A Fine Madness Read online

  ‘You will leave today,’ Mr Secretary concluded, ‘and take my horse, Prince. You should be there tomorrow evening. The Privy Council will wish to hear on Monday that Marlowe is included in the degree ceremony. If not, there will be consequences. If they are at all reluctant, tell them those were my words.’

  Mr Secretary’s gaze was dark and steady and curiously impersonal, always the same whether he was contemplating one of his beloved hawks, addressing the Queen or interrogating a prisoner on the rack. He never sought to make windows into men’s souls, as he would put it, his concern being truth, truth alone. ‘Leave forthwith, take victuals from here and wear my livery. Be formal. The exercise will do Prince good.’

  He looked even paler than when I arrived, the livid white of his cheeks contrasting with his square black beard. He made fists with his hands on the desk, knuckles whitening as he clenched. A single drop of sweat trickled down the side of his forrid. His gaze moved from me to the mulberry tree outside the window. ‘You must forgive me, Thomas. I have been unwell this week, as I told you. Had I been at Council this matter would have been dealt with sooner. Now I feel the stone again, the cursed stone, sent by the Lord to punish us. As it does most assuredly.’ He returned to me, his lips parting again in what he might have meant as a smile. He was clearly in great pain and control was costing him dearly. He nodded at the door. ‘Ask Betty for victuals.’

  Prince was a fine bay Arab, a beautiful horse. Whoever gave him to Mr Secretary no doubt meant well but they did not know their man. Mr Secretary disliked riding and did so only when he had to, never for pleasure. It was strange that a man fearless in all things – because he feared God more, he would have said – should have been so fearful of horses. Probably he was nervous and his nerves made the horse nervous. Rather than ride he would go by river from his house at Barn Elms to Whitehall or Seething Lane. Prince spent too much time stabled.

  I am but a moderate horseman myself and knew Prince would be frisky when let out, but the prospect of a long journey with him was still a pleasure. And so it proved. It was difficult at first in the London streets where the heedless crowds provoked Prince into some prancing and side-stepping. Once he reared and knocked over a costermonger’s barrow, causing the man to shout and swear prodigiously, but Sir Francis’s blue livery protected me. Although few among the commons might have recognised it, they would have known it was someone important, someone not to be meddled with.

  Once out of the city, however, Prince and I relaxed and enjoyed ourselves. The days were long and we made good time, spending the night at an inn in Ware. There I read again the summary of the sealed letter in my satchel, puzzling again how it had come to the notice of the Privy Council that Christopher’s degree was to be withheld. It had always been me who dealt with him and I would have expected him to come to me. He must have had some other channel of communication. I own I felt some resentment, having thought we knew and trusted each other well enough for him to turn to me if he needed help.

  No doubt Cambridge is much changed now. It had changed then, in the ten years since I left Trinity College. There was new building, old halls extended, and alleys and footpaths widened into thoroughfares. Scholars were everywhere, of course, their gowns billowing, but the streets were also thronged with labourers and traders, a veritable little London. I knew the vice-chancellor’s lodge though not Dr Copcot himself. The servant who answered my knock was a woman, older than me, who mistook me for a menial despite my livery. I told her I had a letter for Dr Copcot. She asked for it, holding out her hand. I said I had to deliver it in person. That piqued her and she left me on the doorstep. I heard her call within, ‘A messenger from London, sir.’

  ‘Take his message,’ came the reply.

  She came back and held out her hand again. ‘Give it to me and wait here for a reply.’

  I own I am not a man of stature, though I have some standing in the secret world and have appeared with my master at Court. I am shorter than most men and my face is marked with the small pox. But I am no weakling, my hair and beard were fair and well-trimmed in those days, and a glance at my livery and at Prince tethered nearby should have told the woman that I was not the menial she thought. I was also, of course, a University man.

  I spoke quietly, having found that quietness and control of tone carries more authority than bluster. ‘Tell Dr Copcot that the letter I bear is from the Privy Council, conveyed here with urgency by the wish of Mr Secretary Walsingham, whose man I am.’

