TWO

As soon as the door closed, Tom jumped up and sprinted into the bedchamber to look out the window on the south side of the house. He watched Bacon walk around the corner and disappear into the passageway leading to Holborn Road.

Good. He’d be gone for at least an hour. Possibly two. Lord Burghley never admitted anyone the minute he arrived; it would look like he had nothing else to do. Bacon hadn’t invented that little ploy. No, the Lord Treasurer would let his nephew cool his heels in the portico for at least half an hour. They’d talk for half an hour — Bacon would be sure they did. Every minute standing near the seat of power counted.

Tom returned to his desk, unearthed a folded square of paper, and slipped it into his sleeve. Then he jogged down the stairs to his room at the back of the house, which he had moved into at the end of Trinity term when his former chambermate went home to get married. Lady Russell paid the excessive rent from Tom’s estate. Heaven forbid that so much as a stray groat should fall into Tom’s misruly hands!

Never mind. Where there was a will, there was a way. He’d found a means of earning a few shillings — enough to visit his favorite doxy every other week and treat his friends to a jug or two at the tavern once in a while. A man must enjoy some pleasures, or what’s it all for?

He pulled off his legal robes and changed into his city shoes — passable, but sturdy and easily cleaned. He changed his plain black hat for one with a wide brim and a flouncy feather that somewhat hid his face. Lady Russell might require him to dress in black — her favorite color — from head to toe, but she had an eye for quality. His doublet and round hose, while soberly trimmed, were made of finest broadcloth and fitted him to perfection. She considered him her representative as well as Bacon’s. He doubted either would be much pleased with his next assignation.

Walking was faster than waiting for a wherry these days. Tom took the shortest route to St. Paul’s Cathedral, glad for the chance to stretch his long legs. He entered through the great south doors and shouldered through the crowd of lightskirts, coney-catchers, pick-pockets, and masterless men working the ever-flowing stream of fresh prey, newly arrived from wherever such innocents were grown. In these hallowed halls of vice and thievery, Tom was almost glad to have an empty purse.

He took up his station on the far side of Duke Humphrey’s tomb and hadn’t long to wait before his best customer, a draper’s apprentice with a passion for a mercer’s daughter, sidled up.

“Do you have it?”

“I do.” Tom drew the paper square from his sleeve and unfolded it. He exhibited the page in his flawless script, then cleared his throat and read aloud. “To my darling Lettice, captor of my heart and queen of my desires, I humbly beg you receive with a kind and pitiful regard this fervent cry from within the very depths of my soul.”

“That’s beautiful,” the apprentice moaned, clasping his hands to his chest. “Won’t you read the verse too, Mr. Veritas? You always add a little flourish. I do my best to imitate it.”

Tom signed his poems “Valentine Veritas” in honor of his father, who had the same first name. “Tush! It’s nothing.” Tom set one fist on his hip and held up the page with the other hand, though of course he knew the verse by heart. He lowered his pitch so his voice would carry through the dull roar of noise inside the cathedral.

“Oh, fair sweet face! Oh, eyes, celestial bright,

Twin stars in heaven that now beguile my sight!

Oh, fruitful lips, where cherries ever grow,

And damask cheeks, like peaches, soft as snow!

I beg of you, my fairest Lettice,

That never, ever you forget us,

And grant me this, one honeyed kiss,

To hold me in undying bliss.”

The apprentice gaped at Tom in thunderstricken admiration. Tom never got tired of this part. Even better, the youth added sixpence to the usual fee of six shillings. “Mere money seems so inadequate.” He sighed. “Could you do me another one next week? Same time?”

“I shall summon the muse.” Tom undid a hook in his doublet to add the coins to his purse and tucked it well out of sight again. A man could not be too careful in this place. “Will it still be Lettice, d’ye think?”

“Of course! She’s the light of my life.” The apprentice paused, then added, “If it isn’t, I’ll send you a note.” He touched the brim of cap and skipped off to pitch his woo.

Tom wished him luck. He also wished the man would fall in love with a woman whose name was easier to rhyme, like Grace or Mary.

“Clarady, Clarady! Selling wretched verses to apprentices? How are the mighty fallen!” The mocking voice came from behind Duke Humphrey’s tomb. “‘I beg of you, my fairest Lettice, that never, ever you forget us’? I should charge you six shillings for the damage to my ears.”

