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‘Pensioner,’ Norgate said, shifting the parchment in front of him. ‘Scholar of the King’s School, Canterbury. Recipient of the Matthew Parker scholarship . . .’

‘Jobs for the boys,’ Harvey almost spat. He had come up the hard way, with no scholarship to pave his way, no silver christening spoon clamped between his teeth. He despised the gilded youths standing before him and didn’t care who knew it.

Norgate was nodding his old, grey head. ‘Your grandfather,’ he told the boy, ‘once sat where I am today before God and Her Majesty called him to higher office. What would he have said of his grandson’s profligacy?’

Parker cleared his throat. ‘He would have been appalled, sir,’ he said. Matt Parker remembered his grandfather well. He was a sweet old boy who gave him toys and smelt of incense and old leather. He was too nice to be an Archbishop and certainly too nice to be Master of Corpus Christi. Parker remembered the old man’s funeral when he’d stood in that huge cold vault of the cathedral and saw the tears on everyone’s cheeks. He’d let the old boy down, that much was certain.

‘And yet,’ the Master sighed, ‘Professor Johns and Dr Lyler tell me that your Dialectics are to die for.’

Harvey snorted. Parker was average at best; how could his colleagues be so easily taken in?

‘What a waste.’ Norgate stood up. ‘Gentlemen.’ The guilty three stood to attention once more, gazing steadfastly into the middle distance. ‘You were found climbing over The Court wall at two of the clock this morning, worse for drink. Proctor Lomas reports that you, Bromerick, struck him on the head with your fist.’

‘Flat of the hand, sir,’ Bromerick blurted out, instantly regretting it. ‘Flat of the . . .’ and he stopped short, tucking the offending appendage into the front of his gown, as though to hide the evidence. Shut up, Henry, he heard the little voice inside his head saying. They cut off people’s hands in this great country of ours.

‘You are all good scholars,’ Norgate went on, ‘and today you were to have been invested by our college with the degree of Bachelor of Arts.’

Gabriel Harvey smiled. He had not missed Norgate’s use of the past tense and fully approved of it. There was, as he’d known all along, a God.

‘You know that I could withhold your degrees?’ the Master said.

There were assorted mutterings of assent from the three. They were all students of the Dialectic, well versed in the Discourses; the Master’s use of the conditional gave them hope. Harvey’s lopsided grin was already appearing. Perhaps he’d missed the nuance.

‘I shall consider,’ Norgate said and the grin vanished. There was a dull metallic clanking from across the quadrangle, from the tower of St Bene’t’s. ‘There’s the Chapel bell. Get along with you, now. You will have my decision by twelve of the clock.’

‘Sir,’ the scholars chorused and made for the door, doffing their caps as they went. Parker stopped at the studded woodwork. ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘I hope it goes without saying that we’re very . . .’

‘Get out!’ Harvey roared. And, with a hop and skip to catch up with the others, he did.

The Chapel bell clanged on in the golden morning and scholars crept out from the staircases, fumbling with caps and gowns, colliding with the Fellows whose rooms they shared. In some ways, Corpus Christi was a victim of its own success. The college had never been fuller, but that meant that space was at a premium. Sizars, always cold, hungry and broke, shared lodgings with the Fellows for whom they skivvied and scraped. Only Gabriel Harvey lodged alone, complaining of the smell of the hoi polloi, whose academic potential diminished year by year.

The Master looked down from his eyrie as he had now for more years than he cared to remember. Then he turned back to his second in command. ‘Well, Gabriel?’

Harvey got to his feet too. ‘Withhold their degrees, Master. Throw the book at them. Damn it, throw every book you’ve got. Damaging the reputation of the college like that. We’ll never live it down.’ Norgate was old school. Mentioning the reputation of Corpus was bound to work and Harvey knew it.

But if Harvey was the Devil’s advocate, then Norgate was equally good at playing God’s. ‘A few lads had too much ale,’ he said quietly. ‘Not a great sin in the scheme of things, Gabriel. You and I have seen far worse things, even here in this university. True, it would have been better if they’d waited until tonight to celebrate. We don’t, after all, flog our graduates . . .’

‘. . . yet.’ Harvey finished the sentence for him. He looked out over The Court as the stragglers disappeared into the Chapel doors, still just in shadow as the morning sun crept over the grass towards the dark interior. His eyes moved upwards and he saw a face in a far window – the liquid eye, the sardonic, unreadable mouth, a look that would outstare the Devil. ‘Of course,’ he said, not turning away. ‘I’d swap all those idiots for the one who’s behind it all.’

