Читать книгу Giordano Bruno Thriller Series Books 1-3: Heresy, Prophecy, Sacrilege - S. J. Parris - Страница 24

Gabriel Norris’s room was on the ground floor in the west range, tucked behind the staircase, his door marked with a painted name sign; I knocked hard and was certain I heard some movement within, but a few moments passed and no one answered. I knocked again and called out Norris’s name; there was a hasty scuffling of feet and the door swung open to reveal Thomas Allen. He had evidently been engaged in some of his servant’s duties, as his shirtsleeves were rolled up to the elbow and he clutched a dirty cloth between his hands.

‘Oh – Doctor Bruno,’ he exclaimed, and his face reddened violently as he bunched the cloth into a ball, looking flustered.

‘Sorry to disturb you, Thomas – I see you are at work. I was looking for Master Norris.’

‘He is not here,’ Thomas said, still looking perturbed, then glanced over his shoulder as if to check the truth of his own assertion. Through the open door I glimpsed a comfortable chamber, furnished as a parlour with a high-backed wooden settle in front of the fire. Compared to the austerity of most scholars’ rooms the chamber offered a distinct sense of luxury. Windows on both sides opened on to the lane and the quadrangle and filled the room with light even on this bleak day. Beneath the outer window was a heavy trunk, iron-bound and secured with a solid padlock.

‘He is out at the public lectures, I expect. I was just cleaning his shoes,’ Thomas added, defensively.

‘Do you not attend the public lectures too?’

‘Not when there is work to be done,’ he snapped. I was surprised at his manner, but I supposed he did not like to be seen at his menial tasks.

‘His shoes needed cleaning urgently today, then?’ I asked, as a thought struck me. Thomas must have caught something in my tone because he frowned and his shoulders seemed to tense.

‘I clean his shoes every day,’ he said, a wary note in his voice. ‘Why did you want to see Gabriel?’

‘I wanted to ask when he took his longbow to the strongroom.’

Thomas looked mildly surprised at the question, but shrugged carelessly before wiping his hands on his shirt front.

‘I took it, on Saturday morning. Gabriel was furious – he said the rector had commanded him to give it up, after he’d done them a service, too, shooting that mad dog.’

‘So you took it there yourself?’

He blinked at my tone, then shook his head.

‘I went to do so, but as I was crossing the quadrangle I was seen by Doctor Coverdale and Doctor Bernard, who were standing by the stairs to chapel. They stopped me and asked what I was doing with such a weapon in college. When I explained, Doctor Coverdale told me that I could leave it outside his door on the landing and he would see that it was safely locked away.’

‘Did Doctor Bernard hear this exchange?’

‘He was standing right beside Doctor Coverdale, so I presume so.’ Thomas looked puzzled.

‘Could anyone else have overheard?’

‘I don’t know. There were a few people in the courtyard coming and going, but I don’t recall anyone stopping by us. What is the problem, Doctor Bruno, if I might ask?’ He was twisting the dirty cloth now between his hands, his face searching mine keenly.

‘Oh – there is no problem,’ I said airily. We looked at one another in awkward silence for a moment.

‘Doctor Bruno,’ Thomas said, stepping closer and lowering his voice, ‘I hope this will not sound presumptuous, but there is something I would speak to you about urgently. It is a matter of some importance, and I do not know who else I may confide in here.’

The hairs on my neck prickled; could it be that Thomas knew something of the murder?

‘Please – speak freely.’

‘I meant – somewhere private.’

‘Are we not alone here?’ I asked, looking around the empty room.

He shook his head and pressed his lips into a tight line, twisting the cloth between his hands.

‘Away from college, sir. I would not have us overheard.’

I hesitated. I did not really have time to spare – my priority was to find the boy who had called Coverdale out of the disputation – but the expression of pained urgency on Thomas’s face convinced me that whatever he needed to unburden must be serious.

‘Very well, then. Have you broken your fast this morning? Perhaps we could find ourselves a tavern where we might eat and talk at more leisure.’ I realised that I had not eaten in all the consternation over Coverdale’s murder.

His face slackened.

‘Sir – I’m afraid I do not have the means for visiting taverns.’

‘But I do,’ I said, ‘and surely you may eat with me if I invite you?’

‘I’m afraid it would not do your standing in Oxford any good to be seen with me, sir,’ he said dolefully.