“What?” Tom turned on his heel and met the impish grin of his sometime friend from Cambridge University, Thomas Nashe. The scrawny poet looked newly prosperous in a green doublet that almost fit and a matching hat whose crown had not yet been broken. His straw-blond hair still needed trimming, and he hadn’t managed to sprout any on his chin, though he was only a month younger than Tom. The lack of that manly ornament gave Nashe a perpetually boyish air, belied by the shrewdness of his sand-colored eyes.

“Nashey!” Tom cried gladly, clapping him on the shoulders. “What brings you to London?”

“I am now an inhabitant of this fair city, soon to become one of its most renowned quillsmen. I came down from Cambridge in May, choosing to avoid the crush of those tiresome graduation ceremonies.”

“No master’s degree?”

“I am my own master, that’s sufficient degree for me. But what’s new with you? Where’s the dashing lad in the green hose and the yellow stockings? You look like you’re on your way to a funeral. Who died?”

“My father.”

Nashe’s mocking laughter died at once. “I am truly sorry. I know how much you loved him. How did it happen?”

Tom’s answer was cut off by a staggering oaf, who must have weighed fifteen stone, roaring curses at another of his tribe, drowning out all hope of conversation. Tom cocked his head toward the north doors. They made their way out and walked over to a timeworn tomb standing under an ancient yew tree. Moss grew in the dank dirt around its base, and birds had made free with its roughened surface.

A couple of wastrels leaned against it. Tom shooed them away. Nashe hopped up and made himself comfortable, heedless of his clothes. Tom pulled out a large handkerchief and spread it over the spotted surface before gingerly setting himself down.

“Fastidious, aren’t you?”

Tom shrugged. “I’m not walking about the city with bird shit speckling my arse.”

“A fair point.” Nashe shot Tom a sidelong glance and said, “Tell me about your father. Did he fall in the battle against the Spanish Armada?”

Tom’s father had been a privateer, captain of his own ship and more successful than most. He’d relieved the Spanish of many a rich cargo and had the sense to invest his takings in land, building an estate worth six hundred per annum, not counting his widow’s portion. He’d been determined to hoist his only son into the ranks of the gentry, getting him into Gray’s Inn by finding a member of the governing board with a burden of debt and paying it off. That member happened to be Francis Bacon.

“He survived the battles,” Tom said, “with his ship intact and most of his crew as well. He came to London for a week last September in hopes of finding some supplies. There wasn’t much, but I got to see him. Then he sailed to France in search of shot and powder, planning to sail out to harass the Spanish fleet on their way home. He found enough to fill his hold. Somehow it caught fire and blew his ship into the skies, killing him and his quartermaster. Fortunately, no one else was aboard.”

“He was a hero,” Nashe said. “He died in defense of our queen and our liberty, the same as if he’d been facing a Spanish galleon in the German Sea.”

Tom nodded. They sat in silence for a few minutes, enjoying the shade. Sparrows twittered overhead and people’s voices sounded all around them, from shoppers visiting the bookstalls lining the north wall of the cathedral.

“What will you do now?” Nashe asked. “Will you stay on at Gray’s Inn and become a barrister? You’re your own man now, like me.”

“I’ll stay the course my father set for me. I would anyway, but I have no choice. I’m not my own man. I belong to Lady Elizabeth Russell as surely as if she’d bought me at an auction.”

“How’s that?”

“My father’s father bought manors that once belonged to Tarrant Abbey, not far from our house in Dorset. A wise purchase, but little did we know that any lands that once belonged to the old Church still owe knight service to the Crown. That duty sticks to the land like burrs in a rough cloak.”

“Knight service? That sounds like something you’d like, galloping around the countryside rescuing damsels. Although I expect these days they just extract a healthy fine and send you on your merry way — the damsels, I mean.” Nashe couldn’t stay rational for too long at a stretch.

“If I had gained my majority before my father lost his life. I missed it by three months. Since a minor can’t perform knight’s service, however ceremonial, I became a ward of the queen, and my estate fell under the jurisdiction of the Court of Wards.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“It isn’t, trust me. The market in wardships is hotter than the Spanish Main in August. Anyone with cash in the house and an eye for a good investment sends a messenger galloping to Westminster to place their bid. Especially for an estate as large as mine.”