  That troubled her a little and she left without another word. There were hushed voices followed by heavy footsteps on floorboards. Dr Copcot was a stout man with a broad face which might have been forbidding but which creased and softened in welcome when he saw my blue coat and smart leather satchel. He bade me enter and took me to a parlour where I was served cake and sherry by the now obsequious woman. A groom was summoned to feed and stable Prince and a servant sent for Dr Norgate of Corpus Christi. It had been a long journey that day and I appreciated the refreshment.

  Dr Norgate proved the opposite of Dr Copcot, a thin man with a long wrinkled turkey’s neck. He also wore that bird’s affronted expression as he shuffled across the floor, his hand shaking on his stick. I gave them the letter and they opened it together, sitting at the polished parlour table. Dr Copcot finished first and looked up. ‘You are familiar—?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Well, it appears a mistake has been made, there is no question of that. Through the best of motives, I doubt not.’ He glanced at Dr Norgate, who was still reading, bent so far his nose almost touched the page. ‘And all shall soon be made good. The ceremony is on Tuesday and we must ensure—’

  Dr Norgate looked up sharply. ‘Marlowe’s absences were noted by many in the college. He has been absent even more than other scholars, who are quite bad enough. It sets a poor example if he goes unpunished. There are far too many absences of late, some for nefarious reasons as was suspected of him. If we ignore them we encourage them.’

  Dr Copcot’s broad face creased with concern. ‘But where matters of state are concerned—’

  ‘Others will not know that. They will know only that a prominent malefactor goes unpunished and indeed is treated with favour.’

  I leaned forward and addressed Dr Norgate quietly and respectfully. ‘I am sure, sir, that Mr Secretary is sympathetic to the college’s concerns. But on matters touching the security of the state, of which it is his duty to inform Her Majesty, he is obliged to consider wider interests. He expects from me on my return a full account of your deliberations.’ I put my finger on the list of names at the top of the page. ‘Meanwhile, may I beg you, sir, to heed those who have put their names to this letter. That is a measure of its import.’

  As well as Lord Burghley, the Lord Treasurer, they included the Lord Archbishop, the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chamberlain and Mr Comptroller, Mr Secretary having been absent through his illness. Thus were the great cannon of the realm all trained at that moment upon Corpus Christi College. I suspected that Dr Norgate’s initial reaction was prompted partly by pride and irritation at being summoned to treat with what he took to be an inconsiderable person. He was not so proud, however, as to be immutable to self-interest; he understood full well what the letter entailed. He wiped a drip from the end of his nose and nodded. He could not bring himself to look at me but said, in little more than a whisper, ‘There is time. It can be arranged.’

  ‘And shall be,’ added Dr Copcot, emphatically.

  The master of Corpus Christi took his leave, briefly and gruffly. Dr Copcot offered me supper and a room in his lodgings for the night, which I was pleased to accept. But first, I said, I wanted to find Christopher Marlowe to give him the good news.

  ‘Of course, of course, and I don’t doubt you will be first with the news because Dr Norgate will not hurry to break it.’ He smiled ingratiatingly. ‘Please assure Mr Secretary and my Lord Burghley that I personally vouch that young Master Marlowe will be treated as well as his good servi
ce deserves.’

  I caught up with Dr Norgate as he crept like some ailing insect past the porter’s lodge at Corpus. I knew he would take little pleasure in speaking to me but I make it policy never to offend without good cause. The choppy seas of life throw us up against enough hard rocks without our running deliberately at them. When he saw me alongside him he nodded and would have continued, saying nothing, if I had not smiled and touched my cap. ‘Thank you for your help in this matter, Master. I shall ensure that Mr Secretary knows of it.’

  He stopped and faced me, without enthusiasm. ‘I thank you, sir. Had we known that his absences were not for the reasons we suspected—’

  ‘Your caution was correct, sir. And your understanding, now that you know the circumstances, will be much appreciated.’ Then I asked a question, partly through genuine interest and partly because if you ask someone’s help and it costs them little, they are pleased with themselves and therefore think better of you. ‘Pray tell me, Dr Norgate, do you know where I may find Dr Atkins of Trinity College? He taught me the mathematic and I should dearly like to thank him for the great benefit and pleasure it has given me.’

