by S. J. Parris
"He killed two men, Sophia," Jerome said hoarsely, still rubbing his throat. "He would have killed me. We are fighting a holy war, remember. To kill those who oppose God's kingdom is not murder."
"Is that what they teach you at Rheims?" I asked, recovering myself and moving toward the stairs. Now that Jerome was in possession of his knife again I realised how vulnerable I was. I fervently did not want to follow Thomas over the parapet, but it was clear that Sophia could not be counted upon to act against Jerome, and I could not see that there was any chance he might let me walk free.
"And what of Sophia?" I added. "Would it have been murder to have her killed before she reached France? Is she in the way of God's kingdom?"
Jerome laughed abruptly, wincing as the effort hurt his bruised throat.
"You saw for yourself how troubled that boy's mind was, Doctor Bruno. Once he had dirtied his hands with murder, he began to believe the rest of the world was also bent on killing. He was deluded to the very end."
He took a step toward me, but before I could reach the stairs I collided with a body; whipping around, I saw that the doorway was blocked by two solid-looking servants in household livery. One of them, a burly man who was a good foot taller than me, grasped my arm and twisted it up behind my back, sending bursts of white-hot pain through my shoulder. This time I offered no resistance. I was not going to fight my way out of this, I realised. It seemed that unless the Jesuit was willing to show mercy, I had very little hope.
Chapter 20
I will ask you again, Bruno-who else knows you are here?" Jerome circled me, his eyes infinitely patient.
"No one," I said through clenched teeth.
"Where are the papers you took from my chamber? The ones Thomas left for you to find?"
I shook my head. "I hid them in my room. No one else knows they are there."
He frowned.
"He is lying," he said, after a pause, addressing the servants. "Listen-we have not much time. You"-he motioned to the second man-"go now, tell Lady Eleanor to expect a visit from the pursuivants in the near future, and request her to send a fast rider to Rowland Jenkes of Catte Street in Oxford. Bring him here as soon as possible. I must get Sophia safely on the road-her father will have people looking for her by now. Then I must return to Oxford. This man"-he nodded toward me-"must be kept alive until Jenkes arrives. He travels with the royal party-there must be nothing in his death that could point to us, any of us. It must be made to look like a highway robbery or some such. But Jenkes must speak to him first. He will be glad to be reunited with you, will he not, Doctor Bruno?"
"Sophia, he means to kill you," I burst out, as Jerome motioned for the servants to manhandle me back down the stairs. "You may believe he cares for you," I cried in desperation, "but you heard with your own ears-he believes he has a dispensation from God Himself to cut down anyone who stands in his way! Do not go with him-you will never see France. Go back to your family, they will understand, I am sure of it."
The servant tugged again on my arm as a warning, and pulled me back toward the stairs.
"I cannot, Bruno!" Sophia called in a cracked voice, as the servant ushered me roughly through the doorway and onto the staircase. "I can never go back, not now. Apart from the child, I am a convert to Rome-I would only be tortured in some filthy gaol to betray my friends, and the child would likely die, and then I would end wishing I was dead."
"That will not happen," I called up the stairs, my voice echoing above me as the servant shoved me in the back of the head. "I would help you-I have friends-"
"You, Bruno?" Jerome's mocking voice floated down the stairs. "Oh yes, you have influential friends, I do not doubt it. But they are not here, and you will not be able to reach them, whatever you may have told them already."
When we reached the tier where the stairwell opened into the grand gatehouse room, the man holding me dragged me out and waited for Jerome to emerge. Sophia followed, her dress dishevelled and her face pale and blotchy. The brief look she cast me was tense with distress.
"He must be bound," Jerome said curtly. He held out his knife toward me. "Fetch ropes and a cloth to gag his mouth-you may leave him here with me. If he tries to flee he will not get far."
The servant grunted and released my arm, though from the pain I could barely unbend it. As he disappeared through the door, Jerome advanced on me, holding out his knife.