Nashe whistled. “Remind me to ask you for a loan next time I come up short. Speaking of which—”

“You don’t think I get any of it, do you? I’m the infant, as the legal documents describe us wards. No one gives money to an infant. Anyway, there are people watching out for news of rich wards, and the bidding starts early. My master, Francis Bacon—”

“I remember him. He’s the one who wrote all those pithy letters while you were up at Cambridge.”

“The same. We were together when I got the news. His uncle is the Master of the Court of the Wards and he knows the sorts of people most likely to win the prize. He did his best, I do believe, going straight to his aunt, Lady Russell, so she could get her bid in first. Since she’s Lord Burghley’s sister-in-law, she had the advantage.”

Nashe held up a hand and pretended to calculate a sum on his fingers. “Let me get this straight. Your master, Francis Bacon, is the nephew of your guardian, Lady Russell, who is the aunt—”

“Sister-in-law,” Tom corrected, “of the Master of Wards, who is also Mr. Bacon’s uncle and also, to cap it all, the Lord Treasurer and the queen’s right hand.”

“Phew!” Nashe pulled off his hat and fanned himself with it, crimping the brim in his sweaty palm. “You have risen into exalted circles! I’d be afraid to sit next to you if I didn’t have the tomb of this poor churl to raise me up a bit.”

“I think it’s Aethelred.”

“Who is who?”

“The knave inside the tomb. I think it’s Aethelred the Unready.”

Nashe twisted around, lifting up half his arse in an attempt to read the worn lettering. “More likely Aethelflaed the Unwilling. She died of shame after hearing her name rhymed with ‘red,’ ‘mad,’ and ‘trod’ in the same verse.”

Tom laughed. Leave it to Thomas Nashe to turn a serious moment into foolery.

Nashe grinned, pleased with the effect of his balm. “But your guardian is a lady, is she not? Of the feminine variety? I should think you’d have her in your palm by now.”

“Not she!” The idea of cajoling Lady Russell with his usual light flirtations made Tom clutch his belly in dismay. “She’s made entirely of hammered steel.”

“Still, you don’t look like you’re going hungry.”

“I get no allowance whatsoever.” Tom’s complaints began to sound petty, even to himself. He was plainly living in greater comfort and security than Nashe ever had. “What’s more, she and Mr. Bacon agree that I have loose tendencies best curbed by limiting my free time to the barest minimum. When I’m not studying or participating in legal exercises, I’m expected to work as Mr. Bacon’s clerk. Luckily, he attends upon the royal court and takes a lot of naps —”

He broke off at Nashe’s sputtering laughter. “Not both together! Anyway, I sneak out when I can. I came up with this idea to earn some money. I can earn twelve shillings a week in a good week. Half for pleasure, half to support my suit of liberty.”

“I believe the word is ‘livery.’ Delivery from wardship, I suppose.” Nashe might play the fool, but he’d been a good scholar.

“I like it my way better. I have to sue for livery of my estate from my guardian, and you know how lawsuits work. A line of prothonotaries, assessors, and feodaries from here to Westminster Abbey, each with his hand out for a fee. Every document has to be copied out three times. Do you know they actually charge by the foot for every parchment scroll? You have to watch them like a hawk to keep them from repeating sections just to make the vile thing longer.”

“I wish I could make my vile thing longer,” Nashe said somberly.

It took Tom’s mind a moment to catch up, then he surrendered to the pure Nashery of it all and laughed, long and loudly.

“You have my deepest sympathies, my friend.” Nashe patted him on the shoulder. “Mine and Queen Aethelflaed’s. So now you’re as poor as me in spite of your elegant garb.” He studied Tom with a twisted smile. “Well, you might still be able to help. I have a ticklish sort of problem.”

“Ticklish in what way?”

“Not the fun way.” Nashe grimaced and hunched his thin shoulders. “To put it bluntly, someone is trying to kill me.”

“What? Who would want to kill you?”

Nashe bristled. “I’ll have you know I’ve offended many important persons over the years, especially recently.” Then he shrugged and added, “Most of them masters at Cambridge, who are now dancing galliards in their classrooms in joy at my departure. I can see processions with boys in spring colors tossing flowers and singing —”

“Wake me when you get to the part about your putative assassin.” Tom closed his eyes and snored.

