by Anna Castle
She paused for a moment and asked for a cup of wine. Francis fetched one from the bedchamber. While he was up, he collected the bundle of Tom’s letters from the side table and brought it back to his desk. He leafed through it while she resumed her survey. When he found the letter he wanted, he waited for her to catch a breath and said, “What do you know about the parents of the more devout students at Corpus Christi College?”
She knew everything, of course. Her correspondence was prodigious. She kept in close communication with his stepbrother Nathaniel, especially concerning matters relating to the college endowments and scholarships.
Her discourse then flowed naturally from the parents to the senior Fellows and the question of a new preacher for Gray’s Inn. “Abraham Jenney is your best choice if you intend to restrict yourself to masters from your father’s college. He’s too ostentatiously celibate for a village living, which of course makes him quite suitable for an Inn of Court. His scholarship cannot be faulted. He’s a merely adequate preacher, but one supposes practice will improve his performance.”
Francis dipped his quill and scribbled a note. “What about John Barrow?”
“I can’t recommend him for this position. Your brother Nathaniel considers him a man who would rather teach than preach. He loves to have a gaggle of admirers following him everywhere, and his views, at least those expressed in the tracts he publishes in Antwerp, are extreme. He has a good head for administration, however. Nathaniel has him in mind for a doctorate, with an eye toward the headmastership of some college in due course. Christ’s, perhaps, or our own Corpus Christi if Dr. Eggerley should choose to move on. Someplace where his energies could be channeled appropriately.”
Francis knew Dr. Eggerley would indeed be moving on in a matter of months but refrained from mentioning it to his mother. He couldn’t very well explain how he knew. “And Parson Wingfield? What does Nathaniel think of him?”
“I’ve heard him myself, you know,” Lady Bacon said. “I’m quite capable of forming my own opinions.”
“Which are?” Francis prompted.
“His voice is purest velvet, and he is a truly inspired and thrilling preacher. I’ve never felt so uplifted.”
“That’s quite a recommendation.” Francis scribbled another note.
His mother waved her hand at his note-taking to stop him. “I didn’t say I recommended him. On the contrary. His voice is magnificent and his passion sincere, but I spoke to the man after the service. He’s practically an idiot, and I use that term advisedly. He’s well suited to his rural parish, but he wouldn’t last a week in a house of lawyers.”
Francis drew a line through the last note, chiefly for her benefit. That information was useful — more than useful. It completely reshaped the social landscape he’d constructed in his mind. How had Tom failed to notice that his chief suspect lacked the intelligence to organize a secret, region-wide convention? Or had he concealed that fact from him? Francis had begun to wonder lately if his intelligencer wasn’t trying to protect as much as, or more than, expose.
He elicited more details from his mother, wanting to be thorough. She was delighted to oblige, assuming his questions showed a growing interest in his personal salvation. He felt another twinge of guilt but encouraged the misconception, knowing it would loosen her tongue still further.
Even while Francis asked his questions and listened to her enthusiastic answers, a corner of his mind pondered the ethical dilemma of exploiting his own mother for political ends. Did his lord uncle ever have to stoop to such methods?
Of course he did, as he knew from bitter experience. His Lordship would never risk appointing Francis to a post from whence he might overshadow his own son. But neither could he discard so useful a tool. So he exploited his talented nephew for all he was worth, salving his conscience with the pressing needs of his queen and his country. Francis, bound to the same duty from birth, knew he would often be forced to do the same.
Chapter Forty-One
Tom walked along the Grantchester Road on Monday morning, returning to his college after delivering a sealed letter. The recipient was a yeoman he’d finally found beside a stream, washing his sheep in a shallow pool. Tom spoke the coded greeting, “Our friends salute thee.” The yeoman answered, “Peace be to thee.” Then he dried his hands on his shirt and tucked the letter unread into a stained leather satchel that probably contained his lunch.
Tom had not opened this letter; in fact, he’d scrupulously avoided handling it any more than necessary. He’d walked straight down to Grantchester without stopping anywhere on the way. It had taken him some time to locate the yeoman, but then he’d taken the shortest route back to the road. If anyone was watching him, they’d find nothing objectionable in his behavior.
