy would have to go to chapel — Ben was a stickler for the rules — but he'd get cheese and toast on Sunday mornings.
He rose and scratched his backside under the long tail of his shirt. Mumbling, "I'll dress, then," he shambled into the bedchamber.
Ben yawned too, but turned his yawn into a descending scale. Then he began to hum the tune that Tom had been plucking on his lute.
"Aha!" Tom shouted. "My tune is memorable!"
"Indeed it is," Ben said. "It's one of the most popular songs of our times."
"It's what?"
Stephen snickered.
Trumpet said, "It's 'Greensleeves,' you dolt. Didn't you know? I wondered why you chose a song about a prostitute as the tune for your ode d'amour."
"It's not about a prostitute," Ben said. "That's a slander from the broadsides."
Tom groaned. "No wonder it was so easy to think of! Now I'll have to start from scratch."
Ben joined Tom in the bedchamber and began casting about for his clothes. Dressing was complicated with three men more or less of a size. They had endless trouble keeping their stockings sorted into matching pairs and sleeves had a life of their own.
Trumpet called from the outer chamber, "Best be quick about it. Mr. Bacon wants to speak with us."
Ben staggered around the half-open door, tying the points of a stocking to the laces on his shirt. "He does? When? Where?"
"Now. In the hall. Something about our investigations."
Tom cried with heartfelt exasperation, "Doesn't anyone understand the meaning of the word vacation?"
CHAPTER 17
"Let's have a beheading," Thomas Hughes suggested. "King Arthur can execute Sir Lancelot. Or Queen Guinevere."
"Absolutely not." Francis Bacon experienced a palpable shock of horror imagining the queen's reaction to such a scene. "Her Majesty would construe it as meddling in her prerogative. As a nudging toward the execution of the Queen of Scots. We must avoid that topic like a plague-bearing miasma."
He and a group of literary-minded barristers were spending the wintry morning in the hall devising a masque to amuse the court at Whitehall on Christmas Eve. Whether he was allowed to attend or not, she might divine his ha
nd in the work and recognize it as an offering of his devotion.
"She needs a nudge," Hughes insisted. "A gentle one, of course. But the deed must be done, and soon. We can show her that her loyal subjects support the decision."
"No," Francis said. "Trust me. She'd be furious, and rightly so. The execution of a monarch is not a subject for foolery. We should stick to themes appropriate to the season and the setting. Themes celebrating our queen's beauty and wit."
"Same as last year, then," another barrister grumbled.
"Yes." Francis smiled. "Only different." He rummaged in his memory for scenes from Ovid, usually a rich source. He enjoyed the challenge of creating fresh amusements from stock materials. He especially enjoyed these collaborations with intelligent yet nonpolitical, colleagues. He could happily spend the whole day right here at this table.
A sudden draft made him shiver. He glanced toward the screens passage and saw his pupils filing in, shaking raindrops from their cloaks. They started to walk toward him, but he held up a hand and rose from his bench. Better to have this conversation in relative privacy. Since his quarry might well be a member of the Society, the fewer who were aware of his pursuit, the better.
"Surely you're not making those poor lads study during the mesne vacation, Bacon?" Hughes asked. "The Prince of Purpoole and his court?"
Francis smiled. "I am their Master of Revels, am I not? It's my job to advise them on our traditions and guide them toward sports that entertain without crossing the bounds."
He gestured his pupils closer to the fire in the center of the hall. They might as well be warm. "Were you able to speak with Lady Rich?"
"We were, Mr. Bacon," Whitt answered. "Lord Stephen posed our question to her."
The lads exchanged a round of shrugs and head shakes. Francis frowned at them. "And were you able to obtain an answer, my lord?"
Delabere looked at his feet and mumbled, "She was — she was —"
Francis relented. "I have met the Lady Rich. She has, shall we say, a forceful personality."