An Instance of the Fingerpost

1

A few weeks ago, my old friend Dick Lower sent me this huge pile of paper, saying that, as I am a voracious collector of curios and suchlike, perhaps I should have it. For himself, he was tempted to throw it all away, such were the lies and sad contradictions it contained. He said (in a letter, for he has now retired to Dorset, where he lives in considerable ease) that he found the manuscripts wearisome. Two men, it seems, can see the same event, yet both remember it falsely. How, he went on, will we ever reach certainty on anything, even when of good will? He pointed out several instances in which he was a direct participant and said they had occurred in an entirely different fashion. Naturally, one is the extraordinary attempt to decant new blood into Widow Blundy through a goose quill, which Signer Cola claims as his own. Lower (whom I know to be a very honest man) disputes this account entirely.

He mentions two men, you note, Cola and Wallis, though there be three manuscripts. Naturally, he omits entirely that of Jack Prestcott, as he is bound to do. The law cannot punish and indeed takes no note of a man who is insane; if his current actions are beyond reason, how can his memories be trusted? They are merely the babblings of disorder, filtered through the distortions of disease. Prestcott’s sad mind has thus transformed Bedlam into his great house; his head is not shaved for his wig as he says, but to allow the application of vinegar to his frenzy; those poor wretches who restrain the lunatics become his servants, and the many visitors he complains of are those characters who pay their penny every Saturday to peer through the iron bars of the cages, and laugh at the madmen in their distress. I have done it myself, on the occasion recently when I went to talk to Prestcott on the matter, but I found no diversion or satisfaction in it.

But several of Prestcott’s statements are true. I know it and admit it, even though I have no cause to love him. He went mad, Lower tells me, when he was confronted with proof that his own malice had frustrated all his hopes and efforts, and that the warnings he had received from that Irishman were true after all. Perhaps so; my point is that, up to then, he was more or less sane and so perhaps his recollections are as well, even if the meaning he drags from them is entirely false. It requires intelligence, after all, to present a case as he does—had he kept his wits he might have been a fine advocate after all. Every single person he talked to told him that his father was guilty, and he was. With the greatest of skill he points to evidence of innocence, and ignores all that which suggests the true depths of his father’s turpitude. At the end, I almost believed him, even though I knew better than most that it was a tissue of nonsense.

But is the poor soul’s account any the less trustworthy than the others, which are also twisted and distorted, albeit by different passions? Prestcott may be mad, but Cola is a liar. Perhaps there is but one lie of commission, in contrast to all the omissions and evasions which might otherwise be discounted. He lies nonetheless, for as Ammian says, Veritas vel silentio consumpitur vel mendacio; truth is violated by silence and by falsehood. The falsity is contained in such an innocuous sentence it is not surprising that even Wallis overlooked it. But it distorts every other thing in the manuscript and makes truthful words false because, like a schoolman’s argument, it draws conclusions with impeccable logic from a false premise. “Marco da Cola, gentleman of Venice, respectfully presents his greetings.” So he begins, and from there on every word must be considered carefully. Even the manuscript’s existence must be considered, for why did he write it at all after so many years? On the other hand, to say he is mendacious does not mean that the motives and deeds attributed to him by Wallis are correct. The Venetian was not at all what he seemed, nor what he claims now to be, but he certainly never had designs on the safety of the kingdom or the life of Lord Clarendon. And Wallis himself was so used to living in the dark and sinister world of his own devising that he could no longer tell truth from invention, or honesty from falsehood.

But how can I tell which assertion to believe, and which to reject? I cannot repeat the same events time and again with subtle variations as Stahl did with his chemicals to demonstrate how Dr. Grove had died. Even if I could, the infallible philosophical method seems inadequate when it comes to problems in which motion derives from people rather than dead matter. I once attended a class on chemistry given by Mr. Stahl and must say I emerged none the wiser. Lower’s own experiments on blood transfusion first produced the belief that this was the greatest cure for all ills, and later (when many people in France had died) the savants decided that no, on the contrary, this was a fatal and inadmissible procedure. It cannot be both, gentlemen of philosophy. If you are right now, how were you so wrong before? How is it that when a man of God shifts his opinion it proves the weakness of his views, and when a man of science does so it demonstrates the value of his method? How is a mere chronicler such as myself to transmute the lead of inaccuracy in these papers into the gold of truth?

My main qualification for commenting on these bundles is the disinterested state which is (we are told) the primum mobile of a balanced understanding—little of this has anything to do with me. Second, I think I can with justice claim a certain knowledge—I have lived my entire life in Oxford and know the city (as even my detractors admit) better than anyone else has ever done. Finally, of course, I knew all the actors in this drama; Lower was then my constant companion, as we ate together at least once a week at Mother Jean’s; through him I met all the men of philosophy, including Signor Cola. I worked with Dr. Wallis for many years when he was the keeper of the university archives and I was their most assiduous frequenter. I even had the honor of discoursing with Mr. Boyle and once attended a levee in the presence of my Lord Arlington although, I regret to say, I did not have the opportunity of making my addresses to him. More than this, I knew Sarah Blundy before her misfortune and (not being a man given to puzzles and conundrums) I will reveal my secret immediately. For I knew her after it as well, hanged, dissected and burned though she was. More, I think I am the only person who can give a proper accounting of those days, and show all the goodness which prompted such cruelty, and the providential grace that brought out such malice. On certain matters, I can appeal to Lower, for we share many secrets; but the crucial knowledge is mine alone, and I must convince on my own authority and by the dexterity of my words. Curiously, the less I am believed, the more certain I will be that I am correct. Mr. Milton set out in his great poem to justify the ways of God to men, as he says. He has not considered one question, however—perhaps God has forbidden men to know His ways, for if they did know the full extent of His goodness, and the magnitude of our rejection of it, they would be so disheartened they would abandon all hope of redemption, and die of grief.

I am an historian, and to this title I adhere despite critics who make out that I am what they term an antiquarian. I believe truth can come only from a solid foundation of fact, and I set myself from an early age to begin the task of building such a basis. I intend no grandiose schemes for the history of the world, mind; you cannot build a palace before you have leveled the ground. Rather, just as Mr. Plot has written (very finely) the natural history of our county, so I am engaged in its civil history. And what a deal there is! I thought it would take a few years of my life; now I see I will die an old man and the task will still be unfinished. I began (once an early intention of the priesthood had left me) by wishing to write about our late troubles during the siege, when the Parliament men first took the town, then cleansed the university of those less than perfectly in agreement with them. But I rapidly perceived that there was a nobler task awaiting me, and that the entire history of the university might vanish forever were it not safeguarded. So I abandoned my original work and began the greater one, even though I had amassed considerable material by that stage and publication would, undoubtedly, have gained me both the fame in the world and the patronage of the mighty which have forever eluded my grasp. However, I care not for this—animus hominis dives, non arca appellari solet; and if it be considered one of Tully’s paradoxes to say that it is a man’s mind, not his coffers, which confers richness, then that shows that the age of Rome was just as blind and corrupt as our own.

It was because of this earlier work that I met both Sarah Blundy and her mother, who will figure so much in my account. I had heard of Ned, the old woman’s husband, several times in my travels through the documents and, although not a major figure in my tale of the siege, the passions he aroused excited my curiosity. A black-hearted villain, the devil’s child, worse than a murderer, a man one shuddered to behold. A latter-day saint, one of the manifest elect, kind, soft-spoken and generous. Two extremes of opinion, and not much in between; they could not both be correct and I wished to resolve the contradiction. I knew that he took part in the mutiny of 1647, left the town when it was put down and, as far as I was concerned, left my story as well—I did not know then whether he was alive or dead. But he had taken a role in a matter which made something of a stir, and it seemed a pity to miss the opportunity of an eyewitness account (even that of a woman if I could not find the man himself) when I discovered, in the summer of 1659, that his family lived nearby.

I was apprehensive of the encounter—Anne Blundy had a reputation for being a wise woman (from those who did not dislike her) or a witch (from those less favorably inclined). Her daughter, Sarah, was known to be wild and strange but had not yet gained that reputation for skill in healing which led Mr. Boyle to wonder if any of her recipes could be used for the poor. I must say, however, that neither the pathetic description offered by Cola, nor the cruel one of Prestcott, do the old woman any justice. Even though she was near fifty, the fire in her eyes (communicated to her daughter as well) spoke of a lively soul. Wise she was perhaps, although not in the way normally meant—no muttering or shambling or obscure incantations. Shrewd, rather, I would say, with an air of amusement which mingled strangely with a deep (although heterodox) piety. Nothing I saw ever gave an indication of the murderous harpy of Walk’s’s tale, and yet I do believe that on this he speaks the truth. More than most, he has himself shown that we are all capable of the most monstrous evil when convinced we are right, and it was an age when the madness of conviction held all tightly in its grasp.

Gaining her confidence was no easy matter, and I am not convinced I ever won it entirely. Certainly, had I made my approach to her later, when her husband was dead and the king was back on his throne, she would inevitably have assumed I was sent to trap her, especially as I knew Dr. Wallis by then. Such a connection would have made her suspicious, as she had no cause to love the new government, and especial reason to fear Wallis. Understandably so—I learned soon enough to fear him myself.

Then, however, I had not yet had my introduction to the man, Richard Cromwell was still holding on to power by his fingertips and the king was in the Spanish Netherlands, eager for his inheritance but not daring to grasp it. The country was stirring and it seemed that the armies would soon be on the march once more. My own house was searched for arms that spring, as was that of everyone I knew. We had only sporadic news of the world in Oxford and the more I have talked to people over the years, the more I realize that in fact virtually no one knew what was going on. Except for John Thurloe, of course, who knew and saw everything. But even he fell from power, swept away by forces which, for once, he could not control. Take that as proof of how distempered the country was in those days.

There was little point in approaching Anne Blundy politely. I could not, for example, write her a letter introducing myself as I had no reason to assume that she might be able to read. I had little choice but to walk to her lodgings and knock on the door, which was opened by a girl of perhaps seventeen who was, I believe, the prettiest thing I had ever seen in my life—a fine figure (if a little thin), a full set of teeth and a complexion unblemished by illness. Her hair was dark, which was a disadvantage, and although she wore it loose and largely uncovered she still dressed modestly and I do think that, had she been attired in sackcloth, it would have seemed a wonderfully becoming garment in my eyes. Above all, it was her eyes which fascinated, for they were the deepest black, like raven’s wings, and it is known that of all colors, black is the most amiable in a woman. “Black eyes as if from Venus,” says Hesiod of his Alcmena, while Homer calls Juno ox-eyed, because of her round, black eyes, and Baptista Porta (in his Physiognomia) sneers at the gray-eyed English, and joins with Morison in lauding the deep glances of languorous Neapolitan ladies.

I stared awhile, quite forgetting my reason for calling, until she politely but not with servility, distantly but not with impudence, asked me my business. “Please come in, sir,” she said, when I told her. “My mother is out at the market; but she should be back any moment. You are welcome to wait, if you wish.”

I leave it to others to decide whether I should have taken that as a warning about her character. Had I been with someone better stationed I would naturally have gone away, not wishing to presume on her reputation by being alone with her. But at that moment, the chance of talking to this creature seemed to me the best possible way of passing the time until the mother returned. I am sure 1 half wished that the woman might be greatly delayed. I sat myself (I fear with something of a swagger, as a man of parts might do when associating with inferiors, God forgive me) on the little stool by the fireplace, which unfortunately was empty, despite the cold.

How do people converse in such situations? I have never succeeded in a matter which others seem to find simple. Perhaps it is the result of too many hours spent in books and manuscripts. Most of the time I had no trouble at all; with my friends over dinner, I could converse with the best of them and I pride myself still that I was not the least interesting. But in some circumstances I was at a loss, and making conversation to a serving girl with beautiful eyes was beyond my powers. I could have tried playing the gallant, chucking her under the chin, sitting her on my knee and pinching her bottom, but that has never been my way, and most obviously was not hers either. I could have ignored her as not worth my attention, except that she was. So I ended up doing neither, staring at her dumbly, and had to leave it to her.

“You have come to consult my mother on some trouble, no doubt,” she prompted after she had waited for me to begin a conversation.

“Yes.”

“Perhaps you have lost something, and want her to divine where it is? She is good at that. Or maybe you are sick, and are afraid of going to a doctor?”

Eventually, I dragged my eyes away from her face. “Oh, no. Not at all. I have heard of her great skills, of course, but I am most meticulous and never lose anything. A place for everything, you know. That is the only way I can proceed in my work. And my health is as good as man might expect, thanks to God.”

Babbling and pompous; I excuse myself by pleading confusion. She assuredly had not the slightest interest in my work; few people have. But it has always been my refuge in times of trouble, and when confused or sad my thoughts fly to it. Toward the end of this affair, I sat up at nights, week after week, transcribing and annotating, as a way of shutting the world out. Locke told me it was for the best. Strange, that—I never liked him, and he never liked me, but I always took his advice, and found it answered.

“Amen,” she said. “So why have you come to see my mother? I hope you are not betrayed in love. She does not approve of philters and such nonsense, you know. If you want that sort of foolishness, you can go to a man in Hed-dington, although personally I think he is a charlatan.”

I reassured her that my quest was entirely different, and that I did not wish to consult her mother on any such business. I was beginning to explain when the door opened and the woman returned. Sarah rushed to assist, as her mother collapsed on a trestle stool opposite, wiped her face and got her breath back before she peered at me. She was poorly but cleanly dressed, with gnarled hands strong from years of labor, and a red, round open face. Although age was beginning to gain its inevitable triumph, in her manner she was far from the desolate, broken bird of a woman she later became, and moved with a sprightliness that many others more favored in life do not have at her age.

“Nothing wrong with you,” she said forthrightly after gazing at me in a way which seemed to see me entire. Her daughter had the habit as well, I later learned. I think it was that which made people frightened of them, and consider them insolent. “What are you here for?”

“This is Mr. Wood, Mother,” Sarah said as she came back from the tiny room next door. “He is an historian, so he has been telling me, and wishes to consult you.”

“And what ailments afflict historians, pray?” she said with little interest. “Loss of memory? Crabbed writing hand?”

I smiled. “Both of those, but not in my case, I am pleased to say. No; I am writing a history of the siege, and as you were here during that period…”

“So were several thousand other people. Are you going to talk to them all? A strange way of writing history, that.”

“I model myself on Thucydides…” I began ponderously.

“And he died before he could finish,” she interrupted, a comment which surprised me so much I almost fell off my stool. Quite apart from the speed of her riposte, she had evidently not only heard of that greatest of historians, she even knew something about him. I looked at her more curiously, but evidently failed to disguise my astonishment.

“My husband is a great book man, sir, and takes pleasure in reading to me, and getting me to read to him of an evening.”

“He is here?”

“No; he is still with the army. I believe he is in London.”

I was disappointed, of course, but resolved to make do with what I could discover from the wife until such time as Blundy himself might return.

“Your husband,” I began, “was of some significance in the history of the town…”

“He tried to combat injustice here.”

“Indeed. The trouble is that no one I have come across seems to agree on what he did and said. This is what I want to know.”

“And you will believe what I tell you?”

“I will set what you tell me against what other people tell me. From that the truth will emerge. I am convinced of it.”

“In that case you are a foolish young man, Mr. Wood.”

“I think not,” I said stiffly.

“What axe your religious persuasions, sir? Your loyalties?”

“In religion, I am an historian. In politics, an historian as well.”

“Much too slippery for an old woman like me,” she said with a slightly mocking tone in her voice. “Are you loyal to the Protector?”

“I took an oath to the government in power.”

“And what church do you attend?”

“Several. I have attended services in many places. At present, I attend at Merton, as I am bound to do since it is my college. I must tell you, I suppose, lest you accuse me again of being slippery, that I am of an Episcopal instinct.”

Her head bowed in thought as she considered this, her eyes closed, almost as though asleep. I feared very much that she would refuse, thinking that I would twist what she said. Certainly she had no reason to think that I would be in any way sympathetic to a man like her husband; I knew enough of him already to be sure of that. But there was nothing more I could do to persuade her of my honorable intentions. Fortunately, I was not stupid enough to offer her money, as that would inevitably have been my downfall, however much she needed it. I must say here that never once did I discern in her, or her daughter, any of the greed which others claim to have seen so easily, although her poor situation would have been ample cause for it.

“Sarah?’’ she said after a while, her head lifting from her chest. “What do you think of this angular young man? What is he? A spy? A fool? A knave? Someone come to disinter the past and torment us with it?”

“Perhaps he is what he says, mother. I think you might talk to him. Why not? The Lord knows what happened, and even an historian from the university cannot hide the truth from Him.”

“Clever, child—a pity our friend here did not think of it himself. Very well,” she said. “We must talk again. But I have a customer soon who has lost the deeds of his house and I must divine their whereabouts. You must come back another day. Tomorrow, if you wish.”

I thanked her for her kindness, and promised that I would be there the next day, without fail. I was conscious that I was treating her with unnecessary deference, but something prompted me to act so—her person demanded courtesy, though her station did not. As I was picking my way through the debris and puddles in the street outside, I was stopped by a whistle behind me, and, as I looked around, I saw Sarah running after me.

“A word, Mr. Wood.”

“By all means,” I said, half noticing my pleasure at the prospect. “Do you object to taverns?” This was a normal enquiry in those days, as many of the more obscure dissenters did so object, and very strongly. It was best to find out who you were dealing with early on, for fear of bringing down a heap of abuse.

“Oh no,” she said. “Taverns I like.” I would have led her to the Fleur-de-Lys, that belonging to my family and a place where I could have drink cheaply, but I was concerned for my reputation so instead we went to another place, a low hovel scarcely better than her own dwelling. I noticed that she was not treated with friendliness when we entered. Indeed, I had the feeling sharp words might have been exchanged had I not been there. Instead, all the woman gave me, along with the two tankards, was a sneering smile. The words were polite, the sentiment they hid was not, although I could not make it out. Though I had nothing to be ashamed of, I found myself blushing. The girl, alas, noticed and wryly commented on my discomfort.

“Not at all,” I said hastily.

“It’s all right. I’ve had worse.” She even had the tact to lead the way to the quietest corner of the place, so that no one would see us. I was grateful for this consideration, and warmed to her for it.

“Now, Mr. Historian,” the girl said when she had drunk a quarter of her pot, “you must tell me frankly. Do you mean well by us? Because I will not have you causing us more trouble. My mother needs no more. She is tired and has found some peace in the last few years, and I do not want that disturbed.”

I tried to reassure her on this point—my object was to describe the long siege, and the effect that the quartering of troops on the city had had on learning. Her father’s role in the mutiny, and in stirring up the passions of the parliamentary troops, was of significance, whatever it was, but not critical—all I wanted to know was why the troops had refused their orders then, and what had happened. I hoped to set all that down before it was forgotten.

“But you were here yourself, weren’t you?”

“I was, but I was only fourteen at the time and too busy at my studies to notice anything untoward. I remember being mightily displeased when New College school was turned out of its room by the cloister, and I remember thinking that I had never seen a soldier before. I remember standing near the outworks, hoping I could pour boiling oil on someone, hoping to perform deeds of valor and be knighted by a grateful monarch. And I remember how frightened everybody was at the surrender. But all the important facts, I do not know. You cannot write a book based on such paltry material.”

“You want facts? Most people are content to make up their own. That’s what they did with Father. They said he was turbulent and wicked, and abused him for it. Their judgment does not satisfy you?”

“Maybe it will. Maybe it is even correct. But I ask myself questions, nonetheless. How did such a man come to be trusted by so many of his fellows? If he was so verminous, how was he also courageous? Can the noble (if I may use the term for such a person) coexist with the ignoble? And how did he”—here I made my first ever venture into gallantry—“how did he have such a beautiful daughter?”

If she was pleased by the comment, there was no sign of it, alas. No modest look, no pretty blush, just those black eyes staring intently at me, making me feel more ill at ease.

“I am determined,” I continued, covering over my little essay, “to discover what transpired. You ask whether I mean you ill or well, and I tell you I mean you neither.”

“Then you are immoral.”

“The truth is always moral, because it is the image of God’s Word,” I corrected her, feeling, yet again, that I was misspeaking myself and hiding behind solemnity. “I will give your father his say. He will not get it from anyone else, you know. He either speaks through me, or is forever mute.”

She finished off her tankard, and shook her head sadly. “Poor man, who talks so beautifully, to be reduced to speaking through you.”

I do believe she was entirely unconscious of the insult—but I had no desire at that moment to rebuff her by giving the reprimand she deserved. Instead, I looked at her attentively, thinking that this initial confidence might at least get her to speak well of me to her mother.

“I remember once,” she continued after a while, “hearing him addressing his platoon after a prayer meeting. I can’t have been more than nine, I suppose, so it would have been around the time of Worcester. They thought they would be fighting soon, and he was encouraging and calming them. It was like music; he had them swaying to and fro as he spoke, and some were in tears. Possibly they would die, or be captured, or end their lives in jail. That was the will of God and it was not for us to presume to guess what that was. He had given us only one lantern to discern His goodness, and that was our sense of justice, the voice of Right which spoke to all men in their souls if they would listen. Those who examined their hearts knew what the Right was, and knew that if they fought for it, they would be fighting for God. It was a battle to lay the foundation of making the earth a common treasury for all, so that everyone born in the land might be fed by the earth, all looking on others, even old, sick or female, as equals in creation. As they slept and ate, and fought and died, they should remember that.”

I didn’t know what to say. She had spoken softly and gently, her voice caressing me as she spoke the words of her father; so quiet, so kind and, I realized with a start, so profoundly evil. I began, very faintly, to understand how it was done and what the appeal of this Blundy was. If a mere girl could be so seductive, what must the man have been like? The right to eat—no good Christian could object. Until you realize that what this man desired was the overturning of the right of masters to command their employees, the theft of property from its owners, the hacking at the very roots of the harmony which binds each to all. Quietly and kindly, Blundy took these poor ignorants by the hand, and led them into the power of the devil himself. I shuddered. Sarah looked at me with a faint smile.

“The raving of a lunatic, you think, Mr. Wood?”

“How can anyone who is neither a fool nor a monster think otherwise? It is obviously so.”

“Coming from a family of lunatics, I see things a little differently,” she said. “I suppose you think my father used ordinary people for his own evil ends. Is that it?”

“Something like that,” I said stiffly. “That it was devilish was attested by the eating of babies and burning of prisoners.”

She laughed. “Eating babies? Burning prisoners? What liar said that?”

“I read it. And many people have said so.”

“And so you believed it. I am beginning to doubt you, Mr. Historian. If you read there are beasts in the sea that breathe fire and have a hundred heads, do you believe that too?”

“Not unless I have good reason to.”

“And what does a learned man like yourself account a good reason?”

“The proof of my own eyes, or the report of someone whose word can be trusted. But it depends on what you mean. I know that the sun exists, because I can see it; I believe that the earth goes around it because logical calculation concludes that, and it is not contradicted by what I can see. I know that unicorns exist because such a creature is possible in nature and reliable people have seen one, even though I have not myself; it is unlikely that fire-breathing dragons with a hundred heads exist because I cannot see how a natural creature can breathe fire without being consumed. So it all depends, you see.”

Such was my answer and I still think it was a good response, presenting complicated ideas in a simple way for her benefit, although I thought it unlikely she would understand. But, far from being grateful for my instruction, she continued to pursue me, leaning forward in her eagerness to dispute like a starving beggar who had been offered a crust.

“Jesus is our Lord. Do you believe that?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because His coming was in conformity to the predictions of the Bible, His miracles proved His divinity and His resurrection proved it still more.”

“Many people claim such miracles.”

“And in addition I have faith, and hold that to be better than all reason.”

“A more earthly question, then. The king is God’s anointed. Do you believe that?”

“If you mean, can I prove it, then no,” I replied, determined to keep my distance. “That is not a certain belief. But I do believe it, because kings have their position, and when they are thrown off the natural order is disturbed. God’s displeasure with England has surely been manifest in past years, in the suffering it has borne. And when the king was murdered, did not enormous floods demonstrate the disruption of nature that had taken place?”

She conceded this obvious point, but added—“But if I said these prodigies were because the king had acted traitorously to his subjects?”

“Then I would disagree with you.”

“And how would we decide who was correct?”

“It would depend on the weight of opinion of reasonable men of position and character who heard both propositions. I do not wish to belabor it or give undue reproof, but you cannot be called of position and character. Nor,” and here I made another attempt to switch the conversation to a more appropriate topic, “nor could someone so pretty ever be mistaken for a man.”

“Oh,” she said, dismissing my kindly warning to mind her own business with a toss of her head, “so whether the king is appointed by God, or justly a king at all, depends on the decisions of men? Is there a vote?”

“No,” I said, slightly flushed at finding myself apparently unable to halt this increasingly ridiculous encounter, “that’s not what I’m saying, you ignorant girl. God alone decides that; men merely decide whether to accept God’s will.”

“What’s the difference if we do not know what God’s will is?”

It was time to bring this to an end, so I stood up to give her a physical reminder, so to speak, of our respective positions.

“If you can ask questions like that,” I said sternly, “then you are a very foolish and wicked child. You must have had a very perverted upbringing indeed even to think of such things. I am beginning to see that your father is as evil as they say.”

Instead of being sobered by my reproof, she leaned back on her stool and let out a peal of laughter. Very angry now at being answered back in such a way, I left her, feeling a little shaken, and took refuge in my books and notes for the rest of the morning. It was merely the first of many occasions when she reduced me to such a display of foolishness. Do I have to say again that I was young? Does that excuse the way her eyes fuddled my thoughts, and the fall of her hair tripped my tongue?

2

I intend to break my own rule about propriety, and talk much of Sarah Blundy—it is necessary. I do not intend to cause distress by libertine discourse on matters of the heart, a subject which, as all but courtiers know, does not belong on the public page. But there is no other way of explaining my interest in the family, my concern over her fate, and my knowledge of her end. I must be regarded as a competent witness where my personal recollection is important, and therefore must provide proof of my knowledge. Words without fact are suspect—so I must provide the facts. They are simply stated.

At that time the Wood family was still in funds, and I lived in a house on Merton Street with my mother and sister, in which I kept the top floor for myself and my books. We needed a servant, as sluttishness had forced my dear mother to discharge the one we had, and I (having discerned the Blundys were in sore straits) suggested Sarah. My mother was far from happy about the idea, knowing something of the family’s reputation, but I persuaded her that she would be cheap, having resolved that I would make up her wages myself out of my small competence. Besides, I asked, what was so terrible about her? To this she had no specific answer.

Eventually, the thought of saving a ha’ penny a week brought my mother around; she consented to interview the girl and (reluctantly) conceded that she did indeed seem properly modest and obedient. But she let it be known that she intended to watch the girl like a hawk, and at the first sniff of blasphemy or sedition or immorality she would be out the door.

And so she and I were brought into close proximity, hindered, naturally, by the necessary distance that must exist between master and servant. Though she was no ordinary servant—indeed, she soon achieved an ascendancy in the house which was all the more remarkable for being largely uncontested. Only once was battle joined, when my mother decided (there being no man in the house except me, and my mother always regarding herself as the head of the household) to give the girl a beating, expecting that the child would submit placidly to her chastisement, as she ought. I do not know what the offense was, probably very little, and my mother’s irritability was more likely due to the pain she received from a swollen ankle that had afflicted her for several years.

