Silent Court by M. J. Trow

and fast.’
    An outburst of more giggling from the stall made the groom blush under his stable grime.
    ‘I’m sure she doesn’t mean it unkindly,’ Marlowe told the man. ‘You are clearly needed elsewhere, so let’s be quick. What do you have for me tonight?’
    The groom knew Marlowe as a more than competent horseman and also, in recent times, a heavy tipper. So he was torn. ‘There’s the Wasp,’ he said, uncertainly. He didn’t usually hire out the Wasp for long loans; she was always back in the stable within the hour, led by her bruised and muddied hirer, demanding all sorts of compensation and threatening Messrs Hobson with the wrath of God.
    ‘The Wasp! Ideal for my purposes. But, Harry, there is a possibility I won’t be able to ride her back. I may have to send word to you as to where I have left her. Would that suit Master Hobson?’
    ‘Nothing much suits Master Hobson,’ the groom said. ‘You’ll have to leave a large deposit.’
    Both men waited for the giggling, but the woman appeared to have fallen asleep as there was nothing from the vacant stall.
    ‘I have gold here,’ Marlowe said. ‘I’ll leave the full value of the mare and if she comes back to you, you are to give the money to Tom Colwell of Corpus Christi. Is that fair?’
    ‘Fair enough, Master Marlowe,’ Harry said, stuffing the scholar’s sovereigns into his purse. ‘Where are you off to, may I ask?’
    ‘East of the Sun, west of the Moon, Harry, for all I know. But I will try to return the Wasp; I know how fond you are of her. Don’t trouble yourself. I’ll saddle her myself.’
    ‘That’s very decent of you, Master Marlowe,’ Harry said. ‘She fetched me a nasty one the last time she was out. Constable Fludd had her for an hour or so.’
    Marlowe laughed. ‘Now, that wasn’t kind, Harry, was it? Constable Fludd is no horseman, as all of Cambridge knows. What did he need a horse for?’ As they spoke, he was pulling wisps of hay from the manger at his shoulder and packing it into a net. He was pretty sure that his quarry would be equipped with horse fodder enough, but the Wasp was a picky eater and all the more bad tempered if she got hungry. Better to be safe than sorry.
    ‘He didn’t say, but everyone knows he’s off after the Egyptians. He’s to make sure they leave England, or his job is forfeit.’
    Marlowe nodded. Another complication for his journey would be avoiding Fludd, then. The Constable was a fine fellow in many ways, but falling in with any kind of subterfuge was probably not his strongest talent. Disguise was an option, but Marlowe was too vain to change his appearance much. He didn’t mind wearing a scholar’s fustian, but he was happier in the clothes he was wearing for the journey. And he certainly wasn’t going to shave his beard or cut his hair again, not for Francis Walsingham or the Queen herself. So he would have to avoid Fludd or face him down if he named him in the wrong company.
    ‘Back to your lady, Harry,’ he said, ‘before she goes off the boil.’
    ‘Ar, getting her to the simmer is hard enough, Master Marlowe, and more than enough for me,’ Harry said, but he turned back to the stall nonetheless. ‘You’ll find the Wasp’s bridle on the left-hand hook. Her saddle’s still on her; she was in too much of a skitterish mood when she came back for me to do much with her but wipe down her hocks with a wisp of straw. Good luck with your venture, Master Marlowe.’ He disappeared behind the partition wall. The last Kit Marlowe heard of him was his grumpy voice saying, ‘Wake up, you drab. What am I paying you for?’
    With a smile at the weakness of grooms and of men in general, Marlowe went into the Wasp’s stall. She put her ears back and showed her teeth, stamping her feet impatiently in the deep litter of the stall. Marlowe ran his hand along her flank and checked her girth. As he suspected, just a touch too loose, so that the poor Constable would have yawed about like a