Читать книгу Giordano Bruno Thriller Series Books 1-3: Heresy, Prophecy, Sacrilege - S. J. Parris - Страница 17

Relieved of my last duty of care to poor Roger Mercer by the arrival of the coroner, who came accompanied by the bustling figure of Doctor James Coverdale – the latter hardly bothering to disguise his self-importance in being asked to officiate over the removal of his one-time rival – I left the Grove gratefully and hurried through the passageway to the main courtyard. Chapel was over and groups of undergraduates in their billowing gowns stood about in animated discussion, many of them apparently thrilled to be so near to such calamity, even as they pressed hands to their mouths and opened their eyes wide in horror.

It was only just seven o’clock but I felt I had been awake most of the night; I wanted nothing more than to return to my chamber, change my clothes and try to recoup some of the sleep I lacked, before attempting to order my mind in time for the evening’s disputation – an event which held little savour for me now. My shirt and breeches were stained with Mercer’s blood, a fact Coverdale had taken pleasure in pointing out as I took my leave of him and the coroner. ‘You’d better find some clean clothes, Doctor Bruno,’ he had said, with a levity that seemed out of place, ‘or people will think you the killer!’

I surmised that he was displeased to find me already on the scene, and had made an idle joke to puncture any illusion of my usefulness, but as I glanced around the courtyard at the scene of excited consternation, I wondered why he had used the word ‘killer’, even in jest, if it had been given out officially that the sub-rector’s death was a tragic accident? Perhaps I was giving undue weight to thoughtless words; in any event, he was right about my clothes, I thought, looking down at my breeches and holding the fabric out to see the extent of the bloodstains. As I did so, I felt something in the pocket and realised that I was still carrying the keys I had taken from Mercer’s body; I must have tucked them away in my own breeches without thinking.

I turned the key-ring over in my palm; the smaller key, I guessed, must open the door of the sub-rector’s chamber, since it was a similar size to the key I had been given for my own guest room. I glanced around the courtyard again. The students were beginning to disperse, books in hand, some towards the staircase that led to the library in the north range, others towards the main gate; no one paid me any attention. I looked at Mercer’s key. Might his room not hold some indication of who he had expected to meet in the garden, I wondered, and why he had taken so much money? I could take a quick look now, while the students were occupied, and return the keys to the rector later, claiming (truthfully) that I had pocketed them inadvertently.

Mercer had mentioned that he lived in the tower room above the main entrance. I glanced up at the tall perpendicular arches of the first-storey windows, presuming this must be the right place, then with a confident step I passed into the shadow of the first staircase on the west range that appeared to lead up into the tower.

Reaching the first landing, I arrived at a low wooden door bearing a painted sign that read Doctor R. Mercer, Sub-Rector. After a fleeting glance to either side, I tried the key in the lock. It turned easily, and I slipped quietly into the room Roger Mercer had left only two hours earlier, never imagining he would not return. For a moment I thought I heard light footsteps quickening away overhead; I froze, my ears straining, but I heard no door open or close and there was no further sound.

I had not anticipated the sight that greeted me as I gently pressed the door shut behind me. The room was in turmoil: books, papers and maps pulled from shelves and flung in every direction with no care for their contents, garments pulled from chests and strewn across the floor. A thick tapestry rug that must have covered the floor was rucked up and pulled to one side, and marks in the dust suggested that someone had tried to prise a floorboard out of place. Either Mercer had left in a great hurry after ransacking his room for some lost object, or someone else was also searching for something connected with his death and had got here before me.

The room was long with a high ceiling and stretched the width of the range, the narrow leaded windows overlooking the quadrangle on one side and the street outside on the other. On the street side was a wide brick fireplace and, opposite, a large oak desk with delicately carved legs. At the far end, facing the door, were three steps leading up to another doorway, which stood open. Sweat prickled on my palms for an instant as I held my breath and listened for any sound other than the frantic pumping of my own blood as I remembered the footsteps I had heard; perhaps they had not come from the storey above, and someone was still in the room. Stepping as carefully as a cat, I grabbed the nearest thing the study offered to a weapon – an iron poker from the grate – and clutched it in both hands along with my courage as I tensed myself to approach the open door. I stepped through, raising the poker – but the small room, inside the tower itself, contained nothing more than a plain truckle-bed, a washstand and a heavy oak wardrobe with carved panels in the doors.

This little bedchamber had not been spared the searcher’s attentions: sheets were roughly torn from the bed, an earthenware jug had been knocked from the washstand and broken in pieces, leaving a damp stain on the rushes that covered the floor. As I drew closer I saw that even the straw mattress had been slashed with a knife, its stuffing spilling out over the bed. In the corner of this square room was a small wooden door set into the wall. I tried the handle but it was firmly locked, though there was a hollow sound when I knocked on the wood; here, I presumed from the echo and the draught that whistled from the cracks, was the staircase to the upper floor of the tower. Gripping the poker, I checked behind the heavy window drapes and under the bed, but found no one; satisfied that I was alone, I returned to the main room and quietly locked the door behind me so that I could examine the scene in peace.

Where to begin amid such chaos? The room was crammed with furniture of assorted sizes and shapes, all made from good oak. Chairs had been turned over, a trunk dragged across the floor and forced open to reveal a cache of books. The apparent desperation of the searcher proved beyond any doubt that he believed there was something of significance to be found among Mercer’s possessions; the question was whether it had already been found, and whether I would know it if I saw it.

I turned to the handsome writing desk, now littered with papers and quills. A little brass astrolabe had been knocked to the floor in the frenzy; I bent to retrieve it and set it back on its stand, but its rule was broken. As I crouched I noticed a dark curling object under the desk; its shape was unusual, but when I reached to pick it up and brought it into the light, I saw that it was only a length of orange peel, long dried out, and threw it back to the floor. Lifting one or two of the top sheets, I skimmed the papers on the desk; it would be painstaking work to sift through the mass of leaves piled up there for any letter or jotting that might shed light on the former occupant’s death. All the drawers of the desk had been pulled out; I reached into each one, feeling along the underside for any catches that would release secret compartments, but found nothing. I lifted out contents of the drawers abandoned in disarray, but already I felt daunted by the task; I had no idea what I hoped to find.

