by S. J. Parris
“Well, the man in there must have got in somehow,” I said, frantically, as a throttled voice unmistakably cried, “Jesu, save me! Holy Mother, save me!” Another scream rent the air, followed by mangled cries for help, then a ferocious growling and a truly inhuman sound, a strangled gurgling that seemed to last for minutes. A small crowd of curious and agitated undergraduates was forming behind us, when I heard the rector’s voice crying, “Let me through, I say!”
His face was puffy and bleary with sleep, a coat thrown over his nightgown, and he carried in his hand a bunch of keys. He started when he saw me.
“Oh, Doctor Bruno—what is this ungodly disturbance? Who is within—can you see anything? I tried to look from my windows, but the mist and the trees hide all else from sight.”
“I can see nothing, but it seems that a wild animal is savaging someone in the garden. He must be helped, and quickly!”
The rector stared at me as if I had just told him a herd of cows had flown over the college, then he collected himself and stepped toward the gate with his keys. But just as suddenly he stopped and turned back to me, his face tight with fear. The terrible snarling and barking continued within, but the human sounds had trailed off. I feared the worst.
“But—but then it would be folly to enter without a weapon if a wild dog is on the loose!” the rector stammered. “It must be killed—someone must fetch the constable or a serjeant-at-arms, who can bring a crossbow. One of you—quickly!” he snapped at the crowd of half-dressed boys who stood at the end of the passageway, staring, openmouthed. “Go for the constable—immediately!” They looked at one another before a couple of them ran out to the courtyard.
“Could we not find a stick or a poker, anything? We must go in, Rector—I fear we may already be too late for the poor wretch trapped in there,” I said, urgently holding out a hand for the keys.
The rector looked around in panic. “But—how could there be a dog in the garden?” he asked, as if to himself, his brows knit in perplexity.
“Is it not a watchdog, to keep out intruders?” I asked, now puzzled myself. “Could it not be some thief who has scaled the wall, perhaps?”
“But there is no watchdog,” the rector said, his voice tight with panic. “The porter has a dog, but it is an old, blind creature that has only the use of three legs, and it sleeps in his lodge by the main gate. No one else in college is permitted to keep an animal.” He shook his head, unable to make sense of the evidence of his own ears; the beast in the garden went on making its hellish noise.
“Step aside there,” said a calm voice behind us, and the gaggle of students crowded in the passageway parted to reveal a tall young man with shoulder-length fair hair, dressed incongruously in a fine doublet and breeches, black silk slashed to show a rich crimson lining and topped with an elaborate ruff, looking for all the world as if he were off to a dance or a playhouse in London, not hastily risen like the rest of us in all the confusion. In one hand he carried an English longbow, of the kind the nobility use for the hunt, taller than himself and ornately carved with gilded inlays and green-and-scarlet tracery. In the other he held a leather quiver of arrows decorated with the same design of curlicued vines and gilt leaves.
“Gabriel Norris!” exclaimed the rector, staring at the longbow. “What is this—?”
“You must open the gate, Rector Underhill,” commanded the young man, “there is no time to lose, a man’s life is in danger.”
He spoke in measured tones, despite the urgency of the situation, as if he and not the rector held the authority here. Half dazed, the rector unlocked the gate and the young man stepped through, fitting an arrow to his bow as he did so. I followed him hesitantly, and the rector followed me, keeping close to the wall.
The mist hung heavily between the twisted trunks of the apple trees, playing tricks on my eyes with its shifting shapes. Stepping cautiously through the blue shadows, I glimpsed suddenly in the farthest northeast corner the movement of a large, long-legged dog—by its shape a wolfhound of sorts, I thought, though I could not see clearly. I kept close to the wall as this Gabriel, conspicuous in his gaudy clothes, advanced in steady paces toward the animal, which was still growling and shaking between its teeth a limp black object at its feet. As I moved closer, the mist thinned and I was able to see the animal clearly; its jaws were bloody and daubed with shreds of torn flesh. My heart sank then and my stomach convulsed, for I knew we were too late. The young man paused a few paces away; the dog, catching a scent or a sound, paused in the mauling of its prey and raised its head. For the briefest moment, its snarling ceased and it made a movement toward the young man; as it did so, he let the arrow fly. He was a good shot, despite the thick air, and the animal crumpled to the ground as the arrowhead tore through its neck.
