CHAPTER 26
Tom Clarady tried to see Clara twice during the following week. Both times he was rebuffed by the uncharmable surgeon and told to return on the date appointed. No sooner. So he contented himself with sending daily gifts of sonnets and trinkets: a blue satin ribbon, an Italian glass bead, a lock of his own hair.
His friends urged him to distract himself from his lovelorn state by joining in the revels at the Inn. At first, he refused to play any game of which Stephen was the captain. Then Ben convinced him that the season of Misrule was a hallowed tradition at the Inns of Court in which all gentlemen participated as a matter of honor.
Stephen was in his element. That his princedom was a mere figment deflated his puffed-up self-importance not one jot. He attracted a new circle of toadies and began to prattle about taking up some role at court. Tom wished he would pack up and leave, although he felt a cold clench of dread about his possible parting shot. Would the benchers throw him out on his arse? His only plan was to lash himself to the mast and hang on. Something would turn up. Something always did.
Tom gave himself over to a week of unfettered revelry and swiftly earned the respect of his fellow Graysians for his willingness to risk life and limb in pursuit of mischief. He stole a flag from the court of the Middle Temple in broad daylight, racing up Chancery Lane with a pack of furious lawyers at his heels. He bodily ejected no fewer than five spies from Lincoln's Inn who were laboring under the delusion that Gray's kept its official secrets stored in the wine cellar.
Trumpet was the chief onsetter of their more perilous forays. The boy was fearless and had a gift for strategy that Tacitus would have admired. He and Tom were well matched in spirit and found themselves having twice as much fun without Ben and Stephen slowing them down. No debate, no quibbling— just dive in and start punching!
The only low point in the week came when Tom's Lay of the Limner was laughed off the dais, handing the prize for best ballad to newcomer Thomas Campion. He could only hope that Clara liked it better than the finicky lackwits at Gray's.