From the top left-hand drawer I withdrew a fine leather writing-case and briefly tensed with hope, thinking that perhaps Mercer’s most recent correspondence might still be within and might reveal who he had lately fallen out with or any transactions that could explain his presence in the garden. I cleared a space on the desk for the case and, as I opened it, a thin, cloth-bound book fell out. Picking it up, I opened it at random and saw that it was a printed almanac for the year 1583, the pages marked into divisions for the days of the week, the month marked at the top of each page and annotated with the relevant astrological predictions. My pulse racing in my throat, I flicked hastily through to the page for today’s date, wondering if there was the slightest chance he might have noted whom he had planned to meet this morning.

As I searched for the page marked 22nd May, I noticed an oddity about this calendar: each division was marked with two dates, one printed in black, the second marked in by hand in red ink. The red date was ten days ahead of the black. I knew immediately what this meant, because my host the French ambassador worked from such calendars in the embassy: the red number showed the date according to the new calendar introduced the previous October by Pope Gregory, now mandatory in the Catholic states by order of the Papal Bull Inter gravissimas. In a marked act of defiance to papal authority, it had not been adopted by England and the other Protestant countries of Europe, and I had often heard the ambassador complaining that it made correspondence between the officials of different countries extremely confusing because no one was quite sure which date was meant; usually he would use both, just to be sure. But why, I wondered, would an English Protestant like Roger Mercer need a calendar marked with the Gregorian dates?

I found the page I wanted and was moved to see that on 22nd May (1st June) he had written the time and place of my disputation in his elegant, sloping hand: G. Bruno vs Underhill, Div. Sch. 5, it read. Then, holding the book closer, I noticed another mark for today’s date; in the top left-hand corner of the day’s division there was a solitary letter J. I blinked in disbelief. Could J be the initial of the person he had arranged to meet? That could certainly narrow it down. I scoured recent dates for any other clues. The previous day, the 21st (31st) was marked only with a curious symbol, a circle with spokes like the wheel of a cart. Flicking back through the book, I noticed this symbol appeared on other pages at regular intervals; more or less once every ten days, though never on the same day of the week. It might have been a code, but I had no way of deciphering it. The J, though, did at least seem a concrete clue.

But as I had held the book up to my nose, I had noticed something else: a faint smell of oranges. I thought at first that it came from my own fingers, having picked up the peel from the floor, but as I sniffed I realised that the smell was coming from the almanac itself. Perhaps that was not unusual; if Roger Mercer liked to eat oranges, it was possible that he had spread the juice to the pages of his books; he had not been the most fastidious eater, as I had noted the night before. But something nagged at my mind, and as I sniffed the book again I suddenly cursed myself for being so stupid.

At that moment, the wardrobe door creaked a little further on its worn hinge, making me jump almost out of my boots; instinctively I hid the book inside my shirt, tucked into the waist of my breeches, and whipped around, but the door appeared to have moved under its own weight. Opening it right up, I saw at first only heaps of cloth, half pulled out by the hasty searcher, and then I made out a squat dark shape pushed up against the back of the closet, covered by an old blanket. When this was yanked away, it revealed a small wooden chest bound with iron bands and fastened with a sturdy padlock. Reaching in, I dragged the object into the light, but it tilted and landed with a resounding thud as it dropped between the ledge of the wardrobe and the floor. I paused, my breath held tight in my throat, to see if the noise had alerted anyone to my presence in the room, but all was silent. As the chest fell, I had heard unmistakeably the metallic clink of coins. So this was Roger Mercer’s strongbox, his treasury, plainly full of gold. He had not taken much trouble to conceal it, and yet it had been left untouched by whoever had laid waste to his room.

This fitted with the full purse left on Roger’s body; it seemed clear that whoever had killed him was not interested in taking money. But why else does a man kill, if not for money? Either for revenge, I thought, or because he fears the victim may do him harm. I decided I would have to visit the porter, Cobbett, and see what he could tell me of the college’s system of gates and locks; the person who had turned this room upside down had evidently let himself in with a key and locked the room again behind him.

As I crouched beside the trunk brooding on the matter of keys, I heard the undeniable click of the lock in the room behind me turning smoothly and my heart almost froze in my chest. There was no time to hide; all I could do was watch helplessly as the door slid open just wide enough to admit the lanky figure of Walter Slythurst, the bursar. I watched as his gaze slowly swept the tumult of the room with incredulity before eventually coming to rest on me. There was even a brief pause as his brain struggled to process the evidence of his ferrety eyes, before he gave a little cry and stared at me as if I were an apparition.

‘Almighty God!’ he exclaimed. ‘You! What the Devil –?’

It was going to take a quite exceptional feat of invention to explain why I had locked myself into the recently ransacked room of a newly dead man and was now cradling his strongbox in my blood-soaked lap. I took a deep breath and affected nonchalance.

‘Buongiorno, Master Slythurst.’

Slythurst’s face, all planes and angles, was made for sneering cynicism rather than purple rage, but at this moment he appeared to swell up to a point where he could barely formulate his own language.

‘What …?’ he began, before his gathered breath escaped in a squeaking hiss, and he inhaled for the next attempt, ‘what is this?’

‘I am assisting the rector,’ I explained, exaggerating my accent, which I had found in the past to be a useful cover for apparently eccentric behaviour; people put it down to the oddities of a foreigner. ‘I was with him this morning, we were the first to arrive at the scene of the terrible misfortune. And the clothes, you see, were badly destroyed, so I have come to find some replacements in which to dress the poor body of Doctor Mercer for his final rest.’ I assumed a pious expression; never had I uttered so unconvincing a lie. In his place, I would not have believed me for a moment.

Slythurst narrowed his eyes until they were mere slits below his thin brows.

‘I see. And did you have some trouble finding them?’ The sweep of his hand mockingly took in the destruction that had been visited on the room.

His tone could have withered the spring leaves from the trees. I returned his look of contempt as levelly as I could.

‘The room is as I discovered it.’

‘Then why did you lock the door?’

‘Force of habit.’ I laughed self-consciously. ‘Foolish, I know – but in Italy I lived for many years often in fear for my life. The places I travelled, you never left a door open behind you. Even now, this is something I do from pure instinct, I do not even notice that I am doing so.’

He appeared to consider the likelihood of this for a moment, then folded his arms as if to underline his distrust of me.

‘Where did you get the key?’

‘It was the set Doctor Mercer had with him. When the coroner arrived, I came here to see how I might help.’