‘To be honest, Master Allen, my standing in Oxford is not worth a horse’s shit at the moment,’ I said. ‘But to hell with them – let us enjoy a good breakfast, if we can find one, and take the consequences afterwards, and you may tell me what is on your mind.’

‘You are kind, sir,’ he said, following me through the door, which he stopped to lock behind him.

As we drew near to the tower archway, I stretched up to look at James Coverdale’s blank window, though it was too high to see anything.

‘Are you all right, Doctor Bruno?’ Thomas asked, following my gaze, his angular face politely solicitous. ‘You seem disturbed this morning. Has something happened?’

I looked at him, gathering my scattered thoughts. Thomas had not yet heard the news of Coverdale’s murder, but by the time we returned the college would be abuzz with rumour and speculation. If he knew anything of value, I would need to take advantage of these few unguarded moments.

‘No. No, I am fine. Let us go.’

We walked in silence down St Mildred’s Lane towards the High Street. Though Thomas was a good five inches taller than I, he walked with such a hunched posture, as if hoping to make himself less noticeable, that we appeared almost the same height. His worn air of defeat made it impossible not to feel pity for the boy. As if reading my thoughts, he turned his face briefly to me, his hands wrapped deep in the sleeves of his frayed gown.

‘It is good of you to take time to listen to me, sir. With the difference in our positions, I mean.’

‘If we are to talk of positions, Thomas, let us not forget that you are the son of an Oxford Fellow and I am the son of a soldier. But I have little interest in such distinctions – I still dare to hope for a day when a person is judged by his character and his achievements rather than for his father’s name.’

‘That is a bold hope,’ he agreed. ‘But to most people in this town, sir, I will always be the son of an exiled heretic.’

‘Well, I am an exiled heretic, so I win.’

He looked me in the eye then, and smiled properly for the first time since I had met him, before his face turned sombre again.

‘All the same, you are a friend of kings and courtiers, sir,’ he reminded me.

‘Well, after a fashion, Thomas. If you mean King Henri of France, he likes to surround himself with philosophers, it flatters his intellectual vanity. Kings do not have friends in the same way as you or I.’

‘I have no friends at all, sir,’ he responded, his voice subdued. There was a long pause while we both looked for something to say. ‘In any case, you are friends with Sir Philip Sidney, and that is something.’

‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘I am fortunate to count Sidney a friend. Is that why you wished to speak to me – so that I might petition him for your father’s sake?’

Thomas was silent for a moment, then he stopped walking and fixed me with a serious expression.

‘Not for my father’s sake, sir. For my own. There is something I must tell you, if you will promise me your discretion?’

I nodded, intrigued. At the place where St Mildred’s Lane met the High Street, we paused and looked to left and right along the rows of uneven timber-framed houses and the pale stone fronts of the college buildings; at this hour the street was almost deserted, the sky reflected undisturbed in the still water pooled in cart ruts.

‘The Flower de Luce is just along the street,’ Thomas said, gesturing to our left, ‘but it is expensive, sir.’ He pulled anxiously at the hem of his gown.

‘Well, no matter,’ I said brightly, reaching to my belt to cup the reassuring weight of Walsingham’s purse against my palm as we began to walk in the direction he had indicated. ‘But I do not know the taverns of Oxford. Tell me, do you know anything of an inn called the Catherine Wheel?’

I glanced innocently at Thomas as I said this; the fear that flickered over his face was unmistakeable, but he quickly assumed a neutral countenance.

‘I believe it is a bad sort of place, sir. In any case, we students are not allowed to pass beyond the city walls. We would be severely disciplined if we were caught.’

‘Really? But that is strange – I took a walk yesterday and I was sure I saw a young man in a scholar’s gown passing through one of the gates.’

Thomas shrugged.

‘Probably one of the gentlemen commoners, then.’ His voice was not bitter, merely resigned, as if he had long ago accepted that the rich lived by different laws and it was fruitless to hope for change.

‘Like your master Gabriel Norris?’ I asked.

‘I wish you would not call him my master, sir. I mean, he is, I suppose, but it is a humiliation to be reminded of it.’

