Giordano Bruno Thriller Series Books 1-3: Heresy, Prophecy, Sacrilege

‘It’s all right, Rector Underhill,’ I said gently. From the juddering of his clasped hands around my arm I could tell that he was experiencing his own delayed shock and could do with some of Cobbett’s strong ale himself. ‘It was only the rope. But we must take the body down.’

‘Why did he come here in only his underclothes?’ the rector wondered softly, still shaking his head as I helped him to sit again on the largest chest.

‘Well, it seems clear that he came up here under duress – perhaps his killer surprised him as he was changing,’ I offered, as something caught my eye by the window. Next to the longbow, a pile of black material had been neatly folded and placed on the floor. I walked over and picked it up; it was a long academic gown, its cut and trim indicating the degree of Doctor of Divinity, and it was stiff with dried blood, especially on the front and sleeves.

‘That is James’s own gown,’ Underhill said, turning away.

‘I think our killer must have put this on over his own clothes while he carried out the act,’ I mused. ‘I had wondered how someone could have walked away through the college with his clothes bespattered with such a quantity of blood as this killing must have made.’

Footsteps echoed on the stairs below and a moment later Slythurst appeared carrying a lantern. He glared at me briefly before handing it to the rector, who was still trembling and wringing his hands. I took the lantern before he had a chance to drop it and a brief smile flickered across his dry lips. The bursar appeared to interpret Underhill’s inertia as an invitation to assume responsibility for the situation.

‘We must, in the first instance, send for the coroner to remove this body so that the strongroom may be cleaned and returned to its proper purpose and the inquest can be carried out so that poor James may have a Christian burial. His family must be notified – I believe he has a brother in the Fens somewhere, is that not so, Rector?’ On receiving no answer, he continued as if he had not expected one: ‘And I think it would be politic when we announce the death to give out that he was attacked by an unknown thief trying to break into the strongroom – we do not want the students indulging in any more idle speculation.’ He shot me a warning glance.

‘That is wise, Walter,’ said the rector, turning his attention back to Slythurst with a distant, puzzled expression, as if he barely recognised him. ‘That will give you a little time in hand, won’t it, Bruno?’ He turned to me with the same look of vague anxiety.

Slythurst snapped his head around.

‘Time for what?’

‘Rector Underhill has asked me to look into the circumstances of the two deaths and see if I can find any connection,’ I said, returning his stare with a level gaze.

Slythurst’s face blanched with fury and his lips almost disappeared.

‘With the greatest respect, Rector,’ he stuttered, choked with indignation, ‘is that prudent? Doctor Bruno may have a lively imagination, but it can hardly be sensible to involve an outsider –’ he pronounced the word with icy scorn – ‘in a matter which so intimately affects the life of the college. What may come to light …’ He paused, eyeing me as a muscle twitched in his cheek, then changed tack. ‘Besides, he will be gone in a few days.’

‘He is already involved, Walter,’ the rector said sorrowfully. ‘Doctor Bruno received a communication relating to Roger Mercer’s death from someone who appears to know something – perhaps even the killer himself.’

‘Students playing pranks, surely,’ Slythurst snapped, his eyes darting from the rector to me with undisguised anger. ‘I would speak to you further about the wisdom of this, Rector – in private.’

Underhill nodded wearily.

‘We will speak, Walter, but first there is much to do and we must work together. Fetch the water – I will clean the wall myself. I want no trace of that left, and I trust that neither of you will mention it? Perhaps you could find a suitable messenger to take a letter to the coroner,’ he said to Slythurst. ‘I will go to my library now and write it. Doctor Bruno, how do you wish to proceed?’

I wished the rector had not mentioned my mysterious letter; I still did not trust Slythurst. We had only his word that he had collected his papers from the strongroom on Saturday evening before the disputation, and I was not sure how much his word was worth, after his deliberate lies over the searching of Roger Mercer’s room. If anyone had easy access to the sub-rector’s room and the tower strongroom, it was the bursar. Whatever my correspondent knew, the fewer people who learned that he – or she – had tried to share it with me, the better. And now the killer himself wanted this murder explicitly linked to the Catherine Wheel – and the rector wanted that link washed away. I was beginning to feel overwhelmed. The one element that seemed clear was that Coverdale’s early exit from the disputation was a key to his murder.

‘I would like to find the student who delivered the message to Doctor Coverdale during the disputation, to find out what drew him back to college so urgently.’

Underhill nodded.

‘I will make enquiries. But I beg both of you – say nothing of this to the students until I have the chance to make an announcement at dinner. By then I will try to find a way to explain it with the least alarm – if that is possible.’