He hadn’t spotted any watchers and doubted there were any. All the men he’d met in the godly community had jobs or classes or other duties. They couldn’t spare the time. Still, he didn’t know how far the conspirators’ reach extended. They seemed to have many sympathizers in all walks of life. That didn’t bode well for the queen’s objectives, but Tom had only one man to catch.
He had earned this second chance by making another bold move. He’d gone back to church in Babraham on Sunday, acting chastened and subdued. Even Tribulation’s dramatic account of the War of the Roosters had only drawn a timid smile. After dinner, he’d taken his courage in both hands and asked the parson for a word in his study. Mr. Barrow and Mr. Jenney had come along.
Parson Wingfield gestured Tom to a stool and sat himself behind his desk. Barrow leaned by the small hearth with his arms folded; Jenney perched on the windowsill with his hands on his knees. Tom confessed to opening the letter on the way to Dry Drayton. He’d been overcome by curiosity, he said. Then, in his eagerness to be a part of the ultimate Reformation, he’d gone to a meeting to which he had not been invited. He was deeply ashamed and willing to perform whatever penance they set for him.
To his enormous relief, he’d read these folk aright. Their desire to recruit him to their cause was greater than their fear. And salvation was their stock in trade; they loved to help the struggling sinner back onto his feet. They weren’t fools — they’d be watching him closely from here out — but they wouldn’t throw away a university man with connections at the Inns of Court for one understandable slip.
The parson lectured him for a few minutes about faith and continence, and that was that. On the way out, Barrow clapped him on the shoulder and said, “We’re glad you told us, Tom. Honesty is best among brothers, eh?”
Then last night after supper, Steadfast had given him this second letter. The game continued, though Tom knew in his bones that events were rising swiftly to their conclusion. Commencement was one month away. Plans made now would be difficult to alter. Secrets spilled could not be mopped up. Betrayers would be cast out — or strung up.
Tom grinned up at the scudding clouds and picked up his pace, singing “O Wherefore Do the Nations Rage” to help the rhythm of his feet. He had gone a quarter mile or so when he heard the creak and rattle of a cart coming up behind him. He stepped onto the verge, waving at the carter and his boy as they rumbled past with a load of new-mown hay. He treated them to a verse, holding his arms wide to extend the sound of his voice, and was surprised to see them stop and turn around.
The carter, a great hulking churl, raised his hat. The boy was not so well mannered; he turned on the bench to show his back. Well, not everyone appreciated music.
Tom stepped onto the road and filled his lungs for another song. The carter pulled his horse to a halt. Tom glanced over his shoulder and saw two men in black masks rise up from under the hay.
Hot fear engulfed him. Another trap! The devil take him for a gullible fool!
He barely had time to adjust his stance before they jumped down, grabbed him, and heaved him into the cart, leaping in on top of him to hold him down. The carter called, “Yip, yip!” and the wagon began to roll, gradually picking up speed.
Tom shouted, but his cries were muffled by the hay. He thrashed about wildly but could get no purchase, sprawled facedown in the yielding mass. His attackers tied his feet together and bound his hands behind his back. They rolled him over, which was a blessing in terms of air, but covered him at once with a coarse blanket. His face had been in the clear for only a moment, but he’d caught a flash of green eyes staring down at him from beside the carter.
Trumpet.
His fear evaporated. His muscles went slack. Whatever she was up to, she wouldn’t hurt him. Much.
Tom lay in the hay with his eyes closed under the blanket, wondering what she thought she would accomplish by kidnapping him. He wished he could be certain she was acting under Francis Bacon’s orders; at least then the plan would have a rational foundation. But Trumpet was fully capable of setting things in motion without knowing where they would end up.
No one spoke while the cart jolted along the road. Tom could sense shifts and turns but could get no sense of direction, lying blind in the fragrant hay. He assumed they were headed back to Cambridge, but not to the college. An inn, probably, or some isolated house.