He had stopped outside a whitewashed, two-storey building that fronted the High Street, its exterior obviously well cared for and clean. Inside, the tap-room was just as neat and cheerful, everything that the Catherine Wheel was not, and a sharp savoury smell of roasting meat pricked our nostrils the moment we closed the door behind us. A smiling landlord, apron stretched tight over a belly so vast he looked as if he were near to giving birth, bustled over and ushered us to a table, at the same time reeling off a list of dishes so varied that I had forgotten the first by the time he had finished. We ended by ordering some cheese and barley bread, with a pot of beer each. Thomas looked about him with as much disbelief and delight as if he had been suddenly given the freedom of the city.

‘Well, then, Thomas,’ I said, gently, ‘what is it you wish to confide?’

Finally he raised his head and regarded me with a weary expression.

‘Three nights ago, the day I so shamefully accosted you in the quadrangle on your arrival, sir, I learned something about my father.’ He stopped with a heavy sigh just as a young pot-boy appeared with the tankards of beer and bread. I thought of Humphrey Pritchard and his snatches of Latin, and remembered I must also find a way to speak with him again. Thomas had buried his face in his beer mug as if he had not had a drink in days. I waited for him to put it down before continuing as casually as I could with my questions.

‘You are in touch with your father, then?’

‘We write to one another,’ Thomas said, ‘though of course you may imagine our letters are all monitored, at the earl’s request. My father resides at the English College of Rheims, where all the seminary priests are trained for the English mission, so any letters that come out of that place are deemed to be of great interest. And since I am assumed to share his views, they are waiting for me to betray myself in one of my letters to him. They watch me at every turn – everyone I meet or speak to. They will probably interrogate me about this –’ he gestured to the table between us – ‘when they find out.’

‘Who are “they”?’ I prompted, pausing to take a drink from my own cup. ‘Who intercepts your letters?’

‘The rector. And Doctor Coverdale. He wanted me sent down from the college after my father was exiled – he argued fiercely that allowing me to stay would imply that the college tolerated papists.’

His tone was resentful, but I watched his face carefully and could detect no sign that he knew the man he spoke of was recently dead.

‘But you are not a papist?’ I prompted.

‘I am the son of one, so they assume my loyalty to England is compromised. Eventually the rector decided I could keep my place, but Coverdale argued that I should not continue at the expense of the college, so I lost my scholarship. I do not fool myself that the rector felt sorry for me – I suppose he thought my correspondence with my father would be useful.’ He gave a bitter little laugh. ‘It must be a terrible disappointment to them – he writes to me only of the weather and his health, and I write of my studies. We dare not say anything beyond that. And then it is rumoured that the Earl of Leicester has placed a spy in the college already, so fearful are they of the secret influence of papists.’

‘A spy? Is there any truth in that?’ I asked, leaning in more keenly.

‘I do not know, sir. But then, if he were any good as a spy, I should not know him, should I?’

‘So you do not share your father’s faith?’

Thomas met my eye with a level stare as if challenging me to contradict him.

‘No, sir, I do not. I spit on the pope and the Church of Rome. But I have sworn so until I am hoarse with saying it, and still I am suspected, so what is the point?’

I waited for a moment until he had finished chewing, watching him with my elbows propped on the table and my chin resting on my clasped hands.

‘What was it you learned of your father three days ago?’ I asked. ‘Is he ill?’

Thomas shook his head, his mouth bulging.

‘Worse than that,’ he said bitterly, when he could speak again. ‘He is—’ He broke off, a piece of bread halfway to his mouth, looking at me then as if he had only just realised who I was. His anxious eyes flicked keenly over my face as he calculated whether or not I could be trusted. ‘You swear you will not repeat this to a soul?’

‘I swear it,’ I said, nodding sincerely and holding his gaze as steadily as I could manage.

He considered for a moment, still searching my eyes, then nodded tightly.

‘My father will not return to England now or ever, even if Queen Bess herself were to write assuring him of his pardon.’

‘But why not?’

‘Because he is happy,’ Thomas said, pronouncing the last word with undisguised anger. ‘He is happy, Doctor Bruno, because he has found his vocation. Sometimes I think he chose to be found out at Lincoln, so that he could finally confess his faith openly. When he writes to me now, he has to dictate the letters to a scribe – do you know why?’

