“Marlowe effectively slashed, shredded, and put to the torch every idea I’ve had about Martin’s minion,” Tom said. “All I’ve got now are ashes.”
Mr. Bacon nodded. “My one substantial conjecture about Martin’s identity has also been definitively refuted, to my everlasting relief.”
He had never mentioned this great and terrible conjecture, so Tom pretended to know nothing about it. Let him think that conversation with Lady Russell had been completely confidential, in spite of Tom and Trumpet sitting right there with four fully functional ears and native graps of the English language. “What do we do now? I can’t think of anyone new to talk to.”
“I’m not ready to discard what you’ve achieved so far on the casual word of a playwright, however popular his works may be. Martin’s minion is either someone we haven’t caught a whisper about with all our poking and prying — in which case, we’ll never find him — or he’s one of the men your friend Marlowe so imperiously ruled out. I choose to believe the latter.”
“I’m willing,” Tom said. “But what more can we do?”
“I have one last avenue to explore. Everyone I’ve spoken to shares the same general conception of the kind of man Martin must be, judging by his works. But no one seems to have studied those works with an eye toward discovering the man who wrote them.”
Tom frowned. “How’s that?”
Bacon smiled. “All writers have habits. Vices, you might say. Favorite turns of phrase, long sentences or short ones. They return over and again to the same works for illustrative examples. There are also curiously indefinable but recognizable qualities of style. One man writes well; another simply doesn’t.”
Tom was staggered. “You can figure out who Martin is by reading what he’s written?” This was why, at the end of the day, he didn’t mind serving this fussy, irritating, sometimes incomprehensible man.
Bacon shrugged. “I should at least be able to determine who he is not. Your new discovery, Sir Richard Knightley — well done, by the way — might be involved with the Martin business, but I don’t believe he wrote any of the works. I’ve heard him speak in the House several times. He is not a gifted orator, to put it kindly. He is passionate but earnest. His style lacks wit. I say that without judgment, you understand, purely as an objective description.”
“I understand.” Tom had been on the receiving end of Bacon’s “purely objective descriptions” more than once. He was never wrong, but never spared the recipient’s feelings either.
“In fact,” Bacon went on, “his speeches could be fairly characterized as ponderous, bombastic, and repetitive. Martin, on the other hand, is a gifted writer. He switches deftly from the playful to the serious. He can be thrilling, convincing, picturesque, sometimes even droll. His works are popular for good reason.”
“I see your point. What’s the plan, then? Shall I go out and buy up the bookshops?”
“Not you,” Bacon said. “This task requires my judgment. I expect it will keep me engaged for several days at least.” He folded his hands on his desk with a self-satisfied smile.
Tom couldn’t fault his cleverness, coming up with a vital task that obliged him to spend a week reading in bed. He made a note to tell Pinnock to lay in a supply of nuts, dried fruits, and other tidbits so the genius could maintain his strength without going down to the hall for food.
“While you’re reading, I could go back to the people I’ve met so far and try to shake a little more out of them, which isn’t likely to be much.” Tom pursed his lips and tapped one finger on his desktop until he noticed Bacon’s brow furling in annoyance. “All I can come up with is to try setting another trap.”
Bacon flinched, grabbed his penknife, and shrank into his oversized chair, staring out the window as if expecting an imminent attack.
“Not here!” Tom hastily added. “Nowhere near here.” He watched with concern as his master recovered from his fright, not even slightly tempted to laugh. Bacon had brain, not brawn. The man couldn’t defend himself from a disgruntled blackbird. Nor should he have to. Tom couldn’t identify people by reading their pamphlets. “I don’t have a plan yet, but whatever it is, it will unfold in Norton Folgate, around where the murders were committed. I’ll have to use Nashe as bait again. He’s all I’ve got.”
“He’s a clever fellow,” Bacon said. “He knows these pamphleteers and their favorite haunts. Perhaps he can think of something.”
Tom snapped his fingers, making Bacon jump again. “Not Nashe. His ideas are too far-fetched. But Robert Greene can craft a plot better than any man alive. I doubt he’s dared set foot outside his house all week. He must be half-mad to get out again. Let the man who wrote Pandosto set our next trap!”
* * *
Tom went downstairs to change into his intelligencer garb, as he now thought of his hunting clothes. He didn’t plan on getting dirty, but he’d represented himself as a fellow scribbler on the prowl for opportunities and he didn’t want to muddle that impression. People might be less forthcoming to an Inns of Court gentleman.