Sarah did not think this was a good enough reason. Hands on hips, blazing with defiance, she refused to bend. When my mother advanced on her, broom in hand, she made it clear that if my mother so much as laid a finger on her, she would thrash her back. Thrown out the house instantly, you might think? Not a bit of it. I wasn’t there at the time, otherwise the incident might never have occurred, but my sister said that within half an hour, Sarah and my mother were both sitting in front of the fire talking, with my mother almost apologizing to the child, a sight never witnessed before or since. Thereafter, my mother said not a word against her and, when Sarah’s time of trouble came, it was she who cooked food for her and took it to the prison.

What had happened? What did Sarah say or do which made my mother so charitable and generous for once? I did not know. When I asked, Sarah just smiled, and said that my mother was a good and kind woman who was not as fierce as she seemed. More than that she would not tell, and my mother said nothing either. She always grew secretive when caught out in a kindness, and it may be that it was simply that, shortly after, her ankle stopped giving her pain—it is often the case that simple things like this can bring remarkable changes in demeanor. I often wonder if Dr. Wallis would have been less cruel had he been less afraid of the blindness that began to creep up on him in this time. I myself have been unreasonably offensive to my fellows when blighted by toothache, and it is well known that the mistaken decisions that ultimately led to the fall of Lord Clarendon were taken when that nobleman was wracked with the agonizing pain of the gout.

I mentioned that I occupied two rooms on the top floor, from which other members of my family were excluded. I had books and papers everywhere, and was constantly afraid that someone, in a misguided act of kindness, would tidy them up and set my work back by months. Sarah was the only person I allowed in and even she tidied up only under my supervision. I came to dream of those visits to my scholarly aerie and, more and more, I passed time in conversation with her. My room got dirtier and dirtier, it is true, but I found myself waiting eagerly for the tread of her footsteps on the rickety stair that led to my attic. Initially, I would talk about her mother; but that soon became a pretense to prolong her presence. Even more so, perhaps, because I knew little of the world and less of women.

Perhaps any female would have interested me, but Sarah quickly had me entranced. Slowly the pleasure turned to pain, and the joy to anguish. The devil came to visit me at all hours; at night, while I was at my desk working, in the library, turning my mind from my work and leading me on to foul and lubricious thoughts. My sleep suffered, my work also and, although I prayed mightily for help, there was no answer. I begged the Lord to spare me this temptation, but in His wisdom He would not, but allowed instead ever more demons to come and taunt me with my weakness and hypocrisy. I woke in the morning thinking of Sarah, spent the day thinking of Sarah, and tossed myself to sleep at night, thinking of Sarah. And even when I slept there was no respite, for I dreamed of her eyes and her mouth and the way she laughed.

It was intolerable, of course—no respectable connection was possible, so great was the distance between us. But I thought I knew enough of her to believe she would never consent to be my harlot; she was too virtuous, no matter what her origins. I had never been in love, nor even shown half as much interest in a woman as in the least of the books in the Bodleian library, and I confess that I cursed God in my heart that, when I did fall (and the similarity with the fate of Adam I never felt so strongly), it was with an impossibility, a girl of no fortune or family, scorned even in taverns, and with a villain for a father.

And so I remained tongue-tied and miserable—anguished when she was there, worse when she was not. Would that I had been a robust, thoughtless man like Prestcott, who never bothered with the complexities of affection, or even like Wal-lis, with a heart so cold that no human being could warm it for long. Sarah, I believe, was not without affection for me either—although always respectful in my presence, I still felt something in her—a warmth, the way she looked and leaned forward as I showed her a book or a manuscript which indicated some regard. I think she liked talking to me; she was used to masculine conversation because of her father, who had instructed her, and she was hard put to confine her mind to topics suitable for women. As I was always ready to talk about my work, and was easily distracted into discussing anything else, she seemed to regard her visits to clean my quarters with as much eagerness as I did myself. I think I was the only man then who spoke to her for some reason other than to give her orders or make lewd remarks; I can find no other explanation. Her childhood, her upbringing and her father, however, remained something of a blank to me; she rarely spoke of them except on those occasions when a chance remark slipped from her lips; when I asked directly she generally changed the subject. I hoarded these occasional comments like a miser hoards his gold, remembering each chance phrase, and turning them over in my mind, adding each to each, like coin in a casket, until I had a good supply.

Initially I thought her reticence due to shame at the degradation to which she had descended; now I think it merely caution, lest it be misunderstood. She was ashamed of little and regretted less, but accepted that the days when people like her might hope of a new world were over—they had tried and failed miserably. I will give one important example of how I garnered my evidence. Shortly after the Restoration of His Majesty was proclaimed in the town, I came back from viewing the preparations for the festivities. Celebrations erupted all over the land that day, both from Parliament towns which felt the need to demonstrate their new loyalty, and from towns like Oxford which were able to rejoice with more genuine feeling. We were promised (by whom I cannot recall) that the fountains and gutters themselves would run with joyous wine that night, as in the days of ancient Rome. I found Sarah, sitting on my stool and weeping her heart out.

“Whatever is the matter, that you sob so on a glorious day like this?” I cried. It was some time before I got an answer.

“Oh, Anthony, it is not glorious for me,” she said. (This being our secret intimacy, that I permitted her to address me so in my room). Initially, I had thought that she had one of those mysterious womanly complaints, but quickly realized that grander matters were on her mind. She was never immodest or gross in her talk.

“But what is there to be so sorrowful about? It is a fine morning, we can drink and feed at the university’s expense, and the king is coming back to his own.”

“And everything has been in vain,” she said. “Does so much waste not make you want to weep, even as you celebrate? Near twenty years of fighting trying to build God’s kingdom here, and it is all swept away by the will of a few greedy grandees.”

Now, to refer thus to those great men whose wise intervention had been crucial to the recall of the king (so we were told and I believed until I read Wallis’s manuscript) should have alerted me, but I was in too good a mood.

“God works in mysterious ways,” I said cheerfully, “and sometimes chooses strange instruments to work His will.”

“God has spat in the face of His servants who worked for Him,” she said, her voice falling into a hiss of despair and rage.

“How can it be God’s will? How can God will that some men be subject to others? That some live in palaces while others die in the street? That some rule and others obey? How can God will that?”

I shrugged, not knowing what to say or how to begin saying it, just wanting her to stop. I had never seen her like this, clutching at herself and rocking to and fro as she spoke with a passion that was as disgusting as it was fascinating. She frightened me, but I could not walk away from her. “He obviously does,” I said eventually.

“In that case He is no God of mine,” she said, with a sneer of contempt. “I hate Him, as He must hate me and all of His creation.”

I stood up. “I think this has gone far enough,” I said, appalled at what she was saying and alarmed that someone downstairs might overhear. “I will not have this sort of talk in my house. Remember who you are, girl.”

Thus earning from her a scornful look of contempt, the first time I had so totally and instantly lost her affections. I felt it deeply, being distressed at her blasphemy but even then more pained by my loss.

“Oh, Mr. Wood, I am just beginning to guess,” she said and walked straight out, not even doing me the honor of slamming the door. I, my good humor gone and strangely unable to recover my concentration, spent the rest of the afternoon on my knees, praying desperately for relief.

The loyal celebration that evening was everything that good Royalists could have hoped for—town and university vied with each other to be the more zealously loyal. Starting with my habitual friends (I had by that time made the acquaintance of Lower and his circle), we drank our fill of wine at the fountain in Carfax, ate beef at Christ Church, then proceeded to more wine and delicacies at Mer-ton. It was a delightful occasion, or should have been; but Sarah’s mood had affected me, and taken away my joy. There was dancing, which I merely watched; singing, where I was without song; speech-making and toast-giving, where I kept my silence. Food for all, and myself without appetite. How could anyone not be happy on a day like this? Above all someone like me, who had hoped for His Majesty’s return for so long? I did not understand myself, was desolate, and not good company.

“What is it, old friend?” asked Lower, pounding me merrily on the back as he came back breathless from a dance, already slightly the worse for drink. I pointed at a thin-faced man, dead drunk in the gutter, saliva dripping down his chin.

“See,” I said. “Do you remember? For fifteen years one of the elect, persecuting loyalty and applauding fanaticism. And now look. One of the king’s most devoted subjects.”

“And soon to be thrown out of his places as he deserves. Allow him a bit of oblivion for his troubles.”

“You think? I don’t. Some people always survive. He is one.”

“Oh, you are an old misery, Wood,” Lower said with a great grin. “This is the greatest day in history, and you are all sour-faced and glum. Come, have another drink and forget about it. Or someone might think you a secret Anabaptist.”

And so I did, and another, and another. Eventually Lower and the others wandered off, and I couldn’t be bothered chasing after them; their simple (to my mind) good humor and careless pleasure made me melancholy to tears. I wandered back to Carfax, which was a fateful thing to do. For as I got there, and helped myself all alone to another cup of wine, I heard a cackle of laughter from a side street; normal enough that evening, except this time there was that slight but unmistakable edge of menace which is difficult to describe and impossible to miss. Made curious by the sound, I peered down the alley and saw a group of young oafs gathered in a semicircle against a wall. They were laughing and shouting, and I half expected to find in the center of the crowd some charlatan or raree man whose wares and tricks had failed to please. But instead it was Sarah, her hair astray, her eyes wild, her back against the wall, and they were taunting her mercilessly. Harlot, they said. Traitor’s bastard. Witch’s daughter.

Bit by bit they were working themselves up, taking a little step further each time, edging toward the point when words ceased and assault began. She saw me, and our eyes met, but there was no entreaty in them; rather she bore it all herself, almost not seeming to notice the foul words hurled at her. Almost as though she wasn’t listening, and did not care. She might not want help, but I knew she needed it, and knew no one but myself would lift a finger for her. I worked my way through the crowd, put my arm around her and pulled her out and back toward the main street, so quickly the mob hardly had time to react.

Fortunately it was not far; they did not like the theft of their entertainment and my status as scholar and historian would have served me little had the spot been any more isolated. But there were people drunk, but still civilized, only a few yards away, and I managed to get us close enough to safety before the insults erupted into actual violence. Then I pulled her through the cheerful, good-humored celebrations until, seeing their prey lost, the mob dissolved and went in search of other sport. I was breathing hard, and the fright and the drink made me slow to recover my wits. I’m afraid that physical danger is not something to which I am used; I emerged more shaken than Sarah.

She did not thank me, but just looked at me, with what seemed like resignation, or perhaps sadness. Then she shrugged and walked away. I followed; she walked faster, and so did I. I thought she was walking home, but at the end of Butcher’s Row she turned and cut across the fields behind the castle, walking ever faster with myself now maddened by my beating heart, swirling head and confusion.

It was in the place called Paradise Fields, once the most beautiful of orchards and now fallen into a sad and infertile neglect, where she stopped and turned round. As I came up to her, she was laughing but with tears coming down her cheeks. I reached out for her, and she clutched hold of me as though hanging on to the only thing left in the entire world.

And, like Adam, in Paradise I sinned.

Why me? I don’t know. I had nothing to offer her, not money nor marriage, and she knew that. Perhaps I was gentler than others; perhaps I comforted her; perhaps she needed some warmth. I do not deceive myself that it was much more, but nor do I lower myself now to think that it was any less—perhaps no virgin, she was no harlot either. Prestcott lied cruelly there; she was virtue itself and he was no gentleman to say otherwise. Afterward, when her tears had stopped, she got up, straightened her clothes and walked slowly off. This time I did not follow. The following day, she cleaned my mother’s kitchen as though nothing had happened.

And I? Was that the Lord’s answer to my entreaties? Was I sated and satisfied, the demons exorcised from my soul? No; my fever was stoked up even further, so that I could hardly bear to see her for fear that my trembling and pallor would give me away. I kept to my room, and alternated between sinful thoughts and atonement through prayer. By the time she came up to my room a few days later, I must have looked like a ghost, and I heard the familiar steps coming up the stairs with a mixture of terror and joy such as I have never experienced before or since. And so, of course, I was rude to her, and she played the servant with me, each settling into our roles like actors in a play, but all the time willing the other to say something.

Or at least I did; I do not know about her. 1 told her to tidy up better; she obeyed. I instructed her to lay a fire; she dutifully and without a word did as she was told. I told her to go away and leave me in peace; she picked up her bucket of water, and opened the door.

“Come back here,” I said and she did that too. But I had nothing else to say to her. Or, rather, I had so much. So I went to embrace her, and she allowed me; standing upright and still, enduring a punishment.

“Please, sit down,” I said, letting her go, and again she obeyed me.

“You ask me to stay, and to sit down,” she began when I said nothing. “Do you have something to say to me?”

“I love you,” I said in a rush. She shook her head.

“No,” she said. “You do not. How can you?”

“But two days ago… Was that not something? Are you so coarse that it meant nothing to you?”

“Something, yes. But what would you have me do? Wilt in the despair of love? Become your woman, twice a week instead of cleaning? And you? Are you going to offer me your hand? Of course not. So what is there to be done or said?”

It was her practicality which maddened me; I wanted her to suffer as much as I, to rail against the unkindness of fate that so separated us, yet her robust common sense did not allow that.

“So what are you? You have had so many men that one more has no effect on you?”

“Many? Perhaps so, if that is what you want to think. But not as you mean; only ever for affection’s sake, when I was given the choice.”

I hated her for that frankness; had I taken her virtue, and had she been weeping with remorse at her fall in value, I would have understood and comforted her; I knew the words for that because I had read them somewhere. But to regard her loss as of so little moment, and to discover that it had not been given to me but to someone else was more than I could endure. Later, although I could never condone something so obviously in contradiction to God’s word, I accepted it, as much as possible, for she was her own law. However much she might obey my orders, she would never be obedient.

“Anthony,” she said gently, seeing my distress, “you are a good man, I think, and you try to be Christian. But I know what you have been doing. You see me as a fitting recipient of your charity. You want me to be good, and virtuous, at the same time that you want to roll with me in Paradise Fields before you go off and marry a woman with as much of an estate as you can find. Then you will convert me into a harlot who tempted you to sin while you were in drink, if that makes your prayers easier and gives your soul comfort.”

“You think that of me?”

“I do. You manage easily enough when you are talking to me about your work. Then your eyes light up and you forget what I am, in your pleasure at talking. Then you treat me honestly, without foolishness or awkwardness. Only one person has ever done this before.”

“And he was?”

“My father. And I have just learned that he is dead.”

I felt a wave of compassion for her as I heard her words, and saw the sadness in her eyes; it was something I understood well, as I had lost my own father when I was scarcely ten, and I knew well how painful it is to be brushed by such grief. I felt even more sad when she told me the details, for she was told (cruelly and falsely, it now seems) that her father had been killed when going back to his old habits of disobedience and troublemaking.

The details were unclear, and likely to remain so; the army was never punctilious about giving details to the families in such cases. But it seemed then that Ned Blundy’s agitations had finally become too much—he was arrested, given a military trial, and hanged forthwith, the body cast into an unmarked grave. The courage of his last moments, which Thurloe knew of, and Wallis discovered, was concealed from the family even though they would have taken great solace in it. Even worse, neither Sarah nor her mother were told where he rested, and did not even discover for some months that it had happened.

I sent her home to be with her mother, and told my own that she was not well. She appreciated the kindness, I think, but presented herself again the next morning, and never mentioned the matter again. Her mourning and grief she kept entirely within her and only I, who knew her better than most, caught the occasional glimpse of a distant sadness as she worked.

Thus my love for the girl had its birth, and my misery should be talked of no more. I still waited eagerly for her twice a week so that I could talk to her and, for a while, she went with me on occasion to Paradise Fields. No one ever knew of this, and my discretion was not because I was ashamed to consort with her; it was too precious to be the occasion of laughter in a tavern. I know how other people consider me; the ridicule of my fellows, even those I have helped, is a cross I have borne all my life. Cola, in his manuscript, repeats the remarks of Locke and even Lower, both of whom were pleasant to my face, and whom I still count almost as friends. Prestcott took my help, and laughed behind my back, Wallis did the same. I would not tarnish my affections with the scorn of others, and my regard for that girl would certainly have excited great ridicule.

It was, in any case, only one part of my life; much of my time I continued with my work and, discouraged by my growing doubts about what I was doing, I found myself turning more and more to the collection of facts, no longer daring to say what they meant. My work on the siege languished, and I turned instead to memorials; facts carved in stone and brass, so that I could assemble a list of the most important families of the county back through the ages. It sounds commonplace now, but I was the first even to consider the idea.

And I wandered through all the archives, cataloguing manuscripts that no hand had touched for generations as a way of earning small money and making myself useful. For what are we but our past? If that is lost, we become nothing. Even though I had no immediate intention of making use of the material myself, it was my duty and my pleasure to ensure that others could do so, if they were so minded. All the libraries of Oxford were in a dreadful state, their most precious treasures neglected for decades as men had turned their minds to the passion of faction, and learned to despise the old wisdom because they could not read it afresh. In my small way, I preserved and catalogued, and dipped into the vast ocean of learning that awaited, knowing all the time that the life of one man was insufficient for even the smallest part of the wonders that lay within. It is cruel that we are granted the desire to know, but denied the time to do so properly. We all die frustrated; it is the greatest lesson we have to learn.

It was through work such as this that I met Dr. Wallis, as he was keeper of the university archives when I most needed access to them, even though, as professor, he should never have been allowed the post. Although I grant his methodical mind did impose some order on documents which had been sadly neglected for years, nonetheless I could have done better (doing most of the work, unrecognized) and better deserved the salary of £30 a year.

I had heard rumors, of course, about his occult activities—his abilities as a decipherer of documents were no secret; indeed, he rather boasted of them. But I knew nothing, until I opened his manuscript, of his dark work for the government; had I known the full extent, I think that everything might have become very much simpler. Wallis was defeated (even if he only realized it when he in his turn saw Cola’s narrative) by his own cleverness and his obsession with secrecy. He saw enemies everywhere, and trusted no one. Read his words and see the motives he imputes to all who came into contact with him. Does he say anything good about anyone? He lived in a world where everyone was a fool, a liar, a murderer, a cheat or a traitor. He even sneers at Mr. Newton, denigrates Mr. Boyle, exploits the weaknesses of Lower.

All men were there to be twisted to serve his ends. Poor man, to think of his fellows thus; poor church, to have him as minister; poor England, to have him as its defender. He lambastes everyone, but who caused more death and destruction than he? But even Wallis could love, it seems, though when he lost the one person in his life he held dear, his reaction was not to come back to God in prayer and repentance, but to unleash still more cruelty on the world, and find that it served no purpose. I had encountered this Matthew of his on several occasions, and always felt sympathy for him. The obsession was clear to anyone, for Wallis could never be in a room with the lad without constantly looking at him, and making comments in his direction. But nothing gave me greater surprise than to read of Wallis’s affection, for he treated the boy abominably and all wondered how the lad endured such cruelty.

1 admit that the servant suffered less than the children, whose inadequacies were publicly and frequently acknowledged so vilely that once I saw the eldest break down in tears under the barrage, but nonetheless even Matthew had to put up with constant carping and malice; only with a man like Wallis could this be a way of expressing love. I had nothing but disgust for him. On one occasion when I saw his face twisted and purpled with rage at the lad and told Sarah of it, she chided me gently.

“Do not think badly of him,” she said, “he wishes to approach love, but does not know how. He can only adore an idea, and has to castigate the reality when it cannot compare. He wants perfection, but is so blinded in spirit he can only sense it only through his mathematics, and has no place in his heart for people.”

“But it is so cruel,” I said.

“Yes. But it is also love. Can you not see that?” she replied. “And it is surely his only route to salvation. Do not condemn the one spark in him that was given by God. It is not for you to judge.”

Then, however, I cared little for any of this—I wanted access to the archives, and Wallis quite literally had the key to them. So, as the king returned and tried to reestablish himself on the throne, as plots and counterplots swirled over the country like a snow blizzard, I left my room in Merton Street and went to the library, where I unbundled and catalogued and read and annotated until not even candlelight permitted me to work any longer. I worked in the icy cold of winter, when it grew dark in midafternoon, and in the boiling heat of summer, when the sun beat down on the lead roof just above my head and I grew half crazed from thirst. No weather or circumstance deflected me from my task, and I grew oblivious to all that was going on around me. I allowed myself to pause for an hour or so to eat, often in company with Lower or others like him, and in the evening would allow myself the greatest joy and solace of my life, which has always been music. Wine and music rejoice the heart, it can so mollify the mind, and soothe tempestuous affections, says Jason Pratensis, and Lemnius says it soothes also the arteries and the animal spirits, so that (here I cite Mr. Burton) when Orpheus played, the very trees tore up their roots that they might approach to hear better. Agrippa adds that the elephants of Africa are greatly pleased with it, and will dance to a tune. However sad and weary, an hour of the viol with good company nearly always brought me satisfaction and peace, and I would play, alone or with others, every evening an hour before prayer; it is the finest way I know of ensuring good sleep.

There were five of us who used to meet together twice a week and sometimes more frequently to play, and a most delicious harmony it was. We rarely talked, and scarcely even knew each other, but would meet and pass two hours or more in the most perfect friendship. I was neither the best nor the worst of the players, and by dint of practicing hard frequently appeared the superior. We used to meet where we could, and in 1662 settled in a room which we took above a newly opened coffee house next to the Queen’s College, further down the High Street and on the opposite side from Mr. Boyle’s rooms.

It was here that I first met Thomas Ken, whose companionship led me into the acquaintance of Jack Prestcott. As Prestcott says, Ken is now a bishop, and a very grand man indeed, so full of circumstance that his meager origins would astonish all who did not know him at that time. The thin, pinched cleric anxious for advancement, the ascetic concerned only to commune with Christ, has transformed himself into a portly ecclesiastical grandee, living in his palace with forty servants, dispensing his charity and a loyal devotee of whatever regime happens to hold his income in its grasp. It is a form of principle, I suppose, this willingness to transform the conscience for the common peace, but I do not admire it greatly, despite the comfort it has brought him. I remember with much greater affection the earnest young fellow of New College, whose only leisure was to scrape away at the viols in my company. He was an execrable musician, with little aptitude and no ear, but his enthusiasm was boundless and our group was short of a viol, and so we had little choice. I was truly shocked to learn that he had malevolently invented a tale about Sarah which took her one step closer to the gallows; so many people seemed to desire her death that even then I sensed a malignant fate taking pleasure in her destruction, turning people into her enemies for no reason that I could discern.

It was through my intervention that Sarah began to work for Dr. Grove, as Thomas (quite innocently) asked the assembled musicians one evening whether we knew of any servant wanting employment. Grove, recently returned to his fellowship, needed such a person and Ken was keen to help. He hoped to win the affection and patronage of the man, and initially tried hard to be obliging. Unfortunately, Grove could not countenance people like Ken in his college, and rebuffed all attempts at friendship; Ken’s courtesies were wasted, and an enmity grew which did not need a dispute over a parish to become acrimonious.

I said that I knew just the person, and asked Sarah the next time I saw her. One day a week to tidy his rooms, carry up his water and coal, empty his pots and see to his laundry. Sixpence a day.

“I’d be glad of the work,” she said. “Who is this man? I won’t work for anyone who thinks he can beat me. You know that, I think.”

“I don’t know him at all, so I cannot vouch for his character. He was ejected long ago and is only just returned.”

“A Laudian, then? Am I to work for a stalwart Royalist?”

“I would find you an Anabaptist Fellow if there were any, but people like this Grove are the only ones liable to make an offer these days. Take it or not, as you please. But go and see him—he might not be as bad as you fear. After all, I am a stalwart Royalist myself and you manage to contain your disgust, more or less, when you are around me.”

That earned me one of those lovely smiles I still remember so very well. “There are few as kind as you,” she said. “More’s the pity.”

She wasn’t eager, but her need for work overcame her scruples, and eventually she went to Grove and took the position. I was pleased for this, and saw what a delight it is to be able to patronize others, even if in a small way. Through me, Sarah had enough work to live and even to save, if she was careful. For the first time in her life she was living a settled, respectable existence, in her place and apparently content. It comforted me greatly, as it seemed a good omen for the future; I was glad for her and thought maybe the rest of the country would prove equally tractable. My optimism was, alas, badly misplaced.

3

I run ahead of myself. My eagerness to put all down on paper means that I leave much out which is vital; I should measure out my facts, so that all who read can discern the pattern of events with clarity. This, in my opinion, is what proper history should be. I know what the philosophers say, that the purpose of history should be to illustrate the noblest deeds of the greatest men, to give examples for the present generation of debased inferiors to emulate, but I do believe that great men and noble deeds can look after themselves; few, in any case, stand up to much close examination. The view is not unchallenged anyway, I think, as the theologians wag their fingers and say that truly the whole purpose of history is to reveal the wondrous hand of God as He intervenes in the affairs of man. But I find this a doubtful program as well, at least as it is commonly practiced. Is His plan truly revealed in the laws of kings, the actions of politicians or the words of bishops? Can we easily believe that such liars, brutes and hypocrites are His chosen instruments? I cannot credit it; we do not study the policies of King Herod for lessons, but rather seek out the words of the least of his subjects, who finds no mention in any of the histories. Look through the works of Suetonius and Agricola; study Pliny and Quintilian, Plutarch and Josephus, and you will see that the greatest event of all, the most important happening in the entire history of the world, entirely passed them by despite their wisdom and learning. In the time of Vespasian (as Lord Bacon says) there was a prophecy that one who came out of Judaea should rule the world; this plainly meant our Savior, but Tacitus (in his History) thought only of Vespasian himself.

Besides, my job as an historian is to present the truth, and to tell the tale of these days in the approved fashion—first causes, narrative, summation, moral—would be, surely, to present a strange picture of the time in which it happened. In that year of 1663, after all, the king was nearly toppled from his throne, thousands of dissenters were locked in jail, the rumblings of war were heard over the North Sea and the first portents of the great fire and the greater plague were felt throughout the land, in all manner of strange and frightening events. Are all these to be relegated to second place, or be seen merely as a theater set for Grove’s death, as though that was the most important occurrence? Or am I to ignore that poor man’s end, and all events which took place in my town, because the maneuverings of courtiers which took us to war the next year, and nearly consumed us in civil strife once more, are so much more important?

A memorialist would do one, an historian the other, but perhaps both are mistaken; historians, like natural philosophers, come to believe reason sufficient for understanding and deceive themselves that they see all, and comprehend everything. In fact their labors ignore the significant and bury it deep under the weight of their wisdom. The mind of man unaided cannot grasp the truth, but only constructs fantasies and fictions which convince until they convince no more, and which are true only until discarded and replaced. The reasonableness of humanity is a puny weapon, blunt and powerless, a child’s toy in a baby’s hand. Only revelation, which sees past reason and is a gift neither earned nor deserved, says Aquinas, can take us to that place which is illumined with a clarity beyond all intellect.

The ramblings of the mystic, however, would serve me ill in these pages, and I must remember my calling; the historian must work through the proper recitation of facts. So I will go back awhile to the start of 1660, before the Restoration of His Majesty, before ever I knew Paradise Fields, and shortly after Sarah had begun to work in my mother’s house. And, instead of windy rhetoric, I will tell how I visited the Blundys’ cottage one day to ask a few extra questions about the mutiny. As I approached down the lane, I saw a short man leave the cottage and walk swiftly away from me; on his back he had a pack such as travelers use. I looked at him with some passing curiosity, simply because he had come from Sarah’s house. He was not young, not old, but had a determined gait and walked off without glancing back. I only had one look at his face, which was fresh and kindly, though scored deeply with lines and weather-beaten like that of a man who had spent most of his life outside. He was cleanshaven, and had an unruly mop of fair, almost blond, hair which was uncovered by any hat. In build he was slight, and not tall, yet he had an air of wiry strength to him, as though he was used to enduring great privations without flinching.

