The Heretic's Mark

by S. W. Perry

  As the Seminary bell marks midnight, its deep bass voice sending tremors through the Beguinage like spasms through a dying body, only two of the Sisters are still awake, sharing their mattress with two older women who snore contentedly in the darkness. One is Hella Maas. The other is a plump raven-haired girl, a year or two younger.

  ‘Madonna Antonella asked me where you go each day,’ Sister Carlotta says, her voice breathless with excitement. In the Beguinage, Madonna Antonella represents authority and, like young women everywhere, Sister Carlotta enjoys the thrill of defying it, even though she does so only in the smallest of measures. ‘I told her that you go to the Basilica of St Anthony, to be nearer to God. But I know that’s not it. I saw you yesterday in the Borgo dei Vignali, going into a house.’

  ‘Have you been spying on me, little Carlotta?’ Hella asks.

  ‘No! I was taking a message from Madonna Antonella to Father Giuseppe at St Angelo’s. I happened to see you, that’s all.’ A thought occurs to Carlotta, sending a tremor of vicarious pleasure through her body. ‘Are you seeing a man, Hella? Tell me! I promise I will keep your secret.’

  It has taken Hella some time to bend little Sister Carlotta to her will. She has done so carefully, so as not to raise her suspicions. She has played on Carlotta’s gullibility, and her desperate need for a companion who can make her days a little more exciting. It could prove useful, Hella thinks, to have a tame creature to do my bidding, run my errands, lie for me.

  ‘We’re not living in a nunnery, or a prison, sweet little Carlotta,’ she says enigmatically, watching the tallow candle flicker weakly in the corner of the dormitory, set there that the older Sisters might find the night-soil pot without kicking its contents over the floor. ‘Don’t you want to know what it’s like?’

  Carlotta almost squeals. ‘I don’t believe you. How can you be truly pious and yet give yourself in lust?’

  ‘What do you think the priests and bishops do? What do you think the Pope does?’

  Another slack-mouthed gasp of excited horror. ‘You cannot say such things! It is blasphemy! You’ll be damned to the everlasting fires.’

  Hella tries to stop herself smiling. Captured, she thinks. She arches her back in readiness for sleep, stares at the darkened ceiling and imagines a great golden sphere of planets and stars turning inexorably through the years towards the end of days. ‘Oh, sweet Carlotta,’ she whispers knowingly, ‘have no fear on my account. I won’t be the only one.’

  In the storehouse by the river, old Bondoni the goldsmith watches anxiously while the Corio brothers hammer a series of cog-wheels onto an iron spindle the length of a man’s arm. In his hand is a gleaming brass ring from which extend a series of wires, each with a small gilded ball on the end. From each ball flows a fiery wavy tail of beaten copper. In the corner, a Corio assistant is pumping the bellows of a forge, sending showers of sparks dancing through the dusty air.

  ‘If my cometary ecliptic fits first time anything the Corios have made, I’ll forsake wine and women and take up holy orders,’ Bondoni says with a wink to Nicholas and Bianca. ‘I wouldn’t trust them to make me a fork with the tines all pointing the same way. ’ He gives the ring a final polish against one yellow-hosed thigh, his lank white hair falling over his brow as he rubs.

  Bianca recalls the goldsmith’s fearsome mistress and six children, and wonders if secretly Bondoni might be deliberately holding himself hostage to fortune.

  ‘We’ve brought the next set of drawings, for the equatorial ring,’ Nicholas says, setting down three rolls of parchment on the workbench. ‘Signor Barrani received them this morning, from Signor Galileo.’

  ‘I don’t suppose he mentioned a payment – for my last work?’ Bondoni says, rolling out the drawings.

  ‘No, I’m afraid he didn’t.’

  To Bianca, the diagrams look bewildering, with their lines of axis and fan-like graticules, tangents, arcs, Roman numerals and strange equations. She suspects they’re even more meaningless to her cousin Bruno. She has the sneaking feeling that he only insists on signing them off so that his name appears on them, establishing for posterity that from the start this was always the Barrani Sphere.

