Day of Deliverance by Johnny O'Brien Page A

stay. You can make your way down to your lodgings at Queens’ later. First things first, however – we must see to the cart and donkey…”
    As they got themselves organised, they were distracted by a group of young men who approached from further down the street. They appeared to be in good humour and were singing loudly. They had been drinking. As they neared the college gate, Fanshawe went up to one of the men, who had wavy auburn hair and wore a black cloak with large buttons. He was a young man with a roundish, pale face, a light moustache and beard – not unlike Fanshawe’s. He was unstable on his feet and he put out one hand to steady himself on the college wall.
    “May I help you, sir?” Fanshawe asked the man. Fanshawe looked a little closer, peering into the man’s face, his brow furrowed. “Marlowe? Christopher Marlowe?”
    Marlowe looked back at Fanshawe, blinking and trying to focus his eyes. He let out a strange, strangled giggle, swayed again and was violently sick.

Corpus Conundrum
    They were standing in the great wood-panelled hall of Corpus Christi College. Dinner had finished and Marlowe’s group of players had been permitted to clear the far end of the hall to complete an evening rehearsal of his new play, Tamburlaine the Great. The arrival of Jack, Angus, Fanshawe, Trinculo and Monk had caused quite a stir among the players. Contrary to Monk’s expectation, Fanshawe was well known to Marlowe and a number of his actors. They had been welcomed (particularly as there was a shortage of extra soldiers for the play); however, things were not going according to plan.
    Marlowe himself, having been sick at the college gates when they met, was now flat out on the floor at the far end of the hall, sleeping off a heavy afternoon in the nearby pub, The Eagle. Meanwhile, the actor playing Mycetes, enemy of Tamburlaine, was rapidly following Marlowe into a comparable stupor, having discovered the key to the wine cellar beneath the hall. In addition, progress had been further delayed, as Marlowe had insisted that, in order to mark the occasion of the first public performance of Tamburlaine , he would arrange for a local artist to paint a portrait of the group. Prior to each rehearsal at college, the painter had lined up the entire cast in full costume and started scratching away at his easel. He was fussy and temperamental and the arrivalof Fanshawe, who insisted that they should also be in the picture, had nearly caused him to walk out. Reluctantly, he had been persuaded to stay and the group posed appropriately, with Jack and Angus off to one side.
    Once the actors had been standing for forty minutes they were starting to get bored and impatient to get on with the rehearsal. It had also become apparent that Mycetes had, in fact, smuggled an entire case of wine from the cellar and was happily circulating bottles around the group. Gradually the noise level increased and the behaviour and language became increasingly coarse. When half a loaf of bread left over from dinner flew from one side of the hall to the other, rapidly followed, in the opposite direction, by a large lamb chop, Jack felt it was probably time to leave. He didn’t want to be there when the college master turned up to witness them in the middle of that most ancient of university traditions – the drunken food fight.
    Jack nudged Angus. “Think it’s time to move.”
    “Just when it was getting interesting.”
    Jack turned to Fanshawe, who seemed to be the only one taking a rather dim view of the proceedings. “Harry – shouldn’t we see how Marlowe is doing… remember your plays… you wanted to show them to him?”
    Fanshawe, and the faithful Trinculo, needed no excuse and they slipped over to the far end of the hall where Marlowe lay, still snoring loudly. They woke him and he slowly regained his senses. He pulled himself to his feet and stood unsteadily, clutching his head and groaning.
    “What happened?” he asked woozily,