‘Hm.’ Slythurst stepped forward and made a perfunctory assessment of the papers scattered across the desk. ‘I am here, by the way, to make an inventory of personal effects to be returned to the family,’ he added, not looking at me.

It was clear that he was lying, particularly since, as an official of the college, he was not obliged to explain his business to me. I rose and faced him, taking care not to let the book slip out from under my shirt; he turned, arms still folded, and we squared up to each other, each knowing the other had an unspoken intent but not quite daring to make an outright challenge. I wondered briefly if we might both be searching for the same thing, before remembering that I did not know what I was searching for, only whatever might help to explain Mercer’s presence in the garden. But were Slythurst and whoever had turned over the room before I arrived looking for the same item? I studied his pale, almost hairless face with distaste as he glared back at me with equal contempt. Could he have been the original ransacker of the room, disturbed in his first attempt and now returned to pick up where he left off? I doubted it; I had seen his expression when he first opened the door and the chaos had shocked him as much as it had me, I was sure. So more than one person believed that something they wanted was hidden in the dead man’s room.

‘What is that?’ Slythurst eventually broke the silence by pointing to the chest at my feet.

‘I believe it is Doctor Mercer’s strongbox.’

‘And what were you doing with it?’ His words were as pointed as if he had etched them on glass.

‘It was inside the wardrobe. I thought it might contain items of clothing, so I lifted it out to take a look.’

Once again he gave me a look from under his eyelids such as you might give a market-place urchin who tries to steal your bread.

‘You are covered in gore, Doctor Bruno,’ he remarked, his eyes flicking back to the desk.

‘Yes, I tried to help a man who was bleeding to death,’ I replied quietly.

‘You simply cannot be helpful enough, can you?’ He strode across to the doorway of the small bedchamber and glanced past me. ‘Have you been up the staircase?’ he asked, gesturing brusquely to the small inner door.

‘That door is locked,’ I said.

‘Locked?’ He looked puzzled. ‘Curious.’

He crossed to the door and tried it himself, as if to prove that he would not accept my word on anything. There was another uncomfortable silence; I knew he was waiting for me to leave and I was reluctant to abandon the room in case whatever he and the other searcher wanted was still there to be found. But I could not plausibly prolong my presence there, so I gave a terse bow.

‘Well, I will leave you to your sad task, Master Slythurst.’

He only nodded, but as I reached the door, he called,

‘Doctor Bruno – have you not forgotten something?’

I thought for a moment he meant the keys, and was expecting me to hand them over to him. I looked at him, uncomprehending, as a smile of satisfaction cut across his face.

‘The clothes? To dress the body?’

‘Of course.’ Hastily I ran back to the wardrobe and gathered an armful of garments without stopping to look at them, aware that my pitiful lie had now collapsed entirely.

‘I’m sure the rector will be most grateful for your assistance,’ Slythurst said pleasantly, holding the door open for me as I struggled out with the unwanted clothes. As I passed, he hissed, ‘I shall be watching you, Bruno.’

I offered him my most charming smile in return as I passed through. Moments later I heard the sound of a key turning smoothly in the lock.

Returning to the courtyard I caught sight of Gabriel Norris, now more soberly dressed in a suit of black and a plain gown, which made his good looks stand out all the more. He stood at the entrance to the west range stairway on the other side of the tower and appeared to be regaling a group of fellow students with tales of his heroism; one hand was held out flat at chest height, a vastly exaggerated account of the dog’s size, and I could not help smiling to myself at the bravado of the young. He spotted me and broke off mid-sentence, looking with some suspicion at the bundle of Mercer’s clothes in my arms and then at the entrance from which I had just emerged.

‘What, has the looting begun already, Doctor Bruno?’ he called, a little too jovially.

‘I am assisting the rector,’ I repeated, since it seemed this defence could not be contradicted.

‘Ah.’ He nodded and, leaving his friends, sauntered over to me. At close quarters I noticed that he seemed older than the boys who now stood waiting for him; I would have guessed his age at twenty-five or more. ‘That was a bit of excitement we had this morning, was it not?’

‘I’m not sure that’s the word I would use.’

‘No – no, of course.’ He assumed a solemn expression. ‘I meant only – Oxford life is usually so uneventful, and now we have a royal visitation and a tragedy all at once, we hardly know which to talk about first.’

‘You were very level-headed this morning,’ I said. ‘I don’t think I would have had such a steady arm in the heat of the moment. It is lucky you are a good shot.’

Norris inclined his head, acknowledging the compliment.

‘My father taught me to hunt as a boy,’ he said. ‘I only wish I could have been quick enough to save Doctor Mercer.’ He rubbed the back of his hand across his brow; I suspected that, under all his swaggering, the experience had shaken him profoundly.

‘Did you know him well?’ I asked.

‘He has been my tutor since Doctor Allen was deprived last year.’ A strange expression crossed his face, as if he were struggling to master some emotion. ‘We were close, I suppose. I respected him, in any case.’

‘That was a hunting dog that killed him, was it not?’ I said.

‘Irish wolfhound. Very efficient hunters – always go straight in to break the neck, you know,’ he said in a brisker tone, pleased to display his knowledge. Then he frowned. ‘But it is usually a gentle dog, too – people keep them as pets. They’re not so unpredictable in temperament as, say, a mastiff – they rarely attack unless they have been trained to do so.’

‘It was starving, though – did you not see the scrawny state of it?’

He nodded slowly.

‘Must have been a stray – I suppose if it was desperate for meat it would savage the first living creature it found.’

‘Is it not unusual that a stray wolfhound should be roaming the streets of Oxford at night?’ I asked.

He looked at me curiously, as if he found my questions odd, but shrugged.

‘There is hunting in the royal forest of Shotover, to the east of the city – you can hire dogs from the keeper there for a day’s hunt. Some of the commoners go from time to time when we have permission. Perhaps one of their dogs got loose and wandered into the city.’ He sounded as if he had lost interest in the subject, and looked around to check that his group of admirers was still waiting. ‘Well, Doctor Bruno – I must collect my books and get along to lectures. I hope this morning’s adventure will not mar your stay in Oxford too badly.’ He bowed briefly and made to enter the staircase.

‘You have a room in there?’ I asked, gesturing with my thumb.

‘That’s right,’ he said, carelessly. ‘One of the best in the college. I share it with my servant, Thomas.’

