Dark Entry (21 page)

‘A cypher.’ Colwell’s eyes shone as brightly as Parker’s. He straightened, adopting Gabriel Harvey’s stance and tone. ‘Well, come along, Parker. Out with it. For a grandson of the Archbishop of Canterbury, this should be a piece of piss.’

All three howled with laughter.

‘
,’ Parker said. ‘Wait a minute . . .
apenanti skoteinos eisodos
.’ Then he frowned. ‘Opposite of the dark entry. What does that mean?’

‘Think!’ said Colwell, tapping himself on the forehead with his knuckles. ‘What’s opposite the Dark Entry? Umm . . . the Cloisters. Er . . . tomb of Prior Chillenden.’

‘No, Prior Markham.’

‘Ah.’ Colwell’s mind was racing ahead. ‘But which side are we talking about? What if he means the school side? That’d be the Almoner’s Chapel.’

‘No, you clod.’ Parker hit him with his apple core. ‘Strangers’ Hall is immediately opposite . . .’

Marlowe held up a hand. ‘Shut up, both of you!’

They looked at him.

‘What if “anti” doesn’t mean literally opposite? Tom, your memories of Dark Entry haunt you still, am I right?’

Colwell nodded.

‘Matt, what about you?’

‘I was brought up in those buildings,’ he said, whatever childhood fears he’d once had banished now. ‘From the time I was still in hanging sleeves, I used to totter that way. I remember splashing in the puddles.’

‘I remember something else.’ Marlowe was suddenly far away. ‘It was a night in July . . .’ he looked out of the window where the moon was gleaming silver on the rooftops of Corpus Christi. ‘Ralph was with me.’

‘You were there at night?’ Parker asked. ‘You never boarded, Kit, did you?’

‘No. Dr Rose had kept us behind one night. Ralphie was always getting us both into trouble. He’d smashed a window in Strangers’ Hall and when Rose caught us, denied all knowledge. Since I was with him as well, Rose decided to flog us both.’

‘That sounds like him,’ Parker muttered.

‘We were going home.’ Marlowe recalled it as if it were yesterday. ‘Rather more quietly than usual, perhaps. We saw two figures in the Dark Entry. A man and a woman. We thought they were fighting. Ralph ran off and fetched one of the servants from the school to help the woman. He left me there alone and I was sure the man was going to kill her. She was screaming and I didn’t know what to do. Well, I was only ten. But when the servant came back with Ralph, he laughed at us and sent us round the long way out of school. Ralph and I talked about it a lot for ages, wondering if the man had been arrested, whether the woman was all right.’ Marlowe laughed, at the children he and Whitingside once were.

There was a silence.

‘But what were they fighting about?’ Parker asked.

Marlowe looked at him in astonishment. ‘Er . . .’

‘Oh, I see!’ Parker realized his stupidity and Colwell pelted him with cushions.

‘You can tell he’s the grandson of the Archbishop of Canterbury, can’t you?’ Colwell laughed.

When they had control of themselves again, Colwell wiping his eyes on the hem of his gown, Parker was still confused. ‘So . . . what does Ralph mean, then?
Apen
anti
skoteinos eisodos
. They
weren’t
doing it? And who are they? And why Canterbury? God, Kit, we’re no further forward, are we?’

Marlowe looked at him, the worried scholar under the thatch of hair. ‘I don’t know, Matty,’ he said. ‘But Ralph’s trying to tell us something.’

A silence filled the Corpus night. Marlowe flipped the journal backwards and forwards, worrying the problem in his mind. Then he clicked his fingers at Colwell. ‘Ralph’s letters,’ he said. ‘Remind me what we’ve got, Tom.’

Colwell riffled through them. ‘Er . . . tailor’s bill. One from his cousin. Various estate matters for the bailiff. Woodland . . . drainage . . . something about enclosure of land.’

‘What are you thinking, Kit?’ Parker asked.

‘Who’s the tailor?’

Colwell checked. ‘Tate of Mercery Lane,’ he said.

‘Does a good ruff,’ Parker remembered.

‘And the cousin?’

‘Jeremy Whitingside.’

‘Where does he live?’

‘Hawe – isn’t that Manwood’s village?’

Marlowe nodded.

‘Of course!’ Colwell blurted out. ‘Kit, you’ve got it! Ralph owed the tailor, didn’t he? Unpaid for doublet and hose or something.’

