Death by Disputation (A Francis Bacon Mystery Book 2)

by Anna Castle

  There, near the far side, was a pink strip. Tom stretched his fingers to grasp it and wiggled back out. A silk garter, far too pretty for a godly man like Bartholomew Leeds. It wasn’t Tom’s, and he was fairly certain it didn’t belong to any of his chambermates. That left Christopher Marlowe. His everyday garb might be shabby academic, but Tom had seen him about the town in a velvet doublet sparked with bright buttons. He was exactly the sort who would treat himself to fancy garters whenever he managed to scrounge an extra shilling. Tom wore them himself under his dull brown scholar’s gown to remind himself he was still a man of fashion.

  As he stood up, he nearly stepped on a cup lying by the bedpost. This one was plain wood, worn thin around the rim, brought from the college buttery. Further proof, if he needed it, that Marlowe and Leeds had enjoyed a tryst while everyone was out. That was nothing strange in a university town where there were lots of vigorous young men and precious few women.

  At least they’d been discreet about it. Tom had seen such liaisons cause all manner of trouble in his previous college: sly jabs and subtle torments behind the masters’ backs, brawls in taverns, scuffles during lectures. Personally, he didn’t mind what men did with themselves as long as they left him out of it. Tom preferred women; happily, they preferred him too.

  Perhaps they’d had some sort of lover’s quarrel. Add that to the melancholy book and the pressure of secrets, and it was little wonder Leeds had chosen to end his life.

  He had no real doubts about what happened here, but the shape of that noose still nagged at him. His gut was telling him it ought to be kept, and Tom was a man who listened to his gut. He decided to send it to his Uncle Luke to satisfy his curiosity.

  He fetched an old linen towel from his chest and laid the knot flat to preserve its shape. He folded the towel over it and laid it carefully in his chest. He’d have to buy a box to pack it in and find someone traveling to Dorset to deliver it.

  Another twinge in his gut prompted him to put the garter into the chest for safekeeping too. He had half of the letter, which he would copy into his report. He couldn’t think of anything else to do. He was finally free to leave the cockloft. He’d been up here for only half an hour, but it felt like an eternity.

  The study chamber downstairs was empty. Looking out the window, he saw the college residents streaming across the yard into the hall, even though dinner had been put back. Habit drew them anyway, that and the chance to trade gossip about Leeds’s death.

  The room was meant to accommodate four students, with a desk in each corner tucked into a shallow cubicle set into the wall. This gave each student a modicum of privacy without blocking the light from the windows or the tutor’s ability to keep his students in view. Leeds’s large table stood in the center of the room underneath a round wooden candle-branch.

  Tom’s desk was near the fire in the corner opposite the chamber door. Too near for his tastes, especially since Leeds had been cold-natured and kept a roaring blaze in the evening. He must have spent a fortune on coal. Tom could turn his head and look out the front window into the yard though, which was useful for an intelligencer.

  Tom sat on his stool and scooted it forward, reaching for his writing desk. He pulled a fresh sheet of paper from the drawer, then took out a quill and pared it a bit. He opened his ink bottle, dipped in his pen, and closed his eyes, thinking himself back to the start of the morning. He opened his eyes and began to write quickly. He’d learned over the past six weeks that agonizing over his prose style did him no good. He was never praised for his flights of rhetoric; on the contrary, Bacon preferred a straightforward accounting of events from beginning to end. Tom had to admit the task was easier if all he had to do was be factual.

  He’d nearly finished when the chamber door squealed open. John Barrow stepped into the room. “Here you are,” he said. “I didn’t see you with your chums in the hall, so I thought I’d better come and check. You’re not brooding, are you, Tom?”

  “No, sir. Not brooding. I’m just writing a quick little letter. I just wanted to . . . ah . . .” Tom faltered. He hadn’t prepared an excuse, thinking he’d be done and walking into commons before anyone noticed his absence.

  “A letter?” Barrow took a few steps closer, his gaze angling down toward Tom’s desk. “Who could you be writing to at such a time?”

  “My uncle,” Tom said. He laid his hand casually across the half-written page. “The one at Gray’s Inn. I heard Dr. Eggerley say he was going to Westminster to inform the chancellor, and thought I might send my letter with him.” He offered a sheepish grin. “My uncle worries, and you know how gossip flies . . .”