At last they came to a stop. They rolled him snugly in the blanket. Three sets of hands lifted him out and balanced him on his feet. Then one man — probably the giant carter — hefted him up onto his shoulder.
They scuffed across earth, then thumped over wood, then up an echoing stair. Tom’s head cracked against a solid something and a deep voice grunted, “Sorry.” Hinges squealed and Tom’s shoulders scraped past something hard. His bearer lowered him onto the floor. The deep voice said, “He’s all yours, my lady.”
“Thank you, Jackson,” Trumpet said. “That will be all for now.”
The hinges squealed again. A door thumped shut. A pair of sharp clicks sounded like a key in a lock.
Hands were laid on his body as someone rolled him free of the blanket, leaving him facedown. “Hold still,” someone said, and he felt one hand grasp his arm, another his ankle. Cold steel slid past his wrist as the ropes were cut. He kicked at the hands untying his ankles and flipped himself over onto his arse, ready to spring up and deal roundly with whatever ruffians Trumpet had hired. He spat hay from his lips and looked straight into the laughing brown eyes of Christopher Marlowe.
“Good morning, Thomas. I trust you haven’t suffered any permanent harm.”
The mocking tone punched the wind out of his sails. Tom groaned and lay back flat on the floor. Turning his head to one side, he saw gag-toothed Thomas Nashe grinning down at him. Trumpet elbowed him aside and bent to speak to him with her hands on her knees. “We’re here to help you, Tom.”
“Help me with what?” He studied her from his prone position. She was dressed in the plain garb of a laborer’s son, artfully composed of unmatched pieces: brown hose, tan stockings, a mustard-colored jerkin, and a small green cap. She’d left off the moustache but had smeared dirt up one side of her face. It didn’t make her any less pretty, but it did make her seem more like a boy than a girl.
“You’ve lost yourself,” she said. “You’ve been seduced by the people you were sent to expose. There’s no shame in it. Mr. Bacon says it happens all the time.”
Marlowe leaned into this view and nodded. His brown eyes were loaded with sympathy. “I’ve seen it myself, Tom. It’s one of the greatest hazards of intelligence work.”
Trumpet held out a hand. “Let us help you, Tom. We can bring you back to your old self again, if you’ll give us the chance.”
Marlowe held out his hand too. Tom ignored them both and got himself to his feet. He flexed his neck and shoulders, loosening limbs made stiff by confinement, and regarded his adversaries coolly. Finally, he shot them a sardonic grin and said, “I’ve been acting, you idiots.”
That got them, all three of them. Tom tilted his head back and laughed out loud at their open-mouthed, wide-eyed, flabbergasted expressions. “We can help you, Tom,” he crooned in a mocking falsetto.
He enjoyed watching Trumpet’s expression change from astonishment to relief to disgruntlement. He shook his finger at her. “You underestimated me. And so did Mr. Bacon.” He kept his eyes on her face, enjoying the chagrin coloring her cheeks while he fished a half crown out of his purse and flipped it to Marlowe. The poet caught it with one hand.
“For the lessons in tradecraft,” Tom said. “You’re a better teacher than you knew.” Fooling Christopher Marlowe made him happier than anything he’d done in a very long time. It more than made up for being tossed into a cart full of hay.
Marlowe chuckled and flipped the coin into the air again before tucking it into his pocket. He wore his workaday garb but without the academic gown. His face was a browner shade than it had been at the end of March. He must have spent time out of doors in a place with ample sunshine. One of his secret journeys, no doubt. Marlowe would always walk alone; it was in his nature to be contrary.
Tom turned to Nashe. “How did you get roped into this?”
Thomas Nashe had green hay in his straw-colored hair but otherwise looked much as he always did — a bright-eyed scholar in secondhand robes. He pointed at Trumpet. “She hired us. A pound apiece.”
“Nice to know my value,” Tom said. He looked around the cell they’d prepared for him. The room was simply but adequately furnished with a bed, a long table, three joint stools, and one ladder-backed chair. A worn quilt covered the bed and a tattered cloth painted with discolored fleurs-de-lis hung askew on one wall. The room lacked a hearth, but a glazed window provided light. The ceiling sloped sharply toward the window; they were on the top floor, wherever they were.