It was the only sight I ever had of Ned Blundy, and I regret greatly that I had not arrived a few minutes earlier, as I would have dearly liked to question him. Sarah told me, however, that it would have been a waste of my time. He had never been open with strangers and trusted only slowly; she thought it very unlikely he would have been forthcoming even had he not been unusually preoccupied on what turned out to be his last visit.

“I would still have liked to have started an acquaintance,” I said, “as perhaps in the future we might meet again. Were you expecting him?”

“No, indeed not. We have seen very little of him in recent years. He has been always on the move and my mother is too old to go with him. He also thought it better if we stay here and make our own lives. Perhaps he is right, but I miss him greatly; he is the dearest man I know. I am worried for him.”

“Why so? I did not see him well, but he has the air of a man able to look after himself.”

“I hope so. I have never doubted it before. But he was so serious in his leave-taking that he frightened me. He spoke so gravely, and gave such warnings about our safety that I am concerned.”

“Surely it is natural for any man to be concerned for his family when he is not there to protect them?”

“Do you know a man called John Thurloe? Have you heard of him?”

“Of course I know his name. I am surprised you do not. Why do you ask?”

“He is one of the people I am to be wary of.”

“Why?”

“Because my father says he will want this off me if he learns of it.”

She pointed to a large bundle on the floor by the fireside, wrapped in cloth, bound up with thick cord and sealed with wax at every point.

“He did not tell me what it was, but said it would kill me if I opened it, or if anyone ever knew it was here. I am to hide it securely, and never breathe a word to anyone until he comes back to reclaim it.”

“Do you know the story of Pandora?”

She frowned and shook her head, so I told her the tale. Even though preoccupied, she listened, and asked sensible questions.

“I take it as a good warning,” she said. “But I intended to obey him in any case.”

“But you promptly tell me, before your father is even past the city walls.”

“There is no place here to hide it where it would not be found within minutes by a determined searcher, and we have few trustworthy friends who would not also be examined. I would like to ask you the greatest favor, Mr. Wood, as I trust you and think you a man of your word. Will you take it and conceal it for me? Promise you will not open it without my permission, and never reveal its existence to anyone?”

“What is in it?”

“I have told you. I do not know. But I can tell you that nothing my father does is base or cruel or means harm. It will only be for a few weeks, then you can give it back to me.”

This conversation—which ended with my agreement—may strike any reader of my words as strange. For it was as foolish for Sarah to trust me as it was for me to hide a package which might have contained any number of horrors to cause me grief. And yet both of us chose wisely; my word once given is sacrosanct and I never even considered violating her trust. I took the package away and concealed it in my room underneath the floorboards, where it remained undisturbed and unsuspected. I did not even think of opening it or going back on my promise in any way. I agreed because I never even considered not doing so; I was already falling under her spell, and willingly conceded any request which bound her to me, and earned her gratitude.

Of course, the package was that bundle of documents which Blundy had shown to Sir James Prestcott, and which Thurloe held to be so dangerous he searched for years to recover it. It was for those papers that, after Blundy died and Sir James Prestcott fled, Thurloe’s agents fanned out across the land, given any powers they wanted. It was to discover that bundle that Sarah’s house was ransacked, and ransacked again, her mother received the injury which killed her, her friends and acquaintances, those of her father and mother too, questioned closely and brutally. It was for this package that Cola came to Oxford, and it was for the same package that Thurloe steered Jack Prestcott and Dr. Wallis into hanging Sarah, lest she reveal its whereabouts.

And I knew nothing of this, but I kept it safe as I had promised, and no one ever thought to ask me about it.

I am very much afraid that my narrative, should any have cause to read it, will not please as much as those three on which it is based. I wish that, like them, I could offer a simple, straightforward narrative of events, full of obvious statements and gripped by the adamantine embrace of conviction. But I cannot do so because the truth is not simple, and these three gentlemen present only a simulacrum of verity, as I hope I have already demonstrated. I am sworn not to leave out contradictions and confusions, nor am I so full of my own importance that I have sufficient confidence to leave out all but what I did, saw and said myself, for I do not credit that my own presence was of critical importance. I must set down fragments, all jumbled up and criss-crossing the years.

So now I go forward again, and begin my tale in earnest. Around the middle of 1662, after I had known Sarah Blundy for nearly three years and the kingdom had been at peace for two, I was moderately contented with my lot in life. My routine was as unshakeable as it was rewarding. I had my friends, with whom I associated in the evenings, either at dinner or at music parties. I had my work, which was finally beginning to find the purpose which has occupied me ever since, bringing ever richer rewards in knowledge. My family was well enough established with no member, not even the most distant cousin, bringing anxiety, expense or dishonor to our door. I had secure and unchallenged possession of an annuity which, however small, was more than enough to provide food and lodging and such necessaries as my work required. I suppose that I would have liked more for, if I already realized that I would never take on the expense of marriage, I would happily have spent more on books, and engaged more completely in those acts of charity which illuminate the life of man when properly undertaken.

This was a minor concern, however, since I have never been one of those bitter and envious men who desire to be as rich as their fellows, and define insufficiency as what they themselves possess. All of my friends in those days have become far wealthier than myself. Lower, for example, became the most fashionable doctor in London; John Locke was supported in great style by generous and wealthy patrons and received countless pensions and annuities from the government before the enmity of the powerful forced him into exile. Even Thomas Ken battened on to a fat bishopric. But I would not change my life for theirs, for they constantly have to concern themselves with such matters. They live in a world where, if you do not perpetually rise, then you inevitably fall. Fame and fortune are of the most evanescent quality; I have, and can lose, neither.

Besides, none of the three gentlemen are contented, I know; they are too aware of the price of their money. All three regret the passing of their youth, when they thought they would do as they chose and dreamed of greater things. Without the demands of family—the incessantly open mouths of his own children and those children of his brother—Lower might have remained in Oxford and carved a name for himself deep into the tree of fame. But instead he went to practice as a fashionable physician, and has done no useful work since. Locke detests those who reward him so well, but was too used to good living to abandon the habit which now means he must live in Amsterdam for his own safety. And Ken? What choices he has made! Perhaps one day he will take a stand in public for what he truly believes. Until then he will remain in the torment of his own devising, assuaging the demons of self-criticism by his ever more extravagant works of benevolence.

As long as I have had my labor, I have been contented, and wanted no more. In those days particularly I believed myself to be delightfully set up, and suffered no melancholy longings to distract me. I was, as I say, pleased that I had established Sarah in a good and reliable position with Dr. Grove, and complacent that the comforting drift of my life would continue unabated. This was not to be, for bit by bit the events which are narrated in the three manuscripts I have been reading invaded my little world, and disrupted it entirely. It took a very long time indeed before I was able to reestablish something of the balance that sound scholarship and peaceful existence both require. Indeed, I think that I never did.

The first pinprick at my bubble of contentment came in late autumn. I was in a tavern, where I had paused one evening after a long day breathing in the dust of Bodley’s books. I was perfectly quiet and rested, having no thought in my mind at all to distract me, when I overheard part of a conversation between two low and verminous townsmen. I did not want, or intend, to listen but sometimes it cannot be avoided; words force their attention upon the mind, and will not be kept out. And the more I heard, the more I had to hear, because my body stiffened and was made icy cold by their gossip.

“That Leveller whore the Blundy girl.” That was, I think, the only phrase which initially my ears discovered amid the general hubbub in the room. Then, word by word, more of the conversation came to me. “Rutting cat.” “Every time she cleans his room.” “Poor old man, must be bewitched.” “Wouldn’t mind a chance myself.” “And him a priest. They’re all the same.” “You can tell just by looking, really.” “Dr. Grove.” “Spread her legs for anybody.” “Is there anyone who hasn’t?”

I now know these vile and disgusting reports to be absolutely false, although I did not know until I read Prestcott’s manuscript that they had originated with him after his cruel rape. Even then I did not instantly believe what I heard, for many lewd and boastful stories are told in drink, and if they were all true then there could scarcely be a virtuous woman in the country. No, it was not until Prestcott himself approached me that my refusal turned to doubt, and the creeping demons in my mind began to gnaw at my soul, making me hateful and suspicious.

Prestcott has recounted our initial meeting, called in as I was by Thomas Ken to assist—Ken hoped that I would do what he could not, and persuade the lad to give up what was liable to be a hopeless quest. Ken had tried, I think, but Prestcott’s violent response to all criticism restrained his efforts. He hoped that a cogent detailing of the facts would produce a reasonable response, and that Prestcott would listen to me if I gave such an account.

It took only a short acquaintance, however, before I realized that I neither liked Mr. Prestcott, nor wanted to involve myself in his fantasies in any way. So when he saw me in the street later and hailed me, my heart sank, and I prepared a story about how I had not yet completed my investigation.

“That is of no matter, sir,” he said jovially, “since there is nothing I can do with it at the moment. I am shortly off on a tour of the country, to my people and to London. It will wait until I return. No, Mr. Wood, I need to talk to you on a particular matter, for I have a warning to give you. I know you to be of a respectable family, and no member more so than your much admired mother, and I am loath to stand by and let your name be tarnished.”

“That is kind of you,” I said in astonishment. “I am sure there is nothing we need concern ourselves with. What, exactly, do you mean?”

“You have a servant, do you not? Sarah Blundy?”

I nodded, a feeling of concern creeping over me. “We do. A fine worker, dutiful, humble, and obedient.”

“So she no doubt appears. But as you know, appearances can be deceptive. I must tell you that her character is not as good as you like to think.”

“It grieves me to hear it.”

“And it grieves me to tell you. I am afraid that she is engaged in fornication with another of her employers, a Dr. Grove, of New College. Do you know the man?”

I nodded coldly. “How do you know this?”

“She told me. Boasted of it.”

“I find that difficult to believe.”

“I did not. She approached me and offered herself to me for money in the grossest and coarsest fashion. Naturally, I spurned the offer, and she as good as said that her qualities could be vouched for by many others. Many, many other satisfied clients, she said with a grin, and added that Dr. Grove was a new man since she had taken to providing him with the sort of satisfaction the church could not offer.”

“You grieve me when you say this.”

“I apologize for that. But I thought it for the best…”

“Of course. It was kind of you to take such trouble.”

That was the essence of the conversation; there certainly was not much more to it, but what an effect it had on my mind! My first reaction was to reject absolutely what he had told me, and persuade myself that what I knew of the girl, and my sense of her goodness, were more valuable than the testimony of an outsider. But my suspicions gnawed at me, and would not be tamed, and finally consumed me entire. Could my own sense of her nature be counted more valuable evidence than the actual experience of someone else? I thought of her in one way, it appeared Prestcott knew her to be other. And did my own experience contradict what he said? Had not the girl given herself to me freely? I had not paid her, but what did that say of her moral nature? Surely it was mere vanity on my part to think she had lain with me out of regard? The more I thought, the more I perceived what had to be the truth. She, alone of all women, had allowed me to touch her, and I had become infatuated as a result, instead of seeing that I could have been anyone. The desires of women are stronger than those of mere men; this is well known and I had forgotten it. When in heat they are ravenous, and insatiable, and we poor men think it love.

What is this jealousy, this emotion which can overwhelm and destroy the strongest of men, the most virtuous of creatures? What alchemy of the mind can transmute love into hate, longing into repulsion, desire into disgust, in such a way? Why is it that there is no man alive immune to its hot embrace, that it can banish all sleep, all reason and all kindness in an instant? What hangman, says Jean Bodin, can torture so well as can this fear and suspicion? And not men alone, for Vives says doves are jealous, and can die of it. A swan at Windsor, finding a strange cock with its mate, swam miles in pursuit of the offending beast and killed it, then swam back and killed the mate as well. Some say it is the stars which cause jealousy but Leo Afer blames climate, and Morison says that Germany has not so many drunkards, England tobacconists, France dancers, as Italy has jealous husbands. In Italy itself it is said men of Piacenza are more jealous than the rest.

And it is a changeable disease, shifting its form from one place to the next, for what will drive a man into madness in one place, will not affect another elsewhere. In Friesland, a woman will kiss the man who brings her drink; in Italy the man must die for it. In England young men and maids will dance together, a thing which only Siena abides in Italy. Mendoza, a Spanish legate in England, found it disgusting for men and women to sit together in church, but was told such a occurrence was only disgusting in Spain, where men cannot rid themselves of lascivious thoughts even in holy places.

As I am prone to melancholy, I am more susceptible to jealousy, but I know many choleric or sanguine people just as afflicted; I was young, and youth is jealous although Jerome says the old are more so. But understanding a disease, alas, can never cure it; knowing whence jealousy comes no more attenuates the malady than understanding the source of a fever; less so, for at least in physick a diagnosis can produce a treatment, while for jealousy there is none. It is like the plague, for which there is no cure. You succumb, and are consumed by the hottest of fires and in the end it either burns out, or you die.

I suffered the cloak of jealousy, which burned my soul as the shirt dipped in the blood of Nessus drove Heracles to agony and death, for near a fortnight before I could abide the torment no more. In that time everything I saw and heard confirmed my worst suspicions, and I grasped eagerly the slightest hint or sign of her guilt. Once, I almost brought myself to confront her, and went down to her cottage for that purpose, but as I approached I saw the door open, and a strange man come out, bowing in farewell and paying the most elaborate of respects. Instantly, I was sure this was some client, and that her shame and degradation was now so great she had taken to plying her trade in her own house, for all to see. My anger and shock was so great I turned around and walked away; my fear so consuming I straightaway went to my room and subjected myself to the most intimate of investigations, for the danger of becoming pox-ridden loomed large in my mind. I found nothing but was scarcely reassured, since I did not know anything at all of the malady. So I summoned all my courage and, red-faced with shame, took myself off to see Lower.

“Dick,” I said, “I must ask you the greatest favor, and beg for your complete discretion.”

We were in his rooms at Christ Church, a commodious apartment in the main quadrangle which he had occupied now for some years. Locke was there when I arrived, and so I forced myself into idle conversation, determined to wait as long as necessary before I got him on his own. Eventually Locke left, and Lower asked what it was that I needed.

“Ask away, and if I can oblige, I will willingly do so. You look in great distress, my friend. Are you ill?”

“I hope not. That is what I want you to determine.”

“And what do you think it may be? What symptoms do you have?”

“I have none.”

“No symptoms? None at all? Sounds very serious to me. I shall examine you thoroughly, then prescribe the most expensive medicines in my pharmacopoeia, and you will be well instantly. By God, Mr. Wood,” he said with a smile, “you are the ideal patient; if I could have a dozen like you, I would be both rich and famous.”

“Do not joke, sir. I am deadly serious. I fear I may have caught a shocking disease.”

My manner of speaking convinced him I was in earnest and, good doctor and kind friend that he was, he instantly dropped his bantering tone. “You are certainly worried, I can see that. But you must be a little more frank. How can I tell you what your illness is unless you tell me first? I am a doctor, not a soothsayer.”

And so, with great reluctance and fearing his mockery, I told him all. Lower grunted. “So you think this slut may have lain with everyone in Oxfordshire?”

“I do not know. But if the reports are correct, then I may be sickening.”

“But you say this has been going on for two years or more. I know the diseases of Venus do commonly take some time to show themselves,” he conceded, “but rarely this long. You do not notice any signs on her? No sores or pustules? No running pus, or creamy discharges?”

“I did not look,” I said, gravely affronted at the idea.

“That is a pity. Myself, I always look very carefully and I would counsel you to do the same in future. It doesn’t have to be obvious, you know. You can hide it under a pretense of love with only a little practice.”

“Lower, I do not want advice, I want a diagnosis. Am I sick or not?”

He sighed. “Drop your breeches, then. Let’s have a look.”

With the gravest embarrassment at the humiliation, I did as I was told and Lower subjected me to the most intimate examination, lifting and pulling and peering. Then he put his face close to my private parts and sniffed. “Seems perfectly fine to me,” he said. “Pristine condition, I’d say. Scarcely taken out of its wrapping.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “So I am not ill.”

“I didn’t say that. There are no symptoms, that is all. I would suggest you take remedies in large quantities for a few weeks, just to be on the safe side. If you are too bashful to get them yourself, I will buy some from Mr. Crosse and give them to you tomorrow.”

“Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“Not at all. Now, get dressed. I would suggest, by the way, that you avoid all intimate contact with this girl again. If she is as these reports suggest, then sooner or later she will become dangerous.”

“I fully intend to.”

“And we must make her character generally known, lest others fall into her snare.”

“No,” I said. “I cannot permit that. What if these reports are false? I would not calumnize her unnecessarily.”

“Your sense of justice does you credit. But you must not hide behind it. Such people as she are corrosive to any society, and must be known. If you must be fastidious, then confront her directly, and find out. At the very least, we must pass warning to Dr. Grove, so he can act as he sees fit.”

I did not act hastily; I needed more than gossip and the testimony of Jack Prestcott before I was prepared to act. Instead, I kept a more careful watch on her, and (I admit with shame) followed her on occasion when her labors were done. I was greatly distressed to have my worst fears confirmed still more, for on several occasions she did not go home, or did so only briefly. Instead, I saw her leave the town, walking purposely on one occasion in the direction of Abingdon, a town full of soldiers where I knew that trollops were in great demand. I could see no other explanation, and I note with chagrin that Wallis, when he discovered the same information, decided the only explanation was that she was carrying messages to and from radicals. I mention this to indicate the dangers of inadequate and partial evidence, for we were both wrong.

But I did not see this at the time, although I think I was prepared to listen openly and frankly to any explanation she might offer. The next day after a sleepless night during which I wished fervently that I might be spared the encounter, I told Sarah to sit down when she came into my room, and said I wanted to speak to her on a matter of grave importance.

She sat quietly, and waited. I had noticed that in previous days she had not been her usual self, and had worked less hard, and been less cheerful than was her wont. I had not paid a great deal of attention, as all women are prone to these moods, and scarcely noticed that for her it was out of her normal character. I did not know then, and did not discover until I read Jack Prestcott’s memoir, that this was due to his cruel violation of her. Naturally, she could not tell any of this—what woman’s reputation could endure such shame?—but she would not easily forget an offense once committed. I understand fully why Prestcott submitted to the delusion that she had bewitched him in revenge, however ridiculous the belief. For her hatred of the malice of others was implacable, so much had she been schooled by her upbringing to expect justice.

I had also noticed that she had spurned my affections, and moved out of reach quickly on the one occasion when I had tried to touch her, shrugging her shoulder in what appeared to be disgust at my hand on her shoulder. I was hurt by this initially, then I put it down as more evidence that she was turning away from me for the richer rewards offered by Dr. Grove. Again, I did not know the exact truth until I saw it, scribbled down in Prestcott’s hand.

“I must talk to you on a matter of the gravest importance,” I said when I had prepared myself properly. I noticed, and remember well, that I had a strange pressure in my breast as I began to talk, and my words came breathlessly, as though I had run a great distance. “I have heard some terrible reports, which must be dealt with instantly.”

She sat and looked at me blankly, with scarcely any interest in her face at all. I believe I stuttered and tripped on my words as I forced myself to continue with the interview, and even turned to examine my shelves of books, so I would not have to look her in the face.

“I have received a grave complaint about your behavior. Which is that you offered yourself brazenly and coarsely to a man of the university, and have been fornicating in the most disgusting fashion.”

Again, there was a silence of some duration before she replied—“That is true,” she said.

That my suspicions and the reports seemed confirmed did not comfort me. I had hoped that she would indignantly refute the charges, allowing me to forgive her, so we might continue as before. Even at that stage, however, I did not jump to conclusions. Evidence must be confirmed independently.

“And who is this man?” I asked.

“A so-called gentleman,” she said. “Called Anthony Wood.”

“Do not be impudent with me,” I cried in anger. “You know perfectly well what I mean.”

“Do I?”

“Yes. You have abused my generosity by seducing Dr. Grove, of New College, and not content with that alone, you also threw yourself on an undergraduate, Mr. Prestcott, and tried to get him to satisfy you as well. Do not deny it, for I heard it from his lips.”

She turned pale, and I take it as an indication of the foolishness of those who believe character can be read in the face that I assumed this to be shock at the discovery of her wiles. “You heard that?” she said, her face white. “From his lips indeed?”

“I did.”

“Then it must be true. For a fine young man like Mr. Prestcott could surely never lie. And he is a gentleman, while I am merely a soldier’s daughter.”

“Is it true? Is it?”

“Why do you ask me? You think it so. You have known me for what? Near four years now, and you believe it so.”

“How can I not? Your behavior is all of a piece. How can I trust you in your denial?”

“I have not denied anything,” she said. “I think it none of your affair.”

“I am your employer,” I said. “In the eyes of the law, your father, responsible for your behavior in all particulars. So tell me—who was that man I saw coming out of your house yesterday?”

She looked puzzled for a moment, then realized who I was referring to. “He was an Irishman, who came to see me. He traveled a long way.”

“Why?”

“That is not your affair either.”

“It is. It is my duty to myself as much as it is to you to prevent you from bringing shame on this family. What will people say if it becomes common currency that the Woods are employing a whore in their house?”

“Maybe they will say that the master, Mr. Anthony Wood, also lies with the slut whenever he can? That he takes her to Paradise Fields and there fornicates awhile before taking himself off to the library and making speeches about the behavior of others?”

“That is different.”

“Why?”

“I am not having an argument with you about abstract matters. This is serious. But if you can act thus with me, you can do so with others. That is obviously the case.”

“So how many other sluts do you know, Mr. Wood?”

I was red with anger at this time, and blamed her absolutely for what happened next. All I had desired was some sort of frank and open response. I would have liked her to deny everything, so that I might generously exonerate her. Or confess it frankly, and beg my forgiveness, which I would have willingly conferred. But she would do neither, and instead had the insolence to fling my accusations back in my face. Very swiftly, it seemed, we plunged into the darkness of our association, for whatever may have transpired between us, I was still her master. By her words she made it clear she had forgotten this, and was abusing our intimacy. No man of sense could admit there was any similarity between our behaviors, even had the accusation any substance, for she was beholden to me while I was free of any dependency to her. Nor could any man tolerate the foulness of her speech to me; even in the heat of passion I had never addressed her in anything but the most courteous terms and could not tolerate such language.

I stood up in shock and took a step toward her. She fell back against the wall, eyes wide with anger, and pointed at me, arm outstretched from her shoulder, in a strange, frightening gesture.

“Do not take a single step closer to me,” she hissed.

I stopped dead in my tracks. I do not know what I intended. Certainly I do not think there was any violence in my mind, for I have never been one to behave in such a way. Even the worst of servants has never received a blow from me, however much it was deserved. I do not claim this as any particular quality; and in the case of Sarah I know I would dearly loved to have beaten her black and blue, to revenge myself for the abuse I had suffered. But I am certain I would never have done more than try to frighten.

That fright, however, was enough for her to abandon all the show of docility. I did not know what she might have done had I taken a further step, but I felt then a tremendous will within her, and I did not feel able to challenge it.

“Get out of this house,” I said when she had lowered her arm. “You are dismissed. I will not lay a complaint against you, however much I have a right to do so. But I never want you in here again.”

Without another word, but with a glance of the purest contempt, she walked out of the room. A few seconds later, I heard the front door close.

4

Had I been Prestcott, I might have concluded from this encounter that Sarah was evil and possessed; certainly there was something powerful and terrifying in her gesture, and in the flame of her eyes at that moment. This is something I will dwell on properly at the right moment; for now, however, I must say merely that not only did such a thought never occur to me, I can refute absolutely Prestcott’s assertions.

It requires no great learning or knowledge to do so; even by his own account, Prestcott’s conclusions were wrong and he was let down by his own ignorance and derangement. For example, he says that demons took over the body of Sir William Compton and changed its shape, but this is plainly contradicted by all authority, for the Malleus Maleficarum says plain it is not possible; Aristotle says this can be caused only by natural causes, particularly the stars, yet Dionysius says the devil cannot change the stars—God will not allow it. Prest-cott never found any evidence of Sarah having cast an enchantment over his hair and blood, and the visions he suffered were due more, I think, to the devils he had himself summoned into his mind than any sent there by others.

Nor did he read those signs aright which he had himself summoned, for in the bowl of water shown him by Anne Blundy, he sought the author of his misfortunes, and she showed him truly—he saw, quite plainly, his own father and a young man—that man, I believe, was none other than himself. These two people brought all the troubles on their own heads through their violence and their disloyalty. Greatorex repeated the warning and again he ignored it. Jack Prestcott had the answer in his hand, Wallis says so plainly and I know it to be true, and yet in his madness he blamed others, and helped destroy Sarah, and put all hope forever out of his reach.

He very nearly put it out of mine as well. I scarcely saw Sarah at all for the next few months, as I took myself back to my manuscripts and my notebooks. When not working, though, my mind incessantly and disobediently returned to her, and my distress grew into resentment, and then into the most bitter hatred. I rejoiced when I heard that Dr. Grove had dismissed her, and that she was without work of any sort; I took satisfaction in the fact that no one else would employ her for fear of comment; and once I saw her in the street red in face with anger and humiliation, subjected to the lewd remarks of students who had also heard the stories. This time I did not intervene as I had once before, but turned away after I was certain she had seen me, so that she would know my contempt continued unabated. Quos laeserunt et oderunt, as Seneca has it, those you have injured you also hate, and I believe I felt already that I had been less than just, but did not know how to reverse my harshness.

Shortly after this business, when my spirits were still low and my habits continued unsociable—for I knew my humor did not appeal, and so avoided the company of my fellow men lest they demand to know what ailed me—I was summoned to Dr. Wallis. This was a rare occurrence, for although I was earning him his salary as keeper of the archives, he did not honor me frequently with such attention; any business between us was habitually conducted at chance meetings, in the street or in the library. As everyone who knows Wallis will realize, the summons alarmed me, for his coldness was truly terrifying. This is one of the rare matters on which Prestcott and Cola agree—both found his presence disturbing. It was, I think, the blankness of his countenance which gave such alarm, for it is hard to know a man when the visible indicators of character have been so rigorously suppressed. Wallis never smiled, never frowned, never showed either pleasure or displeasure. There was only his voice—soft, menacing and permanently laced with scarce-hidden nuances of contempt beneath a courtesy which could evaporate as swiftly as a summer dew.

It was at this meeting that Wallis asked me to discover for him the edition of Livy he sought. I will not recount the conversation as it actually took place; stripped of his sneering remarks about my character, the essence of his version is accurate enough. I promised to do my best and did so, leaving no library unexamined and no bookseller unbothered by my enquiries. But he did not tell me why he wanted it—I still knew nothing of Marco da Cola, who arrived several weeks afterward.

I suppose I must now concentrate more fully on that gentleman, and approach the heart of the matter. I am aware I have delayed unseasonably; it is something which I find painful to recall, so great was the torment he caused me.

I heard of Cola’s existence a few days before I met him; on the evening of his arrival, I think, I ate with Lower at a cookhouse, and he told me of the occurrence. He was quite excited about it; Lower in those days always had a taste for the novel and the exotic and had yearnings to tour the world. There was not the slightest chance that he would do so, for he had neither the money nor the leisure to travel, nor yet the easiness of mind to put aside his career. Absence is the greatest danger of all for the physician, since once out of the mind of the public, it is difficult to fight back into esteem. But it pleased him for some time to talk about how he would one day tour the universities of the continent, meeting the men of science and discovering what they were doing. The arrival of Cola rekindled these notions in his breast, and I am sure he imagined himself arriving in Venice, and being treated to the greatest hospitality by Cola’s family to repay the courtesies done in Oxford.