  ‘I must say, young Matteo’s work is splendid. Very precise,’ Bondoni continues. ‘It’s come along no end. Of course that’s probably down to Signor Galileo’s teaching.’ He gives Nicholas a knowing, men-of-the-world-together look. ‘But it’s the maid who’s cured him of his laziness. I wonder why that might be.’

  Feeling Bianca stiffen at his side, Nicholas takes his leave. As they walk back towards Bruno’s house, she says, ‘So you weren’t the only one to be taken in by Hella Maas.’

  ‘What do you imply by that?’

  She puts on a derisive sing-song voice, parodying Bondoni. ‘I must say, young Matteo’s work is splendid… very precise… I wonder why that might be.’

  ‘You really must put Hella out of your mind,’ Nicholas says, as kindly as he can manage. ‘It’s not healthy for you to hold this animosity against her. Forget about her. I have.’

  Bianca casts him a hard look. Her amber eyes gleam with an intensity that unsettles him. He can see anger brimming there, and exasperation.

  ‘You… Bruno… Galileo… Matteo Fedele – you’ve all fallen under her spell like children at the Bartholomew Fair,’ she says. ‘Yet not one of you has bothered to ask yourself the obvious question.’

  ‘And what question would that be?’

  Hands on hips, Bianca turns to face her husband.

  ‘Have any of you stopped for a moment to wonder why someone who preaches that seeking knowledge is akin to inviting the Devil into your house should be helping my cousin build a sphere that can see into the future?’

  33

  In the closing days of September the weather breaks. Grey clouds drift down from the mountains to the north. At night, it is easier to sleep. For Nicholas and Bianca, this does not, however, lead to an increase in ardour. A distance has opened up between them.

  By day, Bianca has taken to making solitary visits to the places of her childhood: the old lodgings where her mother and father lived, the little church where they are buried and where old Father Rossi – eighty if a day – still tends the graves. She walks the lanes through which, as children, she and Bruno would carry secret letters for Cardinal Fiorzi, the perfect messengers for a cardinal enmeshed in political conspiracies they themselves were too young to understand.

  For his part, Nicholas attends the Palazzo Bo, to hear lectures by Professor Fabrici. His friendship with Galileo is burgeoning. Aware that his visits to the house in the Borgo dei Vignali are a source of tension between him and Bianca, he tries to time them for when Hella Maas is not there.

  One evening the physician and the mathematician share a jug of wine together at a tavern called The Fig, close to the part of the university where Professor Fabrici is building his anatomical theatre. Nicholas takes a deep breath and asks after Hella Maas.

  Galileo raises one bushy eyebrow, wipes the wine from his lips with the back of a hand and says, ‘Why do you ask? You already have the handsomest wife in Padua. You can’t have tired of her already.’

  ‘Of course not. I’m a physician. I’m concerned for the maid, nothing more.’

  ‘You think she is ill?’

  Nicholas shrugs. ‘Perhaps not in the body. But in the soul—’

  Galileo turns the wine jug in a circle, as though inspecting it for faults. ‘Well, I must confess she is a little – how shall I describe it? – fervent.’

  Nicholas takes a thoughtful sip of wine. The hubbub of the tavern washes over him while he considers his words.

  ‘I think some ill has passed between Hella and my wife, during their time together on the Via Francigena – something to which Bianca refuses to make me privy.’

  ‘Have you no idea what it could be?’

  ‘Hella seems convinced that the end of days is very close. I think all her talk of judgement has brought a heavy melancholy down upon B
ianca.’

  Galileo lets out a sharp, contemptuous laugh. ‘There are plenty of people who believe that, Niccolò. The churches are full of them, in front of and behind the altar. Every time there’s a storm or a bad harvest, or a comet appears in the sky, down they go on their knees. The Church makes a fortune out of it. When it actually happens, the Pope will have to go back to being an honest man.’

  Smiling, Nicholas says, ‘All I know is that this young woman has suffered a great tribulation in her life and been witness to great violence. And something happened on the journey here, something between her and Bianca.’

  ‘I can solve complex mathematical questions, Niccolò; but marriage problems—’ He feigns a look of bewilderment. ‘My brother-in-law demands I pay him more for my sister’s dowry… my sister calls me a wastrel and a drunkard… If you’d come to me earlier, I’d have advised you to avoid the condition of marriage entirely.’

