Iain Pears - An Instance of the Fingerpost

His astonishment at seeing me was very great, but no more so than when I began to talk to him.

“Good evening, Father,” I said.

He could not deny it, could not bluster or protest or insist, for priests cannot do so. Instead, he stared at me in terror, thinking that I was sent to trap him and that armed men would soon be pounding up the stairs to take him to his martyrdom. But there was no sound, no noise of boots or shouts of urgent command, just the silence in the room as he stood by the window in shock.

“Why do you call me Father?”

“Because that is what you are.” I did not say, who else would go around with holy oil and holy water and a sacred relic hidden away in his belongings? Who else but a priest bound to celibacy would react in such horror when he realized the strengths of his carnal desires? Who else would secretly and in goodness give extreme unction to a woman he thought was dying, to intercede for her soul despite herself?

Cola sat down cautiously on his cot, and looked at me carefully, and with much thought, almost as if he was still expecting me to launch some surprise assault on him.

“Why have you come here?”

“Not to do you harm.”

“Then why?”

“I wish to talk.”

I felt sorry for putting him into such a dangerous situation, and did my best to assure him that I intended him no ill. I believe it was my face, rather than my words, which convinced him of my sincerity. Both can lie, but not in my case, for I have said already that the merest simpleton can see straight through me. Had I been lying, Cola would have known it, and yet he saw nothing of the sort on my face. So, after a long and very tense wait, he sighed and bowed to the inevitable, and asked me to sit.

“Is your name really Marco da Cola? I feel I should know whom I am addressing. Is there any such person?” I asked.

He smiled gently. “There was,” he said. “He was my brother. My name is Andrea.”

“Was?”

“He is dead. He died in my arms on his return from Crete. I grieve greatly for him still.”

“Why are you here?”

“Like you, I can say I wish no harm on any man. Not that many would believe me; hence my subterfuge. Your government does not greatly approve of foreign priests. Certainly not Jesuits.” He said it deliberately, eyes on my face all the while to see my reaction to his admission.

I nodded. “You have not answered my question.”

“Mr. Wood,” he continued, “you are the only person to have divined who I am, and you are the only man of your faith I have encountered who does not react as if I were the devil himself. Why is this? Are you, perhaps, drawn to the true church in your heart?”

“Let no man say that his is the best and only road, for they say so out of ignorance alone,’ “ I said and the words were out of my mouth before ever I remembered where I had heard them.

Cola looked disturbed at this—“A generous, though erroneous sentiment,” he replied, and I hoped he would not query me too much on it, for I knew I could neither defend it nor even explain it. Either the bread turns to flesh, and the wine to blood, or it does not; it cannot do so in Rome, but not in Canterbury. Either Christ made Peter and his successors the foundation stone of faith, conferring on them all authority in matters spiritual, or he did not; Our Lord did not tell Peter he would have authority over all the world except for those parts of Europe which think differently.

But Cola said no more on this subject, glad only that he had the fortune to have been discovered by perhaps the one person in the whole country who felt no need to betray him to the authorities. Nor was my mind in the spirit for theological debate, even had I a chance of winning it. Such discussions had always given me great delight, but I was overburdened with the knowledge I carried within me, and in no mood any more for what I could now only consider trivial.

Instead he asked, with exquisite kindness, about the funeral of Anne Blundy, and I told him as much as was seemly. He seemed satisfied that his money was well spent, and expressed sorrow that Lower had behaved so ill.

“You seem to have recovered from your distress at the girl’s death,” he said, with a penetrating look in my direction. “I am glad of that. It is not easy, I know; it is hard to lose someone who is important in your life, as she was in yours, and my brother was in mine.”

And we talked of such matters, Father Andrea with such sense and kindness that, even though he knew little of what had occurred, he soothed my loss and did something to reconcile me to the loneliness I already knew would be my fate. He was a good man and a good priest, though a papist, and I was lucky to find him, for such people are rarely encountered. It is hard to be a physician of the body and even though many try, few have the skills or the sympathy for success. How much more difficult it is to give physick to the soul, to guide a man in sorrow to calmness and acceptance, yet Father Andrea was one who could. When we had finished, and I had no more to ask him and he had no more comfort to offer, I told him of my appreciation and decided to give him something in return by way of recompense.

“I know why you came to Oxford,” I said, and he spun round quickly to stare me in the face.

“You were in correspondence with Sir James Prestcott, and those letters were lost when he died. They would greatly damage the cause of your religion in this country, and you wished to recover them so that they might not become generally known. That is why you searched the Blundys’ cottage.”

His eyes narrowed. “You know of this? You know where they are?”

“I know you need have no fear about them. I give you my word no one will ever see them, and they will be destroyed.”

He was in two minds about trusting me, I could see, but knew he had no choice, and that he was profoundly fortunate. After a while he nodded. “That is all I ask.”

“And you will be given it. Now, I must go.”

He descended the stairs with me, resuming his disguise with each step, and while he had blessed me as a priest upstairs, he bowed to me as a gentleman in the street, before we went our separate ways.

“I suspect you will never come to Rome, Mr. Wood,” he said with a smile. “You are not a man for traveling. It is a pity, for you would find it the most extraordinary of places, and there are many fine historians and antiquarians there who would delight in your company as much as you would delight in theirs. But. should the urge to travel ever come upon you, then you must write to me. and I will ensure you the finest of welcomes.”

I thanked him, we bowed to each other one last time, and I walked off. never to see him again.

But I did hear of him; for I had gone no more than a few yards when I encountered my friend John Aubrey again, a man whose abilities as a gossip were as great as my reputation for such nonsense is undeserved.

“Who is that man?” he asked curiously, peering over my shoulder at Cola as he walked away. “Are you not going to introduce us?”

“He is a physician,” I said. “Or at least, a gentleman interested in physick. Why do you ask? You talk as though you have seen him before.”

“Indeed I have,” he said, still peering, even though Cola by now had disappeared around the corner. “I saw him in Whitehall yesterday evening.”

“A man may walk without arousing interest, I expect.”

“In the palace itself? Not easily. And not when you are being accompanied by Sir Henry Bennet to the king’s bedchamber.”

“What?”

“You seem excessively surprised by this. Might I ask why?”

“No reason,” I replied hastily. “I did not know he had such illustrious connections in this country. I am afraid that in Oxford we have all been patronizing him mightily as an impoverished foreigner, down on his luck. What is more, he never sought to enlighten us. We must have come across as very dismal people. But tell me exactly, when did you see him? And where?”