Heresy (34 page)

“I clean his shoes every day,” he said, a wary note in his voice. “Why did you want to see Gabriel?”

“I wanted to ask when he took his longbow to the strong room.”

Thomas looked mildly surprised at the question, but shrugged carelessly before wiping his hands on his shirt front.

“I took it, on Saturday morning. Gabriel was furious—he said the rector had commanded him to give it up, after he’d done them a service, too, shooting that mad dog.”

“So you took it there yourself?”

He blinked at my tone, then shook his head. “I went to do so, but as I was crossing the quadrangle I was seen by Doctor Coverdale and Doctor Bernard, who were standing by the stairs to chapel. They stopped me and asked what I was doing with such a weapon in college. When I explained, Doctor Coverdale told me that I could leave it outside his door on the landing and he would see that it was safely locked away.”

“Did Doctor Bernard hear this exchange?”

“He was standing right beside Doctor Coverdale, so I presume so.” Thomas looked puzzled.

“Could anyone else have overheard?”

“I don’t know. There were a few people in the courtyard coming and going, but I don’t recall anyone stopping by us. What is the problem, Doctor Bruno, if I might ask?” He was twisting the dirty cloth now between his hands, his face searching mine keenly.

“Oh, there is no problem,” I said, airily. We looked at each other in awkward silence for a moment.

“Doctor Bruno,” Thomas said, stepping closer and lowering his voice, “I hope this will not sound presumptuous, but there is something I would speak to you about urgently. It is a matter of some importance, and I do not know who else I may confide in here.”

The hairs on my neck prickled. Could it be that Thomas knew something of the murder?

“Please, speak freely.”

“I meant …somewhere private.”

“Are we not alone here?” I asked, looking around the empty room.

He shook his head and pressed his lips into a tight line, twisting the cloth between his hands. “Away from college, sir. I would not have us overheard.”

I hesitated. I did not really have time to spare—my priority was to find the boy who had called Coverdale out of the disputation—but the expression of pained urgency on Thomas’s face convinced me that whatever he needed to unburden must be serious.

“Very well, then. Have you broken your fast this morning? Perhaps we could find ourselves a tavern where we might eat and talk at more leisure.” I realised that I had not eaten in all the consternation over Coverdale’s murder and my stomach was groaning bitterly.

His face slackened. “Sir—I’m afraid I do not have the means for visiting taverns.”

“But I do,” I said, “and surely you may eat with me if I invite you?”

“I’m afraid it would not do your standing in Oxford any good to be seen with me, sir,” he said dolefully.

“To be honest, Master Allen, my standing in Oxford is not worth a horse’s shit at the moment,” I said. “But to hell with them—let us enjoy a good breakfast, if we can find one, and take the consequences afterward, and you may tell me what is on your mind.”

“You are kind, sir,” he said, following me through the door, which he stopped to lock behind him.

As we drew near to the tower archway, I stretched up to look at James Coverdale’s blank window, though it was too high to see anything. The rain had eased a little and glimpses of light showed behind the clouds.

“Are you all right, Doctor Bruno?” Thomas asked, following my gaze, his angular face politely solicitous. “You seem disturbed this morning. Has something happened?”

I looked at him, gathering my scattered thoughts. Thomas had not yet heard the news of Coverdale’s murder, but by the time we returned the college would be abuzz with rumour and speculation. If he knew anything of value, I would need to take advantage of these few unguarded moments.

“Yes. Yes, I am fine. Let us go.”

We walked in silence down St. Mildred’s Lane toward the High Street. Though Thomas was a good five inches taller than I, he walked with such a hunched posture, as if hoping to make himself less noticeable, that we appeared almost the same height. His worn air of defeat made it impossible not to feel pity for the boy. As if reading my thoughts, he turned his face briefly to me, his hands wrapped deep in the sleeves of his frayed gown.

“It is good of you to take time to listen to me, sir. With the difference in our positions, I mean.”

“If we are to talk of positions, Thomas, let us not forget that you are the son of an Oxford Fellow and I am the son of a soldier. But I have little interest in such distinctions—I still dare to hope for a day when a person is
judged by his character and his achievements rather than for his father’s name.”

