Giordano Bruno Thriller Series Books 1-3: Heresy, Prophecy, Sacrilege. S. J. Parris
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my stare with mild curiosity; these English boys all looked the same – pale, underfed and anxious. One among them knew something he wanted to impart to me and was afraid to say outright – but which one?
I had intended to find a seat that would give me a vantage point over all those gathered, but Godwyn, seeing me hesitating at the door, smiled and gestured to a place next to him on the front bench. I could hardly refuse; conscious of all the eyes on me, including Sophia’s, I walked down the short central aisle and sat down beside Godwyn, who welcomed me in a whisper as we bent our heads to pray. I could not help noticing that both Walter Slythurst and James Coverdale were absent. When the men were all seated, they rose again as one, as the rector processed the short distance from the door to the altar followed by four young men in the white surplices of choirboys.
Looking up, I caught the rector’s eye; if he was surprised to see me among his congregants or repented of his hard words the night before, his face gave no sign of it. Instead he merely bowed his head and intoned the Our Father.
‘O Lord, open Thou my lips,’ he began, and the congregation dutifully responded,
‘And my mouth shall show forth thy praise.’
I was not familiar enough with the order of the responses to follow them fluently, and kept my voice to a whisper to avoid drawing unwelcome attention to my mistakes. Godwyn rose to read the first lesson from the Gospel of Matthew, and after he was seated again, the small choir sang a four-voice version of the Te Deum Laudamus in English, which was remarkably sweet for all its plainness.
‘Yesterday, gentlemen,’ the rector went on, staring resolutely over the heads of his congregation, apparently excluding his wife and daughter from his address, ‘sudden violent death intruded most horribly into our little community. I know that the tragic attack on our dear friend Roger Mercer as he walked at prayer in the Grove has shaken all of us to the core, and I know too that when such a dreadful accident occurs, we can all too easily allow our brains to grow heated with the shock and indulge in all manner of wild speculation.’ Here he flashed a pointed glance at me, so quickly as to go almost unnoticed. Doctor Bernard cracked his bony knuckles together; the snap was startling in the still room.
‘It would be more profitable,’ the rector continued over-loudly, as if he were speaking to a much larger gathering, ‘if, instead of unhelpful rumour, we allowed some good to come from this tragedy by concentrating our minds on the brevity of our lives in contrast to the vastness of eternity, and looked to our own standing before God. Let us mourn Roger, as is right and proper, but let us also learn from his death and ask ourselves, would we face death assured of our own salvation, if it should come upon us as suddenly?’
‘It almost sounds as if he expects another tragedy,’ I whispered to Godwyn; Underhill glanced up and frowned angrily from behind his lectern, though he could not have heard my words.
‘Let us return, then, as we have in recent weeks, to Master Foxe’s account of the persecutions of the early believers, our forefathers in faith in the days when the Church was pure. Not so that we may pay them idolatrous reverence as saints, as the Roman Church does, for they were only men and women like us, but so that we might emulate their faith and better understand the long and venerable history of suffering for Christ and of standing firm, as those martyrs of Reform have done in this troubled century of ours. Let us ask ourselves, as we consider today the story of Alban, the first English martyr, if we truly believe that the preservation of the faith is the highest good. For these are turbulent days, my friends,’ he continued, his voice rising slightly as he leaned over the lectern to fix his listeners with a stern eye. ‘Our English Church is besieged on all sides by those who would drag us back to Rome. You young men sitting before me today are the future leaders of Church and State, and you do not know how you may be called upon to fight for both in the years to come. Will you be resolute, even in the face of death? Will you defend our liberties from the idolaters and tyrants who would tear them from us? I pray it may be so.’
From the benches behind me, a collective movement could be heard; the sound of several rows of young men drawing themselves up proudly in response to this rallying cry. I found something disturbing in Underhill’s tone; there was a barely suppressed fanaticism to it, but his words reminded me of Walsingham’s.
The rector’s homily was more of a lecture than a sermon, though it was a relief to find that his talent for expounding on a text was greater than his talent for debating ideas. But as he spoke, I became so lost in my own speculation that I barely noticed when he pronounced the final collect, and was only dislodged from my reverie by Godwyn nudging me apologetically as the men around me all stood. The rector and his choir filed out and the congregation shuffled and stretched as they made ready to leave. One young man with violently red hair and a face peppered with freckles, who looked barely old enough to be away from his mother, busied himself at the front of the chapel, tidying away the accoutrements of the service, closing the large bible on the lectern and snuffing out the candles around us. As she drew towards me, Sophia smiled and seemed about to speak, but her mother, noticing the look that passed between us, pinned her daughter firmly by the elbow and led her towards the door. Sophia glanced once over her shoulder and there seemed to be something imploring in her expression, but I might have imagined that.
‘I am sorry to have poked you so unceremoniously, Doctor Bruno,’ Godwyn whispered, as the red-haired young man clearing the chapel approached us and handed Godwyn the last remaining flickering candle, ‘but I feared you were having some trouble following our Book of Common Prayer – the manner of our service must seem very strange to you.’
‘Not so strange,’ I replied, watching as Sophia passed out of sight before turning back to him with a smile, ‘you have borrowed a great deal of it from us, after all.’
He gave a small, polite laugh.
‘But tell me, did you not think our little choir sings well?’ he asked brightly as we walked towards the door, making a shield of his hand to protect the candle as the draught from the stairs assaulted it.
‘I have heard choirs twice their number make a poorer job of the psalms,’ I said truthfully.
‘The arrangement is by Master Byrd, Her Majesty’s own composer,’ he said, looking pleased at the praise.
‘A Catholic himself, is he not?’
Godwyn looked aghast.
‘Well – yes, he is, but that is not why I admire him,’ he said quickly. ‘If the queen can tolerate his faith for the sake of his music, I do not see why we should not do the same.’
‘Quite. And of course, your own reading of the gospel was given with true poetic expression,’ I added, in a devout tone.
‘Thank you. That duty should fall to the sub-rector, but Doctor Coverdale did not arrive for Matins this morning, so the rector asked me to step in at the last moment.’
Instead of following the crowd of undergraduates down the stairs, he crossed the landing to a low wooden door opposite the chapel’s entrance, one hand still cupped around his candle, and gestured to me to follow.
‘I remember you expressed an interest in our library, Doctor Bruno – would you like to take a look, now you are here? Unless you are impatient to break your fast, of course,’ he added. ‘Perhaps you would not mind holding this for a moment?’
He handed me the candle and took a ring of keys from his belt, selecting the largest.
‘I should be delighted,’ I said, following him, though I was more interested by his news about Coverdale. ‘Is Doctor Coverdale away, then?’
‘Well, if he is, he gave no one any warning,’ Godwyn said, sounding piqued as he turned the key stiffly in the lock and pushed open the heavy door, which groaned as if in complaint at being disturbed.
I remembered the boy who had come to summon Coverdale in the middle of the disputation the previous evening, and Cobbett’s report that Coverdale had returned to college as if in an almighty haste. It was curious, then, that Cobbett had not mentioned his leaving again – unless he had somehow slipped away in the night,