‘That’s right.’ Parker took up the theme with enthusiasm. ‘And cousin Jeremy – if he’s Ralph’s only relative, he stands to inherit on Ralph’s death. It’s a conspiracy. Tate and Jeremy worked together. Ralph wasn’t paying his tailor’s bill, but that wouldn’t matter once Jeremy got his hands on Ralph’s lands. Brilliant!’

‘And no doubt,’ sighed Marlowe, ‘Ralph’s bailiff was in on it, hoping for a better master and he could supply the foxglove tincture.’

The others looked at him.

‘Lads, lads,’ he said patiently. ‘Have you learned nothing from Johns over the last three years? Cousin Jeremy has sizeable estates at Hawe. After Manwood and the church he’s the leading landowner. He wouldn’t cross the road for Ralph’s few acres, let alone kill him, especially as they’re miles away from his own. And Master Tate may be a chiseller, but I don’t have him down for a cold-blooded killer. Neither of them had easy access to Ralph here in Cambridge, so short of hiring a sworder . . .’

Silence again. Professional killers were beyond the experience of any of them.

‘And what about Henry?’ Marlowe asked. ‘Throw him into the equation and all ideas float out of the window.’

‘So, what are you saying?’ Colwell asked.

‘The cypher.’ Marlowe turned to the journal again. ‘What else does it tell us?’

‘Dark Entry,’ Parker muttered. ‘Tombs. Five arches. Ow, Kit, that hurts.’ Marlowe had grabbed his arm and his fingers were digging in to the muscle above the elbow.

‘Five,’ he hissed. ‘Five.’ He looked at the lads, their faces glowing in the candlelight. And he held up an index finger. ‘Ralph Whitingside,’ he said. A second finger joined the first. ‘Henry Bromerick.’ His ring finger jerked upright. ‘Thomas Colwell,’ he said.

Colwell blinked.

Marlowe raised his little finger. ‘Matthew Parker.’

The boy licked his lips as Marlowe’s thumb came to the upright.

‘Christopher Marlowe.’

‘Five,’ Colwell mouthed.

‘Four Parker scholars and an odd one,’ Marlowe said with a nod. ‘Whatever this is about, gentlemen, it’s to do with Canterbury. And none of us is safe. Tom, are you carrying a dagger?’

‘I can be,’ Colwell said.

‘Matt?’

‘Kit,’ the boy said, ‘you know I never . . .’

Marlowe leaned forward. ‘These are not normal times, lads. We must all watch our backs.’

They all jumped as the sounds of a scuffle outside in The Court told them that the night-ride of a couple of Corpus sizars had come to a sticky end.

The Parker scholars were all agreed – if they had to be inside on a sparkling midsummer’s morning, there were many worse places to be than the soaring beauty of King’s College Chapel. Marlowe was very familiar with its vaulted ceiling and oak-lined calm, Colwell and Parker less so, but even so, he couldn’t help but sit, head back, eyes half closed, letting his mind soar amongst the carvings so high above that they were always hidden in a dim fog of twilight and the smoke of dying candles.

Dr Falconer, halfway between Marlowe’s spinning imagination and the soaring height, ensconced in his organ loft, was letting his mind and fingers run free, with trills and arpeggios and variations on a theme by Thomas Tallis, an overrated composer to his mind, but nonetheless worth plagiarizing if there was any chance of getting away with it. His music wound itself into Marlowe’s imaginings and added depth and breadth to the pictures unrolling in his head.

There was an abrupt discord which brought the choir to attention, and then the dot and carry one gait of Dr Thirling was heard making its way up the nave. A rustle of papers and a soft oath confirmed it was the choirmaster; despite climbing the shallow steps to the choir many times a day, the third one, slightly higher than the others by a merest whisker, almost always got him, to the perennial amusement of the choristers. After a short pause, the Fellow appeared in the gateway in the Rood screen and approached his lectern, his conducting staff in one hand, his music, all anyhow, in the other. His gaze raked the faces turned expectantly towards him.

‘Gentlemen.’ He smiled briefly and sketched a bow. ‘I am so sorry to keep you waiting, but –’ and he thwacked himself on the thigh – ‘this leg of mine needs exercise and I lost track of time on the Backs on this beautiful day. It doesn’t matter, does it, how often one revels in the beauty . . .’ a skirling chord from above brought him back to the task in hand. ‘Yes, well, enough of that, perhaps.’ He cleared his throat and began again. ‘Thank you for your time this morning. I would particularly like to welcome Master Marlowe, and Master . . . umm.’