I briefly shook my head and he continued, without waiting for an answer,

‘Because he was interrogated by the Privy Council. They had him hung by the hands from metal gauntlets so his feet could not touch the ground for eight hours at a time, until he passed out, and still he told them nothing. He has more or less lost the use of his right hand. But I think he would gladly have gone to his death at the time, believing himself a martyr. Three days ago, I learned that my father is to take vows as a Jesuit priest,’ he said, in a tone that sounded almost like wry amusement. ‘The Church will have him completely, and he will forget he ever had a wife or a son.’

‘I am sure no father could do that,’ I said.

‘You do not know him,’ he said, setting his mouth in a grim line. ‘Ours is an old Catholic family, sir. But I ask you – how can a religion that talks of love at the same time urge men so cruelly to cast aside the natural ties of love and friendship? To martyr themselves for the promise of an unseen world, and leave their families grieving! I want no part of any God that demands those sacrifices.’

He had shredded what remained of his bread into tiny pieces with his agitated fingers as he spoke. He reached forward to take another hunk of bread and as he did so, the frayed sleeve of his gown fell back to reveal a soiled makeshift bandage around his wrist and the lower part of his right hand, blotched with brownish stains over which a few, fresher crimson spots had blossomed more recently.

‘What happened to your hand?’ I asked.

Immediately he tugged his sleeve down over the bandage and rubbed his wrist self-consciously.

‘It is nothing.’

‘It does not look like nothing – it’s bled badly. I could look at it if you like?’

‘Are you a doctor?’ he snapped, withdrawing his arm hastily as if afraid I might tear the bandage off without his consent.

‘Only of theology,’ I admitted, ‘but I did learn a little of the art of making salves when I was a monk. It would be no trouble to examine it.’

‘Thank you, but there is no need. It was just a foolish accident. I was sharpening Gabriel’s razor for him and my hand slipped.’ He looked down and gave his whole attention to the bread as if the subject was closed. I felt myself tense, but tried to give no sign that I found his words significant.

‘Your friend Master Norris does not use the college barber, then?’ I asked, in a neutral tone.

Thomas ventured a smile.

‘He calls him the college barbarian. No, he prefers to do the job himself.’

‘When did he ask you to sharpen his razor?’

Thomas thought for a moment.

‘It must have been Saturday, because he wanted to shave before the disputation.’

‘And has it been in its usual place since then?’

‘I – I don’t know, sir. I have not looked. Why would it not be?’

He looked at me, his brow creased with curiosity, and I thought it best not to arouse his suspicions further.

‘I only wondered if Master Norris ever lent the razor to his friends.’

‘Never, sir. He is careful with his possessions. Many of them are valuable, or else they came from his father.’

He didn’t ask any further, but continued to regard me with curiosity. After we had sat for a while in silence, I put down my bread and wiped my fingers.

‘But this news of your father – you did not learn it directly from him, if his letters are intercepted? He would surely not have written to you of his plans to take holy orders.’

‘No, he had another correspondent,’ Thomas said with his mouth full.

‘Had?’

He stopped and his eyes flickered guiltily upwards towards mine as he realised his slip.

‘You mean Doctor Mercer?’ I persisted. If he had learned the news three days ago, there could only be one person who now required the past tense.

Thomas nodded.

‘They continued to write to one another. My father always confided more in Roger Mercer; they were the closest of friends.’

‘But Mercer denounced him.’

‘I don’t think so. My father never knew who denounced him, but he was certain it wasn’t Mercer. Mercer only testified against him at the trial.’

‘Surely that would be enough to end a friendship? Your father must have an exceptional capacity for forgiveness.’

Thomas laid down his knife and was looking at me impatiently.

‘You don’t understand, do you? This is exactly what I was saying about faith – the cause is always more important. The natural laws of friendship must be sacrificed. My father would not have expected Roger Mercer to do otherwise – and he would have testified against Roger if their positions had been reversed. Both had a greater loyalty. If Roger had spoken in his defence they would likely both have been imprisoned or exiled, and then who would be left to carry on the fight?’

I stared at him.

‘You mean to say that Roger Mercer was also a Catholic?’ I whispered.

Thomas hunched lower over the table.

‘I suppose it will not hurt him now that I tell you,’ he said, ‘but do not repeat it to anyone, I beg you. It could only hurt his family.’

‘No, no, of course. But if Roger was a Catholic,’ I mused, my mind scurrying to catch up, ‘and your father was writing to him from Rheims, might he have confided details of the English mission? Might Roger even have played a part?’