“That is a bold hope,” he agreed. “But to most people in this town, sir, I will always be the son of an exiled heretic.”

“Well, I
am
an exiled heretic, so I win.”

He looked me in the eye then, and smiled properly for the first time since I had met him, before his face turned sombre again.

“All the same, you are a friend of kings and courtiers, sir,” he reminded me.

“Well, after a fashion, Thomas. If you mean King Henri of France, he liked to surround himself with philosophers, it flattered his intellectual vanity. Kings do not have friends in the same way as you or I.”

“I have no friends at all, sir,” he responded, his voice subdued. There was a long pause while we both looked for something to say. “In any case, you are friends with Sir Philip Sidney, and that is something.”

“Yes,” I agreed, “I am fortunate to count Sidney a friend. Is that why you wished to speak to me—so that I might petition him for your father’s sake?”

Thomas was silent for a moment, then he stopped walking and fixed me with a serious expression.

“Not for my father’s sake, sir. For my own. There is something I must tell you, if you will promise me your discretion?”

I nodded, intrigued. At the place where St. Mildred’s Lane met the High Street, we paused and looked to left and right along the rows of uneven timber-framed houses and the pale stone fronts of the college buildings; at this hour the street was almost deserted, rain still lightly pricking the surface of the water pooled in cart ruts.

“The Flower de Luce is just along the street,” Thomas said, gesturing to our left, “but it is expensive, sir.” He pulled anxiously at the hem of his gown.

“Well, no matter,” I said, brightly, reaching to my belt to cup the reassuring
weight of Walsingham’s purse against my palm as we began to walk in the direction he had indicated. “But I do not know the taverns of Oxford. Tell me, do you know anything of an inn called the Catherine Wheel?”

I glanced innocently at Thomas as I said this; the fear that flickered over his face was unmistakable, but he quickly assumed a neutral countenance.

“I believe it is a bad sort of place, sir. In any case, we students are not allowed to pass beyond the city walls. We would be severely disciplined if we were caught.”

“Really? But that is strange—I took a walk yesterday and I was sure I saw a young man in a scholar’s gown passing through one of the gates.”

Thomas shrugged. “Probably one of the gentlemen commoners, then.” His voice was not bitter, merely resigned, as if he had long ago accepted that the rich lived by different laws and it was fruitless to hope for change.

“Like your master Gabriel Norris?” I asked.

“I wish you would not call him my master, sir. I mean, he
is
, I suppose, but it is a humiliation to be reminded of it.”

He had stopped outside a whitewashed, two-storey building that fronted the High Street, its exterior obviously well cared for and clean. Inside, the taproom was just as neat and cheerful, everything that the Catherine Wheel was not, and a sharp savoury smell of roasting meat pricked our nostrils the moment we closed the door behind us. A smiling landlord, apron stretched tight across a belly so vast he looked as if he were near to giving birth, bustled over and ushered us to a table, at the same time reeling off a list of his dishes so varied that I had forgotten the first by the time he had finished. We ended by ordering some cheese and barley bread, with a pot of beer each. Thomas looked about him with as much disbelief and delight as if he had been suddenly given the freedom of the city.

“Well, then, Thomas,” I said, gently, “what is it you wish to confide?”

Finally he raised his head and regarded me with a weary expression.

“Three nights ago, the day I so shamefully accosted you in the quadrangle on your arrival, sir, I learned something about my father.” He stopped
with a heavy sigh just as a young potboy appeared with the tankards of beer and bread. I thought of Humphrey Pritchard and his snatches of Latin, and decided I must also find a way to speak with him again. Thomas had buried his face in his beer mug as if he had not had a drink in days. I waited for him to put it down before continuing as casually as I could with my questions.

“You are in touch with your father, then?”

“We write to each other,” Thomas said, “though of course you may imagine our letters are all monitored, at the earl’s request. My father resides at the English College of Rheims, where all the seminary priests are trained for the English mission, so any letters that come out of that place are deemed to be of great interest. And since I am assumed to share his views, they are waiting for me to betray myself in one of my letters to him. They watch me at every turn—everyone I meet or speak to. They will probably interrogate me about this”—he gestured to the table between us—“when they find out.”

