Sacrilege (2 page)

They looked uneasily at each other. The smaller one appeared to be waiting for his companion's verdict. Finally the bigger man lowered his hands and took a pace back.

"Piss off then, you pope-loving shit. But stay away from this street in future, if you have a care for your pretty face."

Relieved, I sheathed my knife, nodded, straightened my shoulders,
and walked on, bowing slightly to the old woman, who had stooped to gather up her fallen wares. I almost offered to help, but the force of her glare was enough to keep me moving on. I had barely walked ten paces when something whistled past my left ear and clattered onto the ground; I leapt aside; just ahead of me a stone the size of a man's fist was rolling to a standstill in the dust. Whipping around, I saw the two men cackling as they stood together, legs planted firmly astride, arms folded. With more bravado than I felt, I seized my knife again and made as if to come back for them; they faltered for a moment, then the smaller one tugged his friend by the sleeve and both retreated hastily into their house.

I put away the knife once more, wiping the sweat from my upper lip. My hands were shaking and I could feel my heart hammering under my ribs; those two louts had meant to frighten me, but they could not have known how well they had succeeded. Last autumn, I had almost been killed by just such an attack, a rock hurled at my head with no warning, out of the night. If I had become more skittish since then, it was not without reason. I looked around, still taut with fear, one hand laid protectively over my bag. The old woman had almost reached the far end of the street; otherwise there was no sign of life. But I thought I knew who was stalking me through the streets of London; I had been half expecting him since last year. And if I was right, he would not be satisfied until I was dead.

"G
IORDANO
B
RUNO
! C
OME
in, come in. What's happened, man? You look as if you've seen the Devil himself." Charlewood flung open the door of his lodgings, took in my appearance with one practised glance, and gestured for me to come inside. "Here--I will have the housekeeper bring us something to drink. Are you in trouble?"

I waved his question aside; he called down the corridor while I went
through into his front parlour and began the task of unpacking my manuscript from its satchel and linen wrappings.

"Well?" He followed me in, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. "Is the masterpiece finally ready? We don't want to keep Her Majesty waiting, do we?" He grinned, stroking his pointed beard.

What I liked most about Charlewood was not his willingness to print and distribute books of radical and potentially inflammatory ideas, nor that he was well travelled, spoke several languages, and had a much broader mind than many of the Englishmen I had met; it was the fact that he was an unapologetic rogue. A slightly built man of about forty-five, with reddish hair and mischievous eyes, Charlewood so crackled with restless energy that he seemed barely able to stand still for five minutes together, and was constantly picking, fiddling, hopping from one foot to another, tugging at his sleeves or his beard or the little gold ring he wore in his right ear. He cared nothing for what was said about him and he was as unscrupulous as the business required; more than once he had been in trouble for printing illegal copies of books to which he had no licence, and he was happy to dress up any book with invented credentials if he thought it would help the sales. But to his authors he was always loyal, and he was fiercely opposed to any censorship of books; on that point, we agreed wholeheartedly. His latest innovation was to publish works by Italian authors for what was still a small but elite aristocratic readership in England. I had been introduced to him by my friend Sir Philip Sidney, the unofficial leader of the little group of liberal-minded intellectuals at Queen Elizabeth's court who gathered to read one another's poetry and discuss ideas that many would regard as unorthodox or even dangerous. It was Sidney who had told Charlewood that the queen was interested in reading my work in progress; naturally the printer saw an opportunity for his own advancement and had gone so far as to create a fictitious Venetian imprint to add authenticity. Queen Elizabeth was fluent in Italian, as she was in many of the languages of Europe, and was reported to possess a formidable intellect and an unusual appetite
for new and experimental ideas in science and philosophy, but even her broad mind might balk at the audacity of my latest work. I looked at the carefully written pages in my hands and wondered if Charlewood really had any idea of what he was undertaking.

Laying aside the linen cloth that had wrapped the manuscript, I handed him the bundle, bound with a silk tie. He accepted it reverently, smoothing the topmost page with the palm of his hand.

"
La Cena de le Ceneri.
The Ash-Wednesday Supper." He looked up, his brow furrowed. "We might need to work on the title, Bruno. Make it a little more ..." He waved his fingers vaguely in a circular motion.

"That is the work's title," I said firmly.

He grinned again, but did not concede anything.

"And will it be wildly controversial? Will it set the cat among the pigeons in the academies?"

"You are hoping the answer will be 'yes,' I can see," I said, smiling.

"Well, of course," he said, loosening the tie that held the pages. "People love the thought that they are reading something the authorities would rather they didn't see. On the other hand, a royal endorsement--"

"She has not said she will endorse it," I said, quickly. "She has only expressed an interest in reading it. And she doesn't yet know of its contents."

"But she must know of you by reputation, Bruno. The whispers that followed you from Paris ..." His eyes glinted.

"And what whispers are those, John?" I asked, feigning innocence, though I knew perfectly well what he was talking about.

"That you dabble in magic. That you are neither Catholic nor Protestant, but have invented your own religion based on the ancient wisdom of the Egyptians."

