by S. J. Parris
"And Sophia?" I whispered anxiously.
"She will be arrested with him," Sidney threw over his shoulder with apparent unconcern. "The rest will depend on her. If she protests her loyalty to him, she will likely be taken for questioning."
"Tortured?" I sat up straighter, leaning close to his ear. "But she is with child."
I felt him shrug. "Then she may plead her belly, if her family will buy her release from gaol until the child is born. That will give her time to decide if her loyalty to Gilbert survives his execution. He will be taken to London to coax from him what more he knows. Where did you find the letters, anyway?" he asked casually, leaning back toward me.
I hesitated, knowing that I was about to risk my credibility in Walsingham's service, if Sophia should insist on telling the truth. But the thought of her suffering the kind of tortures Walsingham had detailed to me made me feel I had no choice.
"Sophia gave them to me," I said, hearing the hollow ring of falsehood in my own voice. I wondered if Sidney detected it too, because I felt his shoulders stiffen beneath my hands.
"Sophia? Really? Then she betrayed him willingly?"
"Yes. She discovered that he planned for her to meet with an accident on her passage to France. She asked for my help."
For a few moments, the only sound was the soft squelch of the horses' hooves on the muddy turf and the jangling of the armed riders behind us. Sidney appeared to be weighing this up. After a few moments he craned his head back toward me.
"Is this the truth, Bruno?"
"Absolutely."
"Then by that action she may just have saved herself. Though it will prove rather awkward if her story differs from yours. Something you may want to think about before you repeat it to anyone else." He let the sentence hang in the air. I did not miss the note of warning.
"What will happen to Lady Tolling?" I asked, keen to change the subject before he could press me further.
"Her estates will be attainted. She and those Catholics among her household will be imprisoned. If she is willing to inform, she may be spared her life."
I thought of the tall, elegant woman, so calmly receiving us into her grand gatehouse chamber-a room that would not now belong to her heirs, because of me. Of the six people who had been present in that room, perhaps I would be the only survivor, once Lady Tolling, Jerome, and Sophia had been arrested and tried. I could only hope that Sophia would have the sense, once Jerome was arrested, not to try and prove her devotion by following him to martyrdom, for then, in trying to save her, I would have delivered her to a worse death, and Sidney and Walsingham would know that I was too easily moved to pity, that my truthfulness was liable to be compromised by my heart.
"And what of us?" I asked, as the road became firmer and Sidney spurred the horse to a canter, causing me to slip sideways and grab frantically at his shoulders for balance.
"We return to London by river, once you are rested," he said. "The palatine is tired of Oxford, but I have persuaded him to stay another day for the luxury of returning by boat. Once Gilbert is arrested there will be no need for you to testify at the inquest into Roger Mercer's death tomorrow. You had better keep your head down-the less you are publicly associated with the circumstances of Gilbert's discovery and arrest, the better for your cover. But rest assured, my friend-you will be well rewarded," he added, as if this must be my main concern.
Well rewarded, I thought, as the outlying dwellings of Oxford became visible in the distance. I had narrowly escaped with my life, but others would not be so fortunate, and before I reached London I would have to decide how much I would tell Walsingham of what I knew. I still believed that Jerome Gilbert had intended to remove Sophia as an obstacle to his mission, despite his violent denials and her dogged faith in him, but I found it hard to believe that he was a danger to the English state, any more than I believed that Lady Eleanor Tolling, with her assiduous care for the missionary priests, was a traitor to her country. And while I would not be sorry to see Jenkes apprehended, would I also hand over good-natured, slow-witted Humphrey Pritchard to the torturers, or earnest Master Richard Godwyn? Walsingham had warned me that this kind of choice was part of his service, and I needed to repay his faith in me if I were to have any hope of gaining the queen's patronage. Playing politics with the lives of others was part of the path to advancement, but that, as I was just beginning to understand, was the real heresy. The only reward I now wanted was to see Sophia take the chance of escape that my lie would offer her, and not to consider martyrdom as a substitute for love.