Norgate followed his gaze. The scholar in the far window bowed and doffed his cap. ‘Ah, Christopher Morley.’ The old man could never get his name right. ‘You’ve never liked him, have you, Gabriel?’

‘No more than I like the pestilence,’ Harvey growled. He snatched up his satchel. ‘It is, of course, your choice, Master,’ he said, with all the cold contempt at his command. ‘I must to morning service.’

‘Not going to morning service today, Kit?’ Professor Johns wanted to know. He wasn’t all that much older than Marlowe but he had the grey skin that goes with the intellectual, a man who had long ago decided that his would be a world of books and scholarship and the scratching of quill on calfskin.

‘Not today,’ Marlowe said. The flash doublet had gone and he wore the grey fustian of a scholar. Across the quad, he saw that bastard Gabriel Harvey scurrying to the Chapel, hatred seeping from every pore. Every time he saw the man, he wondered what he’d done to upset him. What it was in the three years they’d known each other, teacher and pupil, that had made Harvey so detest him.

‘One of these days,’ Johns said, ‘I shall ask you why. Why you go to Chapel so rarely.’

Marlowe turned, smiling. ‘One of these days, Professor, I might tell you.’

‘Professor?’ Johns laughed, his blue eyes twinkling. ‘We’re very formal today, Dominus Marlowe.’

‘Ah.’ The scholar held up his hand. ‘Not Dominus yet, I fear.’

‘This afternoon, though,’ Johns said. ‘I can be forgiven a little prematurity.’

‘Perhaps,’ Marlowe said. ‘But I shan’t take my degree until the lads get theirs.’ He looked at the man before him, and decided to speak what was on his mind. ‘Tell me, Michael, can you step in with the Master? On behalf of the lads, I mean?’

‘The Parker scholars?’ Johns resumed his seat by the window. ‘You’ve always been a father figure to them, haven’t you?’

‘I’m older,’ Marlowe said with a shrug. ‘It’s only natural.’

‘No, there’s more to it than that. They look up to you. Most of the student body does. What Marlowe does, they do.’ He paused, knowing that what Marlowe did was not always a good thing. ‘Were you with them last night?’ he asked.

Marlowe turned to face him. ‘Is the Pope the Bishop of Rome?’ he asked.

Johns laughed. Then, suddenly, he was serious. ‘Kit,’ he said. ‘Sit down, will you?’

Marlowe turned on one toe and flopped down on the window seat, leaning back against the transom and folding his arms, looking at Johns from under his half-lowered lids.

‘What are you going to do with your life?’ the Professor asked.

‘Do?’

‘Well, the Church, naturally,’ Johns said. ‘But somehow, I just don’t see you . . .’

‘In a surplice handing out the Eucharist?’ Marlowe chuckled. ‘No. Neither do I.’

‘The law, then?’ Johns suggested. ‘When your new classes begin . . . Or what about medicine? It’s a subject that’s the coming thing, believe me. All those potions and elixirs. Fascinating.’

‘The theatre,’ Marlowe cut in.

‘What?’ Johns blinked.

‘Drama. Poetry. Air and fire.
That’s
the coming thing.’

Johns looked as if somebody had just stabbed him in the heart. ‘Not coming to Cambridge, I hope,’ he said.

‘Oh, no.’ Marlowe chuckled. ‘All that’s coming to Cambridge is more of the Godly, the Puritan persuasion. If there’s a tavern standing come Lady Day, I’ll be astonished.’

‘Don’t joke, Kit,’ Johns warned solemnly. ‘You don’t know how powerful . . .’

‘The college authorities are? Oh, I’ve got a pretty good idea.’

‘No,’ Johns said, looking even more ashen than usual. ‘I didn’t mean that. Kit – promise me something.’

Marlowe shrugged. He didn’t make promises, not ones he couldn’t keep. It had something to do with his immortal soul.

‘Conform, Kit.’ Johns leaned forward to him. ‘Please –
conform
.’

Marlowe pushed himself upright from where he lounged on the window seat, then stood up, stretching. ‘Perhaps that word sounds better in Greek.’ He smiled down at Johns. ‘Or Hebrew. I’m afraid I don’t understand it in English.’ He crossed to the door. ‘Time for breakfast,’ he said. ‘Michael –’ he turned in the archway – ‘you’ll do what you can for the lads?’