"Well, I have been excommunicated by the Catholic Church and imprisoned by the Calvinists, so I suppose that much is true. But it would take a man of extraordinary arrogance to dream of creating his own
religion, would it not?" I raised an eyebrow. One corner of his mouth curved into a smile.

"That is why I can believe it of you, Bruno," he said, giving me a long look from under his brows. He tapped the pages with the back of his hand. "I will take this with me to Suffolk to read over the next few weeks. There will be no business done in London anyway until this blasted heat abates and the plague threat is over. But come the autumn, we will produce a book that will cause the biggest stir in Europe since the Pole Copernicus dared to suggest the Earth is not the centre of God's creation. Let us hope no one else is assassinated in the meantime to steal its thunder. Agreed?"

He held out his hand and I shook it in the English fashion. The door creaked open and his housekeeper appeared, head lowered, carrying a tray with an earthenware pitcher and two wooden cups, which she placed on the oak dresser that stood against the back wall of the room. Charlewood laid my manuscript on a stool and crossed to the dresser.

"Here, Bruno." He poured a cup of small beer and passed it to me. "This weather, the dust sticks in your throat, does it not? It is a little early for good wine, but let us drink to a successful partnership. The manuscript is not your only copy, I trust?"

"No." I took a welcome sip of beer. Though warm, it was at least fresh-tasting. "I made another which I have locked up at home."

"Good. Keep it safe. I will guard this with my life, but with so many travelling out of London at this time, there are plenty of cutpurses and bandits on the roads. You do not mean to stay in London, do you?"

"The ambassador would like to move the household near to the court if he can find somewhere. I am in no hurry to leave." I shrugged. "I see no evidence of plague."

Charlewood shook his head.

"By the time you've seen the evidence, it's too late. Take my advice--get out of the city. We cannot have you struck down at--what age are you now?"

"Thirty-six."

"Well, then. You want to be alive to present this book to the queen in person, don't you? And the next one, and the next. A dead author is no use to me."

I laughed, but my mind flashed back to that stone rolling in the dust at my feet and the unseen presence that had been haunting my steps for the past days. If my pursuer had his way, I would be lucky to see the autumn, plague or no plague.

I
LEFT
C
HARLEWOOD'S
house with a lighter heart, encouraged by his enthusiasm. The streets around the Barbican were still unusually empty, the sun overhead bleaching colour from the red-brick houses that lined the roads. Behind the rows of chimney stacks, the sky was a deep cloudless cobalt, almost as blue as the skies I remembered from childhood over the village of Nola, at the foot of Monte Cicada. I had not known England was capable of such a sky. My shirt stuck to my back with sweat and I loosened the lacing of it at the collar as I walked, glad that I had always avoided the English fashion for wide starched neck-ruffs; the young dandies at court must be desperately uncomfortable in this heat.

As I crossed Aldersgate Street and was about to turn into Long Lane, I sensed it again: a flicker of a shadow, the merest hint of a sound. I spun around, hand to my knife, and for the first time I caught a glimpse of him, perhaps fifty yards away, just before he vanished between two houses. I had no time to make out more than a tall, thin figure, but my blood boiled and before I had given thought to my actions I was hurling myself after him, feet pounding through the dust; if I must fight, so be it, but I would not be made to live this way any longer, always looking over my shoulder, feeling vulnerable at every corner like a hunted creature.

Slipping into the alley where he had disappeared, I spotted the fellow running out of the far end, heading northwards up Aldersgate Street. I
forced my legs to a faster pace; I may not be excessively tall like some of these Englishmen, but I am lean and wiry and can move at a clip when I choose. Emerging from between houses, I saw him clearly and realised with a sinking feeling that he was heading towards the Charterhouse. But I was too fired up and too determined to shake him out of this cowardly pursuit to worry about the Howards.

As I drew closer, he scuttled out of sight around the corner, keeping close to the boundary wall that enclosed the maze of old buildings. All I had seen of him was that he wore a brown jerkin and breeches and a cloth cap pulled down low over his ears, but even at a distance he didn't look like the man I had expected to see, the one I feared was after me--unless the man in question had lost a lot of weight since the previous autumn.

I had no time for such considerations, though; as I rounded the corner, my quarry was attempting to scale a low wall that separated the lane from Pardon Churchyard, the old plague burial ground that formed part of the Charterhouse lands. He threw himself over; I scrambled up in pursuit, landed on the other side, and then I had a clear view of him across the graveyard, with no more buildings to hide behind. He moved nimbly, dodging tussocks of grass and the crumbled remains of old headstones, aiming for the wall on the far side and the backs of the houses on Wilderness Row. With one determined burst of speed, I gained on him enough to grab at his jerkin before he reached the wall. He twisted away, the fabric slipped from between my fingers; my foot turned on a rabbit hole in the bank and I almost fell, but just as he jumped for the wall, I threw myself at him, caught his leg, and pulled him to the ground. He fought viciously, lashing out with his fists, but I was the stronger, and once I had him by the wrists it was no great effort to pin him facedown in the grass and keep him there by kneeling astride him until his struggle subsided and he lay still.

His cap had come off in the tussle but he pressed his face into the grass; I grasped him roughly by the hair and pulled his head up so that I could see his face. I was not sure which of us cried out the louder.