‘I do not know the contents of their letters, sir,’ Thomas said, twisting uncomfortably in his seat. ‘Doctor Mercer only told me news he thought might affect me directly.’

‘But was their correspondence not intercepted by the college authorities too? Did they not think it suspicious that Mercer continued to write to the man he had helped condemn?’

‘Doctor Mercer did not send his letters through the college post, sir.’ Thomas’s voice was now barely audible. ‘He paid to send them privately, through someone in the town who had the means of carrying letters overseas.’

‘Ah. A book dealer, perhaps?’

‘Perhaps. I did not ask – that was his business,’ Thomas said evenly, but his eyes were evasive. Then he suddenly leaned forward so that he was almost lying across the table and grabbed my sleeve.

‘I am not responsible for my father, sir, nor for any communications he may or may not have sent, as I have tried to tell everyone for the last year. I just want to live quietly, to leave Oxford and study the law at the Inns of Court in London, but I fear I shall never be allowed a career as a lawyer, nor any wife of good family, for as long as I am regarded as my father’s son. Especially once he joins the Jesuits,’ he added, with an extra dose of self-pity. ‘For the Privy Council has spies even in the seminaries and will learn of it soon enough. Unless someone with influence will speak on my behalf.’

He looked at me with imploring eyes, but I looked back unseeing, my mind occupied elsewhere. If Edmund Allen was taking holy orders in Rheims, he must be in some way connected to the mission to England. That would certainly explain the ransacking of Mercer’s room; Allen’s letters to him, if they contained any such matter, might be evidence enough to condemn anyone associated with them. But that still did not explain why Mercer had been killed. Had he threatened to betray the cause? Had he crossed someone? Did the letters between Roger Mercer and Edmund Allen name others who wanted to protect themselves at any cost? The ‘J’ in his calendar on the day of his murder might very well stand for Jenkes, I reflected; anyone who could cut off his own ears without flinching surely wouldn’t hesitate to remove a man who threatened his business – unless I was falling prey to Cobbett’s legends. There were too many questions, while the possible answers were all frustratingly unclear. I put my head in my hands and stared at the table.

‘Are you all right, Doctor Bruno?’

‘I wondered if Mercer was killed by a Catholic,’ I murmured, barely aware that I had thought aloud and only belatedly looking up to find Thomas regarding me with an odd expression.

‘Doctor Mercer was killed by a dog,’ he reminded me.

‘Oh, come on, Thomas – do you believe that? How often have you known feral dogs to attack men in the streets of Oxford, never mind a locked garden?’

‘I do not know, sir,’ he said, avoiding my eye. ‘I only know what the rector told us. The door was left open, the dog wandered in.’

He made a show of looking into his empty tankard as though hoping more beer might appear if he only peered in hard enough.

‘Another drink, Thomas?’

He nodded eagerly, and I summoned the serving-girl to bring us another two pots of beer. When she had gone, I leaned across the table and waited for him to meet my eye.

‘Was this what you wanted to confide in me, that you could tell no one else – this news about your father?’

Thomas resumed his scratching at the boards of the table.

‘That first day, when I thought you were Sir Philip,’ he said quietly, ‘you were kind when Rector Underhill tried to shame me. I thought – perhaps it was foolish, but I thought if you had the ear of men like Sir Philip, you might intercede for me.’

‘What is it you wish me to say?’

He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, his eyes fixed on his hands.

‘I want to leave Oxford, sir. I am afraid. When my father was deprived, I was questioned twice by the Chancellor’s Court. They would not believe that I knew nothing of his secret life, and the questioning was hard – they would not accept a word I said, they kept pressing me and pressing me on the same points until I found I was contradicting myself.’

I noticed his hands were shaking and his breathing had quickened; the memory was obviously difficult for him.

‘Did they use force?’

‘No, sir. But they argued as lawyers do, they twisted every answer I gave until it sounded like the opposite meaning, and I became so confused and afraid I found myself agreeing to statements that I knew were not true. It is strange the way that someone who wants to find you guilty can start to make you believe in your own guilt, even when you know you are innocent. I was afraid I would condemn myself by mistake, sir. It was a horrible experience.’

‘I can imagine,’ I said with feeling, remembering the fear that had gripped at my guts when the abbot had told me I would be questioned by the Inquisition all those years ago. ‘And you are afraid you will be questioned again if it becomes known that your father is to become a Jesuit priest?’