"Come, Bruno, I would show you something," he said, almost smiling. "Please do not make things more difficult by trying to run now-I would have to hurt you and I do not want to do that."
He beckoned me toward the opposite door into the eastern tower, where he and Sophia had been hidden when we first arrived.
Instead of a stairwell, this door led to a room lit by a tall window in each of the six outward-facing walls. As well as the door leading to the grand chamber, there was another door on the other inner wall, even narrower, leading to a small, low-ceilinged room built into the brickwork where the tower joined the east wing of the house, which I guessed must at one time have been a garderobe or privy. It was now quite empty, the walls of mellow brickwork, lit by two candles in sconces, and the floor of earthenware tiles. In the rear wall of this tiny room was built a recess about the height of a door and of a size that suggested it might once have held a small altar. Leaning against the interior wall of the recess, Jerome pressed his heel hard against the innermost floor tile and stepped back as a trapdoor concealed beneath the tiles swung soundlessly upward, its weight beautifully poised on a wooden pivot. The lid was made from two solid blocks of oak nailed together, perhaps a foot thick; when in place its covering of tiles made it invisible, and no priest-hunter, knocking on the surface, would hear any hollow sound from within.
"Welcome to my home away from home." Jerome gestured with his knife. "Not even five among the servants know this hide is here. It is carved into the very fabric of the house and is made to be undetectable from either side. You will find it surprisingly comfortable."
"Master Owen's handiwork?" I asked.
Jerome glanced sidelong at me. "Very good. I see you have learned much, Bruno. The question is, how much have you passed on?"
"I do not understand you," I said. Jerome gave a little click of impatience, but before he could speak we heard the echo of hurried footsteps on the stairs and the stocky servant returned carrying a length of rope. My stomach lurched.
"Bind his hands before him," Jerome barked, levelling the knife at my face. "Make it secure. He can slip through mouseholes, this one. It would go better for you if you don't resist, Bruno."
I did not; after the night's events I no longer had the strength left for resistance. My left shoulder was so badly torn from the man's previous attentions that it barely seemed part of me anymore. I held out my arms and when my wrists were tied for a second time, the position seemed almost familiar.
"Give me the rope and get gone, help the household hide any sign of our presence and make ready for the pursuivants," Jerome told the servant, gesturing for him to hurry. "I will finish here. Sophia, go to Lady Eleanor, tell her we must have horses made ready. I will ride with you to Abingdon-I have contacts there who may be able to accompany you to the boat. You," he said, turning to me and nudging me hard between the shoulder blades toward the gap in the recess. "In there."
Sophia wavered, as if unwilling to leave me to his mercy. "Jerome, do not hurt him. He has been kind to me."
"I'm sure he has," Jerome replied, stony-faced.
I sat awkwardly on the edge of the gap in the floor, unable to balance without the use of my hands, and took a last look at Sophia's bone-white face, before feeling as best I could with my trussed hands to grip the grooves carved into the wooden lintel above the hold. I slid my body awkwardly through and under the wall; Jerome helped me on with a shove that caused me to land heavily on my damaged shoulder on the brick floor of the vault beneath. He took one of the candles from the wall and twisted his body through after me, lithe as a cat, guarding the fla
me with his right hand. Over his shoulder he had looped a length of rope and a piece of cloth.
By the jittery light of the candle flame, I saw that we had landed inside a surprisingly spacious cavity that appeared to have been built into the angle of the wall where the east range of the house joined the eastern tower of the gatehouse; it was high enough for a man to stand in, with a wooden bench placed in an alcove at the far end and beneath this, a small oak chest bound with iron bands. With some difficulty, I pressed my back against the wall and struggled to my feet. Jerome set his candle on the floor and gestured to the bench. I limped across to sit down, grateful for the brief rest but already feeling my rising anxiety at being enclosed in a small space. My breathing was growing quicker and shallower, and I knew that if he were to shut the trapdoor and leave me here alone I would forget how to breathe normally altogether. He regarded me with what I hoped might be pity, passing the rope between his hands as if deciding how to proceed.
