A Fine Madness by Alan Judd (best classic books TXT) 📕

our behalf, under your tutorship. That accounts for his absences last year but not for this year. Those recent absences he has spent writing plays and negotiating their performance in London. He intends the stage to be his trade and in fact left Cambridge in March, journeying back just now to receive his degree. He is still there. The Privy Council signed this letter yesterday.’

I could not conceive how Mr Secretary knew all this but I knew better than to ask. His sources of information were many and various and he would never reveal one to another without need.

He laid his forefinger on the letter. ‘Today is Friday and the degree ceremony is on Tuesday. Before then the college and university must understand that Her Majesty will be greatly displeased should one of her loyal subjects be punished for service on her behalf.’ He took another paper from his desk, this time unsealed. ‘You should ensure that they read the letter together and you are of course at liberty to read it yourself when they have opened it. You should not hesitate to intervene if they argue or fail to grasp it, telling them you have my full authority to do so. Dr Copcot, I gather from Lord Burghley, should prove helpful; Dr Norgate may quibble. But you shall brook no quibbles.’ He handed me the second paper. ‘This is a copy of the Privy Council minute summarising the letter. Take it with you and study it so that you fully understand the letter before they discuss it.’

I have that copy here, sir, among my papers. I shall read it to you.

Whereas it was reported that Christopher Marlowe was determined to have gone beyond the seas to Reames and there to remaine Their Lordships thought good to certifie that he had no such intent, but that in all his accions he had behaued him selfe oderlie and discreetlie whereby he had done her Majestie good service, and deserued to be rewarded for his faithfull dealing: Their Lordships request was that the rumour thereof should be allaied by all possible means, and that he should be furthered in the degree he was to take at the next Commencement: Because it was not her Majestie’s pleasure that anie one employed as he had been in matters touching the benefit of his Countrie should be defamed by those that are ignorant of th’affaires he went about.

‘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