He swung past the Antelope Inn to pick up Thomas Nashe, whence they walked on to pass through Aldersgate and cut across the northern part of the city. They weren’t in any particular hurry, which was good because Nashe was a truly irksome walking companion.
He was endlessly distractible. First, he’d lag behind to peer into an open door or examine the wares on some shopkeeper’s folded-down shutter; then he’d skip — up and down, up and down — to catch up. Sometimes he’d stop short and spin full around to gawk at someone wearing an unusual hat or speaking a foreign language. Tom kept to the course he’d set, maintaining a steady pace, refusing to be diverted.
“Have you decided who to marry?” Nashe said, popping up at his side again.
“I’m not marrying anyone.”
“A rich innkeeper, Clarady, I’m telling you. It’s the best of all worlds. Mrs. Sprye’s a gentlewoman, you know. Her father was a barrister, well respected in the county and the courts. Her late husband was a gentleman too, with a fine estate near Falmouth in Cornwall. A lovely place, she said. She still misses it sometimes, but she fell out with the local gentry after her husband died. Land grabbing. You know the sort of thing.”
Tom frowned. “She never told me any of that and I’ve known her nigh on three years.”
“Didn’t ask, did you?” Nashe shrugged. “If you can’t find a woman with a thriving business like the Antelope, you should look for a pretty merchant’s daughter. A rich one.”
“I’m not marrying anyone.”
“Better yet, a rich merchant’s widow.” Nashe tilted his head to grin straight up into Tom’s face. “Virginity is vastly overrated, if you ask me. You want a bedmate who’s —”
“Not a rich merchant’s widow!” Tom almost shouted it. He glared so fiercely at a passerby who somewhat fitted that description that the poor woman startled and hastened away from him, patting her chest.
Nashe stepped in front of him now, walking backward, grinning. “I know what your trouble is, my friend. You’re in love with Mr. Trumpet. Well, who wouldn’t be? You think she’s too far above you, and so she is, for now. But that might not always be the case.”
“What do you mean?”
“Dolly told me. You know Dolly.” Nashe leered. “The maid of all works and all wonders, she of the lush and bounteous —”
“Nashe!” Tom put a threat in his tone.
“Sorry! The delectable Dolly told me about Mr. Trumpet’s difficulties. The aftermath of the events of last August. The irreparable harm done to her reputation and near-universal lack of trust. People wondering if Lord Surdeval’s death mightn’t have been just a trifle too convenient for his very young widow . . .” He shrugged, raising both hands.
Wrath bubbled in Tom’s gut at these unwarranted insults, but he kept a lid on it. “What’s your point, if by some remote, improbable chance there actually is one?”
“Well, she’s fallen, hasn’t she? Unfairly, unfairly! I fully agree. Still, there it is. Her status is not as high as it once was. If she could hold out for a little longer, or fall a little farther, and you could pass the bar a little quicker —”
Tom’s wrath boiled over, filling his chest with steam and fury. He grabbed Nashe by the front of his doublet and thrust him against the nearest wall, forcing him up onto his toes, and snarled straight into his face. “You listen to me, you tickle-brained ninny! Trumpet will never lower herself to the level of a commoner like me. Never! She has lost nothing. Not status, not honor, not trust. Nothing! She is going to marry an earl or a prince or maybe even the king of a small country. He will be handsome, wealthy, educated, even-tempered, and generous. He will treasure her and cosset her. He will grant her every wish the moment she — no, the moment before she knows she wants it. He will treat her with unflagging tenderness and respect every minute of her life henceforward, because if he fails to do so, even once, however briefly, I will hunt him down and slaughter him in the street like a rabid dog. Do you understand me?”
“I do,” Nashe said, nodding vigorously. “I do. Unequivocally. Every word.”
“Good.” His fury spent, Tom felt drained. A little wan-witted. “Good.” He loosened his grip, allowing Nashe to land both feet on the ground. He dusted both of the smaller man’s shoulders and teased open a couple of crushed pleats in his ruff. Then he took a step or two back, opening a space between them. “I just wanted to make that clear.”
“You’re clarity itself.” Nashe burst into a giggle. “Clarity, Clarady. Get it?”
Tom rolled his eyes. The man was irrepressible. The only cure was to catch the murderer so Nashe could go home and spew his foolery at a broader audience. Much broader.
