S Parris - Heresy

He was toying with me, and his repeated allusions to the money I carried made me suddenly uncomfortable; I cursed myself for not having been more discreet with Walsingham's purse about the college. Well-I had allowed him to lock me inside his shop, so if he meant to rob me, there was little I could do except stand and fight. I checked the workbench beside me to see how quickly I could grab for one of the knives if the need arose. As if reading my thoughts, Jenkes casually reached out and picked up a little silver-handled blade and began cleaning the dirt from under his fingernails with its point.

"You need have no fear of speaking here, Bruno-whatever the title, however dangerous the civil authorities or the Church, whichever church, deem it to be, you cannot shock me."

"You do not believe in the idea of heresy, then?" I asked, keeping my eyes on the knife in his hand.

"Oh, you mistake me," he said, taking a step toward me so suddenly that I involuntarily moved back, alarmed at the flash of menace in those strange luminous eyes. "I believe in it without question. There is absolute truth, and all else is heresy. There is the true Church, founded by God's Son upon the apostle Peter, and then there is the blasphemous abomination founded by a fat, crippled fornicator who could not keep his cock in his breeches, and which is now ruled by his heretic bastard. I do not believe that any book should be denied to the man who possesses the wisdom to understand it, Bruno, but that does not mean I am confused about where truth lies. The question is-are you?"

"I do not understand your meaning," I said, but my shoulders tensed.

"I think you do," he said, his voice light and pleasant but his eyes still steely, and he moved slowly to position himself between me and the door to the shop. Sweat prickled in my armpits despite the chill of my wet clothes. I glanced across at Bernard, who still stood impervious by the fire as if he were not a part of the scene playing out before him. Draped in his long, black gown, with his thin neck and loose skin, he had the air of a great bird of prey, waiting to see what he might scavenge once the dust had settled.

"I wish only to know whose side you are on, Bruno," Jenkes continued.

"I was not aware that I was required to choose a side," I replied, turning to face him. "Perhaps I find the idea altogether too simplistic."

He barked out that sudden laugh again; the sound echoed from the walls.

"Is that what you will tell the recording angel on the Day of Judgment? When the Son of Man returns to divide the sheep from the goats, will you protest that you did not care to be either, that you found the choice too simplistic?" Abruptly he cast the knife away from him; it landed with a clatter among the paraphernalia laid out on the bench, and he stepped closer, laying a hand gently on my shoulder. I braced myself, but did not move. "You are a conundrum, Doctor Bruno, do you know that?" His limpid eyes raked over my face repeatedly, as though by this he might decode the puzzle. "You are excommunicate, yet you have the patronage of a Catholic monarch. You reject the supreme authority of the pope and preach the heretical theories of the Pole Copernicus, yet I am told you publicly declare yourself a Catholic. What is your faith, Bruno?"

I LOOKED HIM in the eye. "I am a son of the Roman church, Master Jenkes. You must be the only man in Oxford who doubts my religion-your fellow townsmen cross the street for the chance to spit upon me."

"Do you attend Mass and confession?"

"Am I on trial here? Are you my Inquisitor?"

He merely continued his stony gaze, though his mouth twisted slightly with contempt. I sighed. "Yes, I attend Mass."

"Yet you travel in the company of Sir Philip Sidney, a lapdog to the bastard Elizabeth and an agitator against the Catholic cause."

"As does the palatine Laski. Do you also question his religion?"

"Laski is a prince," Jenkes said impatiently. "You are a runaway monk, a philosopher for hire-though evidently a successful one, given the amount of money I am told you flaunt around the town," he added, his eyes again straying to my purse. "How did you find your way into the company of men like Sidney? Did he or his friends seek you out?"

"I met him in Padua. He is a fellow writer. What is it you accuse me of, Jenkes?" I was growing tired of this game; only the possibility that Jenkes knew something about Dean Flemyng's books and might have seen the lost treatise of the Greek Hermetic manuscript, the book Ficino would not translate, kept me from forcing my way out.

"I accuse you of nothing," he said, patting my shoulder reassuringly, his manner immediately changed. "But I thought you more than anyone would understand that a man must know to whom he speaks before he speaks too freely. My friends and I are not used to seeing strangers at the Catherine Wheel Inn, particularly not those who travel with a royal visitation and offer up false names-naturally, it makes us curious. So I will ask you again: What brought you there?"

I hesitated; if I could persuade Jenkes of my sincerity, it was possible that he would open to me the secret world of the Oxford Catholics, whose contacts with the seminaries in Europe and knowledge of the English mission would be worth more than gold to Walsingham. Yet I sensed that if Jenkes even suspected that I had deceived him, he would despatch me with far less artistry than the Lincoln College killer had displayed.

"I was told it was a place one might go to meet… like-minded people," I said quietly.

Jenkes nodded encouragingly. "Told by whom?"

"A contact."

"In London or Oxford? Or abroad?"

"Oxford," I said, without a pause.

"His name? Or hers," he added, as an afterthought.

"I prefer not to say."

"Then how am I to know you are not lying to me, Bruno?" he asked, his face now inches from mine, so that all his pox scars seemed magnified.

"He grew quickly intimate with young Allen, as I told you-they were seen together this morning at the Flower de Luce," Bernard interjected from the other side of the room. Jenkes narrowed his eyes; I could almost see his calculations as he weighed this news.

"So Thomas Allen has been sharing his confidences with you, has he? I fear he may give you a bad impression of our little group, Bruno. Was it he who directed you to us?"

Realising that Thomas could be in danger if Jenkes believed he had been telling me Edmund Allen's secrets, I knew I had to deny his involvement, even though I had no idea what effect my next words would have on the two men now watching me.

"It was not Thomas who suggested I visit the Catherine Wheel," I said. "It was Roger Mercer."

Jenkes frowned, letting go of my shoulder. He seemed genuinely wrong-footed.

"Mercer?"

"It is true that I saw him deep in conversation with Mercer in the courtyard, the night before Roger died," Bernard confirmed. "I was watching from my window."

"How did the Catherine Wheel enter your conversation?" Jenkes asked, pointing a long finger into my face.

I raised a hand and gently moved his finger aside before speaking. "I asked if he knew of any place in Oxford where I might hear Mass said."

"You just asked? And he sent you to the Catherine Wheel, just like that?" Jenkes looked as though he could not decide whether to be incredulous or furious; he twisted his hands together until the knuckles cracked.

"He suggested I would find friends there, but that I should exercise discretion," I said.

"Discretion-as if he knew the meaning of the word! He was ever a damnable fool. His loose tongue would have seen us all dead eventually. To tell a stranger, William, and one who travels with a royal party-can you credit it?" Jenkes wiped his brow with the back of his hand. "Though I was sorry to hear of his cruel death, of course."