And he was gone.

They stood in a hollow square as the sun sat high in the Heavens, nearly a hundred strong, the Master, Fellows and Scholars of Corpus Christi College. Only the servants were absent, busy with their duties and forbidden to watch what was to follow on pain of the same.

The scholars had all seen this before and some of them had felt it, the knotted lash with its nine tails. Gabriel Harvey stood four-square with the Master, the Fellows behind him in their tassels and gold lace, glinting in the summer sun. Funny how everybody dresses up for torture, to celebrate a Roman holiday.

The three stood in the centre, leaning forward with their wrists strapped with leather thongs to the rough wooden pyramid frame the Proctors had placed there. They were stripped to the waist, the points dangling from their woollen hose and their skin pale in the sunshine.

‘Scholars of Corpus Christi.’ Dr Norgate’s voice was strong over the rising breeze that fluttered gowns and headgear and took some of the heat from the midday sun. ‘Witness the punishment of three of your number who failed to obey the college curfew and were found the worse for drink.’

He let the words sink in, noting one or two of the older scholars who arched an eyebrow or eased a collar. This was to encourage the others; the lesson would not be lost.

‘Proctors, do your duty.’

Marlowe saw the relish on Lomas’ face as he began to lash. His right arm snaked back and the whip thudded across Bromerick’s shoulder blades, followed almost instantly by Darryl’s strike. There was a gasp from the younger boys as the knots bit home, the wicked tips of the whip cutting the pale flesh and leaving a slash of blood.

Bromerick’s body convulsed and he bit down on the leather pad that Darryl had shoved unceremoniously between his teeth. As the second blow fell and the third, a single tear trickled down Bromerick’s cheek. His hair was matted with sweat and his legs felt like jelly but he wasn’t going to cry out. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

Before the last stroke, Lomas held back, shifting the haft of the cat in his hand, for more purchase for his encore. Darryl’s rope sliced the air and cut diagonally across the pulp of Bromerick’s back. As the scholar turned to stare defiantly at his tormentors, Lomas deliberately sent the whip high, slapping across his mouth and cheek so that the blood spurted in a sudden arc.

Marlowe moved forward, his jaw set, his body rigid. Only Michael Johns quietly standing in front of him and laying a hand on his chest stopped him. ‘
Conform
!’ he hissed.

Then, as the bleeding Bromerick slumped, exhausted and beaten on the triangle, the Proctors went to work on Colwell, then Parker. They had had to wait in an agony of helplessness and frustration, watching the pain inflicted on Bromerick and knowing it was coming to them. It seemed to go on forever, the whistling and thump of the whips, the grunts of exertion from the Proctors. In the far corner, near the Master’s Lodge, there was a brief commotion as a sizar fainted. The lad turned white and pitched forward on his face. He had been unable to watch and unable to look away, all at the same time. Somebody scooped him up and propped him, with his cold, sweating forehead lolling on his updrawn knees, against a wall.

Then, all was silence, except for Lomas and Darryl, who were puffing, red-faced from their hard work. No one was sorry to see that Lomas in particular found his breath hard to catch, and the tortured whistle as he drew air into his lungs was music to many ears in the hollow square.

Kit Marlowe was not a man to make promises, but he made one to himself that morning. There would be a reckoning.

Dr Norgate stepped forward as if he were taking the service in Chapel. ‘An offence like this,’ he said, his voice echoing around the courtyard, ‘would normally result in these scholars being sent down.’

Even the Proctors were silent now.

‘However,’ the Master went on, glancing in Johns’ direction, ‘representation has been made and these young men, fine young men as I know them to be, will be given their degrees when their wounds have healed.’

No one dared cheer or applaud. Somehow, the moment was not right. Marlowe nodded to Johns a silent thank you. Then he went to unhitch his lads from the triangle. The Master and the Fellows marched away, followed by the scholars, whispering urgently to each other about what they’d just seen.

‘Next time, Master Marlowe,’ Lomas sneered as he coiled his whip away.

Marlowe smiled at him, untying Bromerick’s hemp first. ‘Oh no, Master Proctor,’ he said. ‘In a few days I shall be Dominus Marlowe and if you lay a hand on me – or any of my friends – I will kill you.’ And there was something in his eyes that made Lomas believe it. Marlowe closed to him, grinning widely. ‘Not much moon again tonight, I’ll wager. You watch your back.’