Tom gestured for the fool to lead on. They wanted to cut through a narrow passage to angle across a churchyard instead of going around on the busy street.
“As a general note of consideration,” Tom said, speaking to his friend’s back, “I’m not overly fond of jests involving my — Nashe? What ho?”
The man had taken an odd jerking step off the main path, then yelped and disappeared behind a mossy tomb. Tom moved in that direction too, head turning to see what had attracted Nashe’s attention. Movement — too close — on his left lifted the short hairs on his neck. A heavy hand gripped his shoulder, pulling him backward, off balance, while an iron band of an arm wrapped around his neck.
The strangler!
Fear pumped blazing fire through Tom’s sinews. He wrapped his left hand around his right fist, close to his chest, and drove his right elbow into his attacker’s belly. The man grunted, released his grip, and fell back. Tom pivoted on his left heel, swinging his right fist up and around as he turned, driving it into a face whose features he now recognized as those of John Dando.
“Dando! What the devil?”
The pamphleteer had been knocked back a pace by Tom’s blow, but he kept his feet. Now he stood with his head lowered like a war-minded bull, fists clenched and ready, his mouth twisted into a scowl. “I mean to teach you a lesson, you craven, dog-hearted varlet!”
Craven! Tom didn’t need to hear another word. The man hadn’t drawn a knife or tried to get his fingers around Tom’s throat. Whatever was biting him, he wasn’t the killer.
If he wanted a brawl, Tom was more than willing to supply it. He was no spindly barrister. No scrawny satirist. He was a tall man trained in the arts of combat by London’s most expert masters. Moreover, he’d spent a year on his father’s ship acquiring the quite different skills of extemporaneous brawling from a crew of salt-hardened sailors.
“Come on, then, scribbler, if you’ve got the stomach to try me!”
They adopted fighting stances, knees flexed, fists up, and circled, assessing one another. Tom had the reach, but Dando was no flabby blowhard. He had a quickness in his step and the advantage of a purpose in starting this fight, whatever it might be. A cry sounded across the churchyard. Nashe, most like, coping with his own assailant, probably Oliver Oatmeale. The noise broke the tension holding Tom and Dando apart, flinging them at one another like dogs slipped from taut leashes.
They rained blows on one another, punching and parrying, ranging across the yard, seeking any small advantage in the terrain. Tom had his man at his mercy for a few satisfying moments, trapping him against a tomb and pummeling his midsection, pounding out a series of short grunts that told him his fists were taking their toll.
Dando got away, and they chased each other around the churchyard, dodging and ducking, each trying to land that quelling blow, but mostly missing. Then Dando got Tom backed up against a headstone to repay the belly-pounding. Tom flailed away at his head and shoulders, trying to get a knee up into Dando’s gut. His foot kicked back against the headstone, which had had as much as it could take of this unexpected assault. It tilted abruptly back and jammed for a moment, in which Dando pushed against Tom in an effort to right himself, then fell flat on the ground, taking both men down with it.
Tom rolled out from under and scrabbled away on hands and knees, too spent to get onto his feet. He aimed a feeble kick at Dando, who had staggered upright and was following him on wobbly legs. He missed, but he managed to rise up on his knees and raise his fists. Then Dando swung at him and missed by a mile, carrying himself off balance in the wake of his swing and falling flat on the ground. Tom, meanwhile, had launched his own mighty punch, which drove through the empty air where Dando had been, landing on his face in the muddy grass.
There they lay, panting, a couple of feet apart. When Tom’s breath returned to something like normal, he rolled over onto his back and stared up at the sky, where dark clouds seemed to be gathering. “Looks like rain,” he remarked. He chuckled at the stupidity of that remark, then winced at the bruises on his chest and belly. They would hurt like the very devil tomorrow.
Dando groaned and rolled over. “Best get inside, eh? We wouldn’t want to get wet.” He chuckled, groaned, and chuckled again, making Tom laugh, which made Dando laugh, which made them both groan.
“What,” Tom said, turning his head so he could see his erstwhile opponent, “if I may be so bold as to inquire, was that all about?”
“You’ve been lying to us.”
“About what?”
“You’re not plain Tom Clarady, lately down from Cambridge, scouring about for a way to earn your bread with your pen. You’re Mr. Thomas Clarady of Gray’s Inn, which means you must have a purseful of money tucked into those hose and more where it came from. Worse, you’re clerk to none other than Mr. Francis ‘I know more than everyone about everything’ Bacon.”