‘Then,’ I glanced across the courtyard at the passages that led either side of the hall to the garden, calculating the distance. ‘You must have exceptional hearing to have been woken by the commotion from the Grove, when these rooms are the furthest away from it.’

He regarded me for a moment with a closed expression, then stepped towards me, taking my elbow, and leaned in with a confidential whisper.

‘There you have me, Doctor Bruno – I will confess that I was not abed when I heard the noise, but please let that be a confidence between us.’

I raised an eyebrow; he gave me a knowing nudge in the ribs, from which I was presumably supposed to infer some manly nocturnal pursuit. In such an intimate stance it was clear that he had no smell of drink on him, and a man who had been carousing all night could not have had such a steady hand as I had witnessed with the bow and arrow; I guessed, then, that he had been bedding some woman and was secretly pleased to share the triumph. That at least would account for his ridiculous garb at that hour of the morning, I thought.

‘I had spent the night away from college – you understand my meaning, I’m sure,’ he said, with a wink, ‘and on my return I was passing along St Mildred’s Lane by Jesus College when I heard the frenzied barking of that dog and those dreadful cries. I realised it was coming from the Grove and ran straightways for my bow and then to the gate, where I found you all gathered, looking on.’

The reproach stung, so I countered with one of my own.

‘Did you not try the gate from Brasenose Lane? You might have arrived sooner.’

‘But I don’t have a key to that gate,’ he said, puzzled. ‘Only the senior Fellows do. I was not to know it had been left open – the Fellows treat that Grove as if it were sacred. I acted as quickly as I could, Doctor Bruno.’

‘And did you see anyone near the college walls as you approached?’ I asked, as lightly as I could.

Norris tilted his head, considering.

‘Now that you mention it – at one point I thought I heard footsteps up ahead, running, but the sound was lost in the din from the garden and in all that followed I forgot all about it. Why do you ask?’

‘I only wondered if many people were abroad at that time of day,’ I said, turning to go. ‘I should really take these to the rector.’

He eyed me curiously for some moments, before clapping me on the shoulder.

‘We are all looking forward to your disputation this evening. I don’t care much for cosmology either way, but I shall applaud you if you can make the rector look a fool. Although I imagine he will do that quite efficiently by himself.’ He grinned and turned as if to leave, then looked back at me with a serious expression. ‘I suppose you and I shall be called to give account if there is an inquest. There will be trouble for me over the bow and arrows, no doubt – no one is allowed to keep weapons in the university precincts. Perhaps you could mention that the hound could not have been subdued without my intervention, Doctor Bruno?’

‘I will certainly give a true account of events to the best of my ability, if one is requested,’ I replied, bowing in return.

‘Thank you. Arrivederci, il mio doctore!’ he cried, turning on his heel and striding swiftly towards the main gate. I watched him walk away, intrigued. Gabriel Norris might be an unbearable peacock, but it would be a mistake to underestimate his sharpness.

I stood in the courtyard, my arms full of Roger Mercer’s clothes, wondering what I should do next. The sun was obscured behind rows of pewter clouds, stretching out in waves over the rooftops like an inverted ocean; I shivered in my thin shirt. Slythurst was sure to tell the rector that I had been found rummaging in the dead man’s room and had even got as far as dragging his money chest from its hiding place; the only way I could hope to protest my innocence was to repeat my ridiculous lie about trying to help out with the clothes. I looked down at the bundle in my arms, garments which still retained the musky smell of their owner’s body, and decided I must take them to the rector as soon as I could, before Slythurst could insinuate anything unpleasant in his ear. I would tell him it was an old Nolan custom to show respect for the dead; he might think me absurd, but I hoped he would not suspect me for a thief. He would also wonder why I had taken the dead man’s keys; these I must return as soon as possible, though I would have liked to keep them in case I had the chance to search the tower room further. But surely Slythurst would have found what he came for by now, if the first ransacker had not.

My head was swimming; I wanted nothing more than to return to bed and lie down, but I turned again towards the gatehouse and found a door set into the wall of the archway to the right of the vast wooden gate with a painted sign proclaiming the porter’s lodge.

I peeked around the door; a fat, old man with a brush of wiry grey hair sat beside a wooden table, his head slumped to his chest, breathing heavily. There were beer stains on his jerkin and a tired-looking black dog lay at his feet, its muzzle all peppered with grey. It half raised its head at my footsteps, regarding me through milky eyes, then returned to its sleepy position as if that small effort was as much as it could offer. I cleared my throat and knocked at the same time; the old man’s head jerked upwards in confusion and spittle glistened on his grizzled chin.

‘Pardon me, sir, must have drifted for a moment there,’ he muttered.

‘Goodman Cobbett? My name is Giordano Bruno—’

‘I know you, sir, you are our honoured guest come to cross swords with the rector tonight – I refer to the swords of words, naturally, for your actual sword is not permitted about the college, sir. And what a dreadful day for you to be here, sir, for such a misfortune as we have had this morning, it hardly bears thinking of.’ He shook his head theatrically and his jowls swung from side to side.

‘Yes, I am deeply sorry,’ I said, taking the keys from my pocket. ‘I was there in the Grove assisting the rector – he asked me to see that Doctor Mercer’s keys were safely returned, I presumed he meant to you?’

The old porter’s face lit up with relief at the sight of the key-ring.

‘Oh, thank Heaven for that! At least we have one set back. I begin to think keys have legs round these parts.’

‘Do you not keep a spare?’ I asked, gently easing the door closed behind me.

‘We do, sir, but the spare disappeared from my key cupboard a couple of days ago, which seemed curious at the time, since Doctor Mercer never asked me for it and I am rarely out of the lodge. I thought perhaps the bursar had needed it to get to the strongroom in a hurry – you must go through the sub-rector’s room to access the tower, you see – but he says he knows nothing of it either.’ He shook his head again. ‘The Fellows are worse than the students, if you ask me – forever mislaying keys. They don’t seem to realise new keys cost money.’

‘Do you keep spare keys to all the rooms in the college?’

‘Certainly, sir – I’ll show you.’ The old man heaved himself to his feet, wheezing alarmingly, and lumbered across to a shallow wooden cupboard mounted on the back wall behind his desk. Proudly he flung open both doors to reveal rows of iron keys of assorted shapes and sizes hanging from hooks, each labelled with a combination of letters and numbers.