  He stared. At first I thought he was adjusting to the idea that I too was a University man, but his eyes clouded with something like anxiety. ‘Dead, sir.’

  ‘Dead?’ Dr Atkins had not made old bones. He would have been only five or six years older than me, still in his fourth decade.

  ‘Dead.’ Dr Norgate nodded as if listening for something far off. It was Death he listened for, of course, sensing the approach of that illustrious entity, as I do now. Death was indeed stalking him; he died later that year and was succeeded as master by Dr Copcot, who ensured that the scholars of Corpus Christi continued to be of assistance to us.

  ‘I am sorry to hear it, sir. Pray then tell me where I may find Master Marlowe.’

  I was directed to a ground-floor room across the quad. There were a few scholars about, gowned and waiting for dinner in hall which began at seven. The wealthier among them dispensed with sub-fusc and wore richer apparel of their own choosing, by favour of their fathers’ deeper pockets. It had been the same in my day; rules were more flexible for the rich. Christopher, like me a scholarship boy, had begun with no such dispensation but latterly, with the money we paid him, he had shown a taste for more gorgeous apparel. The scholars were supposed to discourse among themselves only in Latin or Hebrew but as I passed among them I heard English phrases in the accents of London, Norfolk, Warwickshire and Wales.

  The college was not full and Christopher was in his old room, the one he used to share with two Norfolk boys but for this visit at least he had it to himself. It was furnished as plainly as before, though now with only one narrow bed, plus table, chair and bookshelf, no rug and no curtains for the small window. On the table was a pewter pint pot, a couple of sharpened quills, an inkwell and some sheets of quarto, two of them written on. Christopher sat on the floor between the bed and window, his back against the wall, his legs drawn up so that his arms rested on his knees. He was dressed not as a scholar but as a man about the town – indeed, a gentleman about the town – in dark, expensive doublet and hose. In his right hand he held a long-bladed dagger, the sort duellists use for parrying. I always thought it an awkward weapon to wear at your belt but he almost always did, often – later, at least, in London – with his sword. He had occasion to use both, as I came to know all too well, but I think it was not only for that that he wore them. There was something of the peacock in Christopher; he liked to be smart, to be noticed, and it meant something for a cobbler’s boy to achieve the gentlemanly status that permitted him to wear a sword in public. When I arrived he was trimming his nails with the knife and had grown a thin red-brown beard and moustache.

  Seated on the floor in similar pose but against the opposite wall was a fair young man wearing the usual scholar’s sub-fusc. He had not even the beginnings of a beard and a sleepy left eye that was half closed in a permanent squint. But his features were fresh and clear and he smiled at my entrance. It was Christopher who had answered my knock on the door with the soft Latin venite, spoken wearily.

  ‘I am sorry to surprise you, Christopher.’ I nodded greeting to the young man.

  ‘You don’t surprise me.’ Christopher smiled and got to his feet. His features, normally as thin and keen as his knife’s blade, were transformed when he smiled, softening so that it was impossible not to see him as a small boy, mischievous and confiding. He nodded at the young man, who got to his feet and slipped past me through the open door with another smile and mumbled thanks.

  I closed the door. ‘Have I not surprised you? I have been seeing Dr Norgate and Dr Copcot on your behalf.’

  ‘I assumed someone would. So it will all go through, then? I shall get my degree?’

  ‘You shall.’

  He sheathed his knife and stepped forward to embrace me. ‘Thank you, Thomas. I fear I have nothing to offer you. I am dining in hall – as required – and it is too late to sign in a guest. Not that college dinner—’

  ‘I am promised to dine with Dr Copcot.’

  ‘Who I am sure will royally entertain any emissary of Sir Francis.’

  I could not resist glancing at the papers on his table. Deciphering other people’s correspondence being my business, the study of men’s hands fascinates me. Christopher was a hurried scrawler, although his capitals were large with elaborate swoops and curves. An easy hand to copy. I had expected to see some scholarly work such as translations of Ovid – a passion of his since we first met – but it was pages of play-script, with many lines scored through. He was always lavish with ink.