Tom couldn’t fault that description of his master. “How’d you find out?”
“An old friend told me when I happened to mention your name. I was at Gray’s, you know, some years back. Not for long. Your Mr. Bacon didn’t approve of me.”
“He doesn’t approve of me either, some days. But the benchers don’t listen to him. If you were expelled, it must’ve been from another cause.”
Dando grunted. Not a topic for sharing, it would seem.
“Who’s the friend?” Tom asked.
“A barrister. Well respected. Man named Welbeck. Do you know him?”
“I know him.” Nathaniel Welbeck was Trumpet’s uncle, the same uncle who had helped her deceive the whole population of Gray’s Inn for the better part of a year. Not from the goodness of his heart, which organ seemed lacking in that quality. She’d used blackmail to persuade him to play his part and provide her with a trundle bed in his chambers. He’d never been caught on the wrong side of the law, as far as Tom knew, but he always seemed to turn up when trouble was afoot.
“Here’s a thought,” Tom said. “You don’t suppose Welbeck could be involved in this Martin business?”
Dando’s burst of laughter died with a groan. “Stop making me laugh, will you? It hurts. No, I don’t suppose that at all. Welbeck’s more likely to take the other side. Catholics are richer. Puritans prefer poverty.”
“Except for the ones that don’t. There are lots of wealthy Puritans. Say, now I think of it. You’re from Northamptonshire, aren’t you?”
“Who says I am?”
“It’s a simple question.”
“It’s a curious question that comes out of nowhere. What if I am?”
“Do you happen to know a man called Sir Richard Knightley? He’s a Puritan, I’m told, and a hot one too.”
Dando struggled up onto one elbow. “That fault-finding, hypocritical, soul-crushing, tight-fisted whoreson Sir Richard Knightley? Is that the man you mean?”
Tom chuckled. “That’s the one.”
“He’s my uncle, as it happens,” Dando said. “Not that I get much good of it, or wouldn’t if my brother weren’t so careful to lick the man’s knightly boots on every occasion.”
“No love lost, I take it?”
“None.”
“Huh. That suggests you’re not likely to be Martin’s minion either.”
“Is that what you thought? You thought I was the strangler? That’s an outrage. I ought to beat you senseless.” Dando fell back with a groan. “Just as soon as I can get up again.”
Tom, still prone, raised his fists into fighting position. “I’m ready for you.”
Nashe’s face loomed into view. “Are you two planning to lie there chatting all afternoon?”
“Help me up.” Tom held out a hand, which Oliver Oatmeale grasped to heave him onto his feet and lead him to perch on the edge of the tomb. Then he and Nashe performed the same service for the other fallen warrior, setting the two combatants side by side.
Dando shot a sidelong glance at Tom. “What, pray tell, possessed you to cast me in the role of Martin’s minion? I hate the Puritans more than most, having greater cause.”
Tom shrugged. “You were only one of three possibilities and never my favorite. My colleague, Mr. Trumpet, discovered your true name and place of origin in a record at the Stationers’ Hall. We thought the name Barnaby Snorscombe might be worth protecting by any means necessary.”
“Barnaby Snorscombe.” Nashe echoed the name in hallowed tones, as if he’d been handed the Holy Grail.
Dando snarled at him, showing him a fist. “That name never leaves this graveyard.” He turned his head stiffly to catch Tom’s eyes. “I remember your colleague, Mr. Trumpet. A slight, slender fellow with lush black lashes and cheeks like newly washed handkerchiefs.”
Nashe nodded. “Like sun-whitened peaches, dewy and tender, with a ripening bloom —”
“Enough!” Tom glared from one man to the other, shooting a hostile glance at Oliver Oatmeale for good measure. Then he pointed at Dando. “You will never mention that name again, do you hear me?”
“I hear you clearly and understand you well. I also have a name I prefer never to be mentioned.”
They locked eyes, then Tom nodded. “Understood.” He turned to his friend. “Do you understand too, Nashe?”
“I may be the only one who fully understands every aspect of this multifaceted and fascinating exchange of changing identities.”
“Silence is what we’re looking for here, Nashe,” Dando said.
“I won’t tell a soul.” Nashe mimed locking his lips with a key. “Not even Christopher Marlowe.”
“Kit already knows,” Tom said.