‘How do you ever tell which is which?’ I asked innocently.

‘Ah,’ Cobbett said, tapping the side of his bulbous scarlet nose. ‘I have a system designed to prevent them falling into the wrong hands, see? If I were to just label them “Tower Room”, “Library” and so on, be too easy for the young ’uns to sneak in and help themselves when I’m sleeping or relieving meself or whatnot. So I made up a code, oh, years ago now. If anyone loses a key they come to me and I find them the spare, but they can’t steal them to get in where they don’t belong to play pranks or what have you.’

‘So you have a complete set of keys to all the doors and gates in the college?’

‘That I do, sir, ’cept when people lose ’em,’ he said darkly. ‘The only ones I don’t have are to the college strongroom. You can only get to it through the sub-rector’s room, as I say, up the tower staircase, and only the rector and the bursar have a key. It is designed that way so that no one person can get into the strongroom without at least one other person present,’ he added.

‘And only you have keys to the other rooms?’

‘No, sir – the rector also keeps a complete set to all the rooms in his lodgings, but he doesn’t hand those out. Students and Fellows alike must come to me, and only me.’ He shuffled back to his chair and regarded me with curiosity.

‘Does the bursar have a key to the sub-rector’s room?’

‘The bursar?’ Cobbett looked surprised. ‘No, sir – he has his key to the strongroom, but the sub-rector must be present to let him up to the tower. It’s supposed to guard against theft, you see.’

‘But if the sub-rector should be away, and the bursar needs the strongroom?’

‘Well, then, he would need to come to me or ask the rector to let him up. Why you so interested in keys, anyways?’

‘Oh – I have only been wondering how a stray dog might have got into the Grove,’ I replied, though I was now also wondering how Slythurst had obtained a key to Roger Mercer’s private chamber. Had he somehow contrived to steal the spare key from Cobbett’s cupboard? And if that was the case, how had the person who first turned over Mercer’s room let himself in? Who had a third key, except the rector?

‘Ah.’ The old porter rubbed his stubbly chin. ‘Well, now – I dare say that was my fault, sir – it must be that I didn’t check the Brasenose Lane gate carefully enough last night.’

A silence followed; it was clear that the old man was uncomfortable telling a lie that reflected poorly on his competence, and that he was doing so dutifully but reluctantly.

‘I find that hard to believe,’ I said, encouragement in my voice. ‘For everyone tells me you have served the college man and boy and have never neglected your duty.’

A look of gratitude spread across the porter’s face; he beckoned me closer. I leaned in; his breath was heavy with stale beer.

‘I thank you, sir – I told the rector, I said, “Sir, you know I will do as you wish, but I hope no one will ever believe old Cobbett left any cranny of this college unchecked on his rounds.” People here know I do my job well, sir.’ He puffed out his great barrel chest and fell to a fit of coughing.

‘Well, I hope you will not be punished for what is not your fault,’ I said.

‘Thank you, sir, you are kind.’

‘Tell me, Goodman Cobbett,’ I said casually, turning to go, ‘if a man ever wanted to go into the town and return after you lock the main gates, might that be possible?’

The porter’s face creased into a broad, gummy smile.

‘All things are possible, Doctor Bruno,’ he said, with a wink. ‘Perhaps you have heard I sometimes come to certain agreements with the undergraduates regarding the locking of the gates. But you should not need any such arrangements – Fellows and guests may have a key to the main gate.’

‘Really?’ I asked, surprised. ‘So the Fellows may leave the college by the main gate and enter at whatever hour they please?’

‘It is not exactly encouraged,’ Cobbett said, warily, ‘but yes, they may. Not many of ’em do, mind – they are all too serious-minded for gadding about the town. It’s the students who want to get out and are denied the liberty. But I was a young man once, and I say it does more harm than good to deny young men their pleasures. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, sir.’

I bent slightly and peered through the little window that opened on to the tower archway. Two students in black gowns passed, leather satchels clutched to their chests.

‘Can you see from here everyone who comes in and out at night, then?’ I asked.

‘As long as I’m awake,’ said Cobbett, with a husky laugh that quickly turned into another round of coughing.

There was more I wanted to ask, but I sensed my questions were making him suspicious, so I turned to the door.

‘Thank you for your help, Cobbett – I must be getting along.’

‘Doctor Bruno,’ he called, as I opened the door. I turned back. ‘Please do not repeat what I said about the Grove, will you? As much as it pains me, I must do as the rector instructs and say the blame was mine.’

I assured him that I would not mention our conversation. His face slumped with relief.

‘I will gladly tell you more of locks and keys another time if you care to know,’ he added, casually twirling Mercer’s keys in his stubby fingers. Then he reached beneath the table and pulled out an earthenware flagon, waving it meaningfully in my direction. ‘But it is thirsty work, all this jawing. Conversation flows all the better for a bit of refreshment, if you catch my meaning.’

I smiled.

‘I will see what refreshment I can find for you when we next converse, Cobbett,’ I said. ‘I shall look forward to it.’

‘And I, Doctor Bruno, and I. Leave the door open, if you’d be so kind.’

He reached down and ruffled the dog’s fur between its ears; I could hear him chuckling to himself as I left the lodge and stood in front of the high main gate, wondering.

I returned to my chamber, glad to rid myself of the shirt now stiff with Roger Mercer’s blood, and to take the book out of my breeches, where its corners were digging uncomfortably into my stomach. Clad only in my underhose, oblivious to the chill of the room, I took a tinderbox from the mantelpiece and lit one of the cheap tallow candles with which the room had been provided; the chamber quickly filled with its acrid smoke as I took Mercer’s almanac and opened it, this time at the back. There were several blank pages bound into the covers, and one of these was oddly stiff, the paper slightly warped as if it had got wet and then dried out. I sniffed it closely; here the smell of oranges was most insistent. Carefully, so as not to scorch it, I held the page up close to the candle’s flame and watched as, slowly, a series of marks in dark brown began to grow visible. Moving the paper up and down past the flame, it gradually revealed its secret writing: a sequence of letters and symbols, with no logical pattern I could discern. Below this was a shorter series of the same symbols, though in a different order: grouped in two lots of three different symbols, then a group of five. It was evidently some kind of cipher, though I knew little of cryptography and had no idea how to begin decoding it. I wondered if Sidney might have a better idea, given that he had had more contact than I with such work, so I took a piece of paper and a quill and made a copy of the symbols exactly as they appeared on the page, thinking I would give this to him to work on. But as I copied the first three lines, it became clear that the symbols were arranged in a sequence of twenty-four, and that this sequence was repeated three times.