"You don't like it here," he remarked, noting my nostrils flaring in and out as I attempted to remain calm. "I don't like being shut in either, but I have had to master it. Four hours I spent in here once, when there was a raid." He shuddered at the memory.
"I suppose if the alternative is having your belly ripped open, you learn to bear it."
Jerome acknowledged the truth of this with a wan smile, then crouched in front of me, staring me earnestly in the eye.
"What have you done with the letters, Bruno? I need to know. Who else have you told about me?"
"I have told you-the letters are in my room. As for you-I only guessed at your identity tonight and I have not seen anyone since."
"And I say you are lying," he said, rising impatiently to his feet. "Well, it is no matter. Jenkes will have the truth from you. He is quite as skilled as some of the queen's men in that grisly art. Did you know he was a mercenary in his youth? There is not much he does not know about pain-inflicting and enduring it." He flashed me a significant look and turned away. "People have had to die to protect my secret, Bruno. If you have set anyone else to hunt me down, my friends and I must at least know where to be vigilant."
"Three men were killed under my nose in Oxford-my only interest was in finding out what happened. I did not come looking for secret priests."
"No?" He gave me a long look, the candle lighting his high cheekbones from below so that his face resembled a carved mask whose contours shifted in the dancing flame. "The Catholic church has threatened your life-do you not want revenge? Have you not sold your hatred to the Protestant cause to work against the church that has hunted you?"
"No," I said simply. "I hate no one. I want only to be left in peace to understand the mysteries of the universe in my own way."
"God has already laid out for us the mysteries of the universe, or as much as He permits us to understand. You think your way is better?"
"Better than these wars of dogma that have led men to burn and fillet one another across Europe for fifty years? Yes, I do."
"Then what is it you believe?"
I looked at him. "I believe that, in the end, even the devils will be pardoned."
"Ah. Tolerance." Jerome pronounced the word as if he had just eaten a bad olive. "Compromise. Yes, there are many in the seminaries who would advocate the same-failing to understand that this tolerance is equal to saying there is no right or wrong, no truth or heresy. Thank God my order fiercely opposes all such dilution of the faith. Do you not know, Bruno, that the fiercer the persecution inflicted on Catholics and priests in England, the more our numbers flourish? Your tolerance would destroy in twenty days what twenty years of suffering has only served to strengthen."
"So the holy bloodshed continues," I said. "Men and women rushing headlong into the executioner's embrace. Is that martyrdom or suicide?"
Jerome only smiled gently.
"Do you know what we call England on the mission?" He paused for effect. "'Death's antechamber.' I have never had any doubt as to how it will end for me-but there is a harvest of souls to be gathered first. Perhaps yours among them, Bruno."
He reached inside his shirt and pulled out a silver chain bearing a small key, then he knelt again at my feet and reached under the bench to pull out the wooden chest. Opening its padlock, he removed two small vials of holy oil and sat back on his heels, looking at me intently.
"I must make this plain," he said, holding up the bottle so that I could see it. "You are going to die. Whatever you have or have not already said, everything you have seen this past night makes you a danger to God's work here. But I would not leave you in your final moments without comfort, Bruno." He held out a hand to me. "Confess yourself, repent of your heresy, be reconciled to the Church in your last hour, and as a Jesuit I can give you the sacrament of absolution."
I read his sincerity in his face, and in spite of myself I laughed.
"You, Father Jerome-you would absolve me? You, who father a child and would kill its mother and two other men to protect the sanctity of your reputation-you presume to absolve me? My heresy was to read a few books of astronomy and philosophy. If you are right, and God weighs our sins in the balance on the Day of Judgment, whose do you think will weigh heavier?"
Jerome lowered his eyes for a moment before returning to meet my gaze defiantly.