  ‘Another Tamburlaine?’ His play of that name was already much spoken of in London. He must have written it since his work for us, while supposedly studying. He wrote fast, I do know that.

  He shook his head. ‘No, this one is about the work of the Devil.’

  ‘A dangerous subject.’

  ‘Less dangerous than writing about his opposite, don’t you think? We know all about the Devil’s works and we know what he is – one of us. Which is more than we can say of our dear Lord.’ He hurried on before I could respond. ‘But early days, early days. This one is yet to come. There will be other plays first.’ He took his gown from the hook on the door, slipped it on over his tunic and stood before me as if to make a formal speech. ‘Thomas, I am grateful that I shall get my degree, truly grateful. Please tell Sir Francis. I am grateful not only for myself but for my family and my patron, Sir Roger. I should not want him to think I had been frivolous of my time here. Nor insensible to the generosity of the Archbishop Parker scholarship.’

  Christopher’s patron, the man who had spoken for him as a scholarship boy, was the judge, Sir Roger Manwood. Like Christopher, he was a man of Kent, known also to Mr Secretary, a Kentish man.

  ‘We knew nothing of any difficulty until very recently. Otherwise it would have been resolved sooner. Or would never have arisen.’

  ‘I knew nothing of it myself until I got here from London.’

  ‘How did you—?’

  ‘Poley. Robert Poley was here. He was returning to London and said he would ensure people knew. A favour he will doubtless remind me of one day. Never lets a favour go to waste, does our Robert.’

  I imagine that is a name that means nothing to you, sir? It is forgotten by everyone now except a few relics of those days, like myself. Yet those were times when it seemed that nothing happened in the kingdom without Robert Poley’s delicate fox prints discernible nearby, whether on palace lawns or in the filth of hovels. He made himself at home anywhere and was key to our disruption of the Babington plot. You know of that, surely – the plot to kill Queen Elizabeth and put Mary, Queen of Scots, on the throne? That young fool Babington went to the gallows for it without ever knowing whether his ‘beloved Poley’, as he still termed him, was his true friend and fellow-conspirator or his secret and most deadly enemy. But that was Robert Poley for you, not quite a gentleman, no
t quite a Catholic, not quite a Protestant, nor ever quite a proven rogue. Mr Secretary even took him into his household at Barn Elms for a period in order to assess him thoroughly, but was still never quite sure of the man. That Poley served us well he acknowledged, but so thought those he betrayed on our behalf. ‘I do not find but that Poley hath dealt honestly with me,’ he declared to me once, ‘yet I am loath to lay myself anyway open to him.’

  Christopher’s mention of him surprised me, though it should not have because I knew Poley got everywhere. ‘Poley? What was Poley doing in Cambridge?’ I asked.

  ‘What Poley does everywhere, pursuing his own mysterious purposes. You must know him better than I. If I had asked he would either have invented a lie or he would have told the truth, not because it was true but because he saw advantage in my knowing. Thus he is essentially false even when true. So I didn’t ask and he didn’t volunteer.’ He smiled and shrugged. ‘Yet I cannot dislike the man. There’s something about an honest knave so long as he has charm, don’t you think?’ He looked at me, his eyes still smiling. ‘Not jealous, are you, Thomas?’

  ‘Of course not, why should I be?’ But he had hit the mark, as usual.

  It was true that I neither liked nor trusted Poley but we could not ignore him. He was one of our best and most flexible agents, adept at talking his way into almost anyone’s confidence. In Paris he ingeniously got himself recruited by the exile Thomas Morgan, Queen Mary’s chief intelligencer, equivalent of Sir Francis on our side. Through Poley we identified many of Morgan’s agents, the English Catholics lured to France to be turned into priests and secretly sent back into the kingdom to undermine us. The seedmen of sedition, Sir Francis called them. So deep was Poley in the Babington Plot – which should really be called the Ballard Plot since Ballard the priest was the prime mover – and hence so exposed to suspicion that afterwards Mr Secretary had him imprisoned for a while to conceal his role. Yet even in gaol he contrived to live comfortably and seduce a good woman who visited.