Heresy (46 page)

“What? Oh—yes, it is nothing. My shoulder pains me a little, that is all.” I realised that I had been screwing my face up and clenching my jaw in concentration as I tried to poke one end of the knot through with only one finger. It was so close to coming free, it would not do for Humphrey to suspect me now. He nodded in sympathy, and glanced furtively at the door.

“I wonder if I might loosen your bonds a bit, sir,” he said, his eyes flitting again to the door as if Jenkes might burst through at any moment. “Not altogether, I mean, just so you’re not in pain. After all, it’s not as if you’d get very far is it, you being so little, and me with the knife and all?” He laughed, though I detected a note of anxiety, and I joined in heartily at the absurd idea of my overpowering him. In truth, I had no idea of how I might proceed, even if I did manage to free my legs; without the use of my arms I could do nothing, and even with them I did not much rate my chances in a fight against Humphrey, with or without a knife. While he deliberated about whether to loosen my ropes and I continued my own attempt as best I could behind my back, there came the unmistakable creak of a tread in the corridor outside and we both froze. My throat contracted; I had not expected Jenkes to return so soon, and my escape plan faded before it was even fully formed. I took a deep breath, as well as I was able with my heart thudding in the back of my mouth. So this was it, I thought. Back in Italy, at San Domenico Maggiore, I had invited a death sentence for the sake of a book;
now, after running from it all these years, I faced death again, all because I was too foolishly greedy for a book. Well, I thought, I would try whatever means I could to fight, and if I must die, at least I would not die like a coward under Rowland Jenkes’s mocking glare.

Humphrey gathered his wits as the footsteps drew closer, snatching up Jenkes’s linen scarf and shoving it back into my mouth, though more loosely than it had been before, just as I felt the end of the rope pop through and the knot at my ankles subtly slacken under my scrabbling fingers. The footsteps halted outside the door and there was a tentative knock, followed by a woman’s voice.

“Humphrey? Is that you?”

Humphrey deflated visibly with relief, and scrambled to his feet to open the door. Widow Kenney stood outside in her nightgown, holding a candle, a woollen shawl around her shoulders. She looked first at Humphrey, then at me in my sorry state, bundled into a corner on the floor, and exhaled with exasperation.

“That Jenkes,” she said, still looking at me with a reproving little moue, as if Jenkes were a naughty cat and I a dead mouse he had dropped on her clean floor. “What is he making you do now, Humphrey?”

The boy hung his head and Widow Kenney beckoned him toward the door.

“Let me speak with you a moment.” She studied me briefly as if assessing the danger of leaving me unattended, then appeared to decide I was harmless. “I have told him, I will not have bloodshed in my inn,” she hissed at Humphrey as she ushered him into the corridor, “and you should know better, Humphrey Pritchard.” I did not catch his protest but the murmur of their urgent exchange was audible beyond the closed door.

I had to act quickly. Without the need to conceal my movements from Humphrey, I tugged at the loosened end of the knot binding my ankles and it came loose in my hand; shaking my legs free of the cord as fast as I could, I struggled painfully to my feet and hobbled across the room to the small
makeshift altar, where the candles had almost burned down to the sticks. With my back to the altar, I tried to position the knot fastening the bindings around my wrists over the flame, hoping it would burn through, but the cord was sturdier than it looked and the flame feeble; though I could smell it beginning to singe, I doubted whether the knot would break before Humphrey came back and caught me. Outside in the passageway, the voices grew louder in heated argument. Because I could not see what I was doing, I kept scorching my hands on the flame and was grateful this time for the cloth in my mouth that muffled my cries as I did so. My greatest fear was that I would knock the candle and set my clothes alight; to escape a burning at the hands of the Inquisition only to bring one on myself by accident would be beyond irony, I thought, as I twisted the cord first one way and then another over the flame, trying to arch my arms as far as I could from my body. The cord crackled suddenly and I felt a rush of fierce heat on my right hand; the knot had caught fire, and I screamed into the cloth as the flame seared my hand and sleeve, but the knot had loosened enough for me to pull my hands out. The flaming coils of cord fell to the floor and I stamped on them furiously, clutching my burned hand to my chest and catching a whiff of scorched flesh as I did so. The voices outside the door silenced abruptly and I knew I would only have one chance at getting past them. Ignoring the pain of my stretched and blistered skin, I grabbed the heavy silver candlestick from the altar, blew out the guttering flame and held it aloft just as Humphrey flung the door open and paused for the briefest moment, his mouth gaping at the sight.

