Heresy. S. J. Parris
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heavy purse – which the rector had taken – suggested he had been expecting to meet someone to effect some kind of transaction. But if the money had been at the centre of some dispute in which Mercer had fallen out with someone so badly that they could wish to kill him, I could not fathom why the purse had been left. It would seem that the money had been less of a priority than the sub-rector’s death, though it must have been key to the meeting he anticipated.
I considered again the layout of the garden. It was abutted on the north side by the kitchen part of the way, though I could see no door from the kitchens into the garden. On three sides it was enclosed by a wall at least twelve feet high, and on the fourth it adjoined the east range of the college, the side of the quadrangle that housed the hall and the rector’s lodgings. I presumed Mercer had entered the garden through one of the two passageways either side of the hall, letting himself in with his own key. Had he then locked the gate behind him, so as not to be disturbed, or had someone waited for him to enter before locking the door from the college side, leaving him unwittingly shut in? Could that have been the same person who then opened the gate from the lane through which the dog – presumably muzzled until the last moment – had been released, locking that behind the animal? But it would have taken a good few minutes to run out of the main gate and around the side of the building, and anyone doing so would have been seen by the porter – assuming he had been awake.
From the courtyard a bell tolled dismally to rally the scholars to chapel, where the rector would spread his benign reassurance and dispel the young men’s more lurid imaginings. As I rose to my feet, I wondered idly if James Coverdale would finally achieve his ambition of becoming sub-rector, and a thought struck me like a cold blade. The rector had asked, rhetorically, who would want to harm Roger Mercer, and I had replied that I had no idea. But now that I considered the proposition I realised that even I, a stranger who had not been in the college one full day, had already encountered two people who apparently hated him. Might there not be more? Perhaps one of them tried to extort money from him and decided instead to kill him. I had found him a genial enough man, but it seemed his part in the trial of the unfortunate Edmund Allen had aroused resentment; who was to say how many other enemies he might have made? But these resentments must have simmered for a long time; why wait until the week of a royal visitation to act on them? Unless—
I was interrupted in my pursuit of this new trail by the sight of a figure running towards me through the trees from the direction of the college; I stepped forward in the hope that the coroner had arrived to relieve me of my duties, and was surprised to recognise Sophia Underhill, dressed in a thin blue gown with a shawl around her shoulders, her hair flying out behind her. She halted a few yards away, looking equally surprised to see me.
‘Doctor Bruno! What – what are you doing in here?’
‘I was – waiting for your father,’ I said, taking another step towards her in the hope of guiding her away from the two corpses.
‘They said Gabriel Norris shot down an intruder,’ she said, her face flushed with the drama of the moment. ‘Is he still here?’ Her eyes were bright with eager anticipation as she looked around wildly, but I noticed she was twisting her hands together in agitation in the same manner as her father.
‘Not quite.’ I almost smiled; despite the rector’s best efforts, it seemed the tale was already growing in the telling. ‘You have not spoken to your father?’
‘He is at morning prayers in chapel – I heard the news from two scholars who were running there late,’ she said, peering past me to where the shapes lay in the dense grass. ‘Of course we heard all the noise from our windows but I never imagined – is that the thief’s body there?’ She seemed keen to take a look; I planted myself firmly in her path.
‘Please, Mistress Underhill, you must keep back. It is not a sight you should see.’
She tilted her head and stared at me defiantly.
‘I have seen death before, Doctor Bruno. I have seen my own brother with his neck broken, do not treat me like one of these pampered ladies who has never been out of a parlour.’
‘I would not dream of it, but this is worse,’ I said, holding my arms out absurdly as if this might obscure the sight. ‘Well, not worse than one’s brother, I don’t mean – I mean only, it is very bloody, not something a woman should see. Please trust me, Mistress Underhill.’
At this she snorted, and placed her hands on her hips.
‘How is it that men think women are too frail to look on blood? Do you forget we bleed every month? We push out babies in great puddles of gore, do you imagine we hide our eyes when we do that, in case it offends our delicate senses? I promise you, Doctor Bruno, any woman can look on blood with more fortitude than a soldier, though men think we must be treated like Venice glass. Do not be one more who wants to wrap me up in linen and keep me in a box.’
I was surprised by the ferocity of her argument, and conceded that she had a point; even so, I had been charged with protecting Mercer from prurient eyes, so I stepped forward again until I was standing directly in front of her, only a few inches away. It was disconcerting to find that she was almost as tall as me.
‘I would not dream of it. Nevertheless, Mistress Underhill, I beg you not to go any closer – this body is badly mutilated. I fear it would be distressing, however strong your constitution.’
She stood her ground for a moment longer, and then her instinctive propriety dictated that she step back. The defiant expression was replaced by one of anxious curiosity.
‘What happened, then?’
‘A man was savaged by a wild dog. Norris shot the dog, not the man.’
Her brow creased.
‘A dog? In the garden? Wait –’ she shook her head, flustered, as if she had her questions all in the wrong order. ‘Which man?’
‘Roger Mercer.’
‘Oh, no. No!’ she repeated, one hand clasped to her mouth, the other to her breast. ‘No!’ Her eyes darted about wildly, resting nowhere, then she sank slowly to the ground, her skirt billowing around her, her hand still pressed to her mouth; I was unsure if she was about to cry or faint, but her face was drained of all colour. ‘Oh God, it can’t be.’
I crouched beside her and laid a tentative hand on her shoulder.
‘I am sorry. You were fond of him?’
She looked up at me with a fleeting expression of puzzlement, then nodded emphatically.
‘Yes – yes, of course – this is my home, the senior Fellows here have been like family to me these past six years,’ she said, her voice shaky. ‘I cannot believe something so horrible could happen here in college, just below our windows too. Poor, poor Roger.’ She glanced past me to the heap in the grass and shuddered. ‘If only …’ she broke off, pressing the edge of her thumb to her mouth again.
‘If only?’ I prompted.
But she merely shook her head and cast her eyes around again frantically. ‘But where is Master Norris?’
‘Your father sent him to change. His attire was apparently unsuitable.’
She gave a soft, indulgent laugh then and I felt a sudden unexpected pang of jealousy. Was she fond of the dandyish young archer?
‘A dog, though?’ she mused, running her hands through her hair as if thinking aloud, her expression troubled again. ‘Where did it come from?’
‘The gate to the lane must have been left open during the night – it looks as if some stray found its way in and was so starving it would set upon anything,’ I said, as evenly as I could.
Sophia’s eyes narrowed.
‘No. That gate is never unlocked. Father is paranoid about vagabonds and trespassers getting in at night, or under graduates using it to meet the kitchen girls – he checks it every evening at ten before he retires. He would no more forget the gate than he would forget his