  “I do indeed.” Barrow’s gaze was cool. “Letters get sent before anyone has time to review the facts and make considered decisions about spreading the news.”

  “Ah—”

  “How did you happen to be the first one back this morning?”

  Tom blinked at the change of subject, then told the story again about slipping out of church early to fetch money for the letter carrier.

  “Another letter,” Barrow said. “You do seem to write a lot of them.”

  “I have a lot of relations.” Tom smiled, relieved to be on safer ground. All of his letters went to Gray’s but with wrappers bearing different names, drawn from a list he and Bacon had prepared in advance. That way, anyone who happened to take an interest would see a variety of recipients, accounting for the somewhat larger than normal number. Although, he wasn’t that far from the norm. Everyone wrote lots of letters. “My mother, two aunts, three sisters, assorted cousins. My uncle is kind enough to forward my letters with his. It saves me the expense, you see, while I’m in school.”

  “Hm.” Barrow cast another glance at the unfinished page. Tom hoped he couldn’t read it from where he stood. He usually prepared himself with something to cover his page, like his commonplace book. “Well, don’t linger long,” Barrow said. “It isn’t good to be alone at a time like this.”

  He turned to go, pausing beside Leeds’s table. He pointed at the large writing desk sitting in the middle. “That shouldn’t be left lying about.” He frowned at Tom again. “We’ll see you in hall, then. Don’t tarry.”

  “Two more minutes,” Tom said. “A quick note.”

  He had scarcely half that time. Shortly after Barrow left, the door squealed open again. Dr. Eggerley, alone for a change, let himself into the room. He glanced up the stairs and cocked his head as if listening. He then strode toward Leeds’s desk, almost reaching it before noticing Tom sitting on his stool, watching him.

  He stopped in his tracks. “Claremont! I wasn’t expecting —” He frowned, dragging deep creases into his face. “You mustn’t sit here and brood all by yourself, my boy. You want to be with friends at times like these. Comfort in numbers. Everyone else is in the hall.”

  “I’m not brooding, Dr. Eggerley, but thank you. I heard you mention to Simon Thorpe that you were planning to ride to Westminster, and I thought perhaps I could send a letter with you, if I were quick about it.” He usually sent his reports by means of the regular service that carried messages between the university and Lord Burghley. The official bag was the safest means of delivery, but His Lordship’s post had already gone.

  “A letter?” Dr. Eggerley asked. “Who do you need to write to so urgently?” He sidled toward Leeds’s table. His eyes flicked from Tom to the tabletop, surveying its contents.

  “My uncle,” Tom said. “I’m afraid he’ll hear rumors about Mr. Leeds and worry about me.” He expected that answer to be sufficient. Old Eggy liked to ask questions but seldom paid much heed to the answers. He’d pat you on the shoulder and say something like, “That’s great, Cheesemaker,” and move on.

  “Uncle.” Eggerley placed both hands atop Leeds’s larger writing desk. He’d had two: a small one like Tom’s for paper and quills, and a big, finely decorated one with several small drawers and two central wells. He’d always kept that one locked.

  Eggerley frowned down at it f
or a moment, then looked at Tom again. This time, Tom felt the full force of his attention. It surprised him enough to raise the fine hairs on the back of his neck.

  “You came up from Gray’s Inn, I believe.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You had a letter from the late Lord Keeper’s son, as I recall. The Bacons are important benefactors of this college, first the father and now the eldest son, Sir Nicholas of Redgrave. It was the youngest son who wrote your letter. Francis, was it?”

  “Yes, sir. Francis Bacon.”

  Eggerley cocked his head. His fingers tested the lid of the writing desk. It remained shut. “I believe you referred to him as your uncle. Which of the Bacons is your father?”

  “Ah—” Tom had caught his foot in it this time. No one had asked him about his so-called uncle before. “None of the Bacons, actually, sir. My uncle is Benjamin Whitt, also of Gray’s Inn.” He crossed his fingers behind his back. Ben, one of Tom’s dearest friends, had been his chambermate at Gray’s.