And he liked the man, strange as he found him, for Lower was nothing if not broad in his appreciation of humanity. Indeed, the little Italian was hard not to like, unless one be of a hard and suspicious turn of mind like John Wallis. Short and already tending to a certain roundness in the belly, with bright, sparkling eyes which twinkled readily with amusement, and an engaging manner of leaning forward in his seat which gave the impression of fascinated attention when you spoke, he was a charming companion. He was full of observations on all he saw, and none of these (that I heard) was pejorative; Cola seemed one of those happy few who sees only the best, and prefers not to notice the worst. Even Mr. Boyle, who gave his affections with the greatest difficulty, seemed to grow fond of him, despite Wallis’s warnings. This was the most extraordinary of all, perhaps, for Boyle liked peace and quiet; he suffered noise and disturbance almost as physical pain, and even at the height of the most exciting experiment, insisted on an air of moderate calm amongst those who were assisting. No servant was allowed to clatter about with equipment, or talk above a whisper; all had to be done with almost a religious demeanor—for, in his opinion, to study nature was a form of worship.

So the success of the boisterous, noisy Cola—always bursting into peals of laughter, whose flat-footed movements led him to bump noisily, with loud and extravagant oaths, into tables and chairs—was something of a mystery to us all. Lower ascribed it to the Italian’s obvious and genuine love of experiment, but personally I put it down to his gentlemanly amiability, and we might say with Menander that his reception was the fruit of his stately manners. Mr. Boyle was excessively sober in his demeanor, yet occasionally I suspected that there was part of him which admired those who were lighthearted and cheerful. Perhaps he would have been himself, had he been less stricken with ill health. I was not aware that, in part, Boyle’s attention was prompted by ulterior motives, but even this does not suffice, for he was not a man who could pretend an affection out of duplicity. No; Wallis’s intervention with Boyle merely makes that Italian’s success the more striking—or makes Wallis’s belief the less acceptable. For Boyle was as well acquainted with Cola as any in England, and a fine judge of character. I find it impossible to credit that he would have extended his affection had he discerned anything at all which corresponded with Wallis’s fears. Moreover, Boyle had no need to fear Wallis and I believe held him in a certain amount of distaste—more than any, he was capable of making up his own mind, and his opinion should thus be given more weight when reaching any judgment on this matter.

The gradual disenchantment of Lower with Cola, however, did have much to do with Wallis, for he preyed like the serpent before Eve on Lower’s fears and hopes, twisting them to his own ends. Wallis knew Lower was desperate for success, for all his family depended on him since it was clear that his elder brother (through the perversions of religious belief) would never be in a position to give much support. And Lower had a large family, for not only were his parents still living, he had several unmarried sisters who needed portions, and innumerable demanding cousins. Merely to satisfy part of their expectations, he would have to be the most successful physician in London. It says much for his sense of duty that he applied himself with the greatest success when he took up the challenge; and it says as much for the weight of this burden on his mind that he swiftly came to see Cola as a threat to his progress.

Lower had, after all, worked hard with Mr. Boyle and others to deserve and receive their patronage. He had done countless labors and small services for no payment and had proved an assiduous courtier. The rewards were to be Boyle’s support for his membership of the Royal Society; his approval when he finally plucked up the courage to advance his cause with the College of Physicians; his patronage when the position of Court Physician came vacant, as well as the huge family of patients that Boyle’s approval could bring to him when he began his practice in London. And he deserved all the success and all the support Boyle could provide, for he was a very good physician indeed.

Having worked so hard and being now, at the age of some thirty-two years, on the verge of entering the lists, he was frightened lest some event snatch those greatly desired rewards from him. Cola presented no threat to him, and would not have done even had he been what Lower feared, for Boyle patronized those with merit and did not play favorite with his clients. But Lower’s jealousy and worry was inflamed by the words of Dr. Wallis, who played on his ambition by saying that Cola had the reputation for stealing other men’s ideas. I do not (though my own path has been so different) condemn moderate ambition, such as drove The-mistocles to match the glory of Miltiades, or fired Alexander to seek the trophies of Achilles; rather it is the excess of ambition that becomes pride, drives courtiers to beggar themselves and their families, and makes good men behave with cruelty and recklessness, which all men of sense must condemn; Wallis’s purpose was to drive Lower into this great fault and for a while he succeeded, even though Lower battled manfully with his jealousy. The conflict within him, I believe, exacerbated those changes in mood, from exultation to darkness, from excessive friendliness to bitter condemnation, which caused Cola so much grief.

Initially, however, all was very well. Lower bubbled with enthusiasm as he described his new acquaintance and I could see he hoped that a true friendship would develop. Indeed, he was already treating Cola with that consideration and courtesy normally reserved for acquaintances of much longer standing.

“Do you know,” he said, leaning forward with an arch look of amusement on his face, “so good a Christian physician is he, he has even undertaken to treat the old Blundy woman? Without any hope of payment or reward, although as he is Italian perhaps he intends to take payment in kind from the girl. Should I warn him, do you think?”

I ignored the remark. “What is wrong with the old woman?” I asked.

“Fell and broke her leg, apparently. A nasty wound by all accounts, and she is unlikely to survive. Cola took her on after the daughter had the gall to approach Dr. Grove in public to ask for money.”

“Is this man any good? Does he know anything about such injuries?”

“That I cannot say. All I know is that he has set to work with a great enthusiasm, completely mindless of the disadvantages of such a client. I applaud his kindness, if not his sense.”

“You would not treat her yourself.”

“With only the greatest reluctance,” he said, then hesitated. “No, of course I would. But I am glad I was not asked.”

“You have taken a shine to this man.”

“Indeed. He is quite delightful and extremely knowledgeable. I look forward to many long conversations during his stay, which may be a long one, as he is out of funds. You must come and meet him; visitors to this town are few and far between these days. We must make what use we can of them.”

There the subject of itinerant Italians was dropped, and the conversation passed onto other matters. I left my friend later with a feeling of concern in the back of my mind, for I was distressed to hear of the misfortunes of Sarah’s mother. This was, after all, many months since our last encounter and the passage of time had softened my feelings. I am not a man much given to hatred, and find that I cannot sustain a continued resentment, however grave the injury suffered. While I had no desire to resume my acquaintance, I no longer wished to see that family visited by troubles, and still nurtured an affection of sorts for the old woman.

Here again I confess freely, and say I wished to play the part of magnitude. However much she had caused me injury, yet I wished to show myself charitable and forgiving. Perhaps this was the greatest punishment I could bestow, for I would show her the extent of her foolishness, and lord it over her with my condescension.

So, after much thought, the following evening I covered myself in my cloak, put on my warmest hat and gloves (Cola was certainly right about the coldness of the weather; my friend Mr. Plot has meticulously gathered measurements which show it to have been bitterly cold. Although spring came suddenly and brilliantly only a week or so later, winter held the country in its icy grip until the last moment) and walked down to the castle.

I was nervous of being seen, and even more nervous about encountering Sarah, as I had no expectation of being welcomed. But she was not there; I knocked, waited, then walked in with relief in my heart, thinking that I would be able to comfort the mother without the risk of angering the daughter. That woman, however, was asleep, no doubt due to some potion or other, and although I was tempted to wake her so that my kindness might not go unnoticed, yet I refrained from doing so. Her face shocked me, so gaunt and pale that it resembled a death’s head; her breathing was harsh and difficult and the smell in the room was oppressive in the extreme. Like all people, I have witnessed death on many occasions; I watched my father, my brothers and sisters, my cousins and my friends all die. Some young, some old, of injury, illness, plague and simple old age. No one, I think, can reach the age of thirty without knowing death intimately, in all its guises. And it was in that room, waiting its chance.

There was nothing I could do at that moment. Anne Blundy did not need any practical help I could give, and any spiritual comfort would not have been pleasing to her. Reluctantly I stood watching her, overcome by that sudden hopelessness that results from wanting to do well but not knowing how, until a footstep at the door roused me from my meditations. Overcome with a fear and a sudden reluctance to confront Sarah herself, I quickly took myself into the little room next to the chamber, since I knew there was a small door through which I could once again gain the street.

But it was not Sarah; the footfalls in the room were far too heavy for that, and so I paused out of curiosity to know who had come into the house. By carefully peering through the door—a deceit I am ashamed to acknowledge, as it is the sort of falseness no gentleman should ever perpetrate—I could see that the man in the next room must be this Cola; no Englishman (in those days at least) would ever have dressed in such a fashion. He was behaving very strangely, however, and his activities caught my attention in such a way that I compounded my ill-behavior by continuing to watch, and continuing to make sure that I was myself unobserved.

First, he came in and established as I had that Widow Blundy was still perfectly asleep, then knelt down beside her, took out his rosary and prayed deeply for a short while. As I say, I had considered doing something of the same myself in a more Protestant way, but knew her better than to think even that would be welcomed. Then he acted most strangely indeed, taking out a small phial which he opened, and spreading some oil on his finger. He applied this finger gently to her forehead, made the sign of the cross and prayed again before putting the bottle back under his coat.

This was odd enough, although might be explained by great personal devotion, which I could admire as much as I condemned his error in doctrine. Thereafter, he bewildered me completely, as he got up abruptly and began searching the room. Not out of idle curiosity, but a thorough and determined search, pulling the small number of books off the shelves and flicking through them one by one before shaking them to see if anything should flutter out. One, I noted, he tucked under his coat so it could not be seen. Then he opened the little chest next to the door which contained all the Blun-dys’ possessions, and went through that as well, meticulously searching for something. Whatever it was he did not find it, for he closed the lid with a heavy sigh, and muttered some imprecation in his native language—I did not understand the words, but the sense of disappointment and frustration was clear enough.

He was standing in the room, clearly wondering what to do next, when Sarah arrived.

“How is she?” I heard her say, and my heart stirred to hear her voice again.

“She is not well at all,” said the Italian. He had a thick accent, but spoke clearly and evidently understood the language perfectly. “Can you not attend to her more?”

“I have to work,” she replied. “Our position is already grave now my mother cannot earn. Will she recover?”

“It is too soon to say. I am drying out the wound, then I will rebind it. I fear she is developing a fever. It may pass, but I am concerned. You must check every half hour for signs of the fever getting worse. And, strange as it may seem, you must keep her warm.”

I see here that my recollection of the conversation matches that of Mr. Cola very well; his memory is sound as to the beginning of the matter, so I will not continue to repeat what he has already said. I will, however, add that I noticed something he does not mention, which is that there was instantly in that room a most palpable tension between the two of them, and, while Sarah behaved perfectly normally, concerned only for her mother, Cola became distinctly and ever more agitated as the conversation proceeded. I thought initially that he was alarmed at the thought that his bizarre behavior might have been spotted, but realized this could not be. I should have left instantly, and slipped away while I had the chance to do so unobserved, but I could not bring myself to go.

“I am fortunate indeed. Forgive me, sir. I mean no insolence. My mother told me how well and generously you acted to her, and we are both deeply grateful for your kindness. We are not used to it, and I am truly sorry I misspoke. I was frightened for her.”

“That is quite all right,” Cola replied. “As long as you do not expect miracles.”

“Will you come again?”

“Tomorrow, if 1 can. And if she worsens, come and find me at Mr. Boyle’s. I will be attending him. Now, about payment,” he said.

I reproduce, more or less word for word, the conversation as set down by Mr. Cola, and admit that his account, as far as my own memory serves, is impeccable. I will merely add one thing which, strangely, finds no mention in his description. For as he spoke about payment, he took a step closer to her, and rested his hand on her arm.

“Oh yes, your payment. How could I think you would forget about that. We must deal with that urgently, must we not?”

It was only then that she broke away, and led him into the room where I swiftly concealed myself in the gloom so I might escape observation.

“Very well then, physician, take your payment.”

And, as Cola says, again with perfect truth, she lay herself down and pulled up her dress, revealing herself to him with the most obscene of gestures. But Cola does not mention the tone in her voice, the way her words trembled with anger and contempt, and the sneer on her face as she spoke.

Cola hesitated, then took a step backward and crossed himself. “You disgust me.” It is all in his account, I merely plagiarize his words. But again I must differ on a point of interpretation, for he says he was angry and I did not detect that. What I saw was a man horrified, almost as though he had seen the devil himself. His eyes were wide, and he all but cried out in despair as he recoiled from her and averted his gaze. It was many days before I learned the reasons for this bizarre behavior.

“Lord forgive me, your servant, for I have sinned,” he said in Latin, which I could understand and Sarah could not. I remember it well. He was angry at himself, not at her, for she was nothing to him but a temptation which had to be resisted. Then he ran, stumbling in his hurry out of the room, not slamming the door, it is true, for he left too fast to shut it at all.

Sarah lay there on the straw pallet, breathing deeply. She rolled over and buried her head in her arms, face down into the straw. I thought she was merely going to sleep, until I heard the unmistakable sounds of her weeping her heart out, heavy choking sobs which tore at my soul and rekindled, in an instant, all my affections.

I could not help myself, and paused not even an instant to reflect on what I was doing. She had never cried so before, and the sound of such deep sadness flooded my heart, dissolving all bitterness and rancor, and leaving it pure and clean. I took a step forward, and knelt down beside her.

“Sarah?” I said softly.

She jumped in fright as I spoke, pulling her dress down to cover herself and recoiling from me in terror. “What are you doing here?”

I could have given long explanations, could have made up a story about how I’d just arrived and was anxious about her mother, but the sight of her face made me abandon any thought of pretense. “I have come to ask your forgiveness,” I said. “I do not deserve it, but I have wronged you. I am so very sorry.”

It was easy to say, and I felt as I spoke that those words had been waiting their chance for months. Instantly I felt better, and relieved of a great weight. What was more, I truly think I did not mind whether she forgave me or not, for I knew she would be quite within her rights not to do so, as long as she accepted that my apology was genuine.

“This is a strange time and place to say such a thing.”

“I know. But the loss of your friendship and regard is more than I can bear.”

“Did you see what happened just now?”

I hesitated before admitting the truth, then nodded.

She did not instantly reply, then began shaking; I thought that it was with tears once more, but then discerned to my astonishment that it was with laughter.

“You are a strange man indeed, Mr. Wood. I cannot make you out at all. On no evidence at all, you accuse me of the most vile behavior, and when you see a scene such as that, you ask my forgiveness. What am I to make of you?”

“I hardly know what to make of myself, sometimes.”

“My mother is going to die,” she continued, the laughter ceasing, and her mood changing on the instant.

“Yes,” I agreed. “I am afraid she is.”

“I must accept it as God’s will. But I find it impossible to do so. It is strange.”

“Why so? No one has ever said obedience and resignation are easy.”

“I am so frightened of losing her. I am ashamed, for I can hardly bear to see her the way she is now.”

“How did she break her leg? She fell, Lower told me, but how could that be?”

“She was pushed. She came back here in the evening when she had closed the wash house, and found a man in the house, looking through our chest. You know her well enough to realize she would not run away. He got a black eye, I think, but she was pushed to the ground and kicked. One of the blows broke her leg. She is old and frail and her bones are not strong any more.”

“Why did you not say so? Make a complaint?”

“She knew him.”

“All the more reason.”

“All the less. He is a man who worked once for John Thurloe’s office, as did my father. Even now he will never be caught or punished for anything he might do.”

“But what…?”

“We have nothing, as you know. Nothing that could interest him, at any rate. Except those papers of my father’s, which I gave to you. I said they were dangerous. Do you have them safe still?”

I assured her it would take many hours to find them in my room, even if someone knew they were there.

Then I told her of what I had seen that evening, and said that Cola also had made a thorough search. She shook her head sadly. “Lord, why dost Thou persecute Thy servant so?”

I wrapped my arms around her and we lay there together, I stroking her hair and giving what comfort I could. It was not much.

“I ought to tell you about Jack Prestcott,” she began eventually, but I hushed her.

“I do not want, or need, to hear anything,” I said.

Better that it should be forgotten, whatever it was; I did not want to hear, and she was grateful to be spared the humiliation of having to speak.

“Will you return to work for us?” I asked. “It is not much to offer, but if it becomes known in the town that the Woods will admit you into their house, it will begin to mend your reputation, quite apart from giving you money.”

“Will your mother have me?”

“Oh, yes. She was very angry when you left, and has never stopped complaining how much better the housework was done when you were there.”

She smiled at that, for I knew my mother had never once allowed herself to issue even the faintest word of praise in Sarah’s hearing, lest it make her grow proud.

“Perhaps I will. Although as it seems I am not to pay for doctors now. then my need for money is the less.”

“That,” I said, “is carrying submission to divine will too far. If it can be done, then your mother must have attention. How do you know this is not a test of your love for your mother, and that she is meant to survive? Her death would be punishment for your negligence otherwise. You must have treatment for her.”

“All I can afford is a barber, and even they might refuse. She has refused any treatment I can give her, and I could not help in any case.”

“Why?”

“She is old, and it is her time to die, I think. I can do nothing.”

“Perhaps Lower could.”

“He can try, if he will, and I would be happy if he succeeded.”

“I will ask him. If this Cola will say she is no longer his patient, then he might be prevailed upon. He will not abuse a colleague by doing so without his leave, but it sounds as though there should be no trouble gaining that.”

“I cannot pay.”

“I will see to that, somehow. Don’t you worry.”

With the very greatest reluctance I pulled myself up. For all the world, I would have stayed there all night, something I had never done before, and which I found strangely enticing; to hear her heart beat against mine and feel her breath against my cheek were the sweetest sensations. But it would have been an imposition and would also have been noticed the next day. She had a reputation to rebuild, and I had one to preserve. Oxford then was not like the king’s court, nor even had it the laxity of the town now. All had ears, and too many were swift to condemn. I was myself.

My mother presented only the most cursory of objections when I announced that Sarah had repented of her sins and added that, in any case, they were smaller than common tittle-tattle pronounced. It was a mark of charity to forgive the sinner if regret was genuine, and I concluded that I was sure this was the case.

“And she is a good worker, who might, perhaps, now accept a ha’penny less a week,” she said shrewdly. “We’ll certainly get none better at that wage.”

So it was agreed, with yet another ha’penny earmarked from my pocket to make up the difference, and Sarah was reengaged. There then followed the problem of her mother, and I talked to Lower about it a few days later, when I had the opportunity. He was a difficult man to get hold of then, for he was hard at work on his fine examination of the brain, the dedication of which made him most anxious.

“To whom should I address it?” he asked me with a worried frown before I could speak. “It is a most delicate matter, and by far the most concerning part of the whole enterprise.”

“Surely not,” I said. “The work itself…”

He waved his hand dismissively. “The work is nothing,” he said. “Pure labor and applied concentration. The expense of publication is worse than that. Do you know how much a good engraver costs? I must have high-quality illustrations; the whole point is lost if the drawings are botched, and with some of these people you can’t tell a human brain from a sheep’s once they are done. I need at least twenty, all done by a London engraver.” He sighed deeply. “I envy you, Wood. You can produce all the books you want and not pay attention to these questions.”

“I would like many engravings,” I said. “It is very important that readers see the representation of the people I mention, so they can judge for themselves that my account of their characters is accurate, by comparing deeds and features.”

“True, true. My point is that your words can stand on their own if need be. In my case, the book is all but incomprehensible if there are not illustrations of great expense.”

“So worry about that, not the dedication.”

“The illustrations,” he said gravely, resuming the worried look, “are mere money. A nightmare, but a straightforward one. The dedication is my entire future. Am I ambitious, and risk aiming too high? Or modest, aim too low and waste my effort for no gain?”

“The book must be its own reward, I think.”

“Spoken like a true scholar,” he replied testily. “All very well for you, with no family to provide for, and content to remain here forever.”

“I am as jealous of fame as the next man,” I said. “But that will come from admiration of the book, not by using it as a weapon to bludgeon your way into the favor of the mighty. To whom do you consider giving it?”

“In my dreams, when I think of glory, I naturally think of giving it to the king. After all, that Galileo man in Italy addressed one piece of work to the Medici, and was given a rich court position for life as a result. I imagine His Majesty being so impressed that he straightaway appoints me royal physician. Except,” he said bitterly, “that there is one already, and his gracious Majesty is too hard up for two.”

“Why not be more imaginative? There are so many addressed to him already and he cannot be grateful to every author in England; you would merely be lost in the melee.”

“Such as?”

“I don’t know. Someone who is rich, would appreciate the gesture, and whose name would attract attention. How about the Duchess of Newcastle?”

Lower cackled. “Oh, yes,” he said. “Very funny. I might as well dedicate it to the memory of Oliver Cromwell. A fine way, if I may say so, to ensure that the world of curiosity never takes me seriously again. A woman experimentalist, indeed; an embarrassment to her family and her sex. Come now, Wood, be serious.”

I grinned. “Lord Clarendon?”

“Too predictable and might fall from power, or die from a seizure, before it came out.”

“A rival? The Earl of Bristol?”

“Dedicate a book to a professing Catholic? Do you want me to starve to death?”

“A rising star, then? This Henry Bennet?”

“May well become a falling star.”

“A man of learning? Mr. Wren?”

“One of my best friends. But he can no more advance me than I can advance him.”

“Mr. Boyle, then.”

“I like to think I have his patronage already. It would be a waste of an opportunity,”

“There must be someone. I will think on it,” I told him. “It’s not as if the book is about to go to the printers.”

Another groan. “Don’t remind me. Unless I get some more brains, it never will. I do wish the courts would hang someone.”

“There is that young man in jail at the moment, whose chances are not good. Jack Prestcott. It is likely he will be hanged in a week or so. Heaven knows he deserves it.”

And so, you see, it was I who reminded Lower of Prestcott, whose arrest had caused something of a stir in the town some ten days previously, and caused him to go off to solicit his body. And I believe it was true that Lower took Cola along, rather than Cola devising some means of visiting the young man in jail, as Dr. Wallis assumed. Indeed, as I will make clear, Mr. Cola had very good reasons for not having anything to do with Prestcott if he could avoid it. It must have been a considerable shock for him to come across someone whom he had met before.

The mention of Prestcott naturally brought my mind back to Sarah Blundy, and the condition of her mother, and I suggested to Lower he might consider treating her.

“No,” he said firmly, “I cannot take the patient of another physician, even if Cola is not one. That is the most appalling manners.”

“But Lower,” I said, “he will not treat her, and the woman will die.”

“If he tells me so, then I will reconsider. But I hear she cannot pay.”

I frowned at this, for I knew well that my friend habitually and to his own disadvantage treated many who could not afford his services. Lower saw my reaction and looked very ill at ease.

“It would have been different had I offered knowing the situation, but she imposed on poor Cola quite abominably, not telling him she had no money. We physicians have our pride, you know. Besides, I don’t want to treat her. You of all people should know what she’s like, and I am amazed at your asking me.”

“Perhaps I was wrong. The girl has been slandered, at least in part, I am sure of it. Besides, I am not asking you to treat her, I’m asking you to treat her mother; if need be, I will stand the cost.”

He thought a moment, as I knew he would, for he was too good a man—and as a physician too much in need of practice—to turn down an opportunity.

“I will talk to Cola, and see what he says,” he said. “I will no doubt see him later. Now, you must excuse me, my friend, for I have a busy day. Boyle is running an experiment I wish to observe, I will have to consider approaching this young man you mention in jail, and in addition to all that I have to go to Dr. Wallis for a consultation.”

“Is he ill?”

“I hope so. He would be a fine patient to have, if I can cure him. He is well in at the Royal Society, and if I have both him and Boyle behind me, then my entrance will be assured.”

And with high hopes he went off, only to be told, so I see from Wallis’s manuscript, that his friend Cola was out to steal his ideas. Poor man; no wonder he was so ill-humored with Cola later that day, although it does him credit that he spoke not a word against the Italian, for Lower tried not to level accusations unless he was sure of his ground. Few, alas, put their principles into action in this way; I have met many a scientist who will intone gravely of Lord Bacon and the virtues of the inductive method, yet will rush to believe the idlest gossip without any thought of contradiction. “It seems reasonable to me,” they say, not realizing this is pure nonsense. Reason cannot seem anything; I thought this was the whole point of it. It must be capable of demonstration, and if it merely “seems,” then it is not reason.

As is known, Lower did speak to Cola, and I to Sarah, and persuaded her that she had no option but to apologize to the Italian so that he would consent to treat the mother once more. This, I may say, was a hard task to accomplish and, had it been her own death that was in prospect, no words or arguments would have persuaded that proud, strange girl to give way. But it was another’s life that was at stake, and she accepted that she must submit. For my part, I was concerned lest the Italian renew his advances and decided to reduce the possibility by offering payment myself. It meant doing without near two months’ supply of books, but it was an act of charity that I thought would be well made.

I did not, however, have any money. My income in those days came from an annuity on funds I had lent to my cousin to buy his tavern, and he had undertaken to pay me the sum of £67 every Lady Day. He performed this task dutifully, and I was content that I had placed my small fortune to advantage, for nothing is more secure than one’s own family—though even this is not always certain. However, he would not, and could not, pay in advance and I had grossly exceeded my budget recently in buying a new viol. Apart from food, and the money I gave my mother, I was almost without funds for several months, and had to live modestly myself to avoid disaster. The three pounds I needed for Cola was a sum far beyond my resources. I could advance near twenty-four shillings, borrowed another twelve from various friends who held me in good credit, and raised nine shillings by selling some books. That left me with fifteen shillings to find, and it was because of this that I summoned my courage and made an appointment to see Dr. Grove.

5

I had never met the man, and knew only of his reputation, which stated that he was irascible and difficult in character, backward in outlook and with a pronounced tendency to cruelty when he had drunk more than a little. He was nonetheless said to be of great brilliance, but time and misfortune had perverted this, and dedicated his acumen to rancor and bitterness. Wallis, 1 note, speaks well of him, as does Cola, and I do not doubt that he could display great courtesy when he chose; indeed there was none more charming if he thought you worthy or of a similar rank to himself. But a meeting with Grove was a lottery, and the reception he accorded was in no way influenced by the occasion; instead he would use his interlocutors for his own purposes, as his mood dictated.

I was aware of all this, and went nonetheless, for I could think of no other who might assist—I have never had wealthy friends and at that time most of my acquaintance were poorer even than I. I was certain now that, in the matter of the tales I had heard, Grove had been slandered as badly as had Sarah, and was equally sure that he would be grieved his servant had been so punished by baseless malice. I understood, of course, that he might not wish to offer public assistance for the sake of his reputation, but was confident that an opportunity for private aid would be most welcome to him.

So I went and, as a result, brought about his death. I state the fact baldly, so there should be no mistaking the matter. All in their reports give their conclusions, their thoughts, their reasons and their suspicions about why and how this event took place. Many sorts of evidence have been called into the matter; Cola used confession to conclude Sarah was responsible and believed that personal testimony could not be gainsaid. She admitted the deed, therefore had committed it, and I agree that in most cases this is the strongest evidence there is. Prestcott, in his muddled way, used the procedures of legal reasoning, deciding who best benefited and then, as no other information contradicted this, concluded that Thomas Ken was responsible. Dr. Wallis applied his own power of logic, convinced that his fine mind could encompass all relevant issues and draw valid conclusions. All were convinced of the infallibility of their forensical technique, resorted to because the one type of witness which could conclude the matter was unavailable to them—none of them saw who put the poison in the bottle. I did.

My Lord Bacon, in his Novum Organum, discusses this point, and investigates with his habitual brilliance the various categories of evidence, and finds them all flawed. None conveys certainty, he decides, a conclusion which (one might think) would be devastating for scientists and lawyers alike—historians and theologians have learned to live with this, the former modestly tempering their claims, the latter resting their glorious edifice on the more reliable foundations of revelation. For without certainty what is science except glorified guesswork? And without the conviction of certainty, total and absolute, how can we ever hang anyone with an easy conscience? Witnesses can lie and, as I know myself, even an innocent can confess to a crime he did not commit.