I paused. There were twenty-four letters in the English alphabet, but surely no cipher could be that obvious? None the less, I thought it worth a try, and on my copy I wrote out the alphabet underneath the first sequence of twenty-four symbols. If this was a basic substitution cipher, then according to this system the groups of letters underneath might mean something. I copied out the first group of three symbols according to the alphabetical substitution, and as I saw the result, O-R-A, I felt my pulse quicken. Hurriedly I translated the remaining letters of the short phrase, and drew my breath in sharply. I had written the words Ora pro nobis. Pray for us.

Folding the copy carefully and hiding it under my pillow, I laid my head down gratefully, trying to imagine why Roger Mercer had written those words – the refrain from the Catholic Litany of the Saints – invisibly in the back of his almanac. But I had to put the puzzle from my mind; there were more pressing matters for my attention. I had intended only to close my eyes for a few moments before gathering my thoughts and setting them to concentrate on the evening’s disputation, which was supposed to be the crowning glory of my first visit to Oxford, but I was awakened all of a sudden by a furious hammering on the door and sat upright, confused and bleary.

‘Open up, for Christ’s sake!’ a man’s voice bellowed, and for a moment my bowels clenched: had there been another violent death? The door handle rattled urgently as I struggled out of my sheets and into a clean shirt, and when finally I wrenched it open, there stood Sidney, quiffed and impatient, dressed head to foot in green velvet, with a neck ruff that made his head look as if it were perched on a platter.

‘Christ alive, Bruno, I came as soon as I heard!’ He strode past me into the room, stripping off his gloves with a businesslike air. ‘I had barely breakfasted this morning when what should I hear from the servants but that all of Christ Church cloister is aflame with the news that a savage beast stalks Lincoln College, dragging innocent men to their doom.’ He looked me up and down, eyes wide in mock terror. ‘Well – at least you still have all your limbs, God be praised.’

‘Philip – a man died in front of me this morning,’ I said wearily.

‘I know – I want to hear all about it,’ he said. ‘Come on, dress yourself, man – I have come to take you out to dinner.’

‘What time is it?’ I said, suddenly panicked; clearly I had slept much longer than I intended, and my stomach was crying out with hunger, but I had not yet even begun my preparation for the disputation at five.

‘Just past one.’ Sidney sauntered around the room, picking up books and considering them idly while I rummaged for clean hose and a plain doublet. ‘One lad at Christ Church said a wolf had got into the college – I thought that seemed unlikely. Did you see what happened?’

‘By tomorrow they’ll be saying it was a lion,’ I said. ‘These students seem starved of incident here, they will make legends out of any matter. But I will be glad to tell you all, for there is much that troubles me, and I have something to show you. Let us find some food first, though.’ I took the almanac from under my pillow and tucked it inside my doublet before fastening the buttons, Sidney watching me curiously as I did so.

The air was still damp though the sky was lighter as we passed under the tower gate into St Mildred’s Lane, then south past the tall spire of All Hallows Church. At the High Street we paused to let two riders on horseback pass, then crossed between piles of dung and straw that littered the muddy thoroughfare, churned up after all the rain. I was glad I had put on my riding boots. Young men in short black gowns hurried past us in groups, all chattering over one another. At the corner of a narrow lane edged by low timber-framed houses, Sidney turned and led me towards a two-storey building with gabled roofs which bore a painted sign creaking above its door: Peckwater Inn.

The cobbled yard was busy as we passed under the gate; men led horses across towards a stable block at the back as others unloaded heavy-looking barrels from a high cart. The building occupied three sides of a quadrangle, with two levels of balconies on each side overlooking the yard.

Inside, the tap-room was dim and a fire burned in a stone hearth at one end. Long, rough-hewn tables and benches were set around the edges of the room, many of them occupied already by busy diners talking and eating at once; a serving hatch was built into the wall opposite the fireplace, and a red-faced woman in an apron scuttled between it and the tables ferrying wooden platters and pewter tankards, pausing occasionally to brush a strand of damp hair from her face with the back of her hand. When she noticed us, her harried expression changed to one of delight and she rushed over, wiping her hands on her apron.

‘Sir Philip! What a pleasure – we heard you were back in town,’ she said with a wink. ‘They said there was a great procession in your honour.’

‘It was a very wet procession, and the honour was not mine, Lizzy,’ Sidney said, removing his hat and making a solemn bow. ‘May I present my dear friend from Italy, Doctor Giordano Bruno?’

‘Buongiorno, signorina,’ I said, playing up to Sidney’s exaggerated courtliness.

‘Pleasure, I’m sure,’ the tavern-mistress giggled, her considerable bosom quivering.

‘Now then, Lizzy – we’d like a quiet table, a jug of beer when you have a moment, your best game pie and some fresh bread, if you please.’

She beamed up at him.

‘You best take the corner table, you won’t be disturbed there,’ she said, and bustled off towards the kitchen.

‘I used to come here all the time,’ Sidney explained. ‘The inn is hard by Christ Church and there was more varied company to be had here than inside the college when I was a student, if you know what I mean. We will be well treated in any case, they know I tip generously. Now then, Bruno – tell your tale.’

He sat back and folded his hands together with the air of one who expects to be entertained. I could not help feeling he was taking a man’s death rather lightly, treating it as material for an exciting anecdote; in that he reminded me of Gabriel Norris. Perhaps it is a trait of rich boys, I thought: craving adventure in a life made dull by the absence of daily cares. I was about to launch into my account when Lizzy arrived with a jug of beer, two tankards and a loaf of bread that Sidney ripped into immediately, handing me the first piece.

With my mouth half-full, I told him of all that had happened since I was first awakened by the dog’s fearsome noise at dawn. When I came to the part about the locked gates, his complacent expression vanished and he leaned forward eagerly, his eyes alert.

‘You suspect foul play?’ he asked, as the tavern-mistress arrived again with a platter of thick game pie.

When she had gone, I told him of my visit to Roger Mercer’s room, the interruption by Slythurst and my sub sequent conversation with the old porter. When I had finished, Sidney whistled through his teeth.

‘Extraordinary business,’ he said, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘So you surmise someone set that dog on him on purpose, then ransacked his room looking for something valuable?’