His hesitation was just long enough; before he could raise his arms, I swung the solid base of the candlestick at his temple. My aim was good; there was a sickening crunch and he fell backwards, blood spurting from the gash, matting his fair hair. His large body crumpled to the floor; he appeared to be knocked out cold. The widow held up her hands in fright and shook her head violently, her mouth working in terrified silent protest; holding
the candlestick aloft again so that she cowered into a corner, I wrested the knife from Humphrey’s belt, threw the candlestick back at her feet with a last warning look, and darted through the door into the corridor. All down the crooked stairs and across the inn yard I fully expected to see Jenkes at any moment and kept the knife levelled in front of me lest he appear, while glancing back over my shoulder to see if Humphrey might have revived to pursue me, but it seemed fortune was on my side at last; I emerged from the gates of the inn yard into the street without seeing a soul. The sky was still dark, etched with streaks of moonlight between the clouds, and I rested for a moment against the wall of a house to catch my breath, realising that in all the frenzy I had not stopped to remove the scarf gagging me. Now I extracted it and, holding one end in my teeth, wrapped it gingerly around my burned hand. The pain made me briefly dizzy, so that I feared my legs might buckle beneath me, and once the temporary exhilaration of my escape had subsided, I realised with a falling sensation that my purse had been stolen and I had no means of getting past the watchmen at the north gate. Worse still, I thought, what if they knew Jenkes well and had been tipped by him to watch out for me? In this city, it was impossible to know who was a friend.

The square tower of St. Michael’s church at the north gate rose above the battlements of the city wall, its silhouette a landmark as I crept along under the eaves of houses until I was forced to break my cover and run across the broad street that lay parallel to the city wall. I looked wildly from side to side as I dashed over, anticipating the sight of Jenkes at any moment, but the street was still and empty. At the gate I paused, but could think of no other means of gaining the city again; the wall was far too high and sheer to be scaled and all the other gates would be guarded too at this hour. My only choice was to wait until first light, when the gates would be opened to traders, by which time Jenkes or Humphrey would likely have caught up with me, or to try and persuade the watchmen I had already paid to let me back. I banged with the flat of my good hand on the small door set into the
high oak gates but there was no reply. I hammered harder and called out, and at last a bleary face appeared behind the small iron grille. Eventually I heard the scrape of a bolt and the small door opened.

I murmured my gratitude, glancing around again for signs of movement in the dark streets, and as soon as I was out of the guard’s sight, I picked up my pace and ran the short way up St. Mildred’s Lane, holding tight to the handle of Humphrey’s knife. Never had I been so glad to see the tower of Lincoln College looming above me. Gently I tapped on the narrow window of Cobbett’s room. After a pause, I tapped again.

“Cobbett!” I hissed, as loudly as I dared. “It is I, Bruno—open the gate!”

I was greeted only by silence. Hoisting myself up to the sill, I peered in and saw the old porter lolling in his chair, his chin slumped on his chest and his mouth gaping, a skein of dribble hanging from his lower lip.

“Cobbett!” I called again, tapping the window harder, but he did not stir. Cursing under my breath, I stepped back and looked up at the college walls; all the windows were dark and I wondered whether I dared risk waking anyone else by calling louder. I did not want to be left in the street outside the college; that would be one of the first places Jenkes would choose to look for me. Then, as the clouds shifted and a thin ray of pearly moonlight broke through, I remembered another possibility and hoped my guess was right. The very furthest window on the west range belonged to Norris’s room; though it appeared closed, I managed to jam the fingers of my good hand inside the frame and found that it had indeed been left unlatched. As far as I could see into the darkness, the lane appeared to be empty in both directions. As I heaved myself up and levered myself sideways through the narrow opening, flinching as I scraped my burned hand against the frame, I prayed that neither of the room’s occupants had returned during the evening.