But Lord Bacon did not despair, and claimed one instance of a fingerpost which points in one direction only, and allows of no other possibility. The perfectly independent eyewitness, who has nothing to gain from his revelation, who is, in addition, schooled in observation and report through a gentlemanly status and education, this is the nearest we can get to a reliable witness and his testimony may be said to be conclusive, overwhelming all lesser forms. I claim here that status, and assert that what follows eliminates all possibility of further argument on the subject.

I sent a brief note to Dr. Grove, begging the favor of an interview, and in due course received a note saying that he would see me that evening. Thus, perhaps some two hours after Mr. Cola had left the college, I knocked on the door.

Naturally, I did not refer to the purpose of my visit immediately; I might be a beggar, but I did not wish to appear an uncivil one. So we talked for a good three-quarters of an hour, which was interrupted frequently by Grove’s belching and farting as he complained loudly of the food that his college chose to serve up to its fellows.

“I wish I knew what that cook did to it,” he said after a particularly bad attack. “You would not have thought a good simple roast could be so massacred. I swear it will be the death of me in the end. Do you know, I had a guest in this evening. Young Italian man, about your age, I’d guess. He chewed his way through with no complaint, but the look of shock about him was so great I almost felt like laughing straight in his face. That’s the trouble with these foreigners. Too used to fancy sauces. They don’t know what real meat’s like. They like their food like their religion, eh?” He chuckled at his metaphor. “All dressed up and elaborate, so you can’t tell what’s underneath. Garlic or incense. It’s the same thing.”

He chuckled again at his little sally, and I could see he was wishing he had thought of it earlier, the better to irritate his guest. I did not point out that his attitude to the food seemed to me a little contradictory.

Here he groaned again, and clutched his stomach. “Dear God, that food. Pass me that little packet of powder, dear boy.”

I picked it up. “What is this?”

“An infallible purgative, although that pompous little Italian says it’s dangerous. It isn’t; Bate says it is safe, and he is the king’s physician. If it’s good enough for a king, it’s good enough for me, I should think. It is vouched for both by authority and by my own experience. Then this Cola tells me it is useless. Nonsense; two pinches and your bowels empty on the instant. I bought a large amount four months back against such occasions as these.”

“I believe Mr. Cola is a doctor, so possibly knows what he says.”

“So he says. I don’t believe it myself. He’s too Jesuitical to be a real physician.”

“I understand he is treating Anne Blundy of a broken leg,” I said, seeing my chance of bringing the conversation around.

At the very name, Dr. Grove’s face darkened with displeasure, and he growled menacingly, like a dog warning a rival for a bone.

“So I hear.”

“Or was, for she cannot afford the treatment, and Mr. Cola, it seems, cannot afford to work for nothing.”

Grove grunted, but I did not take the warning, so eager was I to do my business and depart.

“I have pledged myself for two pounds and five shillings.”

“Good of you.”

“But I need another fifteen shillings, which I do not possess at the moment.”

“If you have come here to ask me for a loan, the answer is no.”

“But…”

“That girl near cost me eighty pounds a year. I nearly lost the living I have been promised because of her. I don’t care if her mother dies tomorrow; it would be no more than she deserves, from what I hear. And if she cannot afford treatment, then that is the consequence of her own behavior, and it would be a sin to obviate the punishment that she has brought on herself.”

“It is her mother, I think, who is being punished.”

“That is not my doing, and no longer my affair. You seem to concern yourself greatly with this servant of yours, if I may say so. Why is that?”

Perhaps I blushed, and that gave the man the hint, for he was quick-witted in his malice.

“She works for my mother and…”

“It was you who recommended that she come to me as a servant, was it not, Mr. Wood? You who are the fons et origo of my troubles with her? And you pay her medical bills as well? That is very caring, unusually so, if I may say it. Perhaps these rumors that have been circulating about her slut-tishness should properly refer themselves to you, rather than to me.”

He looked carefully at me, and I saw a slow, unmistakable look of understanding spread across his face. Dissimulation has never been a skill 1 have either cultivated or perfected. My face is an open book to those who can read, and Grove had that sort of malice which delights in other men’s secrets, tormenting and persecuting by his possession of them.

“Ah, the antiquarian and his servant, too wrapped up in his learning for a wife, contenting himself with some sluttish rubbish between his books. That’s it, isn’t it? You possess this little whore, and think it love. And you play the gallant with this grubby little bug, thinking her in your mind a veritable Eloise, pledging money you do not have, and expecting other people to stand you credit so you can impress your lady. But she is no lady, is she, Mr. Wood? Far from that, indeed.”

He looked at me again, and then laughed outright. “Oh, dear me, it is true. I see it on your face. This is the perfect joke, I must say. “The bookworm and the slut,’ almost the subject for a poem. An heroic epistle in hexameters. A theme worthy of Mr. Milton himself, for no subject is too hideous for his pen.”

He laughed again, for my face was burning red with shame and anger, and I knew that no denial would persuade him, nor deflect him from his entertainment. “Come, now, Mr. Wood,” he continued, “You must see the joke. Even you must see that. The meek little scholar, dedicated only to his learning, mousing away in his nest of papers, eyes red from never seeing the light, and we wonder why all this endeavor produces nothing. Is it some great work that is taking shape in his brain? Is it the difficulties of conception that delay the birth of a masterpiece? Is it the sheer magnitude of his task that means the years pass by with no result? And then we find out. No, ‘tis none of these. It is because, while everyone thinks he is working away, he is instead rolling in the dust with his servant. Better still, he has persuaded his mother to have the girl in her house, turning his servant into a harlot, and his mother into a bawd. Now, Mr. Wood, tell me that is not perfect.”

The theologians tell us that cruelty comes from the devil, and this may be the ultimate cause, for it is most certainly evil in intent. But in its immediate cause I do believe that true cruelty comes from a perversion of pleasure, for the cruel man enjoys the torment he inflicts on others and, like an experienced musician with his viol or virginal, can play upon his instrument and make all manner of harmony, exciting torment and humiliation, distress and empty anger, shame, regret and fear at will. Some can produce all of these, together or singly, with the most delicate touches, sometimes playing more loudly on his subject until the motion excited in the mind is all but unbearable, then more softly so that the misery is summoned gently and with seductive delight. Such a man as Grove was an artist in his cruelty, for he played for the pleasure of his creation, and the delight of his skill.

If Thomas Ken (as I suspect) had regularly been subjected to such treatment, then I could only admire his humility in bearing such constant assaults, all (no doubt) made unseen, and unknown to any of his fellows. For private torment is still more delicious to the tormentor, and more intense for the sufferer, who cannot describe his Calvary to others without seeming weak and foolish, and thus coming to suffer still more cruelty, only this time self-inflicted. I make myself seem ridiculous by recounting this, I know. But I have to retell, and can only hope I will be understood. All men have been shamed and tormented in some degree, and so all know the way in which it unbalances the judgment and fuddles the head, so that the sufferer feels like a beaten animal on a leash, desiring escape, but not knowing how to slip the rope that keeps him in place.

For my trial was not yet over; Grove saw all too well what easy quarry I was, and how simple it was to impose himself upon me, for I had none of those skills which enable others to shrug off attacks, or mount defenses against those who wish them ill.

“I cannot imagine,” he said, “that Dr. Wains will continue to welcome the presence of a man such as yourself in the archives in which you take such pleasure. It is often the case that men do more damage through their lusts than others can ever accomplish. Think of the condemnation your mother and whole family will be forced to endure when it becomes known that she was running a whorehouse for her son, and paying his slut out of her own money.”

“Why are you doing this?” I asked in desperation. “Why do you torment me?”

“I? Torment you? Why do you say this? In what way do I torment you? I am merely stating the facts, surely? ‘We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.’ Acts 4:20. The words of St. Peter himself. Is it right for sin to go unpunished, and fornication undiscovered?”

He stopped talking, and his face darkened all of a sudden, as the air of humor vanished and was replaced by the blackest anger, like the sky in those moments before the heavens are torn by thunder. “I know you, Mr. Wood; I know it was you who sent that girl to me as my servant, so your friend Mr. Ken might calumnize me. I know it was you who spread stories around the town to blacken my name, and so deprive me of my rights. Mr. Prestcott told me all this, as honest a man as you are deceitful. And then you come here to ask me for money, like some grubby little beggar with his ink-stained hand out? No, sir. You deserve, and will receive, nothing but my hatred. You expect to conspire against me and receive no retribution from my hand? You pick a bad enemy, Mr. Wood, and you will soon discover that you have made the worst mistake of your life. I thank you for coming, for I now know how to respond; I have seen the guilt on your face for myself. And believe me, I will pay you back in full. Now get out, and leave me in peace. I hope you will excuse me for not seeing you to the door. My bowels will wait no longer.”

And with a monstrous fart, he levered himself up, and walked into the next room, where I heard him pull down his breeches and settle with a loud sigh onto his chamber pot. I could do nothing, and had failed most miserably to defend myself from his attacks on me. I had sat there, reddened in the face like an infant, and made no attempt to reply in any but the most feeble of fashions. And yet I was man enough to burn with rage at his words and contempt. But instead of reacting like a man, I behaved like a child; bereft of any noble reply made to his face, I instead played a foolish prank on him behind his back, then sneaked out like some school jester, fooling myself that I had at least done something in my own defense.

For I took the packet of powder on the table, and poured it entire into the bottle of brandy which stood next his chair.

“Drink that,” I thought as I left his room. “And may your entrails torment you.”

Then I left him, hoping he would be up all night with the most violent stomach aches. I swear to God and by all I hold true that I meant him no other harm. I wished him to suffer, and to be racked with agony, it is true, and hoped fervently that I had not put too little of the powder in, or that it would not prove too weak to serve. But I did not wish him dead, nor had I any intention of killing him.

6

It was long since dark when I left, and the night was cold with a north wind and the suggestion of rain in the air. A miserable night for any man to be out, and yet I could not bring myself to go home and had no craving for the company of my fellows. There was only one thing on my mind and I could not possibly talk of it; in such circumstances all other conversation would have seemed petty and pointless. Nor could I summon the calm necessary for music. There is, usually, something immeasurably restful about the unfolding of a piece and the perfectly sweet inevitability of a well-conceived conclusion. But any piece of music formed in that way repelled me that night, the turmoil of my mind was so far distant from any harmony.

I found myself instead wishing to see Sarah, and the desire grew on me despite all my attempts to quash it. But I did not want her company or consolation or yet her conversation; rather I found a resentment deep within me that sprang from unknown depths, as my mind became convinced that she, and she alone, was the source of the troubles which had been visited upon me. I revisited, once more, all those old suspicions and jealousies which I thought had been suppressed forever. Instead they burst up once again, like tinder in a dry summer forest that catches a spark, and turns into a conflagration at the gentlest of breezes. My fevered mind imagined that my apology had been farcical, my regret misplaced. All my suspicions (so I told myself) were true, for the girl was cursed, and anyone who befriended her would pay heavily for his affections. All this I told myself as I walked, wrapped up in my heavy winter cloak, my feet already damp from the mud only just beginning to freeze over in New College Lane. Even more did I assure myself of my ill fortune as I crossed the High Street into Merton Street, and then turned away from the door of my house, unwilling to see my mother, and disguise the hurt I might well cause her if Grove made good on his promises to turn my family into a laughingstock.

So I walked on, out into St. Aldate’s, thinking I might go into the countryside and walk along the river, for the sound of running water is another sure way of calming the soul, as is well attested by innumerable authorities. But I did not walk by the river that night, for I had barely passed Christ Church when I noticed a slight figure on the far side of the road, wrapped up in a shawl that was too thin to be of much use, with a bundle under her arm, walking purposefully along at a rapid pace. I knew instantly from the appearance and the bearing that it was Sarah, going off (so I thought in my delirium) to some secret assignation.

The opportunity finally to satisfy all my suspicions was there and I took it almost without thinking. I knew, of course, that she was in the habit of leaving Oxford either in the evening or for an entire day and night if she was free, and I had believed once that it was to go to find business for herself in those small towns where she would not be recognized; the penalties for whoredom were such that it was foolish for any woman to ply such a trade in her own town. I knew, also, that this was merest nonsense, but the more I told myself that she was a woman of rare goodness, the more the demons within laughed, so that I thought I would go as mad as Prest-cott through the contradictions which fought to possess my imagination. And so I decided to carry out my own exorcism, and discover the truth, since she would not tell me herself, and her refusal only stoked my curiosity.

In recounting this, I will give another example of how, proceeding from faulty assumptions, a false conclusion can be drawn from the assembly of indisputable fact. Dr. Wallis states that his theory of a deadly alliance between Cola and the discontented radicals was confirmed by the behavior of the Blundy girl, who spent much time traveling from Burford in the west to Abingdon in the south, carrying messages to sectaries who, he was sure, would in due course rise up as one when the murder of Clarendon had thrown the country into turmoil. When he questioned her, Sarah denied doing any such thing, but in such a way that he (so surely could he penetrate deceit) was convinced she was lying to cover her illegal actions.

She was lying; this is true. And she was trying to cover illegal actions; this is also true. In this respect Dr. Wallis’s understanding of the situation was perfectly accurate. For the girl was terrified that he would discover what she was doing, and knew full well that the punishment would be severe, not only for her but for others as well. She was not one of those who sought out martyrdom through pride, but rather was prepared to accept it in humility if it could not be honorably avoided—this, indeed, was her fate. In all other respects, however, Dr. Wallis was wrong.

My decision made all unthinking, I swiftly retraced my steps to my cousin’s tavern and begged the use of a horse. Fortunately I knew that part of the world well, and it was a simple matter to take tracks, out to Sandleigh and then back into Abingdon, which enabled me to arrive long before she did. I wore a dark cloak, and a hat pulled down over my forehead, and (as everyone always tells me) I am an inconspicuous person, not one to be noticed in a crowd. It was easy to place myself on the Oxford road, and wait for her to pass, which she did a half hour later. It was also simple to follow her and see what she did, as she took no pains to conceal her movements, or hide her destination, and had no suspicion of being followed. The town has a small quay on the river, used for landing goods for market, and it was to this place that she headed and knocked boldly on the door of a small warehouse that normally stored farmers’ produce the night before market. I was undecided about what I should do next and, as I stood there, I noticed first one, then more people also come up to the door and be given admittance. Unlike Sarah, these people were furtive in their movements, and were bundled up so that their faces could not be seen.

I stood back in a doorway for some time to consider this, and found myself entirely perplexed. I should say that, like Wallis, my instant thought was that this was some meeting of radicals, for Abingdon’s notoriety was considerable and virtually everyone in the town, from the aldermen down, were persistent offenders—or so reputation said. Nonetheless, it was strange—the town was infamous for the brazen way it defied the law, yet these people were acting in a secretive fashion, as if they were doing something of which even sectaries might disapprove.

I am neither courageous nor daring, and placing myself in a position of peril is strange to my nature, yet my curiosity was all-consuming and I knew that standing outside, waiting for the rain to fall, would answer nothing. Might I be attacked? This was a possibility, I thought. These people had no reputation for placidity in those days, and I had heard so many stories over the years I believed them capable of anything. A sensible person would slip away; a responsible one would make a report to a magistrate. But although I consider myself both, I did neither. Instead, my heart beating heavily in my chest, and my bowels churning from simple fear, I found myself walking up to that door, and the dour man who guarded it.

“Good evening, brother,” he said. “Welcome.” It was not the greeting I had expected; there was no suspicion, and instead of the caution I had anticipated, I was received with openness and friendship. But I still had no idea what all this was about. All I knew was that Sarah, among many others, had gone into that building. Who was she seeing? What meeting was she attending? I did not know but, strengthened by the lack of suspicion, I became more determined to find out.

“Good evening… brother,” I replied. “May I enter?” “Of course,” he said with some surprise. “Of course you may. Although you may not find much room.”

“I am not too late, I hope. I have come from out of town.” “Ah,” he said with satisfaction. “That is good. Very good. Then you are twice welcome. Whoever you are.” And he nodded for me to go into the warehouse. A little easier, but still conscious that I might be putting my neck into a fiendish trap, I walked past him.

It was a small, dingy room, scarcely lit, with huge dark shadows playing on the wall from the few lamps which provided the only illumination. It was warm, which surprised me, as there was no fire that I could see and it was cold outside; only gradually did I realize that the heat came from near forty people, who sat or kneeled on the floor so quietly, and with so little movement, that to begin with I didn’t realize they were alive at all; I thought that I was seeing bales of hay or corn, packed tightly together on the floor.

Somewhat at a loss, and more perplexed than ever, I made my way to the back of the room and squatted down myself in the darkness, making sure that my cloak was covering much of my face, as everyone there, I saw, had bared their heads in some gesture of commonality; even the women, I noted with some disdain, were similarly exposed. It was strange, I thought—such people were known for refusing to doff their hats even in the presence of the king, let alone any lesser man. Only God, they said with typical conceit, deserved such respect.

I thought that perhaps I had tumbled into a meeting of Quakers or some such, but knew enough of them to realize this was quite unlike their gatherings. Rarely could they manage more than half a dozen people, and even less frequently did they gather in such a fashion. Then I considered that perhaps these were radical sectaries, gathered together to plot some uprising; the thought made me queasy as I knew that, with my habitual ill fortune, the magistrate’s men would undoubtedly surround the place and cart me off to prison as a spreader of sedition. But the women? And such quietness? Hardly so; such people are characterized above all by raucous shouting as each and all express their opinions and damn all others. This tranquil mood was not what I associated with such devils.

And then I realized that all eyes in the place, every single person, were focused with extraordinary attention on a dim figure at the front, the only person standing, although as quiet as all the others. It took some time for my eyes to become accustomed to the gloom and I realized that this shadowy figure was Sarah herself, perfectly immobile, with her thick black hair falling loose around her shoulders and her head bowed so that her face was almost entirely obscured. Again, I was mystified; it was not as if she was doing anything, nor was there any expectation in the audience that she should. I think I was the only person there not wholly content with the proceedings.

How long she had stood like that I do not know; perhaps from the moment she came in, which was now nearly half an hour; I do know that we all sat there for another ten minutes in the most perfect of silence; and a strange experience it was to be so very still and immobile with all others in equal quietude. Had I not been perfectly in command of myself, I would have sworn I had heard a soft voice in the roof beams, telling me to be patient, and calm. It frightened me until I looked up and saw it was only a dove, fluttering from beam to beam as the presence of people disturbed its rest.

But even that did not alarm me as much as when Sarah moved. All she did was lift her head, until she was looking at the roof. The shock, and ripple of excitement that went through the audience was quite extraordinary, almost like being hit by lightning; a groan of anticipation from some quarters, a hiss of breath from others, and some shuffling, as many of the present leaned forward in anticipation.

“She will talk,” came a soft murmur from a woman close by, followed by a hushing sound from a man next to her.

But she did not. Merely moving her head conveyed quite enough dramatic effect for the audience; any more excitement, it seemed, would be too much for them. Instead she gazed at the roof for a few more minutes, then looked down at the assembled throng, who reacted with even more tremulous emotion than before. Even I, caught up in the fervor despite myself, found my heart beating faster in my chest, as the moment (whatever it was to be) drew nearer.

When she did utter, she spoke so softly and sweetly that her words were hard to hear; instead everyone there had to lean forward intently to catch what she was saying. And the words themselves, set down on paper with my pen, give nothing of the mood, for she entranced us all, bewitched us even, until grown men were crying openly, and women were rocking themselves to and fro with expressions of angelic peace such as I have never seen in any church. With her words, she gathered us all to her breast, and gave us comfort, reassuring us of our doubts, calming us of our fears and convincing us that all manner of things was good. I do not know how she did it; unlike actors she had no technique nor any manner of artifice in her address. Her hands remained clasped in front of her and made no gestures; she scarcely moved at all, and yet out of her mouth and her whole body came balm and honey, freely offered to all. By the end I was shaking with love for her and God and all mankind in equal measure, but had no idea why this was. All I know is that from that moment I consigned myself, freely and without hesitation, into her power, for her to do as she wished and knowing it would be nothing ill.

She spoke for well over an hour and it was like the finest consort of musicians, as the words flowed and turned and played over us until we too were like sounding boxes, vibrating and resonating with her speech. I have read the words over again. How much I disappoint myself, for the spirit is entirely lacking from them, nor have I in any way managed to encompass the perfect love she spoke, or the calm adoration she evoked in her listeners. I feel, indeed, like a man who wakes from sleep after a wondrously perfect dream, and writes it all down in a frenzy, then finds that all he has on the page are mere words bereft of feeling, as dry and unsatisfying as chaff when the corn is removed.

“To all men I say, there are many roads which lead to my door; some broad and some narrow, some straight and some crooked, some flat and commodious while others are rough, and pitted with dangers. Let no man say that his is the best and only road, for they say so out of ignorance alone.

“My spirit will be with you, I will lay stretched out on the earth, licking the dust and breathing in the earth; I will give milk from my breast for the earth, mother of our mother, and for Christ, father and husband and wife. I held him at night as a bundle of spice between my breasts, and knew it was myself. I saw my spirit on his face, and felt the witness of fire on my breasts, love’s fire that burns and heals and warms with healing like sunshine after rain.

“I am the bride of the lamb and the lamb itself; neither angel nor envoy, but I the Lord have come. I am the sweetness of the spirit and the honey of life. I will be in the grave with Christ, and will rise after betrayal. In each generation the Messiah suffers until mankind turns away from evil. I say, you wait for the kingdom of Heaven, but you see it with your own eyes. It is here and is always within your grasp. An end to religion and to sects, throw away your Bibles, they are needed no more—cast out tradition and hear my words instead.

“My grace and my peace and my mercy and my blessing are upon you. Few see my coming, and fewer still will see my going. This evening the last days begin, and men move to entrap me, the same men as before, the same as always. I forgive them now, for I will remember sins and iniquities no longer; I am come to give absolution in my blood. I must die and all must die, and will keep on dying to the end in every generation.”

As I say, such as I remember are but a few fragments of the whole discourse, which ranged from sensible practicality deep into madness and back again, swinging from simplicity into incoherence in a way which made it impossible to tell one from the other. It made no difference to any in the audience, and it made no difference to me either. I take no pride in my captivity, and recall it with pain, and do not intend to defend or excuse myself. I state it as it was, and to those who scorn me (as I would do myself, were I another) I can only say this—you were not there, and do not know what magic she wrought. All I can say is that I was sweating as if I had the most violent fever, was not alone in feeling the tears of joy and sadness rolling down my cheeks and, like all others present, scarcely even noticed when the words stopped dropping from her mouth, and she walked out a little side door. It took perhaps a quarter of an hour before the spell dissipated and, one by one, like an audience when a play ends, we came back to ourselves and discovered that all our limbs and muscles were as stiff as if we had labored in the fields for an entire day at harvest time.

The meeting was over, and it was obvious that the only reason it had assembled was to hear Sarah speak; in that town, and amongst those people, she had a notoriety that had already spread far. The merest mention that she might make an utterance was enough to bring men and women—the poor, the rough and those of low breeding—out in all weathers, and risk all manner of sanction from the authorities. Like everyone else, I scarcely knew what to do once it had finished, but eventually pulled myself together sufficiently to realize I must collect my horse and go back to Oxford. In a daze of the most complete peacefulness I walked back to the inn where I had left it and headed home.

Sarah was a prophetess. Only a few hours earlier the notion would have elicited the utmost scorn from me, for the country had been benighted by such people for years, thrown into the light of day by the troubles in the way that wood lice become visible when a stone is overturned. I remember one who had come to Oxford when I was about fourteen, a man spitting and foaming at the mouth as he raved in the street, dressed in rags like some early saint or stoic, damning all the world to hellfire before falling to the ground in a convulsion. He made no converts; I was not one of those who threw stones at him (which attacks pleased him mightily, as proving the Lord’s favor) but like all others, I was disgusted by the display and could easily see that, whatever he had been touched by, it was not by God. They locked him up and were then merciful in throwing him out of the city rather than imposing any harsher punishment.

A woman prophet was much worse, you might think, even less likely to inspire anything but contempt, yet I have already shown that it was not so. Is it not said that the Magdalen preached and converted, and was blessed for it? She was not condemned, nor ever has been, and I could not condemn Sarah either. It was clear to me that the finger of God had touched her forehead, for no devil or agent of Satan can reach into the hearts of men like that. There is always a bitterness in the devil’s gifts, and we know when we are deceived, even if we permit the deception. But I could say for a moment only what it was in her words that conveyed such peace and tranquillity; I had the experience of it merely, not the understanding.

My horse clopped along the empty road, better able than I to see where the track led in a darkness only lifted slightly by a moon which occasionally peeped from behind the clouds, and I let my mind wander over the evening, trying to recapture that feeling that had been mine so recently and which I felt, with the greatest of sadness, to be ebbing slowly away. So preoccupied with my thoughts was I that I scarcely noticed the shadowy figure on the road, walking slowly in front of me. When I did, I hailed it without thinking, before I realized who it was.

“It is late and dark to be on such a road alone, madam,” I said. “Do not be afraid but mount up here, and I will take you to your home. It is a strong horse, and will not mind.”

It was Sarah, of course, and when I saw the moon on her face, I was suddenly afraid of her. But instead, she held out her hand, and allowed me to pull her up, and she sat comfortably behind me, her arms around my waist to avoid slipping.

She said nothing, and I did not know what to say; I felt like telling her that I had been at the meeting, but feared to come out with some foolishness, or have my words taken as a mark of deceit and mistrust. So instead we went along in silence for a half hour, before she began to talk herself.

“I do not know what it is,” she said in my ear, so quietly that a man not three paces away would not have heard. “There is no point wondering, as I am sure you do. I have no recollection of what I say or why I say it.”

“You saw me?”

“I knew you were there.”

“You did not object?”

“I think that what I have to say is for anyone who wishes to listen. It is for them to judge whether it is worth the effort.”

“But you keep it secret.”

“Not for myself; that does not matter. But those who listen to me would be punished as well, and I cannot ask for that.”

“You have always done this? Your mother, too?”

“No. She is wise, but has nothing of this; her husband neither. As for myself, it started shortly after his death. I was at a meeting of simple people, and remember standing up to say something. I recollect nothing more until I found myself lying on the floor, with them all gathered around me. They said I had spoken the most extraordinary words. It happened again a few months later, and after a while people came to hear me. It was too dangerous in Oxford, so now I go to places like Abingdon. I often disappoint them, as I stand there and nothing comes over me. You heard me this evening. What did I say?”

She listened as though I was reporting a conversation which she did not hear, then shrugged when I was finished. “Strange,” she said. “What do you think? Am I cursed or mad? Perhaps you think I am both.”

“There is no harshness or cruelty in what you say; no threats or warnings. Nothing but gentleness and love. I think you are blessed, not cursed. But blessings can be even heavier burdens, as many people in the past have discovered.” I found that I was talking as quietly as she, so that I might have been talking only to myself.

“Thank you,” she said. “I did not want you of all people to scorn me.”

“You really have no idea what you say? There is no preparation?”

“None. The spirit moves in me, and I become its vessel. And when I awake, it is like coming out of the most gentle dream.”

“Your mother knows of all this?”