  ‘I believe I must speak directly to Hella,’ Nicholas says. ‘I must confront her – find out what has passed between her and my wife. I’ll not learn it from Bianca; she can barely bring herself to speak of the maid.’

  ‘Then we shall agree a day and a time,’ the mathematician says, draining his cup. ‘I’ll give you an hour. I’ll contrive to send Matteo on an errand, if I can rouse his lazy arse. As for me, I shall retire to my chamber and make eyes at the signorina who sits in her window opposite, watching what goes on in the street all day. Like Signor Purse’s sphere, she is a work in progress.’

  ‘Rejoice at the wonderful news,’ Bruno says when Nicholas returns to the Borgo dei Argentieri. For a moment he thinks Bruno is speaking of his cousin’s pregnancy. But he is not.

  ‘His excellency, the Podestà, has agreed to allow the Arte dei Astronomi to march with all the other city guilds in the great parade on the Feast of the Holy Rosary.’

  ‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ says Nicholas, contriving an unconvincing interest.

  Bruno explains, barely able to contain his excitement. His little frame almost quivers like a spaniel catching sight of a partridge. ‘Every first Sunday in October we celebrate the victory of the Venetian fleet over the Turk. There is a grand procession, ending with the blessing of the guilds’ banners at the Basilica of St Anthony. We are recognized at last! I will have to buy a decent cloak. And I insist on finding Cousin Bianca a pretty new gown to wear.’

  ‘That is generous of you, Bruno, but I will pay.’

  ‘No! I insist. It will be a gift from me to her, to celebrate all our good fortune: your presence here, her pregnancy, my success…’

  Nicholas concedes graciously. When he goes in search of Bianca, to tell her of her cousin’s gracious offer, he finds her in the courtyard, writing a letter. It’s to Rose and Ned, she says – asking after the Jackdaw’s resurrection, telling them she will not be returning to England for some time. They are to open the tavern as soon as it is ready and run it without her. He considers asking her if she’s told them of her pregnancy, but he has second thoughts. He thinks he already knows the answer.

  October slinks in like a starving wolf, wet and miserable, yet still able to bite. In the narrow lanes of Bankside yesterday’s rain has filled the open sewers with a scummy, stinking brown soup. A brisk wind flails the trees in the Pike Garden, blowing the dying leaves into sodden piles around the white plaster walls of the Rose theatre. It has rained for most of September. This, in conspiracy with the violent storms of spring, has pushed the price of wheat to almost eight shillings a bushel. Money is scarce. Rose Monkton is beginning to fear that when the Jackdaw does reopen, few in Southwark will have much above a farthing left over to spend in it. On top of everything else, the cost of keeping Ned in even a small measure of comfort at the Marshalsea is eating into the purse that Mistress Bianca entrusted to her for the rebuilding. Only yesterday Jenny Solver asked her if she’d lost weight. Rose just smiled. She hadn’t the courage to confess that she hasn’t slept soundly since the constable came and took her husband away.

  Shortly after breakfast a liveried servant brings a message from John Lumley. He wants to meet her at the public fountain at the top of Fish Street Hill, on the north side of the Bridge. Noontime, if that is not inconvenient.

  Wrapping herself in her thick winter cloak, Rose hurries across the river. She knows she will arrive ridiculously early, but thinks it better to fret there in the open air than alone in the Paris Garden lodgings.

  She waits for more than an hour and a half, the minutes dragging by, not one of them bringing her the slightest ease. By the time she sees the tall figure in the dark cloak and the neatly starched ruff making his way towards her from Grass Street, a black cap with a jaunty peacock’s feather in it upon his head, Rose’s eyes are red from the constant rubbing of the kerchief that is now wedged, cold and wet, between her forearm and the fabric of her kirtle, as if something unpleasant from the river has crawled up her sleeve.

  ‘Forgive me if I am a little late, Mistress Rose,’ Lumley says. ‘My endowment of the chair of anatomy at the College of Physicians requires me to attend the occasional formal function. They tend to be tedious and last longer than I would prefer.’