‘That is the mystery,’ I said. ‘It can’t be valuable in the usual sense, because whoever did it had no interest in the ten pounds he was carrying, or the chest of gold in his room. But that is what I can’t fathom – someone lured him to the garden on the pretext of a meeting, clearly someone to whom he owed money. So why didn’t they take the money and then kill him?’

‘Not necessarily a debt,’ Sidney said, his mouth full. ‘Might it not have been someone who had something to sell?’

I frowned.

‘But what would he be buying at that hour, in the Grove? Something contraband, you think?’

Sidney was regarding me with amusement, a knowing smile playing about his lips.

‘Think, Bruno – what might a man want to buy under cover of darkness?’

I looked back at him blankly, then caught his meaning.

‘Whores, you mean? But in that case, how much simpler – and warmer – just to find a whorehouse in town.’ I shook my head. ‘Even if he was whoring – someone else knew to find him there at that time, someone who had a key to the Grove. And it still doesn’t explain who went through his room, or why. Whatever they were looking for must have been of value to the person who wanted it – the place was torn to shreds, as if they sought it with utmost urgency.’

‘But you say at least two people wanted whatever it might have been – the bursar and the other fellow who got there before you.’ Sidney’s brow creased for a moment and he took a long draught of beer. ‘One thing is strange, though. It’s such a cowardly way to kill a man, and so imprecise, too. If you want a man dead, why not just run him through with a sword? Especially if you know where to find him alone and unarmed. A dog is so unpredictable.’

‘You know about hunting,’ I said, cutting myself another brick of the pie. ‘Could a hound like that be trained to attack a particular person, follow a scent?’

Sidney considered.

‘I suppose – if it can be trained to follow the scent of a boar or a wolf, why not a man? If it was given one of his garments, perhaps. The Irish used to use them in battle – apparently they could pull an armoured knight off his horse. And you say it had been kept hungry, so its instincts would be all the keener.’ He leaned his elbows on the table and rested his chin on cupped hands. ‘It’s as if the dog were part of some kind of show, as if it were done to create a spectacle. And what a way to die – locked in with a bloodthirsty animal. Makes me think,’ he said, putting another hunk of bread into his mouth, ‘of how the Romans used to execute the early saints, by throwing them into an arena with wild beasts. The way John Foxe describes it in that grisly Book of Martyrs.’

I stopped, a piece of meat halfway to my mouth, and stared at him, slack-jawed.

‘What?’ Sidney stopped chewing.

‘Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. The rector of Lincoln has a great interest in him – he has been preaching sermons in chapel with Foxe as his text.’

Sidney frowned.

‘You think someone wanted to get rid of this Mercer and took inspiration from Foxe for his method?’

His expression betrayed his scepticism.

‘It does seem far-fetched. Perhaps I am reading too much into it.’ I passed my hands over my face. ‘You are right – it was probably just a bad debt or trouble over a whore. No wonder the rector wants it covered up while a royal visitation is in town.’

Sidney was silent for a moment. Then he banged a palm down on the table.

‘No, Bruno – I think you are right to be suspicious. The dog was loosed into the garden by someone who had a key, which suggests one of the Fellows or someone with access to the college keys. And at least two people wanted something from his room, but not money. Perhaps something that might be dangerous to them. And if everyone in the college has recently heard stories of the saints’ gruesome deaths from Foxe’s book, thanks to the rector – perhaps in some way it was staged as a deliberate copy. The question is, why? Did you find nothing in his room?’

‘Only this. Take a look,’ I said, extracting the slim almanac. ‘What do you notice first?’

Sidney turned a couple of pages, then looked up at me, his face serious.

‘Gregorian calendar. Was our man a secret papist after all, like his friend Allen?’

‘I wondered. I heard him cry out to Mary before he died.’

‘I’d cry to Mary if a dog that size was snapping at my arse,’ said Sidney bluntly, turning the book over in his hands. ‘That signifies nothing. But this calendar – you would only need this if you were corresponding with anyone in the Catholic countries. Especially if you needed to co-ordinate movements. Edmund Allen went to Rheims, did he not? Wasn’t he related to William Allen, who founded the English College there?’

‘A cousin, they said. Mercer could still have been in touch with him, you mean?’

Sidney glanced to either side and lowered his voice.

‘Remember why we are here, Bruno. These seminaries in Rheims and Rome are Walsingham’s greatest headache at the moment – they have vast funds from the Vatican and are in the business of training dozens of priests for the English mission, many of them former Oxford men.’ He pulled his beard into a point as he thought, then picked up the book again. ‘What is this little circle here?’ he asked, pointing to the wheel symbol that marked the previous day’s entry in Mercer’s calendar.

‘I don’t know. It appears often. I wondered if it might be a code.’

Sidney peered closer, then shook his head.

‘I recognise it, but I can’t think from where. Looks like one of your magical symbols, Bruno.’

I had not liked to say so, but the thought had crossed my mind; Mercer had secretly confided an interest in magic. Even so, the symbol was not one I recognised, and so it intrigued me.

‘It’s not an astrological symbol, that is certain,’ I said. ‘But that is not the most important thing. Smell the book.’

Sidney frowned indulgently, but brought the book close to his face.

‘Oranges?’

‘Yes. Look to the back.’

He flicked through the pages, then looked up at me, nodding with something like admiration.

‘Good work, Bruno. That is an old trick, the invisible writing in orange juice. Have you found some secret message?’

‘A cipher. I made a copy – here.’ I pushed my piece of paper across the table at him. ‘You see what he has written at the bottom?’

‘Ora pro nobis. Well, well.’ Sidney folded the paper carefully and handed it back to me. ‘Could be some sort of password or secret sign.’

‘That’s what I thought. Should we inform Walsingham?’

Sidney thought for a moment, then shook his head.

‘We have nothing to tell him yet, except that we suspect a man of Catholic affiliations who is already dead. He would not thank us for wasting his time, and I cannot spare the expense of a messenger to London until we have something better. No – I think you should pursue this as discreetly as you may,’ he continued, closing the book and handing it back. ‘Especially if you say Rector Underhill seems keen to have it hushed up – he may know more than he lets on. Just because he was appointed by my uncle it does not follow that he can be trusted – the earl has made mistakes in his judgement before now.’ He set his lips in a tight line. ‘And who is this J – have you any thoughts?’