“Yes, of course. At first she thought it was just a prank, because I had always been scornful of fanatics and all those who run around pretending to be possessed to get money from people. I still am, and that makes it worse to have become one myself. So when I stood that first time, and she heard of it, she was shocked by my impiety; they were not our people in the conventicle, but they were good and kind and she was distressed I might make fun of them. It took quite a lot to convince her that I had not been deliberately offensive. She was unhappy about it, and still is. She thinks that sooner or later it will lead me into trouble with the law.”

“She is right.”

“I know. A few months back it nearly did; I was at Tid-marsh’s, and there was a raid by the watch. I only just got away. But there is not a great deal I can do about it. Whatever is sent me, I must accept. There is no point in doing anything other. Do you think I am mad?”

“If I went to someone like Lower, and told them what I have just witnessed, he would do his very best to cure you.”

“When I left that hall this evening, a woman came up to me, fell down on her knees in the ice and kissed the hem of my dress. She said that her baby had been dying, the last time I came to Abingdon. I walked past the door and it was instantly well.”

“Do you believe her?”

“She believes it. Your mother believes it. Many others in the past few years have held me responsible for such deeds. Mr. Boyle heard of it as well.”

“My mother?”

“She was wracked with pain with a swollen ankle; it made her very ill-tempered, and she tried to beat me. I held her hand to make her stop, and she swore that at that moment the pain and the swelling went.”

“She never mentioned it to me.”

“I begged her not to. It is a terrible reputation to have.”

“And Boyle?”

“He heard something, and thought I must have knowledge of herbs and potions, so asked for my recipe book. It was difficult to refuse him, as I could hardly tell him the truth.”

There was a long silence broken only by the sound of the horse’s hooves on the road, and the snuffle of its breath in the cold night air. “I do not want this, Anthony,” she said quietly, and I could hear the fear in her voice.

“What?”

“Whatever this is. I don’t want to be a prophet, I don’t want to cure people, I don’t want them coming to me, and I don’t want to be punished for something I cannot prevent and do not will. I am a woman, and I want to marry and grow old and be happy. I don’t want humiliation and imprisonment. And I don’t want what will happen next.”

“What do you mean?”

“An Irishman came to see me; an astrologer. He said he had seen me in his charts, and came to warn me. He said I will die, that everyone will want me dead. Anthony, why would that be? What could I have done?”

“I’m sure he’s wrong. Who believes people like that?”

She was silent.

“Leave, then, if it worries you,” I said. “Go away.”

“I cannot. Nothing can be changed.”

“You will have to hope this Irishman is wrong and you are mad, then.”

“I do hope so. I am frightened.”

“Oh, I am sure there is nothing to worry about, really,” I said. I shook myself to cast off the atmosphere of ominous terror that had grown around us, and when I did so, I saw more clearly the foolishness of our conversation. Set down here, I suppose it seems even more so. “I don’t hold with Irishmen or astrologers and from my limited experience, prophets and Messiahs these days tend to rush around telling all the world of their powers. It is most unusual to hope that the cup be taken from you.”

She laughed, at least, but noticed my allusion, for she knew her Bible well, and looked curiously at me when I spoke it. For my part, I swear I did not notice till later what I had said, and it passed from my mind easily as we plodded on.

As I look back, I think that time on the horse was the happiest in my life. The return of the easy intimacy which I had so wantonly destroyed through my jealousy was such a blessing that, had it been possible, I would have continued on to Carlisle simply to preserve and lengthen our time together, the conversation of perfect amity and the feel of her arms around my waist. Despite the freezing chill in the air, I felt no cold at all, and might have been in the most commodious parlor, not on a muddy, wet road near midnight. I suppose the tumultuous events of that evening and night had fuddled my mind, and so shocked me out of my normal caution that I did not set her down on the outskirts of town so that we were not seen together in such a fashion. Rather, I kept her with me all the way back to my cousin’s tavern, and even then could not let her go.

“How is your mother?”

“She is in comfort.”

“You can do nothing for her?”

She shook her head. “It is the only thing I have ever wished for myself, and I cannot have it.”

“You’d best go and tend her, then.”

“She is in no need of me. A friend who knows me well offered to spend time with her, and only leave when she was sure she was asleep so I could attend that meeting. She will die soon, but not yet.”

“So stay with me still.”

We walked back to Merton Street, and went into my house, mounting the stairs quietly so that my mother would not hear, and then, in my room, we loved each other with a passion and ferocity I have never before, nor since, felt for any living person, nor has anyone shown such love to me. I had never before spent a night with a woman, had someone lying by my side in the quietness of the dark, hearing her breath and feeling her warmth beside me. It is a sin, and it is a crime. I say it frankly, for I have been taught so all my life, and only madmen have ever said otherwise. The Bible says it, the fathers of the church have said it, the prelates now repeat it without end, and all the statutes of the land prescribe punishment for what we did that night. Abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul. It must be so, for the Bible speaks only God’s truth. I sinned against the law, against God’s word reported, I abused my family and exposed them even more to risk of public shame, I again risked permanent exclusion from those rooms and books which were my delight and my whole occupation; yet in all the years that have passed since I have regretted only one thing—that it was but a passing moment, never repeated, for I have never been closer to God, nor felt His love and goodness more.

7

We were not discovered; Sarah arose at dawn, and slipped softly downstairs to begin her duties in the kitchen, and only after the fire was going and the water brought in did she leave to see her mother. I did not see her again for two days, and did not know that she discovered her mother abandoned by the friend, and in need of the assistance which prompted her to apologize to Cola and submit to his experiment with transfusion. She was sworn to silence and was a woman of her word in all respects.

For myself, I went back to a blissful sleep and awoke late, so it was several hours before I walked to an inn for some bread and ale, an occasional extravagance I indulge in when I am feeling at ease with the world, or wish to avoid my mother’s conversation. It was only then, as I was sitting dreamily over a pot, that I heard the news.

There are countless tales in myth to warn us of our heart’s desires. King Midas wished to be so rich he desired that everything he touched might turn to gold, and legend has it that he died of hunger as a result. Euripides talks of Tithonus, whom Eos loved so well she begged Zeus to give him eternal life. But mistakenly she asked not for youth as well and he suffered an eternity of decrepitude until even the cruel gods took pity on him.

And I wished to be spared the scandal which Grove in his malice threatened to visit on me. The memory of him cut into my mood, and I prayed that his mouth might be stopped forever, and that I should not suffer for what I had done and said, however deserving I was of punishment. I had scarcely finished my ale when I heard that my wish had been granted.

The moment I heard the news my blood ran cold with horror, for I was absolutely certain that my own prayers and private vengeance had been responsible. I had killed a man. I believe there is no crime greater, and I was tormented with remorse at my deed, so much so that I felt as though I should instantly confess. Cowardice soon overcame this urge, as I thought of the shame of my family should I do so. And I convinced myself that I was not really to blame. I had made a mistake, that was all. The intent was lacking, my guilt was limited, and my chances of discovery small.

So speaks the mind, but the conscience is not so easily quelled. I recovered from the shock as best I could, seeking out all the information available in the attempt to discover some small detail to convince me that I had not, in fact, caused this awful event. I persuaded myself for a brief while that all was well, then tried to return to my labors, and found all my concentration gone, as my rebellious soul confronted me with what I had done. And still I could not take any step to relieve myself; my contentment vanished, my sleep soon after and in the days and weeks that followed I grew haggard and sickly in my struggle.

I aim for sympathy but do not deserve any, for it was easy to remedy and cleanse myself of disquiet. I merely had to stand and say, “I did this.” All else would be taken care of.

But to die myself, and make my family live under the obloquy of having engendered a murderer? To have my mother hooted through the street and spat on, my sister living out her old age in spinsterhood as no man would attach himself to her? My cousin’s trade dry up into failure because no one would drink in his tavern? These were real concerns. Oxford is not London, where all sin is forgotten within a week, where criminals are celebrated for their deeds, and thieves rewarded for their endeavors. Here all know the business of all, and the desire to maintain good morals is acute, however great secretive breaches might be. My greatest loyalty is, and always has been, to my family. I have lived to bring what little luster is in my power to my name, and maintain our position of respectability. I would have accepted that the courts might punish me, for I could not deny that it would be deserved, but I recoiled in horror at doing such great injury to my people. They struggled as it was, due to our losses in the troubles, and I would not add to their burden.

I nursed my guilt to myself for the next few days, and kept to my room in miserable solitude, refusing food and conversation even with Sarah, whom I dared not look in the face. I had told her I had been to see Grove, but dared not tell her what I had done as I could not abide her disgust, nor could I burden her with information she would be obliged to share. I spent much of my time in prayer, and even more staring blankly at empty pieces of paper on my desk as I failed to get my mind to concentrate on even the dullest and most mechanical of tasks.

And in those few days I missed much of importance in my tale, for it was in those days that Lower discovered the bottle of brandy and took it to Stahl; dissected Dr. Grove to see if the corpse accused Cola through bleeding; and performed the experiment of transfusion on Anne Blundy. It was also in these days, it seemed, that the finger of suspicion first began to point at Sarah, but I swear I was totally unaware of this. I was aware only of Lower’s growing discomfort with the Italian, and his fear that Cola was out to steal his glory.

Myown opinion of the dispute between the two is a complicated one, yet I think it will serve. Both, I think, tell the truth even though their conclusions be opposite. Nor do I think that this is necessarily a contradiction. I do accept, of course, that there is one truth, but except on rare occasions we are not given to know it. Horace says, Nec scire fas est omnia, it is not God’s will we should know all, a sentence taken (I believe) from Euripides. To know all is to see all, and omniscience is God’s alone. I state the obvious, I suppose, for if God exists, so does truth and if there was no God (a thing not to be imagined in seriousness, but as a philosophic jest alone), then would truth disappear from the world, and the opinion of one would be no better than that of another. I might also reverse the theorem, and say that, if men come to think all is merely opinion, then they must come to atheism as well. “ ‘What is truth?’ said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer.” I do believe that the fact we know in our hearts there is truth without having to reason about it is the prettiest proof of God’s existence there can be, and as long as we strive to discover it, so we also strive to know God.

But, with Lower and Cola, we have no assistance from the divine, and must reason it out as best we can. Cola has put his account on paper for all to see; Lower told me (and many others) his version, although he disdained to enter the lists by publishing any sort of justification for his claims. He had published his account in the Transactions, he told me, because he was assured by Dr. Wallis that Cola had drowned in an accident when leaving the country. And even had he been assured of the man’s health, he would have done so. In his recollection, Cola’s notions were only of the vaguest sort; he spoke of rejuvenating blood by some magical means, but said not a word about transfusion. It was only when Lower described his own experimentation with injections that Cola hit on the idea of transferring new blood, and accomplishing the desired aim in that fashion. Lower had had this possibility in the back of his mind for months by then, and it was only a matter of time before it took place. He points out that, even by Cola’s own account, it was he who performed most of the technical labors. Consequently, the credit should be his.

When I received this account and compared both versions I was, frankly, astonished that the dispute could arise at all, for it seems to me that it was the meeting of the two men which produced the result, and that both were responsible in equal part for the idea. When I wrote this to Lower, he ridiculed the idea with some asperity and made it clear that (he put it as kindly as he could, but his irritation showed through) only an historian, who has no ideas, could imagine such an absurdity. He repeated this assertion a week or so ago, when he made one of his now very rare visits to Oxford, and called on me to pay his respects.

The transfusion of blood, he said, was a discovery. Did I agree?

I did.

And the essence of an invention or discovery lay in the idea, not in the execution.

Agreed.

And it was whole and entire, not consisting of parts. An idea was like one of Mr. Boyle’s corpuscles, or Lucretius’s atoms, and could not be reduced further. It is the essence of the conception that it is entire and perfect in itself.

It was an Aristotelian concept that sounded strange on his lips, but I agreed.

One cannot have half an idea?

If it cannot be divided, then obviously not.

Therefore they all must have a single point of origin, as you cannot have one thing in two places at the same time.

I agreed.

Therefore it was reasonable to assume that it could arise in the mind of only one man?

I agreed again, and he nodded with satisfaction, convinced he had disproved my attempt to restore amiable agreement between the two men. His logic was impeccable, but I must say I still do not accept it, although I am incapable of saying why. Nonetheless he proceeded to his next theorem that, if one of the pair had conceived the idea of transfusion first, then the other must be lying when he claims its authorship.

Given his starting point, I agreed this was again an inevitable conclusion, and Lower rested content with the notion that, in a choice between himself and Cola, then he had the higher claim, for who would take the word of an Italian dilettante above that of an English gentleman? Not that it was unknown for the latter to lie, or miscomprehend the truth, but because the chances of it were very much smaller. This is well known and accepted. I did not enquire whether it was equally accepted in Italy.

8

Although I scarcely ventured out during those days, on the few occasions I left either my house or the library, I encountered the Italian; the first time our meeting was deliberate, for I sought him out in Mother Jean’s cookhouse the day I heard of Grove’s death, the second time it was by accident, after the play. On the first occasion, in particular, the conversation threw my mind into the utmost confusion.

He has recounted this talk between us in his memoir, and it was clear at the time that he believed he had deceived me. I found him to be sober and courteous, with an intelligent air and of moderate conversation. He was clearly gifted in tongues, for although the conversation tended to be in Latin, it seemed to me that he missed very little when we lapsed into English. Despite his skill, however, he gave himself away badly to anyone with the sense to listen; for what doctor (or soldier, for that matter) could talk so knowledgeably about heresies long dead, could refer so learnedly to the works of Hippolytus and Tertullian, or had even heard of Elchesai, Zosimus or Montanus? Papists, I grant, are more interested in such obscurities than Protestants, who have learned to read the Bible for themselves and thus need less knowledge of the opinions of others, but few even of the most devoted Romanists would have such matter readily to hand for use in dispute.

Cola did not act like a physician when he searched the Blundys’ cottage; now he did not talk like one either; I found my curiosity about him getting ever greater.

Even so, this was a minor matter in comparison to the substance of the conversation, and the direction he gave me so unknowingly. I have often thought about this phenomenon which occurs so frequently in the lives of all men that we almost fail to notice it anymore. How often have I had a question on my mind, and picked a book at random off the shelf, often one I have never heard of before, yet found the answer I seek within its covers? It is well known that men feel impelled to go to that place where they are to encounter, for the first time, that woman who is to be their wife. Similarly, even peasants know that letting the Bible fall open where it will, and putting a finger randomly on the page thus revealed will, more often than not, give the most sound advice that any man could wish to hear.

The thoughtless call this coincidence, and I note amongst philosophers a growing tendency to talk of chance and probability, as though this was some explanation rather than a scholarly disguise for their own ignorance. Simpler people know exactly what it is, for nothing can happen by chance when God sees and knows all; even to suggest anything different is absurd. These coincidences are the visible signs of His manifest providence, from which we can learn well if we will only see His hand, and contemplate the meaning of His actions.

So it was that I was driven against my will to Sarah’s house that night Cola searched it, came across her on the Abingdon road and followed her, and so it was also in my conversation with Cola. All those things which the scoffers call chance and accident and coincidence show the direction God takes in men’s affairs. Cola could have taken any example at all to illustrate his point, any one of which would have done as well or better than a tale of a long-extinct and forgotten heresy. So through what inspiration did he mention that most obscure branch of the Montanist heresy? What angel whispered in his ear and directed his mind so that, by the time I left the cookhouse, my limbs were trembling and my body sweating? “In each generation the Messiah would be reborn, would be betrayed, would die, and be resurrected, until mankind turns away from evil, and sins no more.” These were his words, and they frightened me greatly, for Sarah had said precisely the same only the night previously.

For the next few days, it was my greatest obsession, and all thought of Dr. Grove passed from my mind. I read what little I had at home first of all, then went to New College to ransack the small library of Thomas Ken, and scarcely noticed that poor tortured man’s look of grief and anxiety. I wish I had, for had I attended more he might have spoken, and Sarah perhaps would have been spared. But I ignored his misery, and later it was not possible to make him shift—he had gone to Grove to beg his forgiveness for the calumny he had spread, but found only that he was trapped in his falsehood, as he discovered Prestcott but did nothing to alert the magistrate or the watch. He could not retract his lie about seeing Sarah going into Grove’s room without risking also being forced to confess that he aided a felon in his escape. Between facing the wrath of God after death, or the vengeance of Dr. Wallis in this life, he preferred the former, and has paid dearly for it ever since. For he stood by while an innocent was hanged that he might enjoy eighty pounds a year. I cannot condemn too harshly; my own sin was scarcely the less, for when I did speak, it was too late.

He lent me such books as I wanted, and when I had done with them, I went to the Bodleian, where I searched for the tale that Cola had told me. Fragments in Tertullian and in Hippolytus were all as he said, I found references in Eusebius and Irenaeus and Epiphanius as well. And the more I read the more my reason revolted against what I saw; for how was it possible that Sarah, unlettered as she was, could have quoted, almost word for word, a whole series of prophecies made more than a thousand years ago? There was no doubt about it; time and again the words were the same, almost as though it was the same person talking, this long-dead woman prophesying on a hilltop in Asia Minor and the girl who talked so strangely in Abingdon of her death.

It was an effort, but I put it all aside; it was a mad time, and the air was still filled with lunacies of all sorts, even after two decades which had all but exhausted men’s appetites for enthusiasm in religion. I told myself that she was deluded, caught up in the corruption of the age, and that in due course, when she was less concerned with her mother and her own future, then she would cast off these foolish notions and endanger herself no more. It is often the case that men succeed in persuading themselves through the exercise of reason that what they know to be true is not so, merely because they cannot understand it.

To recover from this melancholy, I forced myself back into society, and in particular agreed willingly to Lower’s suggestion that I accompany him and Cola to the play. I had not seen one for near four years, and much as I love my town, I admit it has few diversions to occupy a brooding mind when it needs distraction. I had a splendid day, I recall, for despite Mr. Cola’s criticisms, I found the story of Lear and his daughters both entertaining and moving, as well as most excellently acted. And I also enjoyed passing the rest of the evening in good company and again had my interest in the Italian aroused. I spent a considerable time talking to him, and used the opportunity to probe him as much as I dared. Whatever there was to be discovered, however, remained elusive to my intelligence; Cola parried my questions about himself with ease, and forever returned to matters in which his own beliefs and opinions played no part. Indeed, he seemed more than aware of my curiosity, and amused himself in avoiding any answer of substance.

I could not, of course, ask him directly about my interests. Much as I would have liked to know why he had searched Sarah Blundy’s cottage, it was impossible to put the question in any fashion which would have produced a useful reply. But, by the time he left he was aware of my suspicions about him, and he looked at me more warily, and with greater respect, than before.

Once he and Lower had gone, Locke and I spent another hour in agreeable conversation before we too left the inn and retired. I wished my mother good night and passed some time in my daily reading of the Bible and was on the verge of retiring for my night when a hammering on the door brought me back down the stairs to open up the door I had just laboriously closed up. It was Lower, apologizing greatly for the disturbance but asking for a moment of my time.

“I am at a complete loss,” he said when I had ushered him into my room and asked him to keep his voice down. My mother detested any sort of disturbance in the evening, and I would have had to endure many ill-humored days thereafter if Lower’s conversation or boots had awoken her.

“What did you think of Cola?” he asked abruptly.

I gave a noncommittal reply, as it was clear to me that it mattered not at all what I thought of him. “Why do you ask?”

“Because I keep on hearing shocking tales about him,” he said. “I was summoned by Dr. Wallis, as you know. Not only is this Cola a man who habitually steals the ideas of other people, but Wallis now seems to believe he may have had some involvement in the death of Dr. Grove. Did you know that I anatomized the man? The point was to see whether his body accused Cola.”

“And did it?” My heart was beating faster as this subject was raised. My worst nightmares were coming true before my eyes, and I had no idea how I should best react. Until that moment I had no idea that Grove’s death was under investigation, and had not only persuaded myself that I was safe, but had even reached some conviction in my mind that his death was in no way connected with myself.

“No. Of course not. Or maybe it did; by the time I’d cut him open it was impossible to say whether he was bleeding in accusation or not. Either way, the test produced nothing.”

“Why does Wallis think this?”

“I have no idea. He is a close man, and never says anything unless he has to. But his warnings have alarmed me. And now, it seems, I have to take Cola off on tour with me. I shall lie awake every night, convinced he will slip a stiletto into me.”

“I wouldn’t concern myself too much,” I said. “He seemed a perfectly ordinary man to me, for a foreigner. And I know from experience that Dr. Wallis gets a strange pleasure in appearing to know more than other people. Often it is not the case, but merely a device to encourage confidences.”

Lower grunted. “Still, there is something odd about the man. Now it has been pointed out to me, I can feel it. I mean, what is he doing here? He’s meant to be sorting out his family affairs, but he should be in London for that. And I know that he has done nothing whatsoever about them. Instead, he has attached himself to Boyle, and is remarkably obsequious to him, and is taking on patients in the town.”

“Only one, surely,” I pointed out. “And that scarcely counts.”

“But what if he decides to stay? A fashionable doctor from the continent. Bad news for me, and he is remarkably keen to hear all about my patients. I do believe that he may be thinking about trying to steal them from me.”

“Lower,” I said sternly, “for a wise man, you are the biggest fool I know sometimes. Why would a man of means, the son of a wealthy Italian merchant, want to set up in Oxford to take your patients? Be reasonable, man.”

With great reluctance he conceded the point. “And as for having anything to do with the death of Dr. Grove, then I must say I think that total fantasy. Why on earth would he, or anybody else, want to do such a thing? Do you know what I think?”

“What?”

“I think Grove killed himself.”

Lower shook his head. “That is not the point. The point is that I am to spend the next seven days in the company of a man whom I increasingly distrust. What am I to do about it?”

“Cancel the trip.”

“I need the money.”

“Go on your own.”

“It would be the height of discourtesy to withdraw an invitation once given.”

“Suffer in silence, condemn not on the word of others, and try to establish for yourself what he is. Meanwhile,” I said, “as you are here and know him better than anyone, I must ask your advice on something. I do so reluctantly, as I am loath to excite your suspicion still further, but it is a curiosity which I cannot explain.”

“Go ahead.”

So, in as unsensational a way as I could manage, I told of my visit to the Blundy cottage, and how I had seen Cola come in, establish the woman was asleep, then search the entire premises. I decided to leave out what happened thereafter.

“Why don’t you ask Sarah Blundy if anything is missing?”

“He is her physician. I do not want to undermine that trust, nor to have him refuse again to treat her mother. What do you think?”

“I think I will sleep on my money bag when we are in the same bed,” he said. “It seems odd that you spend considerable effort trying to assuage my suspicions, then reignite them again at the last.”

“I apologize. His behavior was strange, but I hardly think your own fears have much substance.”

The conversation reawoke my own concerns and, I must note, at no point did Lower mention that the magistrate had already begun investigating Sarah as a possible culprit. Had he done so, then I would have behaved differently. Rather, my thoughts as Lower left me to peaceful solitude once more turned more to Cola’s strange behavior, and I decided to reach the bottom of the matter. Before I did so, however, I decided it would be best to question Sarah on the matter, physician or no.

“From that shelf?” she said when I had recounted the incident. “There is nothing of value there. Only some books which belonged to my father.” She examined the books carefully. “There is one missing,” she said. “But I never read it as it was in Latin.”

“Your father read Latin?” I asked in some surprise. He was a man of parts, that I knew, but I had not realized his self-learning had proceeded that far.

“No,” she said. “He thought it a dead language, and of no use to anyone but fools and antiquarians. Begging your pardon,” she added with a faint smile. “He wanted to create a new world, not revive an old. Besides, he once told me he did not think we had anything to learn from pagan slave-masters.”

I let my disapproval pass without comment. “So where did all these books come from?”

She shrugged. “I only ever thought of them when I considered selling them. I asked a bookseller, but he offered me very little. I was going to give them to you as a gift for your kindness, if you would accept them.”

“You know me better than to think I would easily turn down a gift of books,” I said. “But I would refuse. You are in no position to be so free with your possessions. I would insist on paying you.”

“And I would refuse the offer.”

“So we could fight a good long while over it. And there are more pressing things to accomplish. Not the least of which is that you cannot give, and I cannot buy, what may be in the possession of Mr. Cola. I think I should see if I can get it back first of all.”

To start with, I walked all the way down to Christ Church, and made sure that Lower and Cola had indeed set off that morning on their tour. Then I walked over to Mrs. Bulstrode, Cola’s landlady in St. Giles.

I had known this lady since I was at least five years old; I had played, before I exhausted puerile occupations, with her son who was about my age and is now a corn merchant in Witney. On many occasions she had given me an apple from her garden, or a lick of delicious honey from the hives she kept on a minuscule plot of land she, with great pomp, was always pleased to call her country estate. For she was a woman of pretension, despite the dourness of her religion, and liked to play the lady of quality. Those who knew her enough to see the fraud ridiculed her without mercy; those who knew her better saw the generosity within, and forgave a failing which, though grave, never once stopped her from an act of charity, nor a word of kindness.

I was welcomed into the kitchen—I was old enough an acquaintance to knock on the kitchen door—and greeted with great warmth. Half an hour’s conversation was required before I could bring myself and her round to the matter at hand. I explained that I was a close acquaintance of Mr. Cola’s.

“I am glad to hear it, Anthony,” she said gravely. “If he is a friend of yours, then he cannot be so bad to know.”

“Why do you say that? Has he misbehaved?”

“Not exactly,” she conceded. “In fact in all respects he is a man of great politeness. But he is a papist, and I have never had such a person in the house before. Nor do I want one again. Although I do believe we may yet win him over. Do you know, he prayed with us the other night? And went to church with Mr. Lower last Sunday, and said he found the experience very uplifting?”

“I am gratified to hear it. And for my part I can confirm that he is a man of kindness, since he is treating the mother of our servant at moderate cost. I think you can sleep easy in your beds at night. However, what I wish to ask you is this—could I go to his room, for he borrowed something from me which I need badly in my work. And I hear he has gone off for a week.”

It was no sooner asked than agreed and, as I knew where the room was, I was left in peace to mount the two pair of stairs to the little attic which Cola rented out. Inside, all was as spick and span as I would have expected from a room under the tutelage of Mrs. Bulstrode, who regarded dust as the devil’s seed, and never ceased her campaigns of exorcism. Cola’s belongings were few and for the most part contained in a great traveling trunk. And that trunk, unfortunately, was securely locked.

Having come so far, I was determined not to go away empty-handed, and I examined that great traveling lock with the most particular attention, in the hope that it would suddenly spring open before my eyes. But it was designed not only to ward off the attentions of thieves, but also of the likes of Mrs. Bulstrode, who was certain to have examined it if an easy opportunity presented itself, for her curiosity about the unknown was as great as that of the most diligent experimentalist. Violence or the key were the only options, and I could employ neither.

My long hard glaring at the chest made little impact in persuading it to open up to me, and eventually I accepted that no amount of wishing would make the slightest difference. With, the greatest reluctance, and no small amount of resentment, I rose from my haunches, and made to leave. But first, out of simple irritation, I gave the chest a powerful kick, to demonstrate that I was not best pleased.

And the lock sprang open with a heavy thud, the clasp being very ingeniously spring-loaded, a device I had never seen before. I was astonished at this, and at a loss to explain how it might be that a man could be so rash as to leave all his possessions unprotected in such a fashion—unaware until I read the manuscript that the heavy fall endured on the journey from London had broken the lock in such a way that it could no longer be relied upon.

Gifts from God should never be spurned. It had pleased Him to grant my wishes, and I was sure that it was for a good reason. With a prayer of thanks on my lips, I knelt down in front of the chest as though it were an altar, and began to search in as methodical a fashion as Cola himself had used to search the house of Sarah Blundy.