He nodded, finally looking directly at me.

‘If they refused to believe me before, how much worse will it be when they know he is part of the Jesuit mission? What if they take me to London for questioning? I have heard tales of what they do there to get the information they want. They can make you say anything.’

I remembered my conversation with Walsingham in his garden and shivered involuntarily. Thomas’s narrow, pointed face was stretched tight with fear, his skin so pale that a tracery of blue veins stood out at his temples like a river delta inked on a map. There was no doubt that this fear was real and vivid.

‘The authorities would believe you know enough to make hard questioning worthwhile?’ I asked.

‘I know nothing, sir!’ he protested, his cheeks flaming again with emotion. ‘But I am not brave – I do not know what I might be capable of saying if they hurt me!’

‘Tell me the truth, Thomas,’ I said firmly. ‘I cannot help you if you do not. Are you afraid that you will betray your father’s secrets, and the secrets of his confederates, if you are threatened with torture?’

‘I never wanted this knowledge, sir,’ he whispered, his voice cracking as he blinked back tears. ‘I told my father so, but he wanted me to share in it. He was determined to bring me to the Roman faith, he wanted me to go with him to France, so he wouldn’t have to choose between his son and his church. I suppose he thought if he confided in me about his meetings, I would feel some complicity, some loyalty towards his friends. Instead I am trapped by all these secrets I never asked to be told. I am suffering for a faith I don’t even share!’ he cried, bringing his fist down on the table.

‘You have never thought of offering up these secrets voluntarily?’ I ventured. ‘You must know the Earl of Leicester would surely reward anyone who could give him such information about the Catholic resistance in Oxford as you must have.’

Thomas stared at me as if it was taking him some time to process the meaning of my words.

‘Of course I have thought of it. Have you ever seen the execution of a Catholic in England, Doctor Bruno?’

I confessed that I had not.

‘I have. My father took me to London to see the death of Edmund Campion and his fellow Jesuits, in December of 1581. I think he wanted me to understand what was at stake.’ He passed a hand across his brow and squeezed his eyes hard shut, as if this might blot out the scenes he had witnessed. ‘They were sliced open like pigs in the slaughterhouse and their guts torn from their living bodies, wound around a spindle to pull them out slower. You could hear them still crying out to God while their entrails were held aloft to please the crowd and their hearts thrown in the brazier. I could not bear to watch, Doctor Bruno, but I looked at my father’s face and he was rapt, as if it were the most glorious spectacle he had ever witnessed. I could not willingly deliver anyone to that fate. I don’t want anyone else’s blood on my hands, sir, I just want to be left alone!’ His voice rose to a frantic pitch and he clutched again at his bandaged wrist.

‘Thomas,’ I began, and broke off as the serving-girl arrived with fresh tankards of beer. When she had set them down, I leaned in, carefully lowering my voice. ‘Are there other Catholics here in Oxford who know that your father told you about them? I mean, people who know you do not share their faith, and might be afraid that you would betray them if you were questioned?’

Immediately he looked away.

‘Are you also afraid that those people would try to silence you before you could hurt them? Like they did with Roger Mercer?’

‘I can’t say any more, Doctor Bruno.’ His voice was trembling now. ‘I swear, you don’t want that knowledge either. I only wanted to ask if you might find a time to speak on my behalf to Sir Philip, to beg his patronage and assure him that I am a true Englishman, loyal to the queen and to the English Church.’

‘I thought you had stopped believing in God?’ I said, with a smile.

‘What has the Church to do with God?’ he countered, almost smiling in return. From somewhere beyond the windows, a church bell began to peal distantly. Thomas jumped as if he had been stung. ‘Doctor Bruno – I hope this won’t seem ungrateful, but I should get back to college. Gabriel will be returning from lectures soon and I have work still to do.’

It seemed to me that he was suddenly anxious to end the conversation; perhaps he had not anticipated so many questions in return for the favour he wanted. I drained the last of my beer and paid the landlord, feeling a twinge of guilt as I saw the undisguised envy with which Thomas watched me take coins from Walsingham’s plump purse. If he knew that I had been given this money by the very people whose attention he feared, for the exact purpose of winkling out the kind of secrets his father kept, whatever respect he professed for me would vanish like yesterday’s mist.

