Heresy (42 page)

“Was James Coverdale a Catholic?” I asked abruptly.

Underhill squeezed his hands together and nodded.

“And you knew? Was that why you could not leave the sign of the Catherine Wheel there for the coroner to see?”

The rector struggled with a sigh so great it threatened to burst his ribs, then looked at me with something like resignation.

“I have always believed that if a man can hold his faith privately without it touching his politics or his work, that is a matter between him and God. I fear that is not a view held by many on the Privy Council, but I flatter myself it is closer to Her Majesty’s own feelings.” He leaned in toward me and lowered his voice. “But the rules are changing. Lord Burghley every day introduces new legislation regarding Catholics, so that it is now an offence to withhold information about known papists. A man can lose his property or find himself in gaol simply for failing to tell the authorities what he knows about his neighbours or colleagues, and everyone lives in fear of his friends.” He shivered, and folded his hands.

“So,” I said slowly, trying to piece together his reasoning, “you do not want the truth about these murders to be made public because you are afraid someone is targeting the known Catholics in Lincoln College, and if this is discovered, Leicester may ask how so many could have remained here unmolested on your watch?” I said, my sympathy for him fast ebbing away. “You preferred to send the magistrate and the coroner chasing after stories of robbers and stray dogs so that the real killer was free to strike again.” I gestured at Ned’s body. “Perhaps you are secretly hoping he will finish the job and rid Lincoln of its stubborn Catholics without your losing face?”

“God, no, Bruno—how could you think such a thing?” he cried, looking genuinely appalled. “You cannot think I would wish for any man’s death? Why do you think I have not simply reported those Catholics within the college long before now? Of course I know who they are,” he hissed, dropping
his voice, “and for the most part they are good men who work well here, to my knowledge they are not plotting to overthrow Her Majesty or her government, and I knew what I would be handing them over to. But by not doing so I have risked losing everything.”

“And now someone is killing them off, one by one, according to the martyrdoms of the early church described by Foxe,” I said, almost to myself, as I crossed the room to the fireplace. “But who—someone opposed to them, or one of their own? And why so elaborately, except to draw all eyes to Lincoln College and the punishment of its unrepentant Catholics? If we could only understand his motives, everything might become clear.”

“I did not want to credit your Foxe theory at first,” Underhill said softly, raising his head. “I could not believe that anyone could contemplate something so barbaric and blasphemous, and neither did I want to acknowledge that my sermons on Foxe could in any way have inspired such diabolical acts. But you are right—it cannot be ignored any longer.”

“And this poor boy?” I looked back at Ned’s ravaged face. “Was he one of them?”

“Not to my knowledge,” Underhill whimpered, allowing himself the most fleeting glance at the corpse on the floor. “He had no family of note, but he was the most dedicated student. I cannot imagine who would want to hurt Ned—it is truly evil.” His shoulders convulsed.

“I think Ned saw or heard something he should not,” I said grimly. “Have you informed the constables or the officer of the watch that Sophia is missing?”

“No,” he said, and hung his head again. “It is not dark yet—I suppose I have been hoping that she would return before supper, or at least before nightfall. My wife has taken to her bed—she is of course convinced that Sophia is dead or dying somewhere. She does not know about Ned yet. I am trying to take a more rational view, but it is not easy.” He took a deep, steady breath, as if to demonstrate the struggle to master his weaker feelings.

“If she has not come home by tomorrow morning, I will do everything
in my power to help you find her, I swear,” I said solemnly. The rector seemed about to reply, but I suddenly held up my hand for silence; from outside in the corridor I had caught a noise so slight it might only have been a rafter creaking, but to my taut nerves it sounded very like the tread of a foot on a floorboard. We waited for several moments, our breath held tight in our throats, but there was only the muted buzzing of an insect against the windowpane.

“I must go to the hall and declare this latest tragedy to the community,” Underhill said, taking the Book of Hours from my hand and replacing it inside his doublet. He ushered me through the door and bent to lock it behind us. “I think we cannot avoid calling in the constables now, since it seems the killer is indeed among us. But if you are questioned, Doctor Bruno, perhaps it would be prudent if we keep Foxe to ourselves,” he added in a whisper.

I nodded, and watched him descend the stairs, his shoulders bowed under a burden that I suspected he would never shake off.

C
OBBETT HAD LEFT
the door to his lodge open and stood with his back to it, arranging his keys in the little wall cupboard. The room still smelled strongly of vomit. He glanced over his shoulder as I entered.

“Another death, they’re saying,” he grunted. “In the chapel itself, this time. I’ve been instructed to keep the gates locked now. He was a good boy, that Ned, proper hardworking. Who would do such a thing? I begin to wonder if this isn’t the Devil’s work after all, Doctor Bruno.”

“Sophia Underhill,” I said, pressing the door shut behind me, “did you see her leave college this morning, Cobbett?”

“Aye,” Cobbett said noncommittally, turning back to his key cupboard. “Slipped out in all the commotion, right after Master Slythurst went back up to the tower. When her mother come down a few minutes later, I just told her Mistress Sophia must have gone on ahead.”

“And you haven’t seen her return at any time?”

“No. Is she not back?”

“She hasn’t been seen all day,” I said. “Did she tell you where she was going?”

“No,” he said shortly. “But she’ll not have got far.”

“Not in this weather,” I agreed. “Not in her condition.”

He shuffled back painfully to his chair behind the desk and looked at me expectantly. I stared at him in disbelief, feeling as if time itself had slowed down almost to a standstill.

“What condition? Do you mean that she is ill?”

Cobbett raised an eyebrow to indicate what he thought of my naïveté.

“Come on, Doctor Bruno, you haven’t been in the cloisters that long.”