‘I have met three men whose names begin with J,’ I said. ‘John Florio, James Coverdale and John Underhill, the rector. But it may not signify a name. Perhaps it is another coded symbol.’

Sidney nodded grimly.

‘Perhaps. There is much to think about. But for now, my dear Bruno,’ he said, suddenly smiling, ‘you must think only about this evening’s disputation. You must dazzle all Oxford with the new cosmology, and put this business from your mind. Lizzy – let me settle this account!’ he called, as the serving-woman glanced in our direction. ‘And I will take a large bottle of your strongest ale for the road,’ he added genially, counting coins from his purse. When she had gone to fetch one, he leaned in and winked. ‘A little gift for you to take your new friend the porter. I’ll tell you this about Oxford – the porters guard more secrets than anyone in the university. Befriend your porter and he will quite literally open doors for you. And now, Bruno,’ he said, clapping me on the back, ‘you must go and settle this small matter of whether or not the Earth moves around the Sun.’

I was about to rise and take my leave when a great gale of laughter and chatter erupted from behind us as the tap-room door opened to admit a group of four tall young men dressed expensively in jerkins of buff leather, silk peasecod doublets and short slashed breeches to show off their legs in fine silk stockings, all sporting bright starched ruffs above their collars and short velvet cloaks over one shoulder. They carried themselves with an identical swagger, talking loudly in cultured voices, making crude jokes to the serving-girl, and when they turned around I realised that the tallest of them was Gabriel Norris. He recognised me and raised a hand in greeting.

‘Ah, il gentil doctore!’ he cried, beckoning his friends over to our table. ‘Come, boys, meet my new friend, the renowned Italian philosopher Doctor Giordano Bruno, and –’ he stopped suddenly as he looked at Sidney for the first time and smartly executed a low bow, then turned to me expectantly and I realised I was supposed to effect the introductions.

‘This is Master Gabriel Norris,’ I announced, as Norris bowed again, ‘who so expertly despatched the mad dog in the garden this morning. This is my friend Sir Philip Sidney.’

‘You are the brave huntsman, then?’ Sidney said, arching an eyebrow in amusement.

‘I cannot claim too much praise for that feat, sir – the dog was barely yards from me. I prefer more of a challenge when I draw my bow,’ Norris replied, with a self-deprecating laugh. ‘There is good hunting to be had at Shotover Forest, though, Sir Philip, if you are looking for some sport during your stay.’

‘I’d welcome the chance, if this weather clears,’ Sidney said. ‘Norris, you say? Who is your father?’

‘George Norris, gentleman, of Buckinghamshire,’ Norris said, effecting another bow. ‘But he lived most of his later life in France and Flanders.’

Sidney appeared to be consulting some kind of mental register to see if the name meant something. Eventually he shook his head politely.

‘Don’t know him. France, eh? Exile, was he?’

‘Oh, no, Sir Philip.’ Norris laughed again. ‘He was a merchant. Cloth and luxury goods. He was exceptionally good at his business.’ He gave Sidney a broad wink and rubbed his fingers together in the international sign for money. His manner was beginning to grate on me.

‘Will you stay and drink with us?’ he continued eagerly, already reaching into his purse for coins. ‘Hie, girl – over here!’ he called, gesturing imperiously at Lizzy. ‘My friends plan to try and wrest some of that money from me over a few hands of bone-ace, but I am unbeaten yet this term. Are you a gambling man, Sir Philip? How about you, Doctor Bruno?’

I held up my hands in apology, but I saw the light of adventure spark in Sidney’s eyes, and he rubbed his hands together, shunting over on the bench to make room for Norris.

‘Philosophers are notoriously bad at cards,’ Sidney said, waving a hand at me to move over and make room for Norris’s friends beside me.

‘All the more reason for Doctor Bruno to stay and join our game,’ Norris said, smiling widely at me. He reached into his doublet and drew out a pack of cards, which he proceeded to shuffle expertly with the ease of long practice. I realised with a prickle of discomfort why he bothered me: it was not so much that I resented the hearty backslapping bonhomie of English upper-class gentlemen, for I could tolerate it well enough in Sidney on his own. It was the way Sidney fell so easily into this strutting group of young men, where I could not, and the fear that he might in some ways prefer their company to mine. Once again, I felt that peculiar stab of loneliness that only an exile truly knows: the sense that I did not belong, and never would again.

Norris snapped the pack against the flat of his hand and began swiftly to deal three cards to each player, two face down and one face up.

‘Shall we put in a shilling each to begin? If you hope to hold on to any of your money, Tobie,’ he remarked to the dark-haired young man seated opposite, ‘you had better start praying to St Bernardino of Siena, the patron saint of gamblers, for I am feeling lucky today.’

‘Praying to saints, Gabe?’ said the young man named Tobie with a sly grin, picking up his cards and considering them. ‘Do not let anyone overhear you encouraging that, or they will think you gone over to Rome.’

Norris snorted.

‘I speak in jest, you dull-wit. Gentlemen should never debate theology at the card table. But am I not right, Doctor Bruno – your countryman is said to intercede for gamblers? By those who believe in that kind of folly,’ he added, throwing a handful of coins into the middle of the table.

‘Actually, in Italy, he is more renowned for his tirades against sodomites,’ I replied, getting up from the table. Norris looked up sharply from his hand and regarded me with interest.

‘Is that so?’

‘He lamented that in the last century the Italians were famed throughout Europe as the greatest nation of sodomites.’

‘And are you?’ he asked, a smile twitching at the edge of his mouth.

‘We are the greatest nation at everything, my friend,’ I said, returning the half-smile.

‘Bruno spent most of his life inside a monastery,’ Sidney said, leaning over to dig Norris in the ribs. ‘He should know.’

The group fell into raucous laughter then as Lizzy slapped two large pitchers of ale down on the table. I decided it was time to leave.

‘Well, I will leave you to rob one another with the blessing of St Bernardino,’ I said, attempting to sound light-hearted. ‘I have more pressing business.’

‘Bruno must reorder the cosmos before five o’clock,’ Sidney said, though he was intent on the cards he held.

‘We are all most eager to hear it,’ Norris said, his head still bent to his hand, then he flung down an ace of diamonds with a great cry of triumph and swept all the coins from the table as the others exploded in a riot of cursing. None of them looked up as I left.