The table held a large jug and four cups. Drink was to be expected, but Tom also noticed a stack of well-worn books and a sheaf of loose pages beside a small writing desk. Could those be some of Marlowe’s latest poems? “Were you planning to read to me?”
“We didn’t know what would work,” Marlowe said. “We brought some of your old favorites and some of my Art of Love translation.”
Tom frowned. “You let Trumpet read that filthy book?”
“It isn’t so much a question of let,” Nashe said with a shrug and a sheepish grin. “She has this way —”
“I know her way,” Tom said. He walked to the window and looked down into the yard of a busy inn. Two horses stood patiently under their saddles while a boy emptied a bucket into the trough. Workmen carried a stack of boards on their shoulders toward an outbuilding. A woman sauntered along with a willow basket balanced on her head. He couldn’t see the front door or the sign hanging over it, but he could guess at the symbols it bore. They’d brought him back to the Cap and Bells.
A good choice. And they’d gotten him here under cover. None of the godly folk could know he was here, nor could they approach him unawares, tucked up at the top of the house. He watched the woman with the basket stroll out of sight, thinking about his schedule for the day. He could risk an absence of a few hours if he could come up with a good excuse.
Tom turned back to Trumpet and gave her his very best grin, dimple and all. “Well,” he said, “are you going to give me dinner? Or do I have to tell my story over the rumbling of my empty belly?”
She threw her arms around his neck, almost knocking him back off his feet.
Chapter Forty-Two
Tom raised his cup. “Here’s to the richest man in England!”
“Hear! Hear!” the others cried, thumping the table with their open hands.
Sir Horatio Palavicino had unwittingly funded a most excellent feast by means of a pair of turquoise earrings he had pressed upon Trumpet during her last visit. The Cap and Bells had an excellent cook, and she hadn’t stinted in her orders. They’d eaten their fill of roast lamb, rabbit pie, eels in jelly, fresh peas in cream, with salad of rocket and cress and a savory tart of white cheese. Those plates had been removed now, replaced by small dishes of fresh strawberries, nuts, and dried figs. Trumpet had even treated them to several bottles of sweet Spanish bastard with all the trimming
s.
Tom hadn’t had so luxurious a meal since he’d left Gray’s, nor such good company. He felt as if he’d stepped through a secret door leading to this private room high atop a hidden sanctuary. Here he’d been granted one hour of blessed respite, a chance to be himself among trusted friends after five watchful months of wearing a mask, never daring to take it off, until he sometimes feared the mask had become his true face. It was good to discover he was still Tom.
Trumpet had also slipped her leash. She’d told Sir Horatio and Mrs. Eggerley that Lady North had invited her to spend two days at Kirtling Hall. She’d told Lady North she was spending those same two days at Babraham Hall with Sir Horatio, who was providing a matronly relative to act as her companion. She’d ordered a coach, loaded up her maid and two large trunks, and driven north, circling well around Cambridge to approach the Cap and Bells from the south. Lord North’s hospitality had, in fact, provided for the trip since the silver bracelet his son had given her paid for the coach.
Christopher Marlowe had also taken a room at the inn. He had presumably earned some money performing whatever errand had taken him away from Cambridge for nine weeks, but he’d also dropped the hint that someone was treating him to a month of comfort in which to finish a play called Tamburlaine. He couldn’t go back to the college in any event since Dr. Eggerley had thrown him out. He was determined, however, to stand up at commencement and take his degree. He’d earned it with three years of hard work and meant to be called Master Marlowe henceforward, Dr. Eggerley be damned.
Thomas Nashe was here because Marlowe was here, although he also seemed to have formed a strong attachment to Lady Alice. Tom couldn’t tell if the poor scribbler was in love or angling for a noble patron; most likely a little of both. She’d won these men’s service with charm and the promise of adventure as much as with coin. Trust Trumpet to choose poets as retainers!