Heaven's Fire (38 page)

She brought her precious
Biblia Pauperum
to her big desk in the main hall and set it down in the middle, running her fingers for the last time over its delicately embroidered cover. Her only parchment was a large scrap with a hole in it, on which she had tested pigments, scribbled ideas, and sketched out preliminary versions of monkeys and angels and fanciful borders. There was a relatively clean area on the back, surrounded by a procession of little lions, each holding in its mouth the tail of the one in front—practice for the fireplace decoration. She sharpened a quill, dipped it in the inkhorn, and bit her lip.

My love
, she wrote in the lion-encircled space,
By now, you will know what has happened. You will know that I can remain here no longer. I must leave not just your home, but this city. By the time you read this, I will be far from Oxford, and I doubt that I shall ever return.

Moisture welled in her eyes; the words swam on the page.
Forgive me for not having the courage to say good-bye to you in person. I’m weak, and I love you so much
—

A tear dropped onto the wet ink, which ran in a little rivulet down the page. Wiping her eyes, she dipped her pen and wrote
Please keep my
Biblia Pauperum.
Look at it from time to time and think of me. And I will always carry with me your little reliquary containing the hair of St. Nicaise. I was right—it did bring me good luck. It brought me you.

Another tear marred her words. Reinking her quill, she wrote
I will love you forever. Corliss.

*   *   *

Closing the door behind her, Corliss looked up at Rainulf’s big stone house for the last time. She’d grown to love this house, and this city, and him far more than she would ever have dreamed. And leaving was more inexpressibly painful than she could have imagined.

Don’t think about it. Just go.

But where? As she walked up St. John Street, her satchel over her shoulder, she set her mind to the problem of her destination. London was the only English city besides Oxford where she’d have any hope of finding work as an illuminator. There were opportunities on the Continent—Paris, Bologna, Salerno—but the prospect of traveling so far on her own was daunting to a young woman who’d never been farther than twelve miles from the village of her birth.

On her own
. Only then did it dawn on her that she was walking the streets of Oxford alone for the first time in weeks. Rainulf wouldn’t like her taking such a chance, what with Pigot on her trail.
She
didn’t much like it, either, but she didn’t know that she had any real choice.

The streets were chaotic and crowded, and she was still dressed as a male; that should help her to blend in until she could... Until she could what? Where was she going? She needed to find transportation to London as soon as possible. Perhaps she could find one of the merchants fleeing eastward from the city, and pay him to take her as far as he was going.

Lost in these ruminations, she turned north onto Shidyerd. As she did so, she noticed out of the corner of her eye a dark form ducking into a doorway. She kept walking, prickles of foreboding tightening her scalp.

She wove her way through the riotous noise and activity of Shidyerd, alert and wary.

There he is again
. This time she turned quickly, catching a glimpse of him before he disappeared between two shops. She saw the hulking body, the cowl drawn down low, and a glimpse of his grotesquely spotted face.

Rad
. It was just Rad.

She willed calmness upon herself as she continued walking. It was just Rad, after all, just harmless Rad—but wearing an expression she’d never seen on him before. There was something in his eyes—something grim and resolute—that she couldn’t help but find unnerving.

She walked faster, threading through the roiling crowd until she came to the corner of High Street. Which way should she go? Was Rad still following her?

Not wanting to linger too long in any one spot, she made a quick decision and turned left. Someone bumped into her. She gasped, but it was just an excited young boy not looking where he was running. “The troubles are over!” he was yelling. “Everyone lay down your weapons!”

She saw Rad again, on the edge of her vision. He was closer now. As she picked up her pace, so did he. He gained on her swiftly, looking fiercely determined. A student got in his way; he pushed the young man aside without a glance, and began running.

Oh, God!
Corliss ran, too. “Get out of my way!” she rasped as she struggled through a sea of black robes. “Get out of my—”

A hand closed over her arm from behind, seizing her in a viselike grip. “Where are you off to in such a hurry?”

Don’t panic.

Corliss wheeled toward the voice, swinging her satchel. It hit his face with a
whump
. He released her arm and fell backward.

As she turned to flee, she saw his thicket of coppery hair gleaming in the noon sun...

What—?
She turned, gaping at the man she had felled as he gained his feet, dusting off his tunic. “Will?” She released a shaky breath, her legs like water. “Oh, God, Will, I thought...”

She looked behind her, but couldn’t see Rad; a herd of scholars was crossing the street between them. “I didn’t know it was you. I... I’m sorry! Look—I can’t stay here. I have to go.”

The surgeon fell in step with her as she quickly walked west along High Street. “Where
are
you off to in such a hurry?” he asked with smile.

“I was being followed.” She glanced over her shoulder, but all she could see was a solid wall of black cappas. “A peddler. I think he may be Sir Roger’s bloodhound. The one they call Pigot.”

“
Pigot’s
following you?” Will’s expression sobered. “You oughtn’t to be on the streets by yourself, especially in the midst of all this bedlam.”

There was much cheering and whooping on High Street. Scholars coming from the direction of St. Martin’s called out news about lowered rents and a reduction in the price of ale. Each announcement was greeted by a roar of approval.

“I know, but I have to leave Oxford. Thomas and Brad let it slip to all of Catte Street that I’m a woman. Rainulf will be ruined if I stay here. I’m going to try to get to London if I can.”

He brightened. “I’m on my way to Wallingford to see some patients. That’s on the way to London. I’d be happy to escort you that far, if you’d like.”

Relief flooded Corliss. “Would you? I’d be so grateful.”

“Of course. I’d be glad to have the company.”