Chapter 22
I was woken the following day by the slamming of my chamber door as Sidney, dressed in a plum-coloured velvet doublet and short breeches with white silk stockings, threw it open without a knock, grinning broadly as he strode across and drew back the curtains with a flourish to let in the full force of the midday spring sun. At his insistence I had returned directly with him and was now lodged at Christ Church College, in an oak-panelled room adjacent to his own, several degrees of luxury above the chamber I had become used to at Lincoln. Here I had a soft bed, woollen blankets, fresh water for washing, and a jug of small beer by my bed, though I had barely had a chance to appreciate any of this comparative ease, as I had done nothing but sleep since we had returned from Hazeley Court the previous day.
"And how do I find you this fine afternoon, my adventurous friend?" Sidney asked, pouring himself a cup of beer. I noticed that he was now quite openly wearing an ornamental sword at his belt, despite the university's absolute ban on weapons. Clearly he had decided that the circumstances warranted a breach of etiquette.
I struggled to sit up, feeling my shoulder twinge viciously as I leaned my weight on my arm.
"Is it afternoon already? This shoulder is still bad but I feel rested, I think."
"So you should, you have been asleep almost a whole day. You have missed all the excitement."
"Why, what has happened?" I asked anxiously, wincing again as I tried to push myself up on my bad arm.
"Gilbert and Sophia were taken shortly after we found you yesterday, at a house in Abingdon," he said, taking an orange from his pocket and digging his thumb into the peel, "and Jenkes is fled. His shop was raided last night but nothing incriminating was found, if you can believe it. His apprentice was taken for questioning but says only that his master has had to travel on business. That snake has slipped through our fingers this time, but at least he will not trouble you again in Oxford." He tore a curling strip of peel from the orange and let it drop on the stand beside my bed. The scent brought back a sharp memory of that first morning in Roger Mercer's room, the peel under the desk, the faint smell on the pages of the almanac. Might it have been better altogether if I had left that book alone, if I had never caught the scent of orange juice from its covers?
"Sophia and Jerome-where are they?" I asked.
"Father Jerome is on his way to London for some uncomfortable questioning," he said, seeming more interested in delicately separating a segment of his orange and holding it out to me. His detachment made me uncomfortable. "Sophia," Sidney continued, putting a piece of fruit into his mouth, "is at present under the supervision of her father. It seems they allowed her to be released on bail." He gave me a long look, one eyebrow raised in what I judged to be a disapproving complicity, before licking his fingers deliberately and turning away to the window. "Anyway, I came to tell you that there is a messenger arrived at the porter's lodge just now from Rector Underhill, inviting you to visit him at his lodgings before you leave Oxford."
"I will go straightaway," I said, levering myself gingerly out of bed, anxious to speak to Sophia if only to make sure she had decided to confirm my story about the letters. The fact that she had been released into the custody of her father suggested that she had not insisted too vehemently on her loyalty to Jerome, but she may simply have pleaded her belly. How she must have hated me, I thought, when she saw him led away in manacles by the pursuivants. More than anything, I wanted the chanc
e to ask her forgiveness, to convince her that I had acted for her own good. There was little chance she would believe me, but I did not want to leave Oxford with these things unsaid.
"I will go with you," Sidney said, as I pulled on my breeches and buttoned my shirt in such haste that I had it all awry and had to begin again. "Jenkes may not be at large but he has friends who may well have been instructed to see that you don't get back to London and talk. Until we leave tomorrow, you are not to go unaccompanied or unarmed."
I stopped, midway through pulling on my boot. "I would like to see the rector alone, though."
"Don't worry-I won't interfere with your fond farewells. I will make idle chatter with the porter while I wait."
"Cobbett!" I exclaimed, remembering that if it were not for his brave insubordination on my behalf, Sidney would never have received my message and I would certainly be either murdered or arrested, depending on which of my pursuers had reached me first. I turned to Sidney apologetically. "I fear I must ask you to advance me some of that promised reward from your father-in-law. Jenkes stole my purse, and I would like to thank Cobbett-it was he who sent the boy and brought you to my rescue, at some cost to himself."
