S Parris - Heresy

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.

"Pius Bishop, servant of the servants of God, in lasting memory of the matter: Regnans in excelsis," it began, and I almost dropped it, my hands had begun to shake so hard. I knew immediately what I held. This was perhaps the most damning paper an Englishman could possess: a copy of the papal bull issued by Pope Pius V some thirteen years ago, declaring Queen Elizabeth of England a heretic and containing her sentence of excommunication from the Catholic church. It ended by forbidding the queen's subjects from recognising or obeying her as monarch; in those words, Pius had all but called for her to be overthrown. This was the papal bull that some of the more extreme Catholics in the European seminaries regarded as a licence to assassinate the queen in God's name; even to bring a copy into this country was high treason and would earn the one who carried it a traitor's death. I exhaled slowly, then froze as I thought I heard a scuffling sound outside the window. Had I walked directly into another trap? Whoever had ransacked this room had undoubtedly been looking for these papers, just as he had been searching for them in Mercer's room, yet he had not found the chest's secret compartment. Perhaps he was still watching the room and had seen my candle. I held my breath and caught another distinct movement outside; then a high, unearthly scream rent the air, followed by another, a sound like nothing so much the shriek of an infant in pain, and I sank back to the floor, trembling and laughing at my own skittishness; it was only a pair of foxes fighting in the lane.

But the disturbance had brought me to my senses and reminded me that there was no time to waste. I tied the package of letters in one of the linen shirts from the chest, where I also found a travelling cloak that I hastily fastened around my shoulders, my own having been left at the Catherine Wheel. After some scrabbling I located an inkwell under the detritus on Norris's desk and scribbled a hasty note to Sidney explaining where the items had been found and where I was going. This done, I reached inside my shirt and pulled out the sheet of paper with the copy of the code from Mercer's almanac; this I folded inside the note to Sidney and sealed it as best I could with the sealing wax I had found in the drawer, though I had no ring to imprint on it. Then I grabbed the package, blew out the guttering candle, lifted the latch of the door to the stairwell and found it locked fast. Whoever had turned over the room in Norris's and Allen's absence must have let himself out afterward with his own key, unless he too had climbed in the window. Cursing again, I wrestled open the window above the desk that gave onto the courtyard, struggled onto the sill, encumbered now by my bandaged hand and the package I was trying to hold secure under the other arm, and eased myself through, unfortunately catching the cloak on the window latch at the last minute and falling through sideways with a thud and a muffled cry.

I lay quietly for a moment in the hope that my movements had gone unheard, looking up at the marbled sky above the roofs, already turning from velvet black to a dark indigo behind the streaks of cloud. If the sky was growing lighter, I needed to get this business done and hurry out of the city before dawn. It was too dark to make out the hands of the clock; the quadrangle remained blanketed in the stillness of the dead hours. Nothing stirred. Somewhere distant the fox cried again, and I was about to pick myself up when I saw the lantern. It approached me at a quick pace from the buildings opposite, held up by a hooded figure who stopped, looming over me, and lowered the light to the level of my face.

"Well, well, Doctor Bruno. Helping yourself again? This is becoming quite a habit. What will your explanation be this time, I wonder? I can hardly wait to find out."

I could not see Walter Slythurst's face, but his malevolent smirk was apparent in every icy word.

Slythurst tried to pull me up roughly by the arm, but I twisted away from him, curling my body around the package lest he try to wrench it from me.

"You will explain yourself this time, Bruno," he said, anger replacing his usual cold sarcasm as I struggled against his grip and he tried to reach for the package. It was too much of a coincidence that he should be awake and dressed at this hour of the night; he must have been watching Norris's room. "What is it you have taken from that room? I must see it. I demand you hand it over to me." There was a hectic urgency in his voice and I saw genuine alarm in his eyes as he looked at the bundle in my hand. Could it be that he knew the importance of what I carried?