Will had two mounts stabled behind his shop, so that was where they headed. They negotiated the teeming streets as quickly as they could, mindful that Rad—or rather, Pigot—might be trying to follow.

The front of Will’s place of business, like the rest of the storefronts on Pennyfarthing, was boarded up. He unlocked the door and let them in, then relocked it. The only light came from the open back door and a large side window that looked out onto an alley.

“I’ve never been in a surgical shop,” Corliss said as she inspected it curiously: the sawdust-covered floor, the big oak table with the leather shackles dangling from iron rings, the open cupboard lined with mysterious flasks and rolls of bandages, the coffins stacked against the back wall. She shivered. “How can you bear it? I mean, all the pain and death.”

He closed and latched the back door, then the window shutters, muffling the street noise and plunging the shop into a dim twilight. When he turned to face her, she could barely see him, although she thought he smiled. “One gets used to pain.” He set his bag down on a small table next to the larger one fitted with restraints. “And death.”

With the sunlight blocked out, Corliss felt chilly, although it was a warm day. She watched the surgeon light a lantern and lift it up to a hook over the big oak table. It swung back and forth as he hung it, casting his pale, densely freckled face alternately in light and shadow.

The bright light revealed a detail about the table that she hadn’t noticed before: a channel carved all around its edge, which tilted toward a hole at the foot. Will reached beneath the table for a bucket, which he positioned carefully under the hole. Corliss noticed dark spots in the sawdust, and realized it was blood.

She took a step back. “Are we leaving soon?”

The surgeon didn’t answer her or even look in her direction. Instead, he opened his bag and brought out a small, curved knife. Corliss saw the white flash of steel as he laid it on the table. He reached back into the bag and brought forth another blade, this one straight and pointed. He set it next to the other, taking care, it seemed, to line them up neatly. More instruments emerged from the bag—cutting tools of all shapes and sizes—which he arranged painstakingly on the little table.

Corliss’s heart beat so fast that it shook her entire body from head to toe. She heard herself breathe, and wondered if Will did, too. “I want to leave now.”

Will set his empty bag in a corner, pulled off his tunic, and hung it up. He plucked a bloodstained leather apron off the hook next to it and tied it over his shirt and chausses.

Corliss backed up to the door and tried the handle with trembling fingers; pointless, of course, since it was locked. She swallowed hard, her mouth dry as ashes. “I said I want to leave now.”

He walked toward her, saying softly, “I’m quite sure you do.”

Rainulf flung open his front door and bounded up the stairs, grinning. “Corliss?”

Thomas and Brad followed behind him, their arms loaded with fresh bread, savory meat pasties, hot dumplings, and sweet puddings—provisions for a celebratory feast. The delicacies were gifts from merchants who’d reopened their shops on learning that Rainulf Fairfax had gotten matters in hand, his mediation having resulted in a truce between the scholars and the townsmen.

The two young scholars had been shocked when Rainulf had invited them back to the house. They’d assumed he’d be furious at them for exposing Corliss’s true sex; his sanguine acceptance of their blunder clearly confused them.

“Corliss!” Rainulf called from the main hall. He wanted to celebrate his victory with her—wrap his arms around her and kiss her. He wanted to brag like a little boy, whispering “I did it!” for her ears only.

He tore aside the leather curtain and inspected the bedchamber, empty and preternaturally neat—no clothes tossed over chair backs, as was her habit; no comb and brush on the washstand.

No Corliss.

He went back into the main hall and looked around, ignoring the two scholars as they fetched the ale and laid dinner out on the table. Her desk was unnaturally tidy, too. Approaching it, he saw her
Biblia Pauperum
, and on top of it, a sheet of parchment covered with scribbled drawings. A closer look revealed writing in the middle—he recognized her elegantly simple hand—enclosed within a procession of tiny lions.

He smiled as he lifted the sheet, grinning when he read the words
My love
. But his grin faded as he read on.

Rainulf felt the blood drain from his face.

“Magister?”

“What’s wrong?”

A great emptiness engulfed him; he felt dizzy.

“Sit down, Magister.”

Someone eased him into the chair, Corliss’s chair. He held on to the edge of her desk and read the note again...
By the time you read this, I will be far from Oxford, and I doubt that I shall ever return.

He muttered an oath and dropped his head into his hands. Someone picked up the sheet of parchment and read it. The two young men passed it wordlessly between each other.

A cup was thrust into his hand. “Drink.”

It looked like brandy. He drank. Its heat stung his eyes, but he couldn’t taste it.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. “Magister, I’m—”

“Don’t.” He shrugged off the hand. Thomas and Brad retreated to the table. They picked at their food and sipped their ale in pensive silence.

The note lay on the desk, and he picked it up. Corliss had pointed out to him once that parchment felt soft on what had once been the sheep’s fur side, smooth on the flesh side; and if you closed your eyes and really concentrated, you could feel the very ink on the page. Running his fingers lightly over the sheet in his hand, he found that this was true. He closed his eyes and brought it to his nose, inhaling the traces of an enigmatic scent which lingered there—her scent.

A knock came from downstairs. Someone went down to answer it. He heard a murmured conversation. Two sets of footsteps ascended the stairs, and then came Peter’s voice behind him. “Rainulf?”

“Peter.”

“I came here to say good-bye. I’m leaving for Blackburn.”

Rainulf nodded without turning around.

Peter pulled a chair up next to the desk and sat down. He had the brandy jug in his hand, and he refilled Rainulf’s cup. “They told me about Corliss. Will you be all right?”

Rainulf caressed the dried trails on the note: tears mixed with ink. “As soon as I find her.”