conversation, and gabbled brightly about his brothers and sisters who worked on the family farm not far from the border with Navarre. The spy said little, listening with one ear while observing the other priests as they waited to enter the great vaulted hall where trestles were set end to end in two long rows with benches on each side. Separate trestles were arranged at the upper end of the hall for the senior priests.
Heads bowed, the students stood for the blessing in the lush golden light of the candles burning in the two iron chandeliers overhead. They ate in silence, simple fare of root vegetables in broth, and water to drink. Will estimated there were about a hundred priests, some of them in their twenties, a handful older, but most in their teens. The spy imagined Kit sitting at this very table, thinking the same thoughts as he used his guile to gain the acceptance of his peers. The playwright had had the luxury of time in which to earn the trust that would make lips loose and bring secrets to the surface. As Will chewed on a knob of bread, the weight of his responsibilities pressed down upon him.
After the meal, Hugh helped the spy settle in his room. The young priest was likeable, with a quick wit and a pleasant humour. ‘You will enjoy your time here, Francis,’ he said as he lit a candle and placed it upon the ledge beneath the small, arched window, ‘but the teachings you receive will change your life and the lives of all those you encounter.’
‘That is my hope,’ Will replied.
‘But you will be worked hard. There is no time for rest. Our studies consist of two parts. Firstly, the
‘I have spent my life attempting to understand God’s plan for the world,’ the spy responded truthfully, though he hid the irony.
‘And there are, of course, prayers, and our study of the catechism, and reverent song and reflection. You will find meaning here, in a world that yearns for it.’ Hugh gave a shy smile.
Stretching, Will said, ‘I would take a walk through my new home before I lay my head down. It will help me sleep, and it would be good to get to know the school before my studies begin.’
Hugh’s face fell. ‘That is not possible. Very shortly the doors will be locked until first light. Under the orders of the old Cardinal, Louis de Guise, no priest is allowed to wander the halls of the seminary until first light.’
‘I am to be a prisoner, then?’ Will saw his plan failing before his eyes. He had imagined the night would be his best opportunity to explore the college and discover whatever Marlowe had found there. Any chances during daylight hours would be few and far between.
Hugh crossed himself. ‘As God’s agents upon this earth, we are a prime target of the Adversary. Every day we must fight off subtle attacks upon our purity. Licentious thoughts. Uncharitable notions. But the night … that is the Devil’s time. He is at his strongest. For long years, there have been rumours that our greatest enemy walks the quiet halls at dark, seeking lone priests to seduce or destroy.’
The spy pretended to examine the reflections of the candle flame in the window panes. The Church was riddled with devils from top to bottom, men consumed by desires for power or wealth who saw no wrong in manipulating believers to achieve worldly ends, he thought with bitter humour. Beside churchmen, even spies seemed honourable.
‘And so we must stay in our chambers, and hold on to our purity, and stay safe until light returns to the world,’ Hugh continued.
Will wondered if there was indeed a devil stepping silently through the seminary at night, but he doubted it was the one the younger man imagined. How clever, then, to keep prying eyes shut away. ‘Then I will sleep soundly,’ he said.
Once the young priest had left, the spy did lie on his hard bed, but he knew he would not sleep soundly, if at all. ‘
Will struggled long and hard to find a solution to his new conundrum, but when his eyelids began to droop for a moment he was shocked alert by a weight pressing down upon him.
Jenny’s pale, dead face lay cold and hard against his cheek, her arms around his chest, nails digging into his flesh. She felt like a bag of bones and smelled of the deep, dark earth. His limbs leaden, the spy did not have the strength to throw her off. Half turning his head, he saw her all-black eyes glinting in the light of the guttering candle flame.
‘Let me out,’ Mephistophilis whispered. Though the face of Will’s love remained impassive, the devil’s voice was filled with a hunger that Will had not heard before. ‘Set me free and I will help.’
‘And have the deaths of good if misguided men upon my conscience? Never.’
The devil’s nails dug deeper. ‘Set me free. I can cause such mayhem here in this house of goodly men. I can bring their deepest fears up hard against them, and perhaps, when they see the darkness that dwells just beyond their doors, it will reaffirm their faith in the light.’
The spy laughed at his tormentor’s attempts at manipulation. ‘Or perhaps it will destroy them. And then you will take joy in a blow struck against all that you oppose, and I will be the cause of it and it will haunt me to the end. Two birds, one stone.’
The not-Jenny licked Will’s cheek slowly, a mockery of the creature’s seductive pose. The tongue felt rough and chill. ‘You do not know what I oppose, nor anything of my true nature. You hear the ruminations of small men and think them fact, when in truth you know nothing of the mysteries of life, of devils, of the Unseelie Court, of what you think magic, of anything that spins around your mundane existence. How could you — you are man, and men are like cattle locked up in the dark of a barn. When you try to make sense of the sounds from beyond the walls, you can only guess.’
‘Fair guesses, though.’ The spy tried to will strength into his arms, but he could not move them an inch. ‘I know your nature is to cause harm. Whether you are one of the devils the preachers warn us about, or something else entirely, I recognize evil.’
Mephistophilis gave a scornful laugh. ‘There is no good nor evil in this world. There is only what you want and what you will do to achieve it. I want to be set free. You want to save the people of your homeland from the terrible harm that is about to be unleashed upon their heads. And you still say no?’
Will was struck hard by the dilemma the devil presented to him. He felt lost, cut adrift from the moral certainties he had once enjoyed, and now he found it a trial to see right from wrong. There was only what he wanted, and how far he would go to achieve it.
‘You will disrupt the workings of the seminary, and allow me space to go about my business?’ the spy asked.
‘Yes.’
‘But you must not kill.’
Silence.
‘That is my only condition.’
The laughter began low in the devil’s throat and rolled out to fill the chamber. ‘There are worse things than death, indeed.’
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
In the suffocating heat of the night, the sweat-slick man kneeled against the splintered post, whimpering. A large iron nail had been rammed through his left ear into the wood. Held fast, he was splattered with mud and dung from the crowd that had pelted him intermittently throughout the day for causing an affray in the nave of St Paul’s. His tears had long since dried along with the blood that encrusted his swollen lobe, but he could still muster a curse through his dry, split lips: ‘Damn you, Launceston. Carpenter, thou pig-swiver.’
From the shadows edging the cobbled square outside Newgate Market, the two spies watched Jerome