As soon as it fell, Gabriel dropped his bow and we both rushed to the black heap that lay up against the wall, beside the animal’s corpse. It was the body of a man, lying facedown, his black academic gown spread out around him, the grass all torn and soaked with a quantity of blood around the body. I helped Gabriel roll the man over, and cried out suddenly in shock. Here was Roger Mercer, his head bent at a hideous angle, eyes staring to the sky, his throat quite torn out—a flap of flesh hung open, raw tissue protruding from the wound. Instinctively I reached out to staunch the blood that still seeped down his neck and breast, but it was too late—the eyes were motionless, fixed forever in a stare of terror. Gabriel Norris jumped back from the bloody corpse, checking anxiously to see that he had got no gore on his clothes, as if this were his only concern. “Preening little peacock,” I thought in disgust—then remembered where I had heard his name before. Mercer had referred to him the night before in exactly the same terms. I crouched in disbelief by the body, taking in the ravaged hands—two of the fingers near bitten off where he had tried to fight the animal away—the chunks of flesh torn from the legs and ankles where it had dragged him to the ground, that horrifically mauled gullet.
The rector came cautiously toward us, a handkerchief clutched over his mouth.
“Is he—?”
“We came too late, God have mercy on his soul,” I said, more from custom than piety. The rector moved close enough to identify the mutilated body of the man who had sat at his right hand only the night before at dinner, and was immediately sick. The young man called Gabriel seemed to have recovered himself, and was probing the corpse of the dog with his toe.
“A giant of a beast,” he said, with a note almost of pride, as if he were displaying it as a hunting trophy. Peering more closely, it struck me: hunting was the apt image.
“This is a hunting dog,” I said, kneeling beside it. “And look, here.” I pointed to where its ribs protruded painfully under its wiry grey pelt. “See how thin it is—it looks as if it was starving. And look at its leg.” A ring of raw flesh ran around the top of the dog’s left hind leg where the skin had been brutally chafed by a tether of some kind. The fur near the wound was patchy and torn, as if the dog had tried repeatedly to tear off its fetter with its own teeth. “It has been chained up, I think—you see? No wonder it went so crazed.”
“What was it doing in the garden, though?” the young man asked, looking at me expectantly. “And why was Doctor Mercer here with a dog?”
“Perhaps he was walking his dog and it suddenly turned on him—dogs are sometimes unpredictable,” I suggested, unpersuaded by my own hypothesis.
“But Roger didn’t have a dog,” the rector said in a weak voice, wiping his mouth with his handkerchief. “I told you—no one in the college save the porter is allowed to keep an animal. No—no, gentlemen, there is nothing to see here!” he cried suddenly, as the scholars crowded through the narrow gate into the garden, intent on seeing the spectacle. “Back to your rooms, all of you! Chapel at six as normal—back to your rooms and make yourselves ready, I say!”
The students reluctantly turned and shuffled back through the gate, casting glances over their shoulders and murmuring among themselves in anima
ted tones. The rector turned then to the young man, who stood contemplating the corpses, the quiver still dangling from his shoulder. An expression of disbelief spread over the rector’s face, as if he were only now seeing the young man clearly for the first time.
“Gabriel Norris!” he exploded, flapping a hand frantically. “What in God’s name are you wearing?”
Norris looked down at his flamboyant doublet and hose, then shifted his feet as if embarrassed.
“I think now is not the time, Rector Underhill,” he began, but the rector cut him off.