“All right, all right. But I have to start in June, when it all began, so bear with me.”

Tom flicked his fingers. “Let’s have it, camarade.”

“That’s when I came down to London. I had my first tender masterpiece, An Anatomie of Absurdity —”

“That sounds very Nashean.”

“It’s the epitome of Nashery, I assure you. Alas, my being a nobody of negative importance, no publisher would have it. There I was, alone and friendless —”

“What about Kit? He’s in London. He would take you in.” Christopher Marlowe had been Tom’s Latin tutor for a few months at Cambridge. He’d taught him very little Latin, but quite a bit about spycraft. Tom had only seen him once or twice since then. They moved in different circles now.

“Ah, Marlowe, master of the mighty line! Strider across continents, king — nay, caesar — of the English stage! Handsome Kit, witty Kit, French-speaking Kit, sought after by every nobleman with a confidential message to be delivered abroad.” Nashe grinned to leach the bitterness from his words. “He’s too busy for me. And seldom in town in the summer. ’Tis the season for spies, you know.”

“I didn’t. Then where are you living? You don’t look so terribly ill-used to me.”

“I am not, and thank you for noticing. I found a like-minded spirit, a colleague, a guide . . . a guardian, if you will. Robert Greene. You’ve heard of him, I presume.”

Everyone who understood the English language had heard of Robert Greene. “That’s lucky,” Tom said, not quite making it a question.

“Very lucky, although we do have a bond, a natural affinity. We met in a tavern favored by the inky tribe and fell into conversation. Two university men in a sea of self-educated lackwits. He took me under his wing and granted me the great favor of allowing me to write the introduction to his latest work, Menaphon. Have you read it?”

Tom shook his head. “I read law books and copy Bacon’s legal maxims. And sneak in a little anti-Martin humor when I get the chance.” He laughed at the reminder. “Have you read Martin’s Mirror Mar’d? It’s the funniest thing I’ve seen this year, unless you count some of Martin’s own stuff.”

“Seen it, my good man? I wrote it.” Nashe grinned broadly, showing his gag-tooth.

“You?” That was twice he’d caught Tom off guard. He’d missed his calling. Nashe ought to be arguing cases in a court of law.

“Yours truly.” Nashe doffed his hat. The poor object wouldn’t survive long in his ownership. “Allow me to introduce myself: I am none other than Pasquill, the Caviliero.”

“The Caviliero? I am honored, sir!” Tom swept off his floppy hat and bowed his head. “How did that come about? And does it pay?”

“Greene brought me in. And it does.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Our paymaster is none other than Canon Bancroft.”

Tom gaped at him, then snapped his mouth shut, glancing from side to side. Nobody was paying them the least attention. “Don’t whisper, it’s more suspicious than talking in a low voice. Marlowe taught me that. So you and Robert Greene are trying to lure out Martin Marprelate?”

“In addition to making a public mockery of him, which is almost too much fun to accept payment. Almost. I haven’t identified the pomposticating Puritan yet, but I’ve caught his scent. He’s somewhere in Northamptonshire, I think.”

“I caught that!” Tom stabbed a finger at him. “Mr. Bacon thought it was pure nonsense, but it was a real hint, wasn’t it? And now I’m putting these pieces together. If Martin thought you were getting too close, he might try to stop you. Hence the attempted assassinations.”

“Hence.” Nashe shifted on the tomb to face Tom but let his eyes wander as if he were watching the passersby. “There are three of us in the canon’s employ: me, Robert Greene, and John Lyly. You know him, of course.”

“By reputation.” Lyly had been the darling of the royal court for the past decade, but he was no lowly scribbler. His father was certainly a gentleman.

“A week ago Monday, a pamphleteer named Edgar Stokes was strangled outside the house I had vacated the day before. Stokes, for his sins, was about my size and also beardless.”

Tom frowned, judging it. “Could be a coincidence.”

“It could. But then on Friday, also late at night, another man was strangled in Norton Folgate on his way past the house where I now live with Robert Greene. Another pamphleteer, whose name happened to be John Little.”

“That sounds like less of a coincidence.”

