Heresy by S.J. Parris Page B

sovereigns. He was ordained as a priest in his youth, you know, before the queen’s father broke with Rome. But he grows more and more outspoken of late, and I begin to suspect that he suffers that affliction of old men, where he is sometimes lost in memory and not clear to whom he speaks.”
    “He seemed lucid enough to me. But angry.”
    “Yes.” Mercer sighed. “He is angry—at the world, the university, at what has been demanded of him and at himself for what he has done. And you must be wondering at his anger toward me.” He glanced at me again, almost timid.
    “He spoke bitterly of exile.”
    “He meant the trouble last year over our subrector, Edmund Allen, I expect you have heard. William was close to him, as was I, but I was obliged to testify against him to the Chancellor’s Court for certain matters regarding his religious practices. William considers this an unforgivable betrayal.”
    “And you?” I asked softly.
    Mercer gave a small, bitter laugh.
    “Oh, I acted according to my duty and to save my skin, and now I have the subrector’s gown and his well-appointed room in the tower. William was right. I betrayed a friend. But I had no choice, and neither did he. Yousee the life we have here, Bruno?” He gestured at the windows of the rector’s lodgings, still glowing with amber light from the candles. “It is a good life, a comfortable life for a scholar—we are sheltered in many ways from the world. And I—I am not fitted for any work but the life of books and learning. I lack the worldly ambition to push myself forward. If I had not publicly condemned my friend for his perfidy in religion, I would have shared his fate and lost everything. And at that point his fate was not known—the Privy Council allowed the university to conduct his trial, but there was every chance the matter would be handed to them, and Edmund might have been facing a worse punishment than exile.” He shuddered. “So I am not proud of my actions, no, but William Bernard has no right to rail against me. When Her Majesty took the throne and ended her sister Mary’s brief reconciliation with Rome, there was a great purge in the university—all the Catholic Fellows and heads of colleges appointed by Mary were deprived of office unless they renounced the pope’s authority and swore the Oath of Supremacy. William swore it quickly enough, and that oath bought him twenty-five peaceful years in this place, while his more steadfast friends were scattered to the four winds.”
    “And yet, in the winter of his life, it seems clear enough to anyone listening that his heart returns to the old faith.”
    “I think, as he nears death, he grows less concerned with the fate of his body and more fearful for his soul,” Mercer said. “Perhaps if we all saw our death so close at hand, we might choose a different course, but alas, while we breathe, our fears are for our poor, weak flesh and our worldly status.”
    “Perhaps so. But it is the son who seems to suffer it most,” I observed.
    “You have met Thomas? That poor boy. He is a very able scholar, you know. At least, he was.” Mercer ran both hands over his face as if washing it, a gesture of hopelessness. “I have known him since he first came to Oxford at fifteen—before his father left for Rheims, he charged me to care for Thomas like a father in his absence. Edmund understood why I had to act as I did—he forgave me. But Thomas will not forgive me for my part in Edmund’strial. I have tried to help him—with such gifts of money as are in my power, I mean—but he would rather humiliate himself slaving for that young peacock Norris than accept a penny. When I pass him in the courtyard he does not even acknowledge me, but I feel the hatred burning in him like a furnace.”
    “That is hard,” I said. “But he is young, and the passions of the young are often as brief as they are fierce. Perhaps he will forgive you in time.”
    I bowed then and moved toward my