The Dead of Winter

by S. J. Parris

  The coach smelled thickly of blood. I had considered myself a man of science and reason, but after an hour trapped in that dark, lurching space, avoiding a dead man’s accusing stare, I could think only of my grandmother’s stories about vengeful wandering souls; in the rattling of the wheels and the buffeting of the wind I was sure I heard voices whispering. When at last we stopped and Tito opened the door, I shot out like a hunting dog, gulping down cold air that did not reek of death.

  His lantern concentrated the darkness around us. Overhead, the sky was a velvet cloth stitched with diamonds. Only the cries of night birds and the distant howl of wolves broke the silence. I could make out the silhouette of mountains on the horizon, and the broken shapes of boulders all around. There was no sign of movement anywhere.

  Tito lugged Renzo’s body out of the carriage and once again we grappled him between us in his blanket. We must have carried him for near ten minutes before I dropped my end; my arms ached with the weight and sweat stood out on my forehead.

  ‘Not much further,’ Tito said, trying to sound encouraging, though I could only guess at how much he must resent me for all this.

  I wiped my face on my sleeve. ‘I can’t go on.’

  ‘You can and you will,’ he said sharply. ‘Nearly there. Come on.’

  I bent my legs to take the weight and we dragged him a few yards more, until Tito motioned for me to set him down. He held up the lantern and looked around.

  ‘Are we going to bury him?’

  He shook his head. ‘Ground’s too hard. Keep back here, it’s a long way down with some vicious rocks at the bottom.’

  I followed the direction of his finger and saw that we were close to the edge of a gulley where the ground fell away. He unrolled Renzo from the blanket, then wandered off with the light, searching for something at his feet. I crouched by Renzo’s body, trying to examine him.

  ‘Do you think he had the pox?’ I asked, as Tito’s shadow fell across the body. ‘I can’t see any scars, but the light isn’t good. Porta said—’

  ‘I don’t think it much matters now,’ Tito cut in gently, setting down the lantern. ‘You might want to look away for this part, sir.’

  I glanced up and saw that he held a heavy rock in his right hand. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’m going to make sure his own father wouldn’t recognise him. Just to be on the safe side.’ He pulled up his sleeve and adjusted his gloves.

  ‘I don’t think his own father ever did,’ I said, half to myself, as I turned to walk back towards the coach. ‘That was his problem.’

  At my back I heard the wet crunch of splintering bone. I paused by a boulder and heaved up the contents of my stomach, spat hard, wiped my mouth and finished the aqua vitae in Porta’s flask. There came a dragging sound, a scattering of loose rocks, and silence. Tito returned peeling off his gloves, which he dropped into the sack containing my bloodstained clothes.

  ‘Let’s get you home then, sir,’ he said briskly. ‘Try and sleep, if you can.’

  I must have slept; I had no idea how long we had been travelling, but the next time the carriage door opened I could see the faintest sheen of dawn light along the horizon. When I unfolded my stiff limbs and climbed out, I could smell the sea and hear the cries of gulls.

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘Port of Ostia. Stay here with the horses.’

  I leaned back against the side of the coach and breathed in the cold air. At length, Tito returned to inform me that he had arranged a berth on a boat bound for the Bay of Naples; I was not to give my real name. He pointed me towards the quayside.

  ‘Tito,’ I said, as he turned to go. ‘Have you killed a man?’

  He gave a worldly laugh. ‘I was a soldier, sir.’

  I nodded. ‘My father’s a soldier.’

  ‘Well, then. Ask him. The first one’s the worst.’

  ‘I’m not planning to make a career of it.’

  ‘My master will be relieved to hear that.’ He clapped me on the shoulder. ‘You’d best get on your way.’

  ‘Is it over?’

  ‘As long as you keep your mouth shut. My master says you know how to do that.’

  I nodded. Ahead, the stars were fading over the sea, and the salt air had begun to scour the taste of blood from my mouth.

  It was the day before Twelfth Night when the boat finally docked, wave-tossed, in the harbour of Naples. Behind an abandoned building at the port, I changed into my spare habit, but I kept the servant’s clothes, in case of future need.