  Knowing there cannot be many other nobles in the land who would bother themselves for an instant with the problems of a former servant, Rose makes what she hopes will be a dignified curtsey. Her right foot slips on the cobbles and she ends up at a tilt on one knee, one hand around Lumley’s shin to stop herself from tumbling. Calmly he reaches down and lifts her to her feet.

  ‘Are you hurt, Rose?’

  ‘No, my lord. Well, yes, my lord, but in my heart, not my ankle.’

  A troubled look floods his old grey eyes. ‘I fear I have not made the progress I had wished. You must be brave,’ he says gravely, like a priest attending a deathbed.

  Rose feels as though she has just stepped off a cliff. She is tumbling, spinning to destruction, yet the buildings around the fountain remain fixed and constant in her sight. Her eyes well with tears again.

  ‘Do not give way to despair, Rose,’ Lumley says. ‘There is, perhaps, still hope. Come with me, and I will explain.’

  The tavern he takes her to is on the east side of Fish Street Hill, at the corner of Little Eastcheap. It is a place Rose could never afford to drink in. The taproom boys are all smartly dressed, the customers languid and oddly silent. One or two glance her way with looks of disapproval. At any other time than this, she would probably stick her tongue out at them for their presumption that she is the old gentleman’s whore.

  Lumley sits her down in an alcove and calls for two glasses of sack. Rose drinks with an unsteady hand.

  ‘Firstly, Rose,’ he begins, ‘we may give thanks that the Privy Council moves exceeding slow. It has not yet considered the magistrate’s suggestion that Ned be investigated for having sympathy with Dr Lopez’s alleged crime. They haven’t racked him yet, thank God.’

  Rose emits a heavy sigh of relief. Lumley raises a hand to forestall any undue optimism.

  ‘I have appealed to Chief Justice Popham and Attorney General Coke to reconsider the verdict. I told them I believe your husband is innocent of manslaughter and acted merely in self-defence. I even offered to purchase an acquittal. I fear they refused. I think they did so in order to spite me. They cannot bear the thought that Her Grace the queen can favour an old papist like me. They were adamant. Ned must go to his death – by hanging, at Tyburn.’ He tries to calm another burst of noisy weeping by laying one hand gently on Rose’s arm. ‘Hush, child. I have more to tell you.’

  Lumley takes a silk kerchief from his gown and dabs at her eyes. ‘I then sought an audience with Her Majesty,’ he continues. ‘She has read the letter of retraction that Vaesy wrote. She is confirmed in her belief that Dr Shelby is innocent of the charge made against him. But she has refused to pardon Ned.’

  Rose’s face crumples with injured indignation. ‘But… but… ’e’s innocent too! Why will she not show us mercy?’

  ‘She fears that if a
person of Ned’s humble station is excused the violent death of a knight of the realm, then any man of the lowest order might think it but a small matter to kill a duke – or a queen.’

  ‘Then my man is going to ’ang?’ Rose says in a small voice.

  Lumley’s long grey face contorts in pity. He takes her hands in his, feels them tremble as though he were grasping a little animal that he might crush in error without even realizing. He says gently, ‘They haven’t sentenced him yet, so there could be a way to save him. It is not certain, and it will take luck and not a little skill – on all our parts. And it must be instigated quickly, before the sentence is formally given.’

  ‘What way?’ Rose mumbles miserably.

  ‘Ned must claim Benefit of Clergy.’

  The sound that comes out of Rose’s mouth is a strangled mix of disbelief and desperation, as though Lumley has just suggested her husband sprout wings and fly away to safety.

  ‘Ned – plead the ’Oly Book?’ she gasps.

  ‘It is the only way. If he claims Benefit of Clergy, he will be exempt from temporal law. It will then fall upon the ecclesiastical courts to define the sentence. But it must be done between the verdict and the sentence. So I have taken the liberty of entering the plea for him. Thank God the magistrate did not pass an immediate judgement or he would already be dead.’

  ‘But no one could confuse Ned for a priest – no one!’

  Lumley offers her a gentle smile of hope. ‘I know a chaplain who served my late father-in-law, the Earl of Arundel. He owes me a rather large favour. He has agreed to hear Ned’s submission. If all goes well, a branding is the customary sentence for a first crime, so long as it is less than treason. A severe hurt, I know, but a lot better than the alternative.’