Silent Court by M. J. Trow Page A

yacht in a gale, making the horse even more skitterish, as Harry would have it, than usual. He tightened the surcingle one more notch and ran his hand under the saddle tree, checking for burrs. Harry’s sense of humour ran to the slapstick and his hatred of the constables of Cambridge ran deep. But there were no little surprises there and the mare soon calmed down at the touch of someone who knew what they were about. Her afternoon with an idiot on her back had made her testy, but she was not averse to a good gallop with a proper horseman astride her and so she consented to having the bridle fitted and she let him back her out of the stall.
    As they walked down the stable, past the stalls, Marlowe heard just one remark from behind the partition where Harry was taking his ease, if that was the word.
    ‘Was that it?’
    A groom’s life was a hard one, especially if he worked for Hobson, and on this particular day, it wasn’t particularly merry, either.
    ‘Good night, Harry,’ Marlowe called as he stepped out with the Wasp into the cold night air.
    ‘Er… yes, good night, Master Marlowe,’ the groom called back. ‘Good luck to your venture.’
    ‘Thank you, Harry,’ Marlowe said to himself. ‘I may need it.’ And with a reassuring cluck to the mare, he sprang on to her back and they clattered away through the emptying streets of Cambridge.
    The Gothic turrets of King’s College were black against the purple haze of evening as he made his way north, heading for Magdalene Bridge and the road to the Fens, where he was hoping to catch up with the Egyptians. They had gone north, that was the rumour and if they were bound for the fairs of Flanders, they would probably sail from Lynn.
    Two men who saw him go stood in the angle of Trinity Lane, one wrapped in a roisterer’s doublet, the other in his academic robes.
    ‘Marlowe,’ murmured Robert Green. ‘Going on a longish journey by the baggage and hay he’s carrying.’
    ‘Not if he wants to remain a member of Corpus Christi College, he isn’t.’ Gabriel Harvey was furious, his jaw rigid in the cold of the late afternoon.
    ‘You can do something about that?’ Greene wondered.
    Harvey sighed. ‘I am Assistant Master of Corpus Christi College, Dominus Greene. Were it not for the fact that you and I have a mutual bond in loathing Marlowe, I wouldn’t be seen dead talking to you. The sad fact is, however, that even I cannot just click my fingers and have the abomination sent down. What I can do is hammer nails into the man’s coffin one by one until even someone as obtusely obstinate as Dr Norgate will see sense and expel the man. Follow him. See where he goes.’
    ‘But I’m on foot,’ Greene complained. Already the echo of the Wasp’s hoof beats had died away and Marlowe could have gone on any of a dozen paths after he had ridden past. Greene could run round Cambridge and its environs for weeks and never get a sniff of him again.
    Harvey rounded on the man. ‘You fancy yourself a poet, Greene. A university wit. Conjure up some spirit, why don’t you and fly through Cambridge town.’ He scowled. ‘Or, failing that, run like Hell and then report to me which way Marlowe’s going. I’ll add a little imagination to what you find and report to old Norgate. Another nail. Tap, tap.’
    And he swirled away, gown flying, striding through the gathering gloom.

FIVE
    K it Marlowe didn’t know exactly where the Egyptian camp was but it wasn’t hard to trace their passage. They were not only conjurors and tumblers, they bought old rags and bones which they traded along their route with paper makers and glue renderers. Picking over the rags for anything wearable was a job for the children while the carts were on the road and many a fluttering ribbon on their clothes had come from an outworn or outgrown lady’s kirtle. Their payment for the rubbish they removed was a bright doll of paper, or a folded windmill for the children which rattled and hummed when it was