I tumbled through the window, landing awkwardly on the large wooden chest beneath. I froze for a moment, listening for the sound of breathing or movement from the bedchamber beyond, but the stillness was that of an
empty room, I was certain. The faint moonlight from the window facing into the quadrangle outlined the shapes of furniture. The floor seemed to be littered with debris and after some tripping and fumbling across the surfaces of dressers and tables, I managed to locate a tinderbox that had been left on an ornamental table under the window. Striking it, I lit a stub of candle on the desk and looked around to see the room in a state of chaos, just as Roger Mercer’s room had been on the morning he was killed. Clothes had been flung from the wardrobe, books and papers scattered, and all the drawers of Norris’s fine writing desk pulled open and emptied. I slumped down on the settle by the long-cold fireplace, its cushions all thrown about the hearth, and tried to make myself breathe calmly for the first time in what felt like hours as I gathered my frayed thoughts. My shoulders ached insistently, my burned hand was throbbing, and the cut at my throat stung, though it was not deep, but now that I was out of immediate danger I found I was able to think more sharply and clearly. Not that the danger had passed, of course; Jenkes had already decided that I knew too much to be left alone, and once he discovered my escape he would almost certainly try to track me down before I could speak to anyone. In case he succeeded, I needed to communicate everything I knew to Sidney as soon as possible. From my conversation with Humphrey, a theory had begun to take shape in the back of my mind about the murders, still hazy, like figures seen through fog. If my guesswork was correct, then I thought I knew where I might find the answers. And if Jenkes was to be believed, I had to get there before dawn, before Thomas Allen was silenced for good.

First, though, I needed to get word to Sidney, so that he would at least know where I had gone and the suspicions that had led me there; my hope was that he would be able to follow if I did not return—even though I knew that by then it might be too late.

Without wasting any more time, I began to comb through the mess of paper and books on Norris’s writing desk for a quill to set down my thoughts for Sidney as briefly as I could before setting off in pursuit, but I could find
no ink. Inside the first open drawer, I discovered a stick of vermilion sealing wax and several sheets of fine-quality writing paper. The candle I had lit was burning low; as I glanced quickly around the room to see if there was another to hand, my eye fell on the chest beneath the window. The solid padlock that had secured it was hanging open; it had clearly been forced. Grabbing the dying candle, I prised open the heavy lid, but the trunk appeared to contain only linen undershirts. Undeterred, I rummaged through swathes of cloth until my fingers scraped the wooden base of the trunk and probed into all four corners, yielding nothing. I cursed silently; it seemed anything of value here had already been taken. I brought the candle close and flung out all the contents, scattering them about the floor until I could bring the candle into the depths of the chest and confirm that it was truly empty.

“Merda!”
I was about to close the lid when I noticed a small corner of the wood cut away in the floor of the chest, barely wide enough to slip in a fingernail. Setting down the candle, I pulled Humphrey’s kitchen knife from my belt, leaned into the trunk, and was just able to insert the tip of the blade into the gap and work it upward, my heart pounding. There was a soft click, and I felt the wood loosen. I pushed down and the false bottom lifted up easily; reaching into the compartment beneath, my fingers brushed a sheaf of papers before closing on something sharp that pricked my skin, making me draw my hand back quickly in case it was a trap. Reaching in again, more gingerly this time, I pulled out the offending object into the dim light and gave a low whistle when I realised what I held.

It was a short-handled whip with perhaps forty or fifty cords tied to the end, each cord the length of about half a yard and studded with hard knots. Through each of these many knots was threaded a short piece of crooked wire bent into a hook, and many of these hooks bore traces of dried blood and torn flesh. I shuddered at the cruelty of the instrument, while at the same time it was as if the scales fell from my eyes and the suspicions that had formerly floated in thick fog suddenly emerged in almost total clarity.

I reached again into the secret compartment and pulled out the sheaf of papers I had felt earlier. It proved to be a package of dog-eared letters, dirty and tied with fraying ribbon. The topmost paper bore the unmistakable imprint of a bloody thumb. One glance at the faded ink of the uppermost letter confirmed that these were written in a combination of symbols and numbers, but I did not need to decipher them to know that these were the letters for which Roger Mercer and James Coverdale’s room had been searched. Tied together with the bundle of letters was another document, this one on older vellum and sealed with wax. The seal was still intact and in the fading light its mark was indistinct, but I hesitated only a moment before breaking the seal and unfolding the document, holding it next to the candle stub. The flame was so faint now that it barely illuminated the elaborate curling script, but the first line was enough to make my breath seize for a moment in my throat.