I will not list his possessions, comment on the quality of the clothing or the bags of money which gave the lie to his stories of poverty. For he had in his possession at least one hundred pounds in gold; far from being reduced to having to take patients to survive, he had enough to live as a gentleman for well over a year. No; I will merely mention that I swiftly discovered three books, wrapped up in a chemise near the bottom of the chest as though they were the most precious objects on earth, and accompanied by a sheet of paper which gave the name of a tavern in Cheapside called the Bells, and several other scribbles which seemed also to be addresses.

The first book was particularly gorgeous, tooled in gold, with a fine metal clasp, intricately carved and chased. It was my passion as a bibliographer which made me pause and examine it, for it was the finest Venetian work, and such splendid workmanship is only rarely seen in this country. I had a pang of the greatest envy when I saw it and I swear that, had I been only a fraction less honest, I would have taken it as well. It is a fine thing, no doubt, that so many books are now printed and that their cost steadily falls, even for the best scholarship. I count myself lucky that I live in this country, where books can be had at moderate expense (though still more than the Netherlands; had I a longing for travel I would go there, for I could buy many books and have the cost of the travel in the money saved). But sometimes it is borne in on me that there are disadvantages to this happy situation.

Of course it is the learning which is important. Of course the quality of scholarship must come first, and it is better that wisdom should reach the most people possible, for sine doc-trina, vita est quasi mortis imago, says Dionysius Cato; without learning life is but the image of death. And of course, were it other, I could afford many fewer books. But sometimes I regret the days when people valued books properly, and spent lavishly on them. Occasionally, in the Bodleian, when my concentration deserts me, and my spirits flag, I order up one of those wonderful codexes that have found their way into the library. Or I go into a college and look through a book of hours, marveling at the love and skill which went into the creation of such glorious works. I imagine the men who made them, the scribes and the paper makers and the illustrators and the binders, and contrast them with the poor sad works I have on my own shelves. It is like the difference between a Quaker meeting house and a Catholic church. One is devoted to the word, and nothing but; it has its virtue, I suppose. But God is more than mere word, although He was that in the beginning. The speech of man alone is all but dumb in the task of expressing His glory, and the meanness of the Protestant constructions is an insult to His name. We now live in an age where the houses of politicians are grander than the houses of God. What does that say about our corruption?

So I sat awhile and feasted my eyes on this little book of Cola’s, and traced my finger over the complexities of the binding. A room—no, merely a shelf—of books like these would give me the greatest possible joy, although I knew I might as well aim to become Chancellor of England as hope to possess such a wonder. It was a Psalter, and a fine example, and I flipped open the little clasp and opened it up to see whether the printing matched the binding, for I knew well that Venetian work was the finest to be had.

And received a tremendous shock; for inside, the book had been hollowed out into two carefully cut cavities. Initially, my distress was for the book, as to butcher such a wonderful object was the nearest thing to sacrilege I could imagine. Then I concentrated on the three little bottles that nestled so carefully in the hollows, each sealed by wax at the top. One contained a dark, thick liquid like oil, one a clear fluid which might as well have been water. The third, however, was the most interesting, for it was the most elaborate bottle of all, covered in gold and jewels and worth, in my inexperienced estimation, many dozens of pounds. This contained nothing except a thick, ill-shaped lump of old wood. What it meant was obvious, even to a dolt like myself.

So I placed the book aside and, consumed by curiosity for the first, examined the others with only a casual eye until I realized what they were. It was several minutes, as I flicked through and considered, before it dawned on me that here was something of great and strange significance. For both volumes were the same, one from Sarah’s house and the other, I assumed, Cola had already. Each was a volume from Livy’s history, in the same edition as the one which Dr. Wal-lis had so urgently entreated me to find for him many months previously.

Sarah Blundy was arrested the next day, I now know at the instigation of John Wallis, and the news rippled through town and university like a tidal wave running up a creek in high wind. Everybody knew that she was guilty, and applauded the magistrate for his decisiveness as much as they criticized him for the delay in reaching a conclusion that had, in retrospect, been obvious to every single citizen since the moment they heard of Dr. Grove’s death.

Only two people, I think, dissented from this opinion—myself, who knew the truth, and my mother, whose belief was the more virtuous for being founded on nothing at all. But, as she said, she knew the girl. And she would not accept that anyone in her household could act in such a fashion. Had she known the truth, I say, it would have killed her.

She was a strange woman, that blessed mother of mine, as good a mother as any man had. For she was strict and punctilious in all matters, jealous of her rights and watchful of the obligations of others. No woman or man was swifter to condemn sin, or pass comment on a moral failing. No woman was so careful in her devotions, praying not less than ten minutes in the morning when she rose, and more than fifteen every night before she retired. She attended the best church and listened with care to sermons which she often did not understand, but which she found uplifting nonetheless. And she was charitable with the greatest caution, so that neither too much, nor too little, was given from her pocket to the deserving. Careful with money she undoubtedly was, and jealous of her reputation, but not so much that either substituted for her duty to God.

And so confident was she of her knowledge of God’s mind that, when public opinion and her own differed in point of detail, she had no doubts whatsoever that she knew best. When she heard of Sarah’s arrest, she waited not a moment before announcing to all in our great kitchen that a serious injustice had been committed. Sarah (for whom she now had a proprietorial affection) was without blame in the matter, she said. She had not laid a finger on that fat prelate, and if she had it was undoubtedly well deserved. Not content with mere words either, she straightaway packed a hamper with food and her own homemade ale, walked boldly off to Mrs. Blundy’s cottage to fetch warm clothes, took my best blanket (in fact, my only blanket) from my bed and marched in full public gaze to the prison, where she did her best to give comfort to the poor girl, and ensure that she was as guarded as clothes and provisions and stern words to the jailer could make her against jail fever.

“She has asked to see you,” she said to me gravely on her return. She was in no good humor, as she had been jeered at by several low folk who habitually hang around outside the jail in the run-up to the assizes, taking perverted pleasure at seeing the prisoners arriving in chains. Why such people have nothing better to do I do not know, but I am sure that any well-run town would send them away, or punish them harshly for their idleness. “And you must go directly.”

My heart sank at this, and I felt like a bull on a rope, being dragged into the butcher’s yard for slaughter with all its efforts to escape the inevitable coming to naught. Before I heard of the arrest, I had convinced myself that the worst danger was over; if no one was ever blamed for the death of Grove, then it would be foolish to volunteer my own neck. The moment I heard about Sarah, I heard also the rustle of the rope and my bowels tightened as I saw the inevitable looming up in front of me.

Of course I had to go to the girl. I even managed to make myself angry at her, as though it was her fault she had fallen quite unfairly into suspicion. But as I walked up the stone steps to the jail, I knew as well that this was merely distress at my situation, and the trap I was now firmly in. Sooner or later, I would have to own my deeds, for if I had committed a crime in killing Grove, I would not have any other souls weighed in the balance against me as well.

Sarah was surprisingly cheerful when I saw her; the women’s cell had not yet filled with the congregation of crones who would soon be brought in from all over the county to await the judge’s pleasure, and she had only been there a few hours. The dark and the damp had not yet begun their deadly work on her spirits.

“Stop looking like that,” she said, when she saw my sorrowful countenance looming up at her out of the dark. “I’m the one in jail, not you. If I can be cheerful you can manage to look a little more lighthearted.”

“How can you be so, in such a place?”

“Because my conscience is clear, and I believe the Lord will look after me,” she said. “I have done my best for Him in my life, and refuse to accept He will forsake me now.”

“And if He does?”

“Then it will be for a good reason.”

Sometimes, I confess, such humility tired me excessively. But I had come to give courage, and finding it already present, I could hardly settle down to convince her that her optimism was misplaced.

“You think me foolish,” she said. “You are wrong. For I know that I had nothing to do with this business.”

“Indeed, and God knows it too. As I do. Whether the courts will be in His confidence is another matter.”

“What can they say? Courts have to produce evidence, do they not? And you know as well as I where I was that night.”

“And, if necessary, you must say so,” I told her.

But she shook her head. “No. That would replace one scandal with another, and I will not. Believe me, Anthony, it will not be necessary.”

“Then I will.”

“No,” she said firmly. “I suppose you think you are being kind, but you will not be the one to suffer. The law on this would hardly touch you, but I would have to leave, and I cannot with my mother in such a condition. Nor could I expose those people in Abingdon and elsewhere to sanction. Believe me, Anthony, there is no danger. No one could possibly think I would, or could, behave in such a way.”

I did my best to persuade her she was wrong, that not only could the town think it, it was already convinced. But she would have none of it, and eventually told me either to talk of something else, or to leave her in peace, an imperious command, which was strange in her circumstances, but quite like her.

“You will say nothing of this to anyone,” she said. “It is my wish and my command. You will say what I permit you to say, and no more. You will not interfere in this matter. Do you understand me?”

I looked at her strangely, for serving girl though she was, she looked and spoke like one born to command—no sovereign could have given orders with as much resolution, or with as much confidence of being obeyed.

“Very well, then,” I said, reluctantly after a long pause in which she waited for the assent she knew I must give. “Tell me about this Cola.”

“What is there to say you have not seen with your own eyes?”

“It may be important,” I replied. “And what I saw confuses me slightly. I saw him approach you, then recoil. It was not your doing that made him pull back; it was more as though he had horrified himself. Is that true?” She admitted it. “And you would have let him have his way, had he not removed himself?”

“You had already told me I had nothing to lose, and I suppose that is the case. If he insisted on payment, there was little I could do to prevent him taking it. Nor would any protests before or after have helped me. I have learned this with others.’’ She touched my arm as she saw my face fall. “I do not mean you.”

“And yet he pulled away. Why?”

“I suppose he found me disgusting.”

“No,” I said. “That is not possible.”

She smiled. “Thank you for that.”

“I mean, it does not fit with what I saw.”

“Maybe he had a conscience. In which case he joins you as the only two men in my acquaintance so equipped.”

I bowed my head at those words. Conscience I had indeed; scarcely a minute went by that I was not aware of it these days. Listening to its warnings, and acting upon them, however, were different. Here I was, the author of this girl’s misfortunes, able with one word to bring them to an end, and what was I doing? I was giving her comfort, and acting the part of the sympathetic helper. I was so generous, and so helpful that it entirely covered my turpitude, so no one suspected the depths of a guilt which daily grew ever deeper and more monstrous. And still I lacked the courage to do as I should. It was not for lack of desire—many times, I imagined myself going to the magistrate and telling him what had happened, and exchanging my life for hers. Many times I saw myself standing as the stoic, making my sacrifice with unflinching honesty and bravado.

“I have recovered the object he stole,” I said, “and I am mightily puzzled by it. It is a book by Livy. Where did it come from?”

“I believe it was with the bundle my father left, just before he died.”

“In that case, I would like to open that package. I have never touched it, because you asked me not to, but now I think we must; it may contain the answer.”

She gave her permission with some initial reluctance, then I made to leave; but before I did I once again implored her to let me speak, hoping that there might be a way for her to escape without my having to confess. But she would not allow it, and I was bound to her wishes; in the circumstances I could hardly hope to escape by inflicting more hardship on her.

9

I must talk about this book, I think, for I have forgotten to mention my examination of it. To look at there was nothing especially worthy of note; it was an octavo, bound in only inferior calfskin, with tooling done by a man of skill, but who was no master in his trade. There were no markings to give its ownership, and I was sure it had not come from a scholar’s library, for I knew of none who did not mark meticulously his ownership, and the place on the shelves where it might be found. Nor were there any of the marginalia I might expect to have found in a book that had been well-read and studied. It was battered and bashed, but my practiced eye told me that this was more due to the ill-treatment of movement and abuse, rather than excessive reading; the spine was in perfect condition, and was the most undamaged part of the whole.

Inside, the text was untouched, except for some small ink markings, which underlay certain letters. On the first page a “b” was so marked on the first line; an “f” on the second, and so on. Each line had one letter marked and, knowing that Wallis was interested in puzzles, I thought perhaps they made up some acrostic. So I wrote them all down, and came up with the merest jumble, which had no sense in it at all.

I spent a good half-day on these fruitless pursuits before admitting defeat, placing the volume on my shelves behind some other books so that it would not be noticed should anyone come alooking. Then I turned my attention to the packet, still secured with unbroken seals. Even now, it is strange to consider that such a small object could unleash such fury in the world, that so many people could contemplate such cruelty to gain possession of it, that I could have had about me such a powerful weapon all unknowing for so long a time. Nor did I even realize this until I opened it.

Half a day’s careful consideration opened up all the secret history of this realm to my eyes, but it was not until I read Wallis’s account that I understood fully how these matters fully affected the tragedy unfolding before me, and grasped the extent to which the mathematician was deceived by John Thurloe, still perhaps the most powerful person in the kingdom despite his lack of position. What he told Wallis was, to some extent, true—his account of how Sir James Prestcott and Ned Blundy, both fanatics though for different causes, formed an alliance was confirmed in every particular, for half of the documents or more consisted of letters between Thurloe and Clarendon, Cromwell and the king, in which their mutual courtesy was as striking as their knowledge of each other’s characters and aspirations. One letter in particular would have caused uproar had it been publicly known, for it expressly said that the king had instructed Mordaunt to pass on details of the rising of 1659; and an accompanying piece of paper listed some three dozen names, many locations of arms and details of gathering places. Even I knew that many of those named were subsequently killed. Another was an outline of an agreement between Charles and Thurloe sketching out conditions for a restoration of the monarchy, saying who was to be favored, what limits were to be placed on royal power, and outlining details of laws to control Catholics.

It is clear that had Sir James Prestcott recovered these and made them known at the time, the royal cause would have been utterly blasted, and the career of John Thurloe as well, for both sides would have rejected absolutely those people willing to abandon principles established at the cost of so much blood. This was, however, the lesser part of the bundle and, although it would have been of considerable danger in 1660, I doubt it would have shaken the throne in 1663. No; the more dangerous documents came in a separate package, and those were undoubtedly provided by Sir James Prestcott himself. For just as saltpeter and niter can cause little harm when separate, but can bring down the strongest castle when conjoined to make gunpowder, so these two groups of papers drew extra power from their association.

For Sir James Prestcott was a Catholic, and a member of that papist conspiracy to bring England back into the thrall of Rome. Of course he was; why else would his son attract the support of the papist Earl of Bristol? What else explains the horrified silence of his family, the refusal to talk of the unspecified injuries he had done them, which Jack Prestcott notes but treats as another example of their callousness. His wife’s family was most fervently of the Protestant persuasion, and to have one of their number embrace Rome was to them quite unforgivable. Why else would they refuse to help Sir James in his trouble against all instincts of obligation? Why else pack young Jack off to the Compton family where he could be placed under the tutelage of the resolutely Anglican Robert Grove? It is in the nature of papists to entrap their own family, to wheedle their way into their minds and corrupt them. Could there be any hope that a youth as easily led as Jack Prestcott would withstand his adored father’s blandishments? No; whatever else happened, it was essential for his safety and the family’s standing that he be kept safe and that, having given up his estates, Sir James should not recover them. In my opinion, the family stands acquitted of greed and mendacity, although I leave it to others to disagree with my verdict.

Sir James’s conversion came, I believe, during his first exile, a period in which many Royalists, weakened by misfortune and adversity, embraced popery with a most despairing anguish. He entered the service of the Venetians at the siege of Candia, and in his time abroad came greatly into contact with many people of substantial influence in the Roman church, eager to spy out any advantage for themselves in England’s misfortunes. One such was the priest with whom he corresponded in these letters.

I will explain this later; at the moment, 1 will merely point out the shock that must have been felt by any Catholic who had given near twenty years of his life in fighting for the throne, to discover that the king was prepared to agree to the most ferocious measures of persecution against him and his kind. The news he had that the king was preparing to reach a deal with Richard Cromwell and Thurloe pushed him into action, and also pushed him from loyalty into his final treachery.

For Pestcottr knew that at the same time Charles, that most duplicitous of men, was also negotiating with the French, the Spanish and with the pope himself, soliciting their support and money in return for a promise to ensure complete toleration of Catholics when he was reestablished. He promised all things to all men, and reneged on all his agreements when he was on the throne once more. Even his advisers did not know the full extent of his duplicity, I think, for Clarendon knew nothing of the discussions with the Spanish, while Mr. Bennet was kept in ignorance of the talks with Thurloe.

Sir James Prestcott alone knew it all, because Ned Blundy told him of one side, and his correspondent, a priest deeply involved in these discussions, told him of the other. That priest was called Andrea da Cola, whom Prestcott must have met while in the service of Venice.

10

It grieved me greatly later on, but even now I do not see how I could have pieced together events in such a way that I might have prevented Sarah’s death. Had I known that Wallis and Thurloe were looking for those documents and would have given me anything I wanted for them, had I realized they were even involved at all in the machinations which put her on trial, had I understood the full significance of Cola’s presence in this country, I could have gone and said, stop this trial immediately, set the girl free. They would have obeyed me, and granted my every wish, I think.

But I did not know this, and did not realize it until I read the words of Wallis and Prestcott and understood for the first time that Sarah’s trial was no mere miscarriage of justice, but had instead an overarching inevitability to it that could not be avoided.

Many people have over the years talked greatly of the rewards and punishments God metes out to His servants to show His approval or disfavor. A battle lost, one won—both are signs from God. A loss of fortune when a ship sinks in heavy seas; a sudden illness, or a chance meeting with an old acquaintance who brings news, these too occasion prayers of lamentation or thanks. Perhaps it is so, but how much more is it when countless deeds and decisions, secretly taken and only half known, slowly accumulate over the years to produce the death of an innocent in such a way. For had King Charles not been duplicitous, had Prestcott not been a fanatic, had Thurloe not been concerned for his own safety, had Wallis not been vain and cruel, had Bristol not been ambitious, had Bennet not been cynical, had government, in sum, not been government and politicians not what they are, then Sarah Blundy would not have been led to the scaffold and the sacrifice would not have been made. And what can we say of such a victim, whose death is the culmination of so much sin but is accomplished so quietly that its true nature is never known?

As I say, I did not know this, and at that moment, sitting in my room surrounded by these bits of old paper, I upbraided myself instead for my cowardice, for taking refuge in a matter which then seemed of no importance to me at all—for I did not care at that moment whether King Charles of England kept his throne or not, nor did I care about his policies, or whether Catholics were persecuted or given complete toleration. All I cared about was Sarah in jail and the fact that I was running out of excuses, and would soon have to confess.

To prepare myself and work up my courage, I decided to talk to Anne Blundy, for I was sure she could give me the strength I needed. Cola mentioned that she had been placed in the care of John Locke during his absence, and this man performed his duties with the utmost punctiliousness, although with little enthusiasm.

“Frankly,” he said, “it is a waste of my time although, no doubt, good for my soul to act in a way which will bring no reward to either of us. She is dying, Wood, and nothing will change that. I perform my tasks because I promised Lower I would do so. But whether I give her herbals or metals, practice new or old medicine on her, bleed her or purge her, it will make no difference at all.”

This he said in a low voice in the street outside the cottage, where I met him. He had just been in to pay his daily visit which, as he said, was more for form than anything else. My mother came down every day with food, as Sarah had insisted that this be done, rather than the food coming to her in prison, and the old lady did not want for a blanket or sticks in the fire. More than that could not be done.

The stink of corruption inside was severe, and caught in my throat as I went in. All the doors and windows were fast shut to keep out the bad winds; which was necessary, but had the unfortunate consequence of allowing none of the foul air to escape from the chamber. And the old lady, who had always been perverse in having the shutters and doors wide open except in the most icy weather, complained bitterly of this. Locke had closed everything up the moment he arrived, and her inability to move from her bed made it impossible for her to open them again. She begged me to oblige her, and although reluctant to do so, I eventually agreed, on condition she permitted me to close them all again when I left. I did not want a fight with Locke about countering good medical practice on a whim.

Whatever the reasoning, I must say that I also was greatly relieved when the winds began to sweep the foulness out of the room and natural light replaced the darkness; Anne Blundy also seemed to benefit from the sweetness of the cold air. She breathed deeply, and sighed as though a great torture had come to an end.

I had not been able to see her in the gloom, and was shocked when I had opened the shutters and turned round to look properly at her. The wasting of her face and the deathly pallor were the most noticeable, of course, and I saw her for the first time without a covering to her head, so that the thinness and wispiness of her hair was most obvious. She looked twice the age of a few months previously, and my sadness bore in on me so much that my throat tightened and I could not speak.

“You are a strange young man, Mr. Wood,” she said after I had asked her how she was and said all the usual things that one says in these circumstances. “So kind and so cruel by turns. I pity you.”

It was strange to my ears to have this pathetic bag of bones pity me, and insulting to be called cruel, for I never was so with deliberation.

“Why do you say this to me?”

“Because of what you have done to Sarah,’’ she said. “Do not look at me like that, you know what I mean. For several years now, you have given her something which has been of the greatest value. You have talked to her, and listened to what she has to say. You have been her companion and as near to friend as man can be to a woman. What do you mean by that? Don’t you know that the world has changed, and that a girl of her sort must learn to remain silent, especially in the company of gentlemen?”

“This sounds strange from your mouth.”

“I see what is going on around me. Who cannot, when it is so obvious? But you are too blind to notice, it seems. So I thought, at least. I thought you were a simple scholar who was so enthusiastic about his learning that he would share it with anyone. But that is not the case. For having taught her that she can be listened to, and made it so this becomes the one day in the week she looks forward to, you then cast her off, and will have nothing to do with her anymore. Then take her back again. What will you think of to hurt her now, Mr. Wood? I should never have let you into my house.”

“I never intended her hurt. And as for the rest, I think that I have taught her nothing. She seems to be the teacher now, I think.”

She looked immeasurably sad, and reluctantly nodded. “I am very frightened for her. She is so strange now, I think she must come to harm.”

“When did she start speaking at meetings?”

She looked at me sharply. “You know of this? Did she tell you?”

“I found out on my own.”

“When Ned came back that last time, and then we heard he was dead, we talked time and again about him; it was our memorial for him as we could not bury his body. We talked of his parents and his life, and his battles and campaigns. I was grief-stricken, as I loved him very much; he was all the world to me and my greatest comfort. But my grief led me into indiscretion and Sarah never misses anything. I talked about the Edgehill campaign, when Ned commanded a platoon, and ended with a whole company of his own, and I told how he was away for more than a year, and how much I missed him.” I nodded, thinking there must be a point to this, for she was not a woman to ramble in speech, even when ill.

“Sarah looked at me very quietly and gently, and asked the simple question she had never asked before. ‘So who, then, is my father?”

She stopped until she was satisfied that my face did not register disgust.

“It was true, of course. Ned was away for a year, and Sarah was born three weeks before he returned. He never questioned or reproached me, and always treated Sarah as his own; the matter was never referred to again, but sometimes, when I saw them sitting together by the fire, with him teaching her to read, or telling her stories, or just holding her to him, I could see a sadness in his eyes, and I felt grief-stricken for him. He was the very best of men, Mr. Wood. He truly was.”

“And what was the answer to the question?”

She shook her head. “I will not lie, and cannot tell the truth. I spend my days and nights considering my sins to prepare for my death, and I need all the time I have left. I have never claimed to be a good woman in any way, and there is much to repent. But the Lord will not reproach me for fornication.”

Still not an answer to my question, but I hardly wanted to know in any case; I take little pleasure in such gossipy matters at the best of times, and Anne Blundy in any case was beginning to drift from me into her memories.

“I had a dream, the most wonderful dream of my life, that I was surrounded by doves, and one dove perched on my arm, and spoke to me. ‘Call her Sarah, and love her,’ it said. ‘And you will be blessed amongst women.”

I found myself shivering strangely as she said this, then smiled bravely at her. “You have done as you were told, at least.”

“Thank you, sir. I have. Shortly after I told her this, Sarah started traveling and talking.”

“And healing?”

“Yes.”

“Who was that man? The one I saw leaving the house a few months back?”

She thought for a moment, to decide how much to say.

“His name was Greatorex, and he calls himself an astrologer.”

“What did he want?”

“I don’t know. I was here when he knocked on the door. I opened it and he was standing there, white as a sheet and trembling with fear. I asked him who he was, but he was so frightened he could not say anything to me. Then Sarah called from inside that I was to let him in. And he came in, and he just went down on his knees in front of her and asked her blessing.”

The memory still alarmed the mother, and the telling of it alarmed me.

“Then what?”

“Sarah took him by the hand, and told him to stand as if she was not at all surprised, then led him to the seat by the fire. They talked for more than an hour.”

“What about?”

“Sarah asked me to leave them alone, so I didn’t hear. Just the beginning. This man said he had signs of Sarah in the stars, and had crossed the sea and traveled here to see her, as they had directed him.”

“For we have seen the star, and are come to worship,” I said quietly, and Anne Blundy looked sharply at me.

“Do not say things like that, Mr. Wood,” she said. “Please do not. Or you will turn as mad as I am becoming.”

“I am well past the stage of madness,” I said. “And I am frightened beyond speech.”

I now had only a short time to follow the urgings of my conscience, for the trial was due to begin, and the preparations for the assize were already under way. I drank a certain amount before I could force myself to act, and I still recoiled from my task. But eventually I succeeded in overcoming my cowardice and walked to Holywell to ask for an audience with Sir John Fulgrove, the magistrate. Though it was his busiest day of the year, he granted my request, but did so with such brusqueness that I became even more nervous, and stammered and shook as I tried to speak. “Well, man? I don’t have all day.”

“It is about Sarah Blundy,” I said eventually.

“Well? What of her?”

“She is innocent, I know it.” A simple sentence, but it cost me an agony to come out with it, to step over the cliff and willingly cast myself down into the inevitable perdition that must follow. I claim nothing for my courage, my honor or my fortitude. I know, better than most, what I am. I was not born to be a hero, and will never be one of those to whom future ages look for example and instruction. Other men than myself, better men I should say, would have said these words earlier, and with more dignity of manner than the poor, sweating, shaking performance that I put on. Yet we must do as we can; I could do no more than this and, though it might elicit a sneer from those stronger than myself, I say that it was the most courageous act of my life.

“And how do you know it?”

As best I could, I repeated my story, and said that I had placed the poison in the bottle.

“She was seen in the college,” he said.

“She was not there.”

“How do you know?”

To this I could not reply, having given my solemn word that I would not betray her on the matter of her prophesying. So I lied instead, and in the lie, ruined all.

“She was with me.”

“Where?”

“In my room.”

“When did she leave?”

“She did not. She stayed with me all night.”

“And your family will say this?”

“They did not see her.”

“They were in the house, I imagine? I can ask them, you know.”

“I’m sure they were in the house.”

“And did not see her enter, did not see her climb to your room, did not see her leave again?”

“No.”

“Heard nothing all night long?”

“No.”

“I see. And you took this powder to his room for the purpose?”

“No. He had it there, and asked me to add it to his bottle for his stomachache.”

“But not half an hour before, he had been told it was useless, and said he would never use it again.”

“He did not mean it.”

“Everybody who heard him believed he did, and was grateful to the Italian for the advice.”

“He was not.”

“That is corroborated by witnesses who were present.”

“I cannot help that.”

“And can you tell me how Dr. Grove’s gold signet ring came to be discovered in her hands? Did you steal from his body and place it there?”

“No.”

“So how did she come by it?”

“I know nothing of this.”

Sir John leaned back in his chair and eyed me gravely. “I do not know what you are trying to accomplish, sir. It is clear to me that you are lying to protect this creature and it is a serious business to deflect justice from its true path. I beg you to think more carefully, and stop acting in this foolish fashion.”