  I had hoped to avoid attention when I arrived back at San Domenico, but I had been in my cell barely ten minutes when there was a knock on the door, and the prior walked in without waiting for an invitation.

  ‘I did not expect you back so soon, Fra Giordano.’

  ‘I didn’t want to outstay my welcome.’

  He appraised me with a swift glance. ‘You’ve lost weight.’

  ‘I was fasting,’ I said. I could hardly tell him that bad weather had prolonged the journey down the coast, and I felt as if I had not kept a meal down for over a week.

  He gave me a sceptical look and folded his arms.

  ‘So?’ he asked. It could have meant anything.

  ‘You haven’t heard …?’

  I had no idea how urgently the Pope would have dispatched his promised letter, nor whether Fra Agostino would have sent any message about my abrupt departure, but I was sure a fast rider could cover the distance between Rome and Naples in half the time my boat had taken.

  ‘I’m asking you.’

  I hesitated. ‘I think – it could have been worse.’

  He pursed his lips. ‘Well, at least they didn’t burn you. Not yet, anyway. What did you make of Cardinal Rebiba?’

  ‘I don’t think he liked me,’ I said carefully.

  The faintest smile stretched the corners of his lips. ‘No, Bruno. Cardinal Rebiba doesn’t like me. He wanted to trip you in order to bring me down. But here we both are, still standing, more or less.’

  I stared at him. ‘If you knew that, why did you let me go?’

  ‘First, because you don’t refuse the Pope, and second, because I trusted you to speak for yourself.’ He folded his arms. ‘Naples is too small for you, Bruno. I’ve known that since the day you arrived here. You have a fine mind, and one day it will lead you away from us to greater things. But there is much you need to learn first, and I am not talking about your theology degree. To thrive in this world, you must learn how to talk to men of status. You must learn how to defend your arguments without appearing to think yourself cleverer than your opponents, even when you are. You must learn the arts of flattery and humility as well as plain-speaking, because if you can’t temper your views, and keep some of your thoughts to yourself, one day you will talk yourself into the arms of the Inquisition.’

  ‘You’re saying I must learn to be a politician. To dissemble.’

  ‘You chose the religious life,’ he said. ‘What else did you expect? I hoped Rome might give you a sharp lesson in those skills.’

  I shook my head. ‘I am content to stay in Naples,’ I said, with some force. ‘I’d be happy if I never saw Rome again.’

  ‘Well, it would certainly be wise to keep your distance for now,’ he said, and the look he shot me from under his brows made me wonder how much he knew. ‘But Rome has eyes everywhere. It grieves me to say it, but neither you nor I know who among our brothers might be watching.’

  ‘Spying for the Vatican, you mean?’ I dropped my voice and glanced at the door, as if someone might have his ear pressed to it at that moment.

  ‘The Vatican, the Inquisition, the Spanish, Cardinal Rebiba, Fra Agostino. It hardly matters. There are plenty of people who would like to see San Domenico in the hands of a prior more easily influenced in their favour, and would gladly use your natural disregard for authority as evidence that I allow heresy to flourish unchecked. So – guard yourself more carefully from now on. Popes do not last for ever, but you hav
e used up your one chance with this one, and we can’t always be here to protect you.’

  ‘We?’ I said.

  ‘Me. Porta. Fra Gennaro. It is not only yourself you endanger by your recklessness. I see you look surprised,’ he said, at my expression. ‘Do you really imagine I don’t know what goes on in my convent? You do not know how many times I have stood between you and the Inquisition, Bruno, defending you from the rumours that attach to your name. Two of our brothers killed in the last three years, both from good families, and both times it has been said that you knew more than you were telling about what happened. But I cannot speak up for you again without sacrificing my position not after …’ He shifted his gaze pointedly away from me and allowed the sentence to hang, unfinished. I would probably never find out exactly what he knew of what had passed in Rome; he was well aware that the threat was more effective if he simply implied that I could have no secrets from him. I thought of all the times I had sensed that presence at my back, watching my every move. Had the prior sent someone after me, to make a report? I would not have put it past him. Or was the spy in the pay of one of the others he had mentioned – Rebiba, Agostino, the Pope himself? There was every chance that I had been followed to the Theatre of Marcellus that night, and that Renzo’s corpse would one day surface from that ravine to accuse me. But then, it was equally possible that there was no watcher in the shadows; that he was no more than a ghost conjured by my imagination, and that it was my curse to live with one eye over my shoulder, as all guilty men must.

