EIGHT

      I woke before dawn and lay on the narrow wooden bed watching the patterns of pale light gradually spread across the ceiling from the chink in the window drapes. I had slept fitfully, knotted up with anger at the way I had been treated by Underhill and his colleagues. During the many hours of wakefulness I had determined that it was fruitless for me to stay in Oxford, regardless of the inquest or the royal visitation; I would seek out my horse from the rector’s stables at first light and find my way to London by any means possible. I was conscious that I had found out little of use to Walsingham yet, and he would surely not appreciate the explanation that I had left in a fit of pique because I had been publicly humiliated, but I was so clearly unwelcome here that it seemed unlikely I could ever carry out his plan of gaining the Fellows’ confidence and thereby learning anything useful.

      I sighed and turned on my side, wrapping myself tightly in the sheet against the draught, and allowed my thoughts to drift back to Sophia. I had lain awake the previous night, my thoughts full of her. She was a compelling enough reason to stay in Oxford and an equally compelling one to leave. I realised that it had been some time since I had been as close to a woman as I had come the evening before when she had almost fainted into my arms, and the jolt of longing that shook me at that moment had left me profoundly disconcerted. I wondered if she had felt it too; there were moments while we talked when her frank gaze had locked with mine and it seemed she wanted me to read something there, but I knew that as a guest of her father’s I must take great care how I approached her. Besides, I reminded myself, had she not spoken with a kind of pitying regret of the way her father had spent his life dependent on the patronage of great men, and was I not in the same position? I had no means to marry, no money or property of my own, nothing to offer a young gentlewoman except my affection, and I knew from experience that a father places little value on such things in his daughter’s suitors. So I could not court her respectably, and although that fleeting touch the night before had powerfully awoken my desire, I already knew that I liked her too much to think of a casual seduction. I wanted urgently to see her again, yet had no idea what I hoped might happen between us. My mind kept running back to the expression on her face when I showed her the Copernican diagram; the fleeting light of recognition in her eyes at the symbol of the wheel. What did Sophia know, and how could I persuade her to confide in me?

      The chorus of birdsong became more insistent. I pulled back the sheet and crossed the room to draw the drapes and look out over the courtyard of Lincoln as the pink early light streaked across the sky in gaps between jagged clouds. The rain had given Oxford a temporary reprieve, though there was no guarantee the road to London would be passable after the weather of the past two days. The flagstones of the quadrangle gleamed under the night’s rain, puddles reflecting slashes of pale rosy sky. I could not make out the hands of the clock from my window, but thought I may as well dress anyway; as soon as the college was up and stirring I could ask Cobbett how I might go about recovering my horse. I wondered if I should say a formal goodbye to the rector, claiming I had pressing business to return to, but then I might learn that I had a legal obligation to stay and testify at the inquest; better to leave first and plead ignorance later, I thought, and I did not want to give Underhill the satisfaction of seeing that he had driven me away. Perhaps I could leave a message for Sidney on my way out of the city.

      I was about to turn away from the window when a sudden movement in the courtyard caught my eye; a figure wearing a black cloak with the hood pulled up scurried from the south-west corner of the quadrangle and disappeared into the tower archway. Immediately I felt my muscles tense; I had not been able to make out who it was, but if I was quick to follow I might see who could be dashing about so furtively at such an hour. I grabbed for my shirt, and then paused, berating myself. Had I not already decided that whatever undercover comings and goings went on in this place were not my business? I would leave today, and if there was a murderer in the college they would just have to deal with it themselves; my attempts at finding the truth had been met with contempt and threats, and I wanted nothing more to do with any of it.

      As I pulled on my shirt and breeches, a single bell began the doleful call to Matins and I recalled with a sinking heart that it was Sunday. The servants would probably have a day off; I would be unlikely to find anyone able to help me locate the horse and, in any case, I would have to return it to the stables at Windsor and how I might make my way back from there to London alone on a Sunday, I had no idea. In the unsparing daylight, my planned flight began to look as ill judged as it was cowardly.

      I poured some water from the pitcher left on the small table and washed my face slowly; if I had to stay for one more day, I could at least try to put it to some profitable use and I would start by attending chapel. I had no wish to hear the English service for its own sake – while I found no spiritual nourishment in the Roman Mass, at least it put some effort into its theatrics, and I found the English prayer book as bland as uncooked dough beside it – but it would be a useful opportunity to observe the whole college community gathered in one place. If one of them had sent me the strange message last night, as seemed likely, it was possible that he might give himself away by looks or gestures. I thought of him now, as I splashed my face, with irritation; if he had any useful information to impart, why not make himself clearer?

      James Coverdale had mentioned at the first night’s dinner that the rector was preaching a series of sermons based on Foxe’s book; if Roger Mercer’s killing was some twisted parody of martyrdom, as someone clearly wanted me to believe, it was possible that the killer had taken inspiration from the rector’s sermons. It was even possible that he would be among the congregation that morning. I shivered, pulled on my boots and, as the bell continued its solemn clang, I hurried to join the black-gowned figures heading for the central archway of the north range, under the clock, which showed the hour to be almost six.

      The chapel occupied the larger portion of the first floor of the north range, to the right of the archway, and I filed dutifully up the dim stairs among the students and Fellows, the only light offered by a candle lantern suspended from the landing above. By the door I noticed a holy water stoup, long dry, as we passed into a modest, lime-washed room with a wooden-beamed roof, the floor strewn with rushes. A small altar stood at the furthest end, opposite the door, with a lectern to the right of it; candles burned on each side of the chapel and on the altar, and the men arranged themselves along the rows of hard oak benches apparently designed for maximum discomfort, to prevent anyone from drowsing during sermons. Narrow arched windows of plain glass on both sides of the small chapel filled it with early morning light that gleamed from the white walls and on the long dark hair of Sophia Underhill, who was seated on the front pew by the lectern, where she would be under her father’s watchful eye. I wondered that he allowed her to attend chapel with the scholars; her presence seemed guaranteed to distract young men from pious prayer. Then I noticed that her mother was seated beside her, her thin shoulders hunched beneath the white coif which bound her hair. Around her the senior Fellows were ranked along the front benches, with the older students – those proceeding to masters or doctors degrees – seated in the rows behind them, and the undergraduates at the back. As I hovered by the door, wondering where I should properly take my place, I had a chance to see just how small the college community was. There could not have been more than thirty men, including the senior Fellows; with lives spent in such close proximity, surely one among them had some knowledge of what had really taken place in the Grove the previous morning. Taking in the room in a swift glance, I spotted Thomas Allen and Lawrence Weston among the under graduates, though there was no sign of Norris or the loud commoner friends he had brought to the tavern; I presumed that Matins was yet another college rule they were able to buy their way out of. William Bernard and Richard Godwyn, the librarian, sat on the front bench, and I noticed John Florio in the middle, whispering animatedly to his neighbour. These were the only men I had met personally in the college, yet there was every possibility that my mysterious correspondent was someone who had yet to introduce himself.

      But he must have been a member of the college,