“But it is true; it is all true.”

“It is not. It cannot be so. You cannot explain away the evidence proving her guilt, and those facts you cite to demonstrate her innocence are in no way convincing.”

“You will not help me?”

“What do you want? She has been before the grand jury, and a case was found. If you persist in this nonsense, I cannot stop you from rising in court, and saying your piece there. Although if you do so, I tell you it will make no difference, and the judge may well see fit to punish you as well.”

So i went to Dr. Wallis, hoping to persuade him to use his secret influence on the girl’s behalf, not knowing he had already determined on her death. And I told my story a second time and for a second time it seemed I was not believed.

“I owe you no favors, Mr. Wood,” he said, “and can in any case do nothing for you. It is for the judge and the jury to decide the girl’s fate. I know you have heard stories of my works for the government, but they are exaggerated. I can no more stop her trial than I can start it.”

“Do you at least believe me?”

We were in his room, and the interview was a strange one—there was a weariness about the man that I had not noticed before. I did not know, of course, how much this matter was plucking at his conscience, and how aware he was of the wrong he was doing. He had convinced himself that he was acting nobly, and when a man does this to assuage his soul, it is a rash person indeed who seeks to persuade him otherwise.

“I do not. I believe this tale comes from your selfishness. I think you would rather have your pleasure with this girl than see justice served. I know more about her than you think, and I am convinced that if she hangs then no great injustice will be done.”

“She did not do this.”

Wallis took a step toward me, overwhelming me with his bulk, and the sheer power and malice of his personality.

“That whore you like so much, Mr. Wood, is helping a conspirator, a subversive and an atheist. She is helping the most dangerous man in the country commit a monstrous crime, and that man has already slaughtered my servant. I will have my revenge, and that man will die. If Sarah Blundy’s death helps me to my revenge, then so be it. I care not whether she is innocent or guilty. Do you understand me now, Mr. Wood?”

“Then you are the greatest of sinners,” I said, my voice shaking in shock at what I heard. “You are no priest and are not fit to hold the bread in your hands. You are not…”

Wallis was a big man, powerfully built and very much taller than me. Without any more words he stood up and grabbed me by my collar, and began dragging me to the door. I tried to protest, and say this was no behavior for a priest, but when I began to speak he shook me like some dog, and pushed me hard against the wall before opening the door onto the street.

“Do not meddle, sir,” he said coldly. “I care nothing for your concerns, and have no time for your whining. Leave me in peace and say no more, or you will pay heavily for it.”

Then he pushed me out of the door, and kicked me hard with his foot, so that I tripped down the stone steps into a cold, muddy puddle, which splashed up all over my clothes.

As I knelt there, with the water seeping into my shoes and breeches, I knew I had failed. Even if I shouted from the rooftops, it seemed, people would stop their ears and refuse to acknowledge what was so obviously the truth. I do not know whether it would have been different had I spoken earlier, but it was certainly too late now, and the realization made me sink my head into that puddle and weep with anguish as the rain spattered more mud onto me. It was as though heaven itself had intervened, and made me like some lunatic in the street, shouting out to all the world but finding people averting their eyes and pretending not to notice. In the deepest rage, I beat my fist on the muddy earth and cried in despair at God’s cruelty and, for my reward and solace, heard two passers-by laugh with disgust at the raving drunkard they saw on his knees before them.

11

The start of Sarah’s trial began the most ANguishing, wonderful two days of my life, in which I felt with full force both the power of God’s punishment, and the sweet grace of His forgiveness. Again, Cola has described the proceedings, and does so with perspicacity. I will not repeat his account, but rather must add to it, for he has quite naturally omitted certain events which he could not know.

Sarah had commanded me not to interfere, and I had already done so, but could not bring myself to disobey in her presence. This will seem weakness on my part, but I do not care if it does—I speak the truth and say that no man who knew her as I did would have acted differently. I was hoping someone else would speak for her, or present evidence of her innocence, yet they did not. Sarah herself said nothing except to admit her guilt so that her body could go to Lower and her mother receive treatment, and when she uttered that word, “guilty,” so quietly and with such resignation, my heart broke, and I determined that I would try for the third time to persuade people of the truth. Then I heard the judge say those words, “Does anyone have anything to add? For if there is one who will speak for the defendant, then he must do so now.”

“My Lord,” I said. I was going to cry out to the whole room that this poor girl was as innocent as Christ himself, that she had no hand in Grove’s death, and that I was responsible for his end. I was going to demonstrate the truth of my assertions with every scrap of evidence and eloquence I had, and was confident that while the latter might let me down, the former would carry conviction. I was going to save her.

And I hesitated, tongue-tied in my anguish and my indecision, and in that moment, the opportunity was lost. I know many in the town, even in the university, hold me in contempt, and ridicule me behind my back, and I have always taken care not to allow the opportunities for humiliation to be created. This time I disregarded all thought of my dignity, and in my brief pause, some fellow made a ribald remark, and others laughed, and this encouraged still more. For the court as a sentence of death is to be passed becomes a solemn place full of apprehension and dread; men leap eagerly at anything which will break that atmosphere, and render it less awful. Within seconds, the court erupted in jeers and, even had I shouted at the top of my voice, I would not have been heard. Red-faced with embarrassment, and consumed by shame at my failure, I felt Locke pull me down, hoping as I resumed my plea the judge would restore order, and call on me once more to say my piece.

He did not. Rather, with a supercilious smirk on his face, he thanked me for my eloquent words, and deliberately encouraged more laughter. Then he sentenced Sarah Blundy to die.

When I heard those words, I ran out of the courtroom to avoid further misery, and took myself to my room where I locked myself in and prayed for guidance. I had no idea what I should do, and I stayed, in mute immobility, until my mother put her head around the door and told me there was a visitor who would not take no for an answer. She had told him to go away, and he had refused absolutely to budge until he had seen me.

And, a few moments later, in marched Jack Prestcott, as cheerful as he was insane. He frightened me greatly, for his deterioration since I had last seen him was very great indeed, and the look in his eyes, to my mind, suggested a man who could fall into violence at any moment should he be crossed or contradicted.

“Ho there, my friend,” he said as he walked in, for all the world like a seigneur condescending to pay a call on one below his social rank. “I hope I find you well.”

I neither know nor care what reply I made; I could have recited an extract from the Bodleian catalogue, I think, for all the difference it would have made. Jack Prestcott was not interested in anything but the sound of his own delusions, which poured from his mouth in a thick torrent. He kept me there for half an hour, as he recited to me all his ills, and how he had overcome them. Every detail was put in, much as he later put it down in his manuscript. Indeed, some of the words and phrases and sentences, some of the little asides and comments, were precisely the same and I believe that in all the years that have passed between that visit and his putting pen to paper, he has done nothing except go over in his mind the self-same account, repeating endlessly in his delirium the same events. When he dies he may go to hell; it would be no more than deserved. But in my opinion he is in it already, for Tully says true, a diis quidem immortalibus-quae potest homini major esse poena furore atque dementia, what greater punishment can the gods inflict upon a man than madness?

I was at a loss to understand his purpose in coming, for I knew he hardly recognized me as a friend, and I had certainly done nothing to encourage any intimacy. I thought perhaps he wanted to consult me on matters of historical fact, and did my best to indicate I would not assist him in any way. But instead he held up his hand to silence me in a gesture of the most perfect condescension.

“I have come to provide you with material, not to ask your opinion,” he said with a sly smile. “I wish you to keep these papers, if you will. I will certainly reclaim them some day, perhaps if my suit still has to go formally to law, but I shall be on the move in the next few months, and am in no position to guard them carefully. If you keep them, you will be doing me as much a favor as I am doing you, for Dr. Walk’s would surely want them back if he knew where they were.”

“I do not want them and have no desire to help you in any way,” I said.

“Yes,” he said, nodding his head with the gravest satisfaction. “When your life of my father comes out, and people see through your pen the great man he truly was, then your career will be made. And let me assure you that I will not abandon you. All the expenses of publication I will bear. A thousand copies at least, I think, in the finest bindings, and on the best paper.”

“Mr. Prestcott,” I said more loudly, “you are a liar and a murderer and the foulest person I have ever encountered. You are killing the dearest person I know, the best person in the world, for no reason. I beg you to consider what you are doing; it is not too late to change, and undo the damage. If you go to the magistrate now…”

“And to do the job perfectly,” he said as if I had merely muttered some conventional appreciation of his kindness, “you must have these. But on condition that you say nothing to anyone about them until the book is ready for press.”

More paper. I took the proffered sheets and looked at them. Complete nonsense written on them.

“I leave it to you to detect their importance,” he said. “It can serve as a puzzle for you.”

Then he laughed outright at the look of consternation on my face. “I must explain,” he said, “for I see your perplexity. These all come from the drawer of Dr. Wallis. I stole them a few weeks back.” Prestcott leaned forward on his chair and said in a conspiratorial whisper—“They are in a most cunning code, and have all defeated the good doctor. He is properly mad about it.”

“Please,” I said, “Stop talking like this. Can you not hear me? Can’t you understand?”

Mr. Boyle conducted his experiments with his vacuum pump, Cola mentions some of them, and noted that as the air was sucked out, the sound of the animal inside it becomes fainter and fainter, until it can be discerned no more. As Prestcott stood before me, conducting the conversation he wished to have, hearing answers which were in his mind alone and oblivious to my words, I felt like some poor experimental beast, banging my hand against an invisible wall and shouting out at the top of my lungs, but receiving no response or understanding for my efforts.

“Yes. He prides himself on his skill, and yet these letters elude his mind completely.” He chuckled. “But he told me the key, even though he thought me too stupid to notice. Apparently, you need a book of Livy. And with it, all will be revealed, he thinks. I must say I do not mind him reading his own, but I no longer want him reading my father’s letters. Which is why you must have them. He will not think of looking here.”

And with this remark, Prestcott bade me farewell and went off to amuse himself before his fateful interview with John Wallis the next day. Both of them have given their accounts, and Wallís’s is obviously the correct one, for Prestcott’s assault on him caused something of a stir, and there was a great crowd in the High Street a few weeks later to see the young man escorted from Bocardo jail by his uncle, and carried off so wrapped in chains he could scarcely move. It was a kindness to all, especially for him, that he should be so confined. He was too murderous to be free, and too mad to be punished. I hope it will be understood that I thought he received more consideration than he deserved.

But he left me those letters, and in particular that one crucial letter which Wallis intercepted on its way to Cola in the Low Countries; the only copy indeed, and the only proof of that Italian’s purpose here. I put it aside with scarcely a glance, even though I now knew something of how to read it; I cared nothing at that moment for intellectual puzzles. Instead, I tidied up my room with methodical precision, added the papers to my collection under the floorboards, and thus occupied my body in useless tasks while my mind resumed its melancholic reverie. Then I left the house to visit Sarah one last time.

She would not see me; the jailer instead told me that she was on her own for her last evening and wished to see nobody. I insisted, and offered him a bribe, and begged, and finally persuaded him to go back and ask again.

“She will not see you,” he said, with a look of sympathy. “She said you will see her tomorrow well enough.”

Her rejection saddened me more than anything, and I am so selfish that all I could think of was my own sorrow at being deprived of an opportunity to give consolation. I confess I drank more than I should have done that night, and also that it soothed me not at all. Tavern after tavern and inn after inn I went to, but could scarcely abide the company of all those happy and cheerful faces. I drank in solitude, and turned my back when even people I counted as friends approached me. Everywhere I went, people who knew who I was came up to me, and asked me about Sarah and what I thought of her. And every time I was too miserable to speak the truth. In the Fleur-de-Lys, then in the Feathers and finally in the Mitre, I shrugged, and said I did not know, that it was none of my concern, she might have done it for all I knew—all I wanted to do was forget it all, so self-pitying had the drink made me.

Eventually I was thrown out for having drunk too much, and slipped over and fell into the gutter once more; this time I stayed there until I found myself being bodily picked up.

“Do you know, Mr. Wood,” said a soft sing-song voice in my ear, “I do believe I just heard a cock crow. Is that not strange for this time of night?”

“Leave me alone.”

“I think perhaps I would like to talk to you, sir.”

So this stranger, this Valentine Greatorex, led me to his room and sat me down by the fire and dried me, then sat opposite and regarded me seriously but with great calm until I spoke myself.

“I went to the magistrate, and told him she was innocent,” I said. “I told him that I had killed Dr. Grove, not Sarah. He did not believe me.”

“Is that so?”

“Then I went to Dr. Wallis, and told him, and he would not believe me either.”

“I expect not.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because otherwise she might not die tomorrow. You know her well, I think?”

“Better than anyone.”

“Tell me, please. I want to know everything about her.”

Jack Prestcott talks of this man, and how his voice fascinated and soothed, so that those he spoke to almost fell into a dream of tranquillity and obeyed his every command. So it was with me, and I told him everything I knew about Sarah, everything I have put in this manuscript and very much more, for he was fascinated by her conversation and wished to hear every word she had ever uttered. As I spoke of her words at the meeting I had attended, he gave an enormous sigh, and nodded with satisfaction.

“And I must save her,” I concluded. “I must. There must be something I can do.”

“Ah, Mr. Wood, you have read too many chivalrous romances,” he said kindly. “Do you see yourself as Launcelot du Lac, perhaps, sweeping down on your charger and rescuing your Guinevere from the pyre, fighting off your enemies and taking her to safety?”

“No. I thought if I went to the Lord Lieutenant, or the judge…”

“They would not hear you,” he said. “Any more than the magistrate, or this man Wallis, or even the entire court could hear you. They hear ye, indeed, but understand not; see ye indeed, but perceive not. It says so in Isaiah, and so it is.”

“But why do so many people want her dead?”

“You know full well already, but will not accept it in your heart. You know what you have seen, you know your Scripture and you have heard her own words. There is nothing you can do, and nothing you should do.”

“I cannot live without her.”

“That is your punishment for your part in this.”

I had no spirit or energy to say any more, and the drink had so fuddled my brain I could barely have spoken even had I wanted to. It was Greatorex who eventually pulled me out of the chair, and took me into the cold air outside, which revived me enough to walk steadily.

“It is a purgatory, my friend, but not of long duration, you will see. Go and sleep if you can; pray if you cannot. It will soon be over.”

I did as he said, and spent the entire night in the deepest prayer, for myself and for Sarah, begging God with all my might that he should intervene and stop the madness He had visited on the world. My faith is weak, a disgrace to anyone who has in life been favored as I have. I have been spared riches and fame and power and position, just as His goodness has saved me from poverty and great illness. Whatever dishonor is mine I have brought on myself, and whatever accomplishment is by His grace alone. Despite that, I did not believe enough. I prayed fervently, I used every device I knew to achieve that peaceful sincerity of submission that I had felt but once, when on a horse in dead winter with Sarah behind me. One small part of my soul, at least, knew that I was doing nothing but filling out the hours until the inevitable took place. Again and again I threw myself back into the struggle, getting ever more desperate in my attempts to force my rebellious spirit into calm. But I had spent too long amongst the rationalists and those who told me that the age of miracle was past, and the signs of the divine given to the fathers of the church had been taken from the world, never to come again. I knew it was not the case, and knew that God could and did intervene in men’s affairs still, but I could not accept it with my whole heart. I could not say those simple words, “Thy will be done,” and mean it. I meant, I know, “Thy will be done if it agrees with what I want,” and that is not prayer, nor is it submission.

My prayers failed. And shortly before dawn I lifted up my head and abandoned the attempt, and knew that I was alone. I knew that I would receive no help, and that the one thing I desired most of all would not be given me. I would lose her, and at that moment knew that Sarah was the most precious part of my life, and the most precious thing that would ever be in my life. I accepted my punishment and in the quiet of dawn and despair perhaps then I prayed truly for the first time. All I know is that the darkness lifted from me, and a feeling of the most profound peace came to rest on my soul, and I found myself on my knees once more, thanking God with all my heart for His goodness.

I did not know what would happen, and could not understand how it could possibly be that the inevitable march of man’s cruelty could be thrust aside. But I no longer questioned or doubted. I dressed myself as warmly as possible, took my thickest cloak—for although spring had come it was still frosty at dawn—and joined the throng of people walking down towards the castle to see the execution.

There was only one person to die that day; the judge was as merciful with others as he was vengeful with her, and the affair would be over in only a short time. As I approached the mob gathered round the big tree in the courtyard, the rope already hanging from the thick bough and the ladder in place, my heart sank and the doubt came upon me once again, but with a mighty effort of will I pushed all such thoughts from me. I did not even know why I was there; certainly there was no purpose in it, and I did not wish Sarah to see me. But I knew that it was necessary, somehow, and that her life depended on my presence, although I could not begin to comprehend how.

Lower was also there, with Locke and a few burly fellows, one of whom I recognized as a porter from Christ Church. Strange company, I thought, before it dawned on me what he was proposing. I had not seen him now for several days, but I should have realized he would not readily pass up an opportunity to get more material for his book. He was a kind man but dedicated to his work; the look of grim determination on his face as he paced up and down was not that of someone who anticipated any enjoyment from imminent events, but he was certainly not going to flinch from them.

I avoided him; I had no desire for conversation and I scarcely even noticed another small party, standing to one side, talking loudly and making coarse jokes, which clustered around the Regius professor. Had I paid more attention, I have no doubt I would also have given more significance to the whispered conference between Lower and his associates, to the way they positioned themselves next to the hanging tree, and the look of grim satisfaction on Lower’s face as he surveyed the coming battlefield and the disposition of his forces.

And then Sarah was brought out, in heavy chains and between two large guards, although scarce any were needed, so small and frail and weak did she look. It made my heart break to see her; her eyes were heavy and the blackness of the rings around them was made more visible by the deathly pallor of her face; her beautiful dark hair was uncovered, but seemed beautiful no longer; she had always combed it lovingly, it was her greatest—indeed her only—vanity. Now it was matted and unkempt, and was bundled up coarsely above her neck, so it would not get in the way of the rope.

I merely repeat what Cola has already documented from my lips; she did indeed dismiss the priest in a way which brought loud applause from the crowd, said her own prayers and then made a brief speech which, while she confessed to sins, did not confess to the one sin for which she was about to die. There was no ringing heroism or defiance, or appeal for the crowd’s sympathy, such as would be appropriate for a man in similar circumstances. Her common sense, I am sure, told her that it would be unseemly from her lips, and win her no admiration. Rather, the way to the mob’s heart lay through courage and submission and, as these two greatest of human qualities were in natural conformity to her nature, she won their applause merely by being herself—and to be that in such an extremity is, to my mind, the greatest of achievements.

Once all was over, she mounted the ladder after the hangman, and then waited patiently as he fumbled around her with the rope. I do not know why hangings have to be so coarse and crude; the last moments should be more dignified, not this welter of legs and arms up a rickety ladder propped uncertainly against a tree trunk, and to submit without exciting laughter is rare. But the crowd was in no mood for laughter that morning; her youth, her frailty and her calm stilled any ribaldry, and they watched with greater quiet and respect than I have ever seen at such an event.

Then the drums sounded; only two drummers, both boys aged about twelve whom I had seen many times playing in the street; the days when a proper troop would perform the ceremony were gone now, and the magistrate had decided there was no need of soldiers that morning. He did not anticipate any trouble from the crowd, as might have been the case if a popular figure in the town, or a highwayman of standing, or a man with a family, was being hanged. Nor was there. The crowd fell absolutely silent, the drums followed suit, and the hangman—with a movement of the most surprising delicacy—pushed Sarah off the ladder.

“God have mercy.” This was her cry, and the last was lost as the rope pulled tight under her weight, and ended in a strangled sob that brought a sigh of sympathy from the crowd. And then she swung there, her face turning purple, and her limbs twitching and the stench spreading as the telltale stains on her shift showed that the noose was having its usual foul effect.

I will not continue; there can be few who have not seen such a sight, and even now the memory pains me beyond belief, although I recall that I watched it all with the most remarkable calm, despite the sudden and terrifying clap of thunder and darkening of the skies which broke from heaven as she fell. I prayed for her soul, and for my own, once again and lowered my eyes that I should not see the end.

I had reckoned without Lower, and his determination to beat the Regius professor to the body. He had, of course, bribed the hangman in advance; this accounted for the nods and winks that passed between them, and the fact that he was suffered to be so close to the tree; I did not realize he had purchased Sarah’s permission with a promise of treatment for her mother, nor indeed that the mother at that very moment lay breathing her last only a few hundred yards away from the castle. Sarah had only just stopped twitching and convulsing when Lower cried in a loud voice to his little army, “Right, lads,” and surged forward, giving a sign to the hangman who straightaway pulled a large knife from his belt and sliced through the rope.

Sarah’s body fell the three feet to the ground with a heavy thump, accompanied by the first muttering of disapproval from the crowd, and Lower bent down to see if she still breathed. “Dead,” he shouted after a proper examination, so that all might hear, and signed for his comrades to come forward. The porter from Christ Church picked up the body and threw it over his shoulder, and before anyone could react at all, began to head off, almost breaking into a run as the protests from the crowd grew. Two others in his party stood back to head off the Regius professor’s men should they try to intercept, and Lower looked around once before following his prize.

Right across that open patch of land our eyes met, and in mine he can have seen nothing but disgust. He gave a little shrug, then cast his eyes down, and would look at me no more. Then he too turned and ran off, into the rain which was already falling heavily and with appalling ferocity.

I hesitated for only a brief moment before leaving myself, but unlike the crowd, who attempted a pursuit and became blocked in the narrow gateway by all trying to run out at the same moment, I left by the other entrance. For I knew where Lower was going, and did not need to keep him in my sight in order to catch up with him and his gruesome prize.

He must have moved quickly, and knew that the faster he went the better, for the crowd was now in an unforgiving mood. They accepted the hanging as God’s will and the king’s justice, and went to see all the proprieties maintained. What they did not accept—for crowds have a fine sense of right and wrong—was any meanness of behavior. The condemned must die, but must be treated well. Lower had offended victim and town, and I knew it would go hard with him should he be caught.

They did not, however, for he had planned well; I only just caught up with him myself before he slipped in the back of Boyle’s elaboratory and mounted the stairs.

I was still cold with shock at what he had done. I knew all his arguments in advance, had heard them all before and even agreed with most of them, but this I could not countenance. You may say that, considering all I had done and not done, I had long since resigned any right to make judgments. I did so nonetheless and mounted the stairs so that, if I could not ensure justice was done, I could at least maintain appearances.

He had already posted guards on the stairs, lest the crowd realize that he had come here rather than to Christ Church, and was on the verge of bolting the doors so that no one could disturb him in his horrible labor. I, however, managed to burst in by pushing all my weight against the door before the bolts were shot.

“Lower,” I cried when I stopped and briefly took in the hellish scene in front of me. “This must stop.”

Locke was there already to assist, as well as a barber to attend on the more mechanical aspects of the dissection.

Sarah had already been stripped naked and that beautiful body which I had held so often lay on the table as the barber roughly washed it down and prepared it for the knife. That she was dead no one could doubt for a moment; her poor broken body was as drained as a corpse is, and only the thick red weal around the neck, and strangled expression of anguish on her face, destroying all beauty, showed all too well what had become of her.

“Don’t be absurd, Wood,” he said wearily. “She’s dead. The soul has gone. I can do nothing to hurt her further. You know that as well as I. I know you were fond of her, but it is too late for that.”

He looked at me kindly, and patted me on the back. “Look, my friend,” he said. “You will not like this. I don’t blame you, it takes a strong stomach. You should not stay here to watch. Take my advice and go away, old fellow. It will be better. Believe me.”

I was too mad to listen, but angrily flung off his kindly touch and retreated, daring him to act in the bestial way he intended in my eyesight, thinking, perhaps foolishly, that my presence would make him see the evil he did, and desist.

He looked at me for several moments, uncertain about how to proceed, until Locke coughed in the background.

“We have little time, you know,” he said. “The magistrate gave us an hour only, and time is going. Quite apart from what will happen if the crowd finds out where we are. Make up your mind.”

With difficulty, Lower did, and turned away from me, and back to the table, signing for all others to leave the room. I sank down on my knees, begging the Lord, anyone, to do something and stop this nightmare. Even though it had served no purpose the night before, I went over all my prayers and my promises. Oh Lord God incarnate for our sins, have mercy on this poor innocent, if not on me.

Then Lower picked up his knife, and placed it on her breast. “Ready?” he asked.

Locke nodded, and with a swift, sure movement he began to make his incision. I shut my eyes.

“Locke,” I heard him call through my darkness, suddenly angry, “what on earth do you think you’re doing? Let go of my hand. Is everyone gone mad here?”

“Stop a moment.”

And Locke, whom I had never liked, pulled the knife away from the body, and bent over the corpse. Then, with a puzzled look on his face, he repeated the movement, so that his cheek rested on her mouth.

“She’s breathing.”

I could scarcely restrain my tears at those few simple words, which said so much. Lower gave his own explanations later; how she must have been cut down too early in his efforts to get hold of the corpse first, and how, rather than life itself, merely the appearance of it had been extinguished. How the fall had merely strangled and brought temporary oblivion only. I know all this; he told me his reasons time and again, but I knew differently, and never bothered to contradict him. He believed one thing; I knew another. I knew that I had witnessed the greatest miracle of history. I had seen resurrection; for the spirit of God moved in that room, and the soft wings of the dove that attended her conception returned to beat on Sarah’s soul. It is not given to man, and certainly not to physicians, to restore life when it is extinguished. Lower would argue this proves she was never dead, but he had pronounced her so himself and he had studied the question more carefully than anyone. People say the age of miracles is past, and I believed that myself. But it is not so; they do occur, only we are getting better at explaining them away.

“So what do we do now?” I heard Lower say, a tone of the greatest bafflement and surprise in his voice. “Should we kill her, do you think?”

“What?”

“She is meant to be dead. Not to kill her would merely postpone the inevitable, and ensure I lost her.”

“Well…”

I could not believe my ears. Surely, after witnessing such a marvel, my friend could not be serious? He could not go against the manifest will of God and commit murder? I wanted to stand up and remonstrate with him, but found that I could not. I could not stand, I could not open my mouth; all I could do was sit there and listen, for I think the Lord had still more purpose that day as well; He wanted Lower to redeem himself as well, if only he would take the opportunity.

“I’d hit her on the head,” he said, “except that would damage the brain.” And he stood awhile in thought before scratching his chin nervously. “I’ll have to cut her throat,” he went on. “It’s the only solution.”

And again he picked up his knife, and again he hesitated, before quietly laying it down again. “I can’t do this,” he said. “Locke, advise me. What should I do?”

“I seem to remember,” Locke said, “that we physicians are meant protect life, and are never meant to kill. Is that not the case?”

“But legally,” Lower replied, “she is already dead. I am merely doing properly what should already have been done.”

“Are you a hangman then?”

“She was condemned to die.”

“Was she?”

“You know very well she was.”

“I remember,” Locke said, “that she was sentenced to be hanged by the neck. She has been so. There was no mention of her being hanged by the neck until dead. I admit this is normally understood and stated, but as it was not in this case, it cannot be counted a necessary part of the punishment.”

“She has also been condemned to burn,” Lower said. “And the hanging was merely a way of sparing her pain. Are you telling me we should now hand her over to the pyre and let her burn alive?”

Then his attention was brought to Sarah herself, who issued a soft, low moan as she lay all unattended while they conducted their dispute.

“Bring me a bandage,” he said, the physician once more. “And let me bind up this cut I made in her.”

For the next five minutes or so, he worked steadily on the wound, fortunately only small, before he and Locke used all their strength to