"Well, then, we shall see what the college cellar may offer a man of such stout heart," Sidney said with a grin, opening the door for me. "I never thought I would say this, Bruno, but I shall not be sorry to leave these spires behind me this time."
"Nor I," I replied with feeling, remembering with a terrible stab of melancholy how I had once dreamed of making my name in Oxford.
WHEN WE REACHED Lincoln gatehouse, carrying a bottle of Spanish wine Sidney had bought from the cellarer at Christ Church, there was no sign of Cobbett in the little lodge beneath the archway. In his place was a thin-faced man with straggly brown hair who looked up at us suspiciously, then lowered his eyes as he registered the quality of Sidney's clothes.
"Where is Cobbett?" I asked, more brusquely than necessary.
The man shrugged, evidently disliking my tone. "All I know's he's suspended from duty. They're saying he'll be retired. Who'd'ye want to see?"
"Rector Underhill. He is expecting me. Doctor Bruno."
Sidney clapped me on the shoulder with unusual gentleness.
"I think I shall take a drink in the Mitre Inn on the corner of the High Street. Find me there when you are done-do not think of going any farther without me," he added, with a warning glance. The new porter glared at me, then motioned me toward the courtyard.
"Ye'll find him in his lodgings," he grunted, eyeing the bottle of wine. I tucked it tightly under my arm and set off across the courtyard, turning in the middle to glance back with a shudder at the window of the tower room and the doorway to what had been Gabriel Norris and Thomas Allen's room.
The rector's old servant, Adam, opened the door to my knock and almost fell backward when he saw me, his usual surly countenance replaced by a wide-eyed expression of honest terror. He pulled the door closed behind him so that his voice would not carry and stepped out into the passageway.
"I can pay you, sir," he hissed, clutching urgently at the front of my doublet. "I have money saved for my old age-it is not a fortune, but you may find a use for it. You know, it was only ill luck that you saw me that night, for I hardly ever go to that place anymore, it was only to oblige a friend, but if you must make a report or a list of names, I pray you, take what money I have in my coffers, if only my name might not appear-"
"Peace, Adam," I whispered back, removing his trembling hands from my clothes and feeling oddly insulted. "I have no use for your money, nor has anyone asked me for names. But if you will profess a forbidden faith, at least have the courage to be true to it-otherwise what is the point?"
He offered up a limp smile of gratitude, then opened the door for me. "My master is within," he murmured, bowing his head.
In the wide reception room where we had dined so companionably on my first evening in Oxford, the rector stood facing the window that gave onto the grove, hands clasped behind his back. I glanced around at the empty dining table, remembering where Roger Mercer and James Coverdale had sat at that dinner, recalling the deep rumble of Mercer's laughter. Perhaps the rector too was remembering as he looked out over the garden where Mercer had met his terrible death only hours later. Adam closed the door behind me with a click and slipped discreetly through the door to the interior room. Underhill still did not stir from the window; when he spoke, he kept his back to me, his voice flat and unnatural.
"My daughter would speak to you next door, Doctor Bruno."
I waited, but nothing more was forthcoming, so I followed Adam through the door to the rector's private room, where Sophia and I had once talked of magic in what seemed like another age.
Now she stood alone by the fireplace, her hands resting on the back of one of the high-backed wooden chairs. Her long, dark hair was modestly tied back, though a few curling tendrils had escaped and hung about her face. There was still nothing about her figure, slight in a straight-bodiced dark-grey dress, to advertise her condition, save for perhaps a fullness about the bust, but her face seemed thinner, more pinched and drained, and her eyes were puffy with exhaustion and tears.
