Heresy (54 page)

“Slythurst sent them after me,” I said, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice. “He was determined to have those letters.”

“I would guess he is a low-rank informer trying to prove himself,” Sidney said. “Walsingham has them placed all over the university, though he tends not to notify his people of one another’s existence. He thinks it keeps them on their toes.”

“Where are the letters now?” I asked, keeping my voice low.

“Safely on their way to London in the hands of the dean’s most trusted messenger,” Sidney said. “They will be decoded there and used as evidence at the trial. But from the little I could read, they will be enough to see Jerome Gilbert hanged for a traitor.” He paused, turning the horse out of the cart track and back onto the lane that led toward the city. “The attorney general
will likely turn this to our advantage by adding four charges of murder. It will be a useful reminder to the populace of the Jesuits’ ruthlessness.”

“But Thomas Allen killed the three Lincoln men,” I protested. “He confessed it.”

“Well, he is not able to confess now, is he, and that version would have far less public impact than to blame the Catholic priest,” Sidney said. “Jerome Gilbert. He is the younger son of a wealthy Suffolk family—it was his brother, George, who provided all the funds for Edmund Campion’s mission. He fled to France when Campion was executed—his brother must have gone with him.” He shook his head angrily. “They should have been watched more closely.”

“Will they catch Jerome, do you think?”

“The sheriff has the hue and cry after them on every route out of Oxford. They will not get far.”

“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.

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 chance 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.

W
HEN 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—”