  ‘You will not have to,’ I said, chastened.

  ‘See that I don’t. Conduct yourself as if your every move is being reported, because for all you know, it is. No unorthodox writings hidden in your cell.’ His gaze travelled almost imperceptibly to the rafters, just long enough to assure me that my hiding place was not as safe as I had believed. ‘No forbidden books. No more late-night meetings in the infirmary with Fra Gennaro. No sneaking out at night by the garden door.’

  ‘Not even to the Cerriglio?’ I asked.

  ‘Bruno, if I thought you were creeping out in search of women and dice, I would positively rejoice. But your transgressions are of a different nature, and endanger us both. You are excused matins tonight – you look as if you need some sleep.’

  ‘Most Reverend Prior, wait,’ I said, lunging at him and grabbing his sleeve as he turned to go. ‘Would you hear my confession?’

  He jerked his arm away as if I had scalded him.

  ‘No.’ He drew himself up to regain his composure. ‘No, I do not think that would serve either of us. Go into the church, confess your sins to God alone and find His forgiveness in your heart. He will hear you.’

  ‘Isn’t that what the Protestants do?’

  He pressed his lips together and raised his eyes as if summoning patience. ‘Sometimes, Fra Giordano, I can only assume God sent you here to test my faith.’

  ‘I will pray that you pass,’ I said, my eyes fixed on the floor.

  ‘Pray that we all pass,’ he muttered. But when I glanced up from under my lashes, it seemed to me that he was trying not to smile.

  I could not sleep. In the dead hours between compline and matins, while the convent was silent, I took myself to the church of San Domenico as the prior had advised, and knelt in front of the altar, the steps still wreathed with festive branches. My breath fogged in the chill air. I raised my eyes to the great crucifix above me, the wooden Christ with his skin white as milk, the gash in His side almost obscene in its gaping redness; but as I looked at Him, all I could see was Renzo’s naked body with its livid wound in the dark of the amphitheatre. It was said that St Thomas Aquinas, when he lived in our convent three hundred years earlier, had heard this painted Christ speak to him; pilgrims came by the dozen to kiss its feet. But if there was any truth in the legend, it seemed He had nothing left to say to me.

  I could not blame Him; I had killed a man, and I did not know how to reconcile this truth with the person I had believed myself to be. I found myself longing to speak not to Christ but to my father. I had seen little of him since I left home at fifteen to join the Dominicans, and the education he had wanted for me had only served to widen the distance between us. If I was honest – and it shamed me to think it – I had often dismissed him: what could he have to teach me, this old mercenary with no Greek or Latin? I had left him behind, and looked for substitute fathers whose learning I could emulate, like Gennaro and Porta. Now, I felt Giovanni Bruno was the only person who could understand what I had done, and give me the absolution I needed.

  In his absence I tried to pray, and the painted Christ looked mutely down with sorrowful eyes. I wondered how the Protestants managed, without confession and penance; how did they know they were forgiven? Was I forgiven? I recalled Renzo’s sword against my throat, and thought how easily I could have bled my life away in the dust of an ancient theatre. I thought of the Pope’s final words, clearly intended to carry: ‘that boy is headed for the pyre’. At that, I felt a sudden rush of anger. Who did he think he was, that jumped-up goatherd in a tiara, to lay bets on my future? He would not write my story. I would return to Rome one day, and prove him wrong.

  I stood and brushed myself down, defiant, tilted my chin at the painted Christ, and recited the Pater Noster backwards, just because I could. He didn’t say a word, as I knew He would not.