‘Colwell,’ Tom called.

‘Colwell and Master . . . umm,’ he continued.

‘Parker,’ Matt said, quieter, waiting for the punch line.

‘Oh, Parker. As in Parker scholar? The Archbishop of . . .’

‘Yes. Canterbury. Grandfather.’ Matt was seriously considering changing his name. Something with no connection with anyone famous. He had quite liked the name Walter Ralegh; that would be a good one. No one had ever heard of him.

‘I see,’ said Thirling, turning to the decani side. ‘Gentlemen, would you like a short practice with just the men’s voices, or shall we just take it at a run?’

The rather decimated King’s gentlemen muttered between themselves, the general consensus being that on the run was fine by them and were they getting paid cash for this and was it time and a half? Thirling chose not to hear – finances were for other people, not artistes like himself.

The choirmaster tapped his staff briskly on the floor. ‘Gentlemen of Corpus Christi, are you familiar with
If Ye Love Me
?’

The three looked at each other and then nodded to Thirling. It had been a favourite with their choirmaster at Canterbury, a complex piece which when sung well reduced congregations to tears with its sweetness. When sung badly, tears sprang to the eye as well, but in response to the dissonances, which could break windows at quite a distance.

‘Thank you, gentlemen. On my count and . . .’ Thirling raised his staff to Falconer, who gave them their note, long, high and lingering. The cantoris trebles came in like larks, to be taken up in thirds by the decani and then the men. The words and the melody wound on to their conclusion, ending with a harmony so sweet that it sounded like one note, sung by the angels over the Rood screen, their wings pointing to God.

The note died away to silence and Thirling stood there, swaying slightly, thumb and forefinger pinched together, staff raised, eyes closed. The choir held their breath.

‘Beautiful,’ he said. ‘Absolutely perfect.’ The makeshift choir smiled at each other and relaxed. ‘And
again
,’ Thirling cried. ‘On my count and . . .’

Richard Thirling was quite right, the Backs were very beautiful on that lovely summer morning. Benjamin Steane strolled along, hands clasped lightly behind his back and felt he had not a care in the world. He had just had a note delivered that morning by a galloper from Canterbury to confirm his bishopric, and, though it was only Bath and Wells, rather than the Winchester for which he had hoped, it was still a bishopric and more than anyone else at King’s College had. It was not in his nature to skip, but had it been, he would have been skipping now. And add to that, he told himself, the fact that he was to be married in just three days. If his bride was not a beauty, then at his age, did that matter? She had lands, she had money, she was willing; ample attributes, he thought, ample. A smile played on his lips which his enemies would have immediately labelled smug – and they would have been right. A faint song was borne on the breeze from the Chapel, just odd notes, rising and falling. His smile broadened, thinking of the size of the choir at Wells, the sweeping steps to the Chapter House, the Abbey at Bath, sweeping to the river . . . the bishop’s palace, full of Ursula’s beautiful furniture. He stopped, rose up on his toes and took a deep breath. Benjamin Steane was a happy man.

Ursula Hynde stepped from her carriage at the end of Queen’s Green. Only Ursula could consider a few days at the sprawling Madingley being cooped up, but that was how she had described it to her long-suffering brother-in-law. She had not taken, as she had put it to her maid servant the night before, to Francis’ friends Sir Roger Manwood and that nasty Dr Dee. They were, in order of mentioning, fat and loathsome and scrawny and loathsome. It was something in the way they looked at her; they seemed to be undressing her with their eyes. Ursula Hynde was many things, but she was not a good judge of men’s expressions. Looping up her skirts out of the grass still damp from the morning dew, she strolled along the water’s edge towards the town. She had been so busy arranging the wedding – there was so much to do, Francis had let the place go to wrack and ruin, old curtains hanging in tatters, staff out of control, trees on fire . . . it was not work for a sensitive woman like herself, on the verge of marriage after so many years alone. She sighed, then brightened up. In the distance, she could hear a faint thread of song, coming from King’s College Chapel, grey and high and solid in the morning sun. How lovely it sounded, flickering in and out of hearing across the water. She allowed herself a smile; despite the work and the worries, Ursula Hynde, soon to be Steane, was a happy woman.