Out of the thick warmth of the tavern, a chill wind drove the rain sideways into our faces. Thomas pulled his gown tighter around him as we walked along the High Street under the shadows of the dripping eaves in silence, sunk deep into his own thoughts while I tried to fit what I had just learned with the matter of Mercer and Coverdale’s deaths. We had almost reached the turning to St Mildred’s Lane when I remembered there was something else I had wanted to ask him.

‘You said you have no friends here, Thomas, but do you not count Mistress Sophia Underhill?’ I said, slowing my pace so that we would not arrive at the college gate before he had a chance to answer.

He looked at me with some surprise.

‘There was a time, I suppose, when I considered her a friend. But I think she regards me rather as she does her dolls – something that amused her in childhood, but which she outgrew and put aside.’

‘Because of your father’s disgrace?’

‘No.’ Thomas sidestepped a puddle that had formed in the rutted lane, the sole of one of his shoes flapping open with each step he took. ‘She grew out of me long before that. When my mother died and my father decided to come back to Oxford at the earl’s request, I was made to lodge with a family in the town – you know only the rector may live with a wife and family in college, the other Fellows are supposed to be bachelors. But the rector’s family took pity on me, and my father and I were often invited to dine at their table – I was supposed to be company for young John, the son that died, but of course I noticed Sophia.’ He sighed and appeared to stoop even further, as if the memory of those days was a physical weight on his shoulders. ‘Then John was killed and Sophia’s father decided to rein her in. He had ambitions for her to make a grand marriage and her mother was supposed to be preparing her by taking her into society, but Mistress Underhill took ill with her nerves after John’s death, and Sophia was left to herself with no company but the men in college. There were governesses, but they never lasted long.’ He laughed ruefully. ‘I do not blame them – I should not like to try and teach Sophia anything against her will.’

I nodded, remembering the way she had dealt with Adam, the censorious servant.

‘No, indeed. You still care for her, I think?’

He glanced at me, his face suddenly guarded.

‘What does it matter? She will not have me now.’

‘Does she have someone else?’

His face set hard and something like anger flashed in his eyes.

‘Whatever you have heard, it is a lie! She has an affectionate nature, but she is easily deceived—’ He stopped abruptly, his voice thick with emotion, and I thought for a moment he might cry, but he took a deep breath and composed himself. ‘But if you want to know, then yes – I will always care for her, and I would do anything to protect her. Anything.’

I halted abruptly at the ferocity of his last words and turned to face him.

‘Protect her from what? Is she in danger?’

Thomas took a step back, apparently disconcerted by the intensity of my expression.

‘I didn’t mean – that is, I only meant if she were in need, she knows that she could always depend on me.’

I grabbed him by the wrist and he yelped; I had forgotten his injury. I let go and grasped his gown instead, leaning in until my face was less than a foot from his.

‘Thomas, if you know of any danger to Sophia, you must tell me!’

His eyes narrowed and I saw his jaw stiffen; again he stepped back, but with more composure this time, and his voice took on a new distance.

‘Must I, Doctor Bruno? What would you offer her – your own protection? Or something else? And when you are gone back to London with your party in a couple of days, what will she be left with then?’

‘I only meant that you have a duty to report any danger to those who might be able to help her,’ I said, attempting to sound detached as I released his gown from my fist, but I knew it was too late; I had betrayed my affection for Sophia and revealed myself as a rival.

Thomas straightened his gown, then turned and began walking down St Mildred’s Lane towards Lincoln College gatehouse, his arms wrapped around his thin torso.

‘You have no idea what you are talking about,’ he said eventually, looking straight ahead as if he were not speaking to me at all, but thinking aloud.

Then he dropped his gaze apologetically, and clasped my hand between both of his. ‘Thank you for listening to me, Doctor Bruno. And I’m sorry if I spoke out of turn on occasion – I am still afraid of saying the wrong thing. You will remember my request, if it’s not too much trouble?’

‘I will, Thomas. I am glad we have talked.’

‘I need to leave Oxford,’ he said, gripping my hand urgently. ‘If I could get to London and begin a life there – you will tell Sir Philip that? A recommendation from him would ease my path, and I would swear my loyalty to him and the earl.’

‘I will do my best for you,’ I promised, and meant it, though I was certain he had not told me all he knew. ‘And take care of that wound on your wrist.’

He bowed slightly and then scuttled away through the gate to his duties.