  Keep Reading …

  Keep reading for a sneak peek at Execution, Book 6 in S. J. Parris’s No. 1 Sunday Times bestselling series following Giordano Bruno …

  PROLOGUE

  17th July 1586

  Chartley Manor, Staffordshire

  Six gentlemen. Six of them, ready to undertake that tragic execution in her name. She smiles at the euphemism. But then: why not call it that? Elizabeth Tudor is a heretic, a traitor and a thief, occupying a throne she has stolen; dispatching her would be no regicide, but a just and deserved punishment under the law. Not the law of England, to be sure, but God’s law, which is greater.

  Mary sits at the small table in her room, in her prison, thinking, thinking, turning over and over in her mind the pages of the great ledger of injustices heaped against her. Eventually, she dips her quill in the inkpot. She wears gloves with the fingers cut off, because it is always cold here, in Staffordshire; the summer so far has been bleak and grey, or at least what she can see of it from her casement, since she is not permitted to walk outside. She flexes her fingers and hears the knuckles crack; she rubs the sore and swollen joints. A pool of weak light falls on the paper before her; she has havered so long over this reply that the candle has almost burned down, and she only has one left until Paulet, her keeper, brings the new ration in the morning. Sometimes he pretends to forget, just as he does with the firewood, to see how long she will sit in the cold and dark without protesting. And when she does ask meekly for the little that is her due, he uses it against her; charges her with being demanding, spoilt, needy, and says he will tell her cousin. But should a queen plead meekly with the likes of Sir Amias Paulet, that puffed-up Puritan? Should a queen be starved of sunlight, of liberty, of respect, and endure it with patience? Twenty years of imprisonment has not taught her to bear it any better, nor will she ever accept it. The day she bows to their treatment of her, she is no longer worthy of her royal title.

  She sets the quill down; she has worked herself into a fury and her shaking hand has spattered ink drops on the clean page; she will have to begin again, when she is calmer. She pushes back the chair and heaves herself with difficulty to her feet, wincing at the pain in her inflamed legs. Each step to the window hurts more than it did the day before; or perhaps she is imagining that. One imagines so much, cooped up here in these four walls. She smooths her skirts over her broad hips; and there is another injustice, that she should still be fat when she eats so little! She doesn’t trust the food they bring; one day, she is certain, she will eat or drink something and not wake up. That would suit her cousin Elizabeth very well, so she will not give her the satisfaction.
And yet, Mary thinks, curling her lip at her rippled reflection in the dark of the windowpane, she has grown heavy and lumpen on nothing but air, half-crippled by rheumatism, grey and faded, an old woman at forty-four. No trace left of the famous beauty that once drove men to madness. But Elizabeth is ugly too, she has heard; near-bald, teeth blackened, her skin so eaten away by the ceruse she uses to hide her age that she will not be seen by any except her closest women without a full mask of face-paint. There will be no children for her now; at least that is one contest that Mary can say she won, even if she hasn’t seen her son for nearly twenty years.

  She cups her hands around her face to peer out at the night, watching a barn owl ghosting over the moat, when there is a soft knock at the door. She starts, hastens back to the table to hide the papers, but it is only Claude Nau, her French secretary. He bobs a brief bow, takes in her guilty expression.

  ‘You are writing him a reply, Your Majesty?’

  ‘I am considering.’ She draws herself up, haughty. He is going to tell her off, she knows, and she has had enough of men speaking to her as if she is a child. She is Queen of Scotland, Dowager Queen of France, and rightful Queen of England, and they should not forget it.

  ‘I counsel against that.’

  She watches Nau; a handsome man, always quietly spoken, infuriatingly self-contained, even when she works herself into one of her fits of passion.

  ‘I know you do. But I make my own decisions.’

  ‘Majesty.’ He inclines his head. ‘I smell a trap.’

  ‘Oh, you will see conspiracies everywhere. Did you read what he promises, Claude? He has men to do the deed, and earnest assurance of foreign aid, and riders to take me to liberty. Everything is in place.’ She allows herself to imagine it, as she has so many times, crossing back to the window. ‘See, I have an idea’ – she taps the glass, excited – ‘if we know the exact date to expect him, we can have one of the servants start a fire in the stables. Everyone will rush out and in the commotion, Anthony Babington and his friends can break down my chamber door and whisk me away.’ She spins around, a wide, girlish smile on her face that fades the instant she sees his look. ‘What? You do not like my plan?’