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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