The rain continued to blow across the courtyard in endless diagonal lines, the sky now darker than when I had first ventured out. I glanced up at the small window at the top of the tower and shivered to think of Coverdale’s blood-soaked body dangling from the sconce, those arrows mockingly protruding from his chest and stomach. I had once visited the basilica of San Sebastiano Fuori le Mura in Rome, in whose catacombs the saint’s remains are buried; the great icon there, with his face of pious agony and his arrows sticking out like the spines of a porcupine, had struck me then as exaggerated and unreal in his torment, like a scene from a play, garishly painted, and I realised I had had the same response on seeing James Coverdale’s body. The grisly tableau had appeared almost as a practical joke; I had hardly been able to believe him dead until I saw the great wound in his throat. As I pulled my jerkin up again around my face and prepared to put my head down into the rain, I remembered suddenly a phrase from the rector’s Foxe quotation: By his own soldiers. Sebastian, a captain of the Praetorian guard, had been executed on the orders of the Emperor Diocletian by his own men. Had the murderer kept that detail in mind? Had James Coverdale also been killed by someone who was supposed to be on his side? And what side might that be, in this place of tangled loyalties?

I had barely stepped out into the courtyard from the gatehouse when I saw the rector emerging from the archway opposite, followed closely by Slythurst. Both had the hoods of their gowns pulled close around their faces and were hurrying towards me; when the rector caught sight of me, he beckoned hastily for me to join them. In the shelter of the gatehouse, he huddled closer, out of earshot of a group of students taking refuge from the rain.

‘You saw my daughter this morning, did you not, Bruno, in the porter’s lodge?’ Underhill demanded.

‘Yes – she was waiting for her mother to go out,’ I said, caught by the trace of urgency in his voice.

‘Did you see her leave?’

‘No – Master Slythurst arrived with his terrible news and I came to fetch you.’

‘Then, she must have …’ Underhill shook his head, with an expression of vague confusion. ‘It is no matter. She was ever defiant. She will be back.’

‘What has happened?’ I pressed him.

‘When my wife arrived at the gatehouse, Sophia was no longer there,’ he said, looking around the courtyard as if in hope that she might appear at any moment. ‘Margaret thought she must have gone on ahead to the house of her acquaintance, so she set off herself, but when she got there, they had seen no sign of Sophia either. Margaret is fretting, as she is wont to do, but I am inclined to believe Sophia has taken it upon herself to go off walking without telling anyone – she complains often of being cooped up here. She thinks she should have the liberty to go wandering the lanes and fields outside the city for the best part of the day, just as she used to with her brother. Well, that was different. She will learn the manners proper to a young lady, even if she will not learn them willingly.’ His face clouded for a moment. Then he glanced around again, distracted, as if hoping the events of this day might have gone away of their own accord.

‘Surely she would not have chosen a day such as this to go out walking?’ I said, gesturing to the relentless sky and trying to keep my own voice even. Only the night before, Sophia herself had told me she believed she was in danger, and Thomas Allen had just implied something similar. Now she had disappeared. I hoped fervently that the rector was right, but I sensed that he had told this story to persuade himself because he could not cope with any more worries on top of Coverdale’s murder and all it implied for the college.

‘Yes, yes – I’m sure she will be back for her dinner before we know it,’ he said, waving a hand. ‘And now, Master Slythurst will take my letter to the coroner, and I must prepare what I will say to the community in Hall. The hour is almost upon us.’

He looked at me and sighed. He seemed to have aged ten years in the past hour.

‘I will be in my study, Doctor Bruno. We will speak later. I would ask you to be present in Hall at noon for dinner, when I shall announce this tragedy to the college. It would be prudent for you to know the exact terms in which I have informed the college community of events so that you do not repeat anything beyond that. I would like to limit gossip as far as possible.’

I bowed in acknowledgement.

‘It would likewise be prudent, Rector, not to let anyone else know that you have asked me to look into this matter,’ I said, in a low voice. ‘There may be some who would keep information back if they thought I sought it on your behalf.’

‘I understand. Go where you will, Doctor Bruno, and I will not mention your involvement. But find who did this thing – these things,’ he corrected himself, ‘and whatever reward the college may offer will be yours for the asking. Provided I am still in place to grant it,’ he added gloomily, before turning to retrace his steps to his lodgings.