Dando shrugged. “I don’t mind Kit knowing. That man can keep a secret. In fact, Nashey, I think you should discuss all this with Kit at your earliest opportunity, to get it off your chest.”
Tom flexed his neck and shoulders gingerly, making sure they still worked. He caught Dando doing the same, and they grinned at one another. Nothing like a good brawl to sort things out between gentlemen.
“I thought you suspected Anthony Munday of being Martin’s minion,” Oatmeale said. He and Nashe had muddied each other up a bit, but neither seemed the least bit damaged.
“I still do,” Tom said. “In fact, he’s the only suspect I’ve got left.”
“What’s his motive supposed to be?” Oatmeale asked.
“Envy, partly, like Dando said the other night. It must eat at his gut not to have been picked as one of the Mar-Martins.”
“I don’t buy it,” Oatmeale said, shaking his round head. “It’s not plausible. You can’t tell me anyone would strangle the wrong man — twice— on account of hurt feelings. It won’t work, Clarady, not even in a revenge tragedy.”
“Not even in a revenge tragedy written by Anthony Munday,” Dando added, winning a laugh.
“All right, then,” Tom said. “I withdraw my motion of envy and submit a motion of self-preservation.”
He explained his idea that Munday might be working both as Canon Bancroft’s pursuivant and as Martin’s minion, running pamphlets to the printers along with reports on the canon’s plans. He hadn’t gotten very far before bleats of laughter started bursting from his listeners’ lips. As he wound up his articulate and well-paced argument, the chuckles exploded into howls. Dando clutched helplessly at his belly while Oatmeale gripped his friend’s shoulder for support, tilting his head toward the sky. Even Nashe, who had heard it before, laughed so hard he rolled off the tomb where he’d been sitting.
Tom waited with lips pressed tightly together while they emptied themselves of merriment at his expense. Oatmeale recovered first. “It was well argued, Clarady, I’ll give you that. You’ll make a fine barrister one day. And while I don’t believe your lunatic notion in the sense of a thing that might actually happen here in the world, I believe it could make for a popular play. The audience would roar with excitement when that second twist is revealed.”
“You should write it,” Dando said.
“Not my sort of thing,” Oatmeale said. “But I might get a few shillings for the idea. Marlowe’s too haughty these days, but Thomas Kyd seems to be in a dry patch . . .”
Tom surrendered to the judgment of his three-man jury. “All right, I rest my case. But I need something more substantial for Mr. Bacon than your opinion of how well my story would work on the stage.”
Dando clapped his hands together. “Munday’s bound to be at the Goose. Let’s go shake it out of him.”
* * *
They found their man upstairs at a table in the corner, busily writing, with his squat inkpot near his right hand and a clay mug near his left.
“Stand up, Anthony Munday!” Dando called as they marched up the stairs. “It’s your reckoning day!”
Seeing the quartet of mud-smeared men approaching, Munday jumped up and drew his knife, kicking his stool over so it rolled out of his way. “What do you lot want with me?”
“Answers,” Tom said. He grinned at Dando. “Who draws a knife when he sees his comrades coming?”
“Cowards,” Dando said, “and fools.”
The two new friends gripped the edge of the round table and shoved it hard against Munday’s midsection, forcing him against the wall and making it impossible for him to reach anyone with his slashing blade.
“We only want to ask you a few questions,” Tom said. He reached out and pushed the wad of wool into the top of the inkpot in case Munday chose to overturn the table instead of answering. Ink made such a mess, and Tom had no quarrel with the tavern people.
Munday grumbled and growled and tossed out a few idle threats but mumbled out a confession in the end. He had pushed Robert Greene down the stairs, enraged by an unwarranted spate of boasting, which the four interrogators allowed was one of Greene’s most irritating habits. Munday swore he hadn’t meant the man any serious harm. It was pure bad luck that the stairs happened to be free of customers at that precise moment to break his fall.
Munday further swore, in terms Tom would hesitate to share with his late father’s crew, that he would sooner roast himself in the fires of hell than give the slightest aid to that monstrous, scheming, whoreson traitor Martin Marprelate.
Satisfied, the table was pulled back and bottles of wine were shouted for. When the wench came, Tom asked for platters of cheese and meat and anything else that was fast and tasty. He was hungry, having risked life and limb in pursuit of this commission. And he trusted Peter Hollowell to let him charge this small reward to Mr. Cecil’s purse.