“I’m inclined to agree.”

“Stop the writing,” Tom advised. “Leave Martin to the authorities. Find another way to buy your next hat.”

“Alas, I need more than hats. I need bread and a bed, every day if I can get them. The only tool I know how to use is a quill, so I’m following in Greene’s footsteps and dedicating myself to the art of the pamphleteer.”

“Can you make a living at that?” Tom fully intended to get back to the main point, but money was a present topic of concern.

“Not a great one. Not a large one. Not one that runs to brass buttons and silk linings.” Nashe pointed his chin at Tom’s doublet. “But enough to keep body and soul more or less together. A good pamphlet can pay as much as two pounds. If I could sell ten a year, I’d be comfortable. But I’m hoping—”

“Two pounds!” Tom had no idea that writing could earn such a sum. “I only get six shillings for my sonnets.”

“Ah yes. Well, er . . .” Nashe offered another one of his contorted grimaces. “As for your poetry — and I say this as one who loves you like the brother you never had . . .”

Tom leveled a look at him. “My poetry sells like hot buns in February.”

Nashe’s lips formed an O. “That’s brisk! Very brisk! But let’s be grateful that your guardian sustains you on the path to a profession more suited to your native talents. And then let’s leave it at that.”

“Fair enough. My apologies for the digression. I know your life is more important than my tavern bills. How did you find out Martin’s in Northamptonshire? No one else has caught so much as a whisper.”

“There are whispers, if you listen for them. I’ve become the anti-Martinists’ intelligencer, so to speak. All expenses paid by the Church of England, if you can believe that.”

“Sometimes the world is very strange.” Tom grinned.

“Mmm.” Nashe nodded. “My job is to gad about the countryside sniffing out rumors of strangers with ink on their clothes who don’t like to mingle. Carts arriving with a heavy load at the local manor house, where the master is known to be the hottest sort of nonconformist. The parish church will tend toward the Puritan as well in such cases, since the lord of the manor doubtless appointed the vicar. I’ve learned more than I expected, to tell you the truth. Something about me makes folks tell me things they wouldn’t tell their own mothers.”

“I’m not surprised,” Tom said. “You’ve got that waifish quality and you make people laugh, which makes them trust you for some reason.”

“Waifish.” Nashe worked his mouth as if tasting the word. “I’ll take it. My job is to scour up tidbits for we three Mar-Martins, as we call ourselves, to use in our pamphlets. Raillery laced with enough facts to give Martin a chill. Let him think we’re closing in.”

“And now you’ve struck too near the mark, and Martin is striking back. But what do you want me to do about it? Walk you home from the tavern every night? I’m on a short leash, remember.”

“I want you to find the killer. You’ve a knack for this sort of thing. Even Kit says so, and you know how hard it is to impress him.”

“High praise, but my hours are fully accounted for.”

“If I know you, you’ll have ways of getting around that.” Nashe waggled his pale eyebrows. “I can pay you.”

Tom gave that a lip fart. “No, you can’t. Money runs through your fingers like sand through a sieve.”

“I have more of it now. I got half a pound for my introduction to Menaphon. And I’ll get a whole pound for my Countercuffe, when it’s published. I’ll split it with you.”

“Ten shillings? I can earn that with two sonnets without risking my neck.”

“Clarady, Clarady! You disappoint me. Where’s your sense of loyalty? Of adventure? Have you really grown so callous as to let your old friend, your dear friend, the friend of your youth, those halcyon days in the halls of learning —”

“Peace, enough!” Tom growled under his breath. “I’m not sure what I can do. You’re asking me to catch Martin Marprelate when the Archbishop of Canterbury and all his men haven’t managed it in nine months.”

“Not Martin, necessarily. Just the accomplice who’s killing us poor pamphleteers.”

“Oh, that makes it much easier. All I have to do is find a strangler lurking about the liberties after midnight who also happens to be a religious zealot who will hang if he’s caught helping the most wanted traitor in England.” Tom twitched his lips. “Then again, I am fond of you, after a fashion. All right. I accept your commission. But I want that whole pound. And you’ll pay my expenses.”

“What expenses? And how will I live, if I hand over my whole fee?”

“Don’t ask how,” Tom said with a knowing grin. “Ask, how long?”