“Who are ‘they’?” I prompted, pausing to take a drink from my own cup. “Who intercepts your letters?”

“The rector. And Doctor Coverdale. He wanted me sent down from the college after my father was exiled—he argued fiercely that allowing me to stay would imply that the college tolerated papists.”

His tone was resentful, but I watched his face carefully and could detect no sign that he knew the man he spoke of was recently dead.

“But you are not a papist?” I prompted.

“I am the son of one, so they assume my loyalty to England is compromised. Eventually the rector decided I could keep my place, but Coverdale argued that I should not continue at the expense of the college, so I lost my scholarship. I do not fool myself that the rector felt sorry for me—I suppose he must have thought my correspondence with my father would be useful.” He gave a bitter little laugh. “It must be a terrible disappointment to them—he writes to me only of the weather and his health, and I write of my studies. We dare not say anything beyond that. And then
it is rumoured that the Earl of Leicester has placed a spy in the college already, so fearful are they of the secret influence of papists.”

“A spy? Is there any truth in that?” I asked, leaning in more keenly.

“I do not know, sir. But then, if he were any good as a spy, I should not know him, should I?”

“So you do not share your father’s faith?”

Thomas met my eye with a level stare as if challenging me to contradict him.

“No, sir, I do not. I spit on the pope and the church of Rome. But I have sworn so until I am hoarse with saying it, and still I am suspected, so what is the point?”

I waited for a moment until he had finished chewing, watching him with my elbows propped on the table and my chin resting on my clasped hands. “What was it you learned of your father three days ago?” I asked. “Is he ill?”

Thomas shook his head, his mouth bulging.

“Worse than that,” he said bitterly, when he could speak again. “He is—” He broke off, a piece of bread halfway to his mouth, looking at me then as if he had only just realised who I was. His anxious eyes flicked keenly over my face as he calculated whether or not I could be trusted. “You swear you will not repeat this to a soul?”

“I swear it,” I said, nodding sincerely and holding his gaze as steadily as I could manage.

He considered for a moment, still searching my eyes, then nodded tightly.

“My father will not return to England now or ever, even if Queen Bess herself were to write assuring him of his pardon.”

“But why not?”

“Because he is
happy,”
Thomas said, pronouncing the last word with undisguised anger. “He is happy, Doctor Bruno, because he has found his vocation. Sometimes I think he chose to be found out at Lincoln, so that
he could finally confess his faith openly. When he writes to me now, he has to dictate the letters to a scribe. Do you know why?”

I briefly shook my head and he continued, without waiting for an answer. “Because he was interrogated by the Privy Council. They had him hung by the hands from metal gauntlets so his feet could not touch the ground for eight hours at a time, until he passed out, and still he told them nothing. He has more or less lost the use of his right hand. But I think he would gladly have gone to his death at the time, believing himself a martyr. Three days ago, I learned that my father is to take vows as a Jesuit priest,” he said, in a tone that sounded almost like wry amusement. “The Church will have him completely, and he will forget he ever had a wife or a son.”

“I am sure no father could do that,” I said.

“You do not know him,” he said, setting his mouth in a grim line. “Ours is an old Catholic family, sir. But I ask you—how can a religion that talks of love at the same time urge men so cruelly to cast aside the natural ties of love and friendship? To martyr themselves for the promise of an unseen world, and leave their families grieving! I want no part of any God that demands those sacrifices.”

He had shredded what remained of his bread into tiny pieces with his agitated fingers as he spoke. He reached forward to take another hunk of bread and as he did so, the frayed sleeve of his gown fell back to reveal a soiled makeshift bandage around his wrist and the lower part of his right hand, blotched with brownish stains over which a few, fresher crimson spots had blossomed more recently.

“What happened to your hand?” I asked.

Immediately he tugged his sleeve down over the bandage and rubbed his wrist self-consciously. “It is nothing.”