“You know perfectly well the Earl of Leicester’s edict about the rules of dress for undergraduates! And I am charged with enforcing it—would you have us both disciplined by the Chancellor’s Court, after all that has happened?” His face had turned the shade of beetroot, his voice strangulated; I could not help but think that this was an overreaction, in the circumstances. “No ruffs, no silks, no velvets, no cuts in doublet or hose!” he continued, his pitch rising with every item. “And no weapons! You deliberately flout every rule laid down regarding apparel! This is a community of scholars, Master Norris, not some ball at court for you to flaunt your wealth!”
The young man pursed his lips and looked surly. Even in this attitude of petulance, I saw that he was exceptionally handsome and was clearly used to having his own way.
“This community of scholars could not do without my wealth, as you well know, Rector. And you overcharge us as it is—I am forced to eat like a pauper here, must I also dress like one?”
The rector, chastened, lowered his voice. “You must dress as the Earl of Leicester deems fitting for an Oxford man,” he said. “Now please make haste and change—if you are reported we will both be in trouble and how shall I explain—?” He broke off there, looking around him helplessly at the two bodies, and I saw that his hands were shaking badly; I suspected he was in shock.
Gabriel Norris looked at me for a moment, as if reluctant to leave the scene of his heroism, then perhaps thought better of it and with some haste picked up his bow and turned to go.
“Master Norris!” the rector called after him.
The young man turned defiantly. “Yes, Rector?”
“A longbow? Why in the Lord’s name do you even have a bow and arrows in college?”
Norris shrugged. “My father left it to me. It is a keepsake. Besides, hunting for sport is permitted to those commoners who have a licence.”
“It is not permitted to keep a longbow in college rooms,” the rector said, weakly.
“If I had not had it in college, you would have had to wrestle that dog with your bare hands, Rector,” Norris replied drily. “But I do not expect you to thank me.”
“Nevertheless, Master Norris, I insist that you take it to the strong room in the tower where it can be held for safekeeping. Ask Master Slythurst or Doctor Coverdale to lock it away for you. Today, please!” he added, as Norris disappeared through the open gate.
The rector took a deep breath and then his legs seemed to buckle under him; I offered my arm and he leaned on me gratefully.
“Rector Underhill,” I said gently, indicating Roger’s body, “a man has died in a horrific accident, and we must try to understand how this could have come to pass. If indeed it is an accident,” I added, for the circumstances troubled me the more I looked for an explanation.
The rector stumbled then, and almost fell against me, his face blanched.
“Dear God, you are right, Bruno. The reports will spread like wildfire among the students. But how can it be explained? Unless—” There was terror in his face and I felt sorry for him; his calm, ordered little kingdom had been upended in a few minutes.
“Well, let us look for the most likely causes first,” I said. “If there are no dogs in the college save the porter’s old hound, this one must have found its way in from the outside, most likely through this gate.”
“Yes—yes, that’s it, some feral stray, found its way in through the gate.” The rector grasped at the suggestion gratefully.
Mercer had fallen and been savaged only yards from the wooden gate into the lane behind the college, but when I went to try the handle, it was locked fast. The rector stood as if transfixed by the bodies of the hunter and his prey. On the back wall nearby I noticed a scrap of black material spiked on the edge of a brick; below this spot the grass was churned to mud with boot and paw prints, and splashed liberally with Mercer’s blood.
“It looks as if he tried to scale the wall, poor man,” I said, half to myself. “That would account for the mauling of his legs. But it is twice the height of a man—why did he not simply run toward the gate to escape? Unless the dog was between him and the gate, meaning it must have come in from outside. But then how is the gate locked?”
I glanced at the rector, who remained immobile, then I hurried to try the second gate into the college, from the passage that ran between the hall and the kitchens. This too was locked. How, then, I puzzled, had the dog entered the garden? And how, for that matter, had Roger Mercer?
I walked back to where the bodies lay.
“Is it possible,” I ventured, as the reality of what I had seen began to solidify in my mind, “that someone could have let the dog in deliberately?” The rector turned to look at me incredulously. “As a prank, you mean?”