  “I see. And he’s a friend of Francis Bacon’s?”

  “Yes, sir. A very good friend.” A very, very good friend, as it happened. The sorts of friends that Leeds and Marlowe had been.

  Eggerley turned the writing desk so he could see the lock. He fiddled with the cover plate and tried lifting the lid again without success. “The Bacons are connected to our chancellor, Lord Burghley, by marriage.” He sounded as if he were reciting a lesson to himself. Francis Bacon’s mother was the sister of Lord Burghley’s wife, although the connection didn’t help him as much as one might expect.

  The headmaster studied him for a long moment. His lips were curved in a small smile, but his gaze was hard and glittery. Tom felt that he was being examined from the inside out. “As I recall,” Eggerley said, “you left Gray’s to return to university to finish your degree and pursue a clerical career.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Bacon had devised that story to explain Tom’s otherwise inexplicable preference for monkish Cambridge over fashionable Gray’s Inn, the largest and most prestigious of the legal societies known as the Inns of Court. Tom had entered Gray’s in the train of the Earl of Dorchester’s son, whose companion he had been since they were twelve, first at the earl’s seat in Dorset, then for three years at Cambridge University. They’d lived at St. John’s College, which was larger and more prestigious than Corpus Christi. Like most members of the nobility, Stephen left the university without taking a degree. He’d spent a year twiddling his thumbs at home until his lord father sent him on to Gray’s to acquire a bit of social polish.

  Tom spent that intervening year with his own father, joining Captain Clarady on a voyage to the Spanish West Indies to hunt for treasure ships. He’d loved that life — the salt spray, the sailor’s pipes, every landfall an adventure. But his destiny lay not at sea; the captain intended his son to rise through the ranks of society. They’d come home with enough profit to send Tom to Gray’s as Stephen’s retainer. He could never otherwise have been admitted, not being a gentleman’s son. The captain bought an extra measure of security by paying the debts of one Mr. Francis Bacon, thus obliging him to take an interest in Tom’s success.

  Stephen, as bored with the law as he had been with the liberal arts, left Gray’s after one term. Tom wanted to stay. He liked the law, as it turned out; besides, the Inns of Court were the surest route up the ladder for a lad from a humble background. He’d feared the governors would cast him out in Stephen’s wake. But then Bartholomew Leeds wrote his letter and Lord Burghley found himself in need of a spy. Francis Bacon needed a commission that would keep him in regular contact with his powerful uncle. And Tom needed a guarantee of membership in Gray’s Inn on his own recognizance. A deal was struck, and here he was.

  Dr. Eggerley asked in a friendly tone, “Did you find the law too difficult?”

  “No, sir. Well, yes, sir, somewhat. That Law French — it’s barbarous.”

  Eggerley laughed. “Indeed it is. Better good solid Latin, eh?”

  “Yes, sir. Much better.”

  “Still, I should think your father would have been pleased that you’d achieved enrollment at an Inn of Court. Better chances for advancement, you know. Visits to court, people with influence.”

  “Yes, sir. I mean, no, sir. I mean, it wasn’t that, sir. My father —” Tom cleared his throat. He hated this part of the story. “My father had a change of heart. A spiritual conversion. Now he wants me to follow the path of righteousness, become a clergyman, to serve the Lord and uh…”

  “I see.” Eggerley nodded, apparently satisfied. “Well. He’s to be commended. A worthy objective.” He smiled.

  Tom smiled back, striving to project a godly demeanor. He sent a prayer of apology to his father, wherever he might be. Captain Valentine Clarady was an honorable man by the standards of his trade, but not devout by any stretch of the imagination. He’d grown rich fleecing Spanish ships and would spend every penny to hoist his only son into the gentry. If he thought Tom were pursuing a career as a clergyman, he would descend on Cambridge like a tropical Tornado and haul him out by the ears.

  “Still, Clarady, you shouldn’t be in here alone, dwelling on these sad events.”

  “No, sir. I won’t dwell. I’ll just finish up my letter and join the rest in the hall.”

  “Good lad. We bear up, eh? We bear up. And I will take charge of this desk here. Leeds kept it locked, did he?”