“You mean, she—? No.” I shook my head; surely this was some malicious gossip the old porter had picked up from the servants. “How can you be sure?”

“My wife had ten, sir, God rest her. Do you think I can’t spot the signs? A good three months in, I’d say, poor girl.”

My head was reeling with the magnitude of this revelation. If Sophia was indeed with child, the fear she had confided to me seemed all the more urgent. But then who was it that she feared—her father or the child’s father? Was that the danger she had mentioned?

“But who—? Did she confide in you whose child it was?” I heard the note of panic rising in my voice.

“She confided nothing, Doctor Bruno, I just use the eyes God gave me, unlike most round here. I seen her meeting someone in the library Saturday evening, while all the college was out at the disputation. Least, I seen her going up there and some feller following not long behind.”

“Who, though?” I cried, exasperated.

Cobbett shrugged, his expression ruminative. “He had a cloak on with
a hood up. Could have been anyone. I do know I didn’t see him come through the gateway, so whoever he was must have been in college already.”

I paused, pinching the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger as I struggled to make this latest information fit. So Sophia had been one of the people in the library whom Ned had overheard. But who had she met there, while the college was almost empty?

“Does her father know?” I asked Cobbett.

“You are joking, aren’t you? Her father would barely notice if she gave birth to it right in front of him, and Mistress Underhill’s no better. If you ask me, they’ve only themselves to blame—both behaving like the world ended when young John was killed, as if his sister was of no matter to them. Mind you,” he said, leaning in, “I was wondering how she was going to keep it from the rest of the world once she couldn’t do up her corset, and that day wasn’t so far off. Perhaps that’s why she’s chosen to run away now.”

“I didn’t know you had ten children, Cobbett,” I said, pausing at the door and looking at the old man with renewed respect.

“Well, I haven’t now,” he said, philosophically. “Good Lord saw fit to take most of ’em back. Got two daughters left, one married a farmer out Abingdon way, the other’s a laundress.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, redundantly.

“Nothing to be sorry about, it’s the way of things. Anyhow, listen to me prattling, I almost forgot—I have a letter for you.” He pulled open a drawer from his table and rummaged around until he came up with a folded piece of paper, which he held out to me.

Intrigued, I turned it over; my name was written in an elegant, unfamiliar hand and I quickly opened the letter to see that it was written in flawless Italian.

“He left it with me this morning,” Cobbett said, “and in all the upheaval over poor Doctor Coverdale and now this latest, I clean forgot to hand it over. I do apologise.”

My heart plummeted as I skimmed the letter; in a very elaborate style, it begged my assistance in recommending its author to the service of the French ambassador as a tutor of languages to his children, as he wished to marry soon and his tenuous university post would not allow him to keep a wife.

“This is from Master Florio?” I asked with a sigh, glancing at the foot of the letter where it was signed with only an initial so curlicued and ornate that it could have been anything.

“Course. Does it not say?”

So this was the letter he had mentioned so furtively; Florio was not, then, the mysterious correspondent who had first set me on the trail of the Catherine Wheel. Another blind alley, and I was no closer to finding the one person in the college who had known about the Foxe connection before any of us.

“Damn him,” I muttered, crushing the letter in my fist, though I was not sure if I was damning Florio for his innocence or the anonymous letter-writer for being so cryptic. “Cobbett—might I ask you a favour?”

“I shall do my best to oblige, sir.”

“I need to leave college late tonight. I have an …errand that I must see to. Would you leave the gate open for me, say at half an hour to midnight?”

The old porter’s brow creased in consternation. “I would like to help you out, sir, but the rector has given strict instructions for the gate to remain locked now with these latest deaths, and no one to be allowed in or out after dark. I dare not go against his word—if there is another attack I will be out on my ear for neglecting my duty.”

“I understand,” I said quickly. “Perhaps, then, I could knock for you, and you could let me out and lock the gate again behind me?”

He looked doubtful. “Well, I could, sir. And would I have to keep awake until you returned?”

“I don’t know how long it will take, but I could knock on the window for you to let me back in.”

“We can try that if you like, sir,” he said, still sounding unconvinced. “But you must swear no one in Lincoln will hear of it or I will be for the chop.”

“I swear it. I will vanish like a thief in the night.” I thanked him and stepped out into the damp quadrangle, still shadowed by a heavy grey sky, my head aching with these new revelations.

A
damp chill hung over the courtyard as I peered out from the mouth of my staircase at twenty minutes to midnight, though the heavy clouds that had brought the day’s punishing rain had broken at last to allow the merest glimmer of moonlight to illuminate the slick flagstones. I was grateful for the pale light, since it had allowed me to read the clock on the north range from my window—I had been pacing my room in a state of pent-up anticipation since the end of supper—but I was now anxious that I should not also find myself lit up like a spectacle as I tried to leave the college unobserved. Keeping close in to the shadows, I crept the length of the south-range wall and then along the west toward the tower, praying that Cobbett would be awake. Twice I started at a noise, thinking I had heard something stirring in the opposite corner, pressing myself tight against the damp stone, but eventually convinced myself that I had heard nothing except for the nocturnal
antics of a fox or owl outside the walls, a noise now dulled by the thudding of my own blood in my ears. All the windows facing the courtyard were dark, save for a flickering light in the upper storey of the rector’s lodgings; if Sophia had still not come home, I thought, no wonder the poor man could not sleep. As I passed the west range, I wondered if Gabriel Norris and Thomas Allen had returned; neither had been present at supper and it seemed strange that both should have disappeared after the discovery of Ned’s body. William Bernard was also missing, an absence more noticeable for the fact that none of his colleagues had mentioned it at high table, despite the frequent glances at his empty place.