Heresy

by S. J. Parris

  "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, the rain had set in again and a chill wind drove it 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's 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 who 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 toward 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 for life."

  "I will do my best for you," I promised, and meant it, though I was still 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 still 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 expression of pious agony and the 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 pla
ce 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 toward 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 the little 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 you 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.

  Chapter 13

  The bell summoning the college to dinner at midday still clanged incessantly long after the Fellows and students had filed into the great hall, marking time over the susurration of urgent whispered conversations that betrayed the tension crackling in the atmosphere like the charge before a storm. Outside, the rain beat against the windows so hard that we had to raise our voices to make ourselves heard even to our neighbours.

  I was disconcerted to find that a place had been saved for me at the high table with the senior Fellows. Seated between Godwyn and Slythurst, who made no effort to disguise his distaste at my presence among his colleagues, I could not help but be aware that the seat I occupied must surely have belonged to one of the two dead men.

  The high table was set on a low dais that gave me a vantage over the rest of the hall. It was a handsome room, its walls whitewashed and hung with tapestries in the French style of the last century that were clearly expensive work, though now grown somewhat faded with age. The hall was dominated by the open hearth that stood in the centre of the floor beneath an octagonal louvre set in the high timber roof, its beams blackened with soot, to allow the smoke to escape. Around the hearth was a wooden pale, wide enough for several people to sit on and warm themselves; either side of this, a long table had been set beneath the windows, where the undergraduates and junior Fellows now crammed onto benches with frequent glances at the dais, murmuring among themselves about the rector's drawn face and the second empty place at the high table.

  A skinny young man with unkempt red hair, dressed in a gown several sizes too large for him, mounted the lectern that stood beside the high table and in a voice surprisingly sonorous for his slight frame, readied himself to pronounce grace. I recognised him as the boy I had watched clearing away the appurtenances of Matins in the chapel the previous day. The solemn tolling of the bell was silenced just as he opened his mouth.

  "Benignissime Pater, qui providentia tua regis," he began, as the rector dutifully bowed his head and clasped his hands and the rest of the senior Fellows followed suit. From beneath lowered lids, I noticed that most of the undergraduates were still watching the high table with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension. "Liberalitate pascis et benedictione conservas omnia quae creaveris," the boy intoned, and I noticed with a sudden pitch of relief that Gabriel Norris was seated at the head of one of the long tables among a clutch of other young men whose quality and cut of dress marked them out as separate from their fellow scholars. I did not take seriously Slythurst's suggestion that the instruments of murder pointed to Norris as the killer-it seemed to me rather that the use of his longbow implied his innocence, but at least now I would have the chance to speak to him after the meal. He continued to stare resolutely ahead of him, as if the deference of bowing his head in prayer would be beneath his dignity, and it occurred to me that there was something altered in his appearance, though I could not quite put my finger on what it might be. On the far side of the other table, I spotted Thomas Allen, head bent so far that his nose almost touched the table, the hands in front of his face clasped so tightly that the knuckles were bone-white.

  "Per Christum Dominum nostrum, Amen," finished the red-haired boy, and a muttered "Amen" rose in response from the tables. The rector rose heavily to his feet and a wary silence settled over the hall.

  "Gentlemen," Rector Underhill began, his voice drained of its usual bombast. "In the life of every Christian man there come times when God, in His divine and infinite wisdom, sees fit to test our poor faith with hardships and sorrows. Just so, in the life of our little Christian community, He has chosen these days to send us painful trials, the better to anchor our faith in His Providence." He took a deep breath and folded his hands in front of him in an attitude of humility. "It grieves me to inform you, gentlemen, so soon after the terrible accident that took the life of our dear subrector Doctor Mercer, that a second tragedy has intruded on our poor society. Doctor James Coverdale has been mortally wounded, it would seem in defending the college strong room from violent robbers."

  He lowered his head; there was a moment's pause before a rumble of whispered speculation erupted into the stillness. The rector did not try to silence it; rather, he waited until the first wave of shock and disbelief had played itself out, then raised a hand, which he held aloft until the murmuring subsided.

  "Wagers on who'll be brave enough to be subrector next?" Norris whispered
to his friend, just loud enough for his voice to carry, and a ripple of tense laughter spread around the undergraduates' tables. The rector cleared his throat sternly.

  "If anyone saw anything over the weekend that might have some bearing on this horrible act or could lead to the apprehension of these evil perpetrators, you may leave word at my lodgings," he announced.

  Norris turned back to the rector and raised a hand. "Rector Underhill-may we know how much was taken from the strong room?"

  The well-dressed young men among whom he sat nodded urgently; I wondered if the gentlemen commoners kept their own private wealth there too under lock and key.

  The rector hesitated for a moment.

  "Ah… well… it seems that nothing was actually taken, as far as we can tell. It must be that the altercation with Doctor Coverdale frightened the thieves and caused them to take flight."

  "An odd sort of robbery, then," Norris observed, his words weighted carefully. "To take a man's life, all for nothing."

  "Indeed, indeed," said the rector solemnly. "A terrible waste."

  The meal passed largely in silence among those of us at the high table, though there was no lack of fevered hypotheses being aired among the junior men seated below us. On my right, Master Godwyn kept his eyes fixed on his plate and said almost nothing, but I noticed that when he lifted his tankard to drink, his hand was trembling like a man with palsy. Slythurst, on my left, occasionally put down his knife to comment between mouthfuls on the lax security that he believed had led to the deaths of his colleagues, as if he did not know very well that in both instances the killer had gained access with a key.