"The pursuivants caught up with us at a house in Abingdon," she said, without preamble, and though her face looked fragile, her voice was as clear and strong as always. "They asked Jerome what he was. He answered that he was a gentleman and a Christian. Then they tore off his shirt and saw his hair shirt." She hesitated for a moment to swallow hard, then took a deep breath and continued without looking at me, her voice steady again. "They arrested him as a traitor, shackled him, and took him away. I begged them to take me with him, but I was brought back to Oxford."
"They shackled you?" I asked, horrified.
"No. They were surprisingly gentle. But then I did not resist them. I was taken to the Castle prison," she said, finally raising her head and looking me in the eye, almost defiantly. Then she shook her head and seemed to crumple. "You cannot imagine it, Bruno, if you have not seen it. Or smelled it. People would not keep animals in such conditions. One low room they have for the poor women, with filthy straw over the floor that stinks of piss and shit, and the walls are so damp there is fungus growing there and the cold goes right inside your bones. I think I will feel that cold for the rest of my life."
"They put you in such a place? But did you not tell them of…?" I faltered and indicated my stomach. She gave a small bitter laugh.
"Yes, I told them, despite the damage to my honour. Jerome said that I should not speak if I were arrested, save to acknowledge my name. Yet I thought they might treat me with more gentleness than otherwise. But it seems it was all designed to frighten me. I was left in that hole for two hours, among the insane and the destitute, crowding around me, pulling at my clothes and hair, women covered in lice and sores and the stink of rotten flesh and human filth all around me-" Finally her voice cracked and I took a step toward her instinctively, wanting to put my arm around her, but she straightened up immediately and glared at me, and I realised with a guilty jolt that there was no comfort I could give: I was the enemy.
"Then what happened?" I prompted, trying to cover over my ill-judged show of emotion.
"My father arrived," she said, shaking her hair back. "They had sent for him. It seemed he had been told that I was arrested in the company of a notorious Jesuit, but that I had secretly handed over certain damning documents to the authorities, suggesting that my loyalty lay with the forces of Her Majesty's law after all. That being the case, and given the delicacy of my condition"-here she patted her own stomach with a sarcastic smile-"he was free to stand surety for my release."
"Then-you did not contradict them?"
"I presumed it was you who had told them the story about the letters," she said softly, her tone betraying neither gratitude nor anger. "You gave me a chance to escape, even at the last minute. And the sheriff did me a kindness, I think, in insisting I be thrown in the prison first. Had I no
t seen that, I might have been stubborn enough to insist on the truth, for Jerome's sake. But two hours in that pit-" She broke off and shuddered, her hand straying absently to her belly in a gesture of protection. "I feared that even in that short time I would catch the gaol fever-the air was so dank and full of poisons. And I was afraid for the child," she added, so quietly I could barely catch the words. "If its father must die, it should at least have the chance to live."
"I'm glad," I said, with feeling.
"I'm sure you are," she replied. "It would not have done for your masters to discover that you lied to save a Catholic whore, would it? You played your part very well, Bruno, I never suspected you. But then, you never suspected me, did you? So perhaps you are not so clever as you believe."
"I do not expect you to thank me," I whispered. "You have every reason to hate me. But I only ever acted out of care for you. He would have had you killed, Sophia, on the crossing to France, I know it."
"You say that only because Thomas put it in your head. Jerome would never have harmed me. He loves me." A sob caught in her throat and she turned her face away to swallow it down, determined that I should not see the weakness of tears.
"He loved his mission more," I said. "Well, it is fortunate that our opposing theories were never put to the test, and you are still alive."
"Fortunate? Oh yes, I am fortunate indeed," she said, her voice tight with bitterness. "I am to be banished by my family, the man I love will die in cruel pain and I will never see him again, the child I carry will be taken from me before I can even give it a name, and after that I will be interrogated by the authorities. If it pleases them not to detain me, I will be sent back to live with my aunt, perhaps in time to be married to some rough unlettered farmer or innkeeper, if one can be found who will overlook my sins. And who is the author of all this good fortune? Why, it is you, Bruno." Anger flashed for a moment in her beautiful amber eyes, but she was too defeated to sustain it, and the fierce light quickly died.
