Giordano Bruno Thriller Series Books 1-3: Heresy, Prophecy, Sacrilege. S. J. Parris
companions from the Catherine Wheel had had a dark beard, but I had not observed them closely and they had been sitting with their backs to me. Why would I have been followed from the tavern, I wondered, unless it was because my presence there alone had aroused their suspicions, or because I had made it so obvious that I was in turn eager to follow the earless man?
I made my way back down Catte Street towards the city wall, my thoughts spinning. Who was that earless man, who had associates among the tavern low-lifes and the doctors of Lincoln College? If he was Jenkes the bookbinder himself, that might explain his connection with the academics, but it was curious that Bernard should choose a Sunday to do business with a stationer; indeed, the old doctor had looked very much as if he hoped not to be seen. Were I to seek the most obvious explanation, I might reason that if the Catherine Wheel was a known meeting place for recusants, and since Bernard was a sympathiser with the old faith, and the one man who linked the two dealt in books, was it not highly likely that I had stumbled upon some connection to the city’s underground trade in banned books, of which Walsingham had spoken with such fury? Except that I had not stumbled upon it, I reflected; someone had deliberately and cryptically pointed me to this discovery, someone who had also made sure I linked it with Roger Mercer’s death, and I must find out the source of this information, and what he feared from making himself known.
I walked back past the Divinity School and turned left into St Mildred’s Lane; the gatehouse tower of Lincoln College loomed up on my left, squat and pale against the sky. As I passed through the main gate and under the tower arch, I heard a knocking on the window of the porter’s lodge and looked around to see Cobbett waving for me to come in.
‘Feller come looking for you just now, Doctor Bruno,’ he said, wheezing furiously, as if he had been the one carrying the urgent message. ‘Servant from Christ Church, wanted to know if you’re going hunting at Shotover this afternoon.’
I cursed quietly; in all the excitement of my discovery of the Catherine Wheel, I had completely forgotten my promise to Sidney and my intention of excusing myself in person. At least now, with any luck, I would be too late to join them.
‘I can’t,’ I said, half to myself. ‘I suppose I had better go and leave a message for my friend.’
‘No,’ said Cobbett, sympathetically. ‘I didn’t think you looked the hunting sort. Bit short for a longbow, if you don’t mind my saying.’
I only nodded and turned to leave. Then I suddenly remembered Sidney’s advice about the college porters and their storehouse of information, and the bottle of ale we had bought to encourage Cobbett to talk freely, which was still sitting in my room.
‘Would you like a drink, Cobbett?’ I asked.
‘Why, it’s almost as if you read my own thoughts, Doctor Bruno.’ He flashed his knowing, gummy grin. ‘I was just thinking I’m parched near to the death. Almost witchcraft, that is.’
‘No witchcraft, I assure you. I know a thirsty man when I see one. Wait for me here a moment,’ I said, smiling, and he sat back heavily on his chair.
‘Oh, I won’t go nowhere, don’t you worry. Might even see if I have a clean cup. Not used to guests, are we, Bess?’ he said, gently scratching the old dog behind her ears. She made a small gurgling noise from the back of her throat.
When I returned with the bottle, Cobbett pulled out the stopper eagerly and poured a generous amount into two wooden cups placed on his table for the occasion. I tried not to look too closely at the state of the cup he passed me, his round face creased into a smile of satisfaction as he indicated to me to pull up a low stool tucked into the corner of his small room.
‘Good ale and good company,’ he said, when he had taken a long draught from his cup and swilled it around his mouth before swallowing noisily. ‘Now then. I sense you have a question. I can read minds too, you know.’ He winked.
With Cobbett, I had decided, my best course would be to match his frankness; he would see straight through any pretence.
‘Have you ever come across a bookbinder in Catte Street by the name of Jenkes?’ I asked.
Cobbett threw back his head and launched into one of those fits of guffaws that made me fear for his health. When he had recovered from the wheezing he turned an incredulous look on me and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
‘Holy God and all his saints, Doctor Bruno, what have we done to you?’ He shook his head, still laughing. ‘You arrive in Oxford in the company of the highest men in the land, and in a matter of days you’re consorting with the most notorious rogue in the city! Stay well away from Rowland Jenkes, that’s all I have to tell you.’
‘How, notorious? A mere bookbinder?’
‘Not a mere anything, Rowland Jenkes. A papist and a sorcerer.’
‘Really?’ My interest was piqued now; Cobbett knew an eager audience when he saw one.
‘Have you never heard of the Black Assize?’ he said, adopting a portentous tone.
I shook my head.
Cobbett leaned forward with all the relish of a grandfather preparing a tale to frighten small children.
‘Well, now,’ he said, and a frustrating extended pause followed while he drained his cup and generously poured himself another. ‘Six years ago, summer of 1577 it was, and cursedly hot, Rowland Jenkes was arrested for sedition and imprisoned in Oxford castle, where they keep prisoners until the local Assizes are held.’
‘What manner of sedition?’
‘I’m coming to that, hold your horses,’ Cobbett grumbled. ‘Well, on this occasion he’d been found to be distributing seditious books, you know – papist books, ones they don’t allow to be printed here. Shipping them in illegally from France and the Low Countries – they say he has some Flemish blood, but that might just be gossip and I never pay any mind to gossip.’
‘No,’ I said, nodding sincerely.
‘No. Well, he was arrested for the books and some witnesses popped up to say they’d heard him speak treasonable words against the queen. But it was during his trial the terrible business happened. He was brought to the Shire Hall, just outside the prison wall, with all the other prisoners to be tried before the Lord High Sheriff and the Lord Chief Baron. Naturally, he was found guilty and just at the moment his sentence was pronounced, the courtroom was filled by the most foul stench you could imagine, such that everyone in the room thought as how they might choke or faint with it.’
He paused again for refreshment, and I found myself jigging impatiently on the edge of my stool.
‘And then?’
‘Well, now, you will hardly credit this but I know folk who saw it with their own eyes, Doctor Bruno,’ Cobbett whispered, his own eyes growing wide with the momentum of his story. ‘Every man on that jury died within a few days. Not only them, but every man jack in that courtroom, all of them, stone dead before a week was out. The sheriff, the baron, the sarjeants – all of them. Three hundred men died in Oxford over the course of a month. Then it was all over as quick as it come. But, here’s the thing …’ He leaned in even closer, so that his chin was almost in his beer. ‘Not a one of the prisoners who was in the Assize that day died, nor any woman nor child. Now, you can’t tell me that was any natural plague.’
‘A curse, then?’
‘The curse of Rowland Jenkes,’ Cobbett said reverently. ‘While he was locked up, awaiting the Assize, he was permitted to walk out with a keeper, you understand. Well, the story goes Jenkes visited an apothecary with a list of ingredients. The apothecary noted they were all mightily poisonous, and asked why he had need of them – Jenkes replied it was on account of the rats gnawing at his books in the shop while he was incarcerated, see? Anyhow, he procured these ingredients and it’s thought he made a wick covered in this filthy potion, and fired it up the moment he was condemned.’
‘Where would a condemned prisoner hide a tinderbox and flint about his