“Hardly a prank. Whoever unleashed a half-starved hunting dog must have known it could kill.” I knelt down by Roger’s mauled body and patted the pockets.
“Doctor Bruno!” the rector exclaimed. “What are you about? The poor man is still warm, if you please.”
Roger Mercer had been fully dressed, despite the early hour; in one of the pockets sewn into his breeches I found what I had been looking for.
“Here,” I said, holding up two iron keys attached to a single ring, one much larger than the other. “Is one of these a key to the garden?”
The rector took the ring from my hand and examined the keys against the light.
“Yes, the larger would open any of the three gates.”
“Then either he let himself in and locked the gate behind him, or someone locked the gate through which he entered once he was inside,” I reasoned. “Either way, he was trapped in there with a savage dog.”
“But we still don’t know how the dog got in,” the rector said, uncomprehending.
“Well, we know it didn’t jump the wall, and it didn’t let itself in and lock the gate after it.” I looked him directly in the eye as I spoke, waiting for understanding to take effect.
The rector clutched my arm, his face twisted with panic; I could smell the bile on his breath.
“What are you saying, Bruno? That someone let that dog in and then closed every means of escape?”
“I can’t see another explanation,” I said, looking again at the dog’s fearsome teeth, through which its limp tongue now lolled, spittle hanging in tendrils from its jaws. Norris’s arrow still stuck upright from its gullet. “Someone who knew Doctor Mercer would come here at this hour. But surely he never suspected any harm would come to him, or else he would have armed himself.”
Then I remembered Mercer’s strange remark the previous night, about how we might all live differently if we saw death approaching. I had dismissed it, but had he been revealing that he feared for his life? Unhappy coincidence only, I guessed; besides, he had spoken confidently of attending the disputation and of conversing with me later. I felt a sudden awful sorrow; though I hardly knew the man, he had seemed warm and genuine, and I had stood by only minutes ago and listened to him die. To think that he might have been saved if I had acted quicker, if someone had had a key, if Norris had arrived sooner with his bow. One moment of indecision decides a man’s fate, I thought, and realised that I too was trembling.
“Was it perhaps his regular practice to walk in the garden so early?” I asked. “I mean, could someone have known to expect him here?”
“The Fellows often like to read in the quiet of the grove,” the rector said. “Though not
usually at this hour, I grant you—it is too dark. The undergraduates rise at half past five to make themselves ready before chapel at six—morning service is compulsory. There is rarely a soul abroad in the college any earlier, not even the kitchen servants. I confess I have never walked in the garden at such an hour, so I could not say if any of my colleagues had the habit of doing so.”
I bent again to Mercer’s body, separating the bloodied and torn clothes to see if anything on his person might explain his presence in the grove so early, when I remembered how he had joked about the garden being popular for trysts. Had he been expecting someone who never came, or who came and brought death with them? He carried no book, but a bulge inside his doublet suggested a hidden pocket; reaching in, I withdrew a fat leather purse which jingled with coins.
“If his purpose was a quiet, contemplative walk before sunrise, surely he would not have needed to bring this,” I said, untying the purse and showing the rector its contents. The English coins meant nothing to me, though there were clearly a lot of them, but the rector’s eyeballs bulged at the sight.
“Good God, there is at least ten pounds here!” he exclaimed. “Why would he carry such a sum?”
“Perhaps he expected to meet someone to whom he owed money.”
“And knowing he would be here, they set a dog on him!” he exclaimed, his eyes wide. “Revenge for a bad debt, that must be it.”
I shook my head. “Then why is the money still in his pocket? If someone had wished to harm him, perhaps for failure to pay a debt, surely they would have made certain to take the money first.”
“But who could ever have meant to harm Roger?” asked the rector in despair.
“I could not say. But a wild dog does not get into an enclosed garden through locked gates by accident.” I brushed down my clothes, realising that they were stained with Mercer’s blood. “I suppose now that this terrible thing has happened, Rector, you will want to cancel the disputation this evening?”