‘Before that, Rector Underhill,’ I added, ‘I think I should call on Gabriel Norris. If he delivered his bow and arrows to the strongroom as you commanded, we need to learn when, and whether Doctor Coverdale let him in. And I think you should go to your study, take a large glass of your strongest drink and gather your thoughts for a moment before you decide what to do next.’

‘It is a fine day when the rector of an Oxford college is told how he may proceed by an Italian papist,’ muttered Slythurst, but the rector coughed and looked embarrassed and grateful at the same time.

We descended the stairs gingerly, I leading the way with the lantern and pausing to examine the traces of bloody footprints still visible on the stone steps. Faint traces also remained on the floor of Coverdale’s rooms below, but otherwise both the main room and the adjoining bedchamber in the tower were neat and orderly. I crossed and examined the door that led out to the courtyard staircase.

‘The room was locked this morning when you arrived?’ I asked Slythurst again.

He snorted impatiently.

‘I have already told you that three times. I assumed James had gone out and I wanted to deposit the monies and deeds I had brought from Aylesbury so I borrowed the spare key from Cobbett and let myself in. What is it you are trying to imply, Doctor Bruno?’

‘Only that there is no sign of the door to the tower staircase or this main door to Doctor Coverdale’s room being forced,’ I said. ‘So he must have willingly admitted his killer – or been killed by someone already in possession of a key.’

Slythurst aimed at me a look of such venom then that I could easily believe him capable of murder. I turned to Underhill, his face painted in eerie shadows from the flickering light of the lantern.

‘The tower will need to be sealed until the body is removed in any case,’ I said. ‘If you post one of the college servants at the foot of the staircase, we will soon learn if anyone tries to go near it. The killer may try to come back, perhaps to look for something in the room. But I would like to have a look around myself, to see if the killer left any trace behind him.’

‘Yes. Yes, that seems sensible.’ The rector’s face was drawn and flustered. ‘I must send for the coroner. Walter – you are now the most senior official here under me, I will need your help in deciding what we tell the college community. Perhaps you could come with me to my lodgings? And tell Cobbett to set one of the kitchen men by the tower stairs.’

Slythurst nodded and scuttled off down the stairs to the porter’s lodge. Underhill turned back and I sensed something unspoken in the long look he gave me.

‘The arrows were shot after he died, you say?’

‘It is hard to tell, but I think the blood came mostly from the throat wound. If he was not yet dead, he was near it – I think he would not have been sensible of what was happening, if that is what you mean to ask.’

‘So it would have been quick?’ the rector asked, almost hopefully.

I hesitated, but decided it would be kinder not to dwell on the hacking I had seen at Coverdale’s neck. The coroner would find it out soon enough.

‘It was a terrible death, I will not pretend otherwise. But I have seen men with their throats cut before – they do not linger in this world.’

Underhill regarded me with his head on one side. The candle in the lantern was dying and the room enfolded in shadows again despite the early hour; it seemed to me that the smell of decay was rising from the tower stairs behind us.

‘You have lived a strange life for a philosopher, Doctor Bruno,’ he said softly. ‘Ours must seem a soft and sheltered life to you. I thought it was so, until this week. I have hidden here from the world, thinking an Oxford college a place of sanctuary. Now I have turned a blind eye for too long, and it will be the destruction of me and my family.’

‘Rector Underhill,’ I said, leaning in towards him, ‘if there is anything you know or suspect, anything at all that may have a bearing on these deaths, do not hide it. To what have you turned a blind eye?’

He glanced nervously over his shoulder to the door, a quick, rodent movement, then leaned in closer, his round face lit from beneath by the lantern.

‘Your friend, Sir Philip …’

‘What of him?’

‘He must not learn of this. You will promise me, Doctor Bruno, that you will not speak to him of what is happening within these walls? He is Leicester’s nephew, he would feel compelled to tell him all.’

At that moment footsteps echoed from below and Slythurst reappeared. Underhill shook his head at me tightly to warn me not to say anything further, then looked from me to the bursar apprehensively before turning to the door.

‘Walter?’

‘It occurs to me, Rector,’ Slythurst began, folding his hands together unctuously, ‘that if Doctor Bruno is to examine this room, it might be best if I help him. Two pairs of eyes are better than one, after all.’

‘Very well. But I have need of you, Walter – come to my lodgings as quickly as you can afterwards.’

He gave me a last, imploring look, before closing the door behind him. His footsteps echoed on the stairs as he descended to the courtyard with a heavy tread.

Slythurst crooked his head back and gave the room a cursory glance.