  “I wouldn’t know, sir.” But he did know. He’d tested the lid the day after he’d moved in, hoping to find notes about the secret synod or the seditious zealot. The desk had been locked then and every other time he’d snatched a solitary moment to give it another try.

  “I’ll keep it in my parlor until we can appoint a new bursar. Dusty old college accounts. Dull but necessary, eh? I don’t suppose you know where Leeds kept his key?”

  “No, sir. I’m sorry, sir.” Tom smiled apologetically. He waggled his quill to show his readiness to return to his letter.

  “Ah, well. I have one, of course. But it doesn’t do to have keys to the bursar’s desk wandering about.” Eggerley’s expression shifted back to its usual genial vagueness. “Well. Good, good. Best be off. Hope the wife has packed my bags. I’ll be leaving right after dinner.” He lifted the desk and turned toward the door. “No brooding, now. We must bear up, eh, Claybrook?”

  “Yes, sir.” Tom smiled, teeth together. His cheeks were tired. Would the man never leave?

  The door squealed shut. Tom returned to his letter, quickly jotting a postscript about having said that Ben was his uncle in case Dr. Eggerley actually dropped in at Gray’s and asked questions. Then he stacked the pages together and folded the stack into thirds lengthwise and again crosswise, mashing the folds flat with his thumb. He lit the candle on his desk with a splint from the fire to melt wax for the seal.

  He yanked a hair from his head and laid it carefully across the fold. Bacon had taught him this trick, so they would know if the seal had been lifted with a blade and replaced intact. He held the stick of wax to the flame until it softened and dripped a few drops onto his letter. He stirred the blob a bit with the wax stick, shaping it nicely. Then he pressed his signet ring firmly into the center. His youngest sister had given it to him last New Year’s Day. It bore his initials on either side of an anchor.

  Done. He tucked it into the front of his doublet and got up to go to dinner. As he passed Leeds’s table, he wondered what could be in the bursar’s desk important enough for the head of the college to come and collect it personally.

  Chapter Four

  The Greek master read an edifying text by one of the early Christian fathers to the assembled college during dinner. His voice was pleasantly pitched, but he had a tendency to drift into ancient Greek, forgetting that only his own students were fluent in the language. Usually, there was a low drone of conversation in spite of the reading, but today the hall was muffled in a somber silence. When the reader came to the part about none being able to harm
the man who did not harm himself, a boy at the sizar’s table burst into loud sobs. Mr. Barrow rose from the senior Fellows’ table to go comfort him.

  Tom wondered if he shouldn’t have a quiet word with Diligence Wingfield to make sure he wasn’t harboring any fearful fancies about what he’d seen. Perhaps the boy would like to bunk in with Barrow’s crowd for a few nights. Or he could switch with Philip, putting one older boy with each younger one. Leeds’s empty bed would still haunt the middle of the cockloft though. He didn’t care much for that himself, if he were honest.

  The reader paused to refresh his throat with ale. Tom turned to Philip to suggest they swap beds with the younglings. Then he noticed Dr. Eggerley rising to make his exit. Tom interrupted his chum in mid-question. “Sorry, Philip, but I’m feeling a bit —” He followed the Head out of the hall without a backward glance.

  That was a spy trick he’d invented on his own: if you didn’t finish your sentences, your interlocutores would finish them for you. That way, you didn’t tangle yourself up with inventions you were sure to forget at the critical moment.

  He caught up with the headmaster in the stables and gave him his letter. Dr. Eggerley promised to see that it was delivered to Gray’s Inn, adding that he might stop in himself on his way to Westminster. Tom felt a little squeamish about letting anyone from Corpus Christi handle his correspondence, but this was his best chance to make sure his letter reached Bacon in a timely manner. If the weather held and Dr. Eggerley met no hazards on the road, he could make it to Westminster in two days, arriving on Wednesday evening. The earliest Tom could expect a reply was Friday night.

  Would his commission be canceled? He hoped not. He didn’t like to leave things unfinished and he wanted his reward. He wanted to go back to Gray’s as a full-fledged, legitimate member so he could pass the bar, become a barrister, and climb up a rung on the social ladder. Leeds hadn’t been any help thus far anyway. Tom could find his way into the godly community without him.