"When Lucifer tempted Christ in the wilderness, did he tempt Him with women, with sins of the flesh? No. He tempted Him with the sin of pride. He dared Christ to prove Himself equal to God. I have sinned, but mine were sins of the flesh, for which the flesh atones with hard penance. Whereas you presume, in the arrogance of your intellect, to remake the fabric of the universe, to rip the earth from the centre of God's creation where His Word and all the teachings of the Fathers have set it! It is you who is the true heir of the rebel angels, Bruno."
"I prefer such a lineage to that of Cain," I replied. "Even if I wished to be reconciled to the Church, I would not take my absolution from such a man as you."
"As you wish," he shrugged, replacing the holy oils in the trunk. When he had locked it, he tucked the key back inside his shirt and stood to face me, hands on his hips. "It is strange that I should admire you, Bruno, but I feel a curious kinship. In different times I should have so enjoyed the chance to debate with you. I am trained first and foremost for scholarly argument, and you would have been a worthy opponent." He smiled sadly. "You and I are similar men, I think, though we stand on different sides of the great divide. For all your talk of tolerance, you will no more compromise than I will. You have endured great hardships for your beliefs, as have I, and you go to your death defiant, just as I will when the appointed time comes. For that I cannot help but respect you, and wish you had been one of us."
"Then in a spirit of kinship, let me ask one thing of you, Father, in place of my absolution," I said quickly. He gave me a questioning look and I continued. "Let Sophia go back home. Do not pursue the course you have set. Save one innocent life, at least."
Jerome sighed, a great shudder that seemed to wrack his whole body.
"You have not understood, have you, Bruno? She has no home. There is nothing in Oxford for her now. She will be spurned by her family for converting to the old faith, and spurned by the Catholics as a fallen woman."
"She is a Catholic and a dishonoured woman because of you," I said through gritted teeth, struggling to my feet, though there was little I could do except gesture with my bound hands. "Is it right that she should be disposed of so that you can walk free? Her sins are your sins, Father."
"Do you think I do not know that?" He grasped my wrists suddenly and held his face close to mine, and I saw for the first time the storm of emotion beneath the professional calm.
"You do not seem to feel much remorse," I remarked.
"Remorse?" He stared at me, then released my hands with a strange, desperate laugh. "Oh, I can show you remorse, Bruno." He began unlacing his doublet and I sat back on the bench, watching as he opened his fine silk shirt to reveal a cilice of coarse black animal
hair. He unlaced the neck and drew the hair shirt gingerly down over his shoulders, wincing soundlessly as he did so.
"Here is my remorse," he said, turning away from me.
I looked for a moment at his broad naked back, at the welter of torn, bloody skin, some wounds still livid and seeping where the metal hooks of the whip had gouged great pieces of flesh, others forming scars over older scars. I had seen penitents many times on my travels through Italy, and I was freshly amazed that any living being could inflict such cruelty on their own body in the name of atonement. I drew my breath in sharply and turned away, but he wheeled around to face me once more. Something had broken in him; his eyes shone with fury and tears.
"Is that remorse enough for you? Do you think I did not love her? Do you know how it tore my soul in two, to choose between the vows I have taken and what I felt for her?"
"If you love her, then, do not sacrifice her," I said softly.
"For Christ's sake, Bruno, I am not going to sacrifice her!" he cried, running both hands through his hair. "She will be safe in France."
"I think you are lying," I said.
He took a deep breath, gathering in his turbulent emotions, then fixed me with a severe look.
"Then in that we are equal." He replaced the cilice, clenching his jaw hard as it made contact with his ravaged skin, then buttoned up his shirt and shrugged on his doublet, watching me all the time. Finally he bent down to retrieve the length of rope from the floor, and with it bound my ankles, not painfully but firmly. "Goodbye, Bruno," he said, standing and regarding me sadly before sweeping all traces of tears from his cheeks with a brusque movement. "I am genuinely sorry it ends this way. I pray God will speak to your soul in these last moments."
He took the piece of cloth he had brought and moved to secure it around my mouth.
"The trapdoor does not open from the inside," he remarked as he did so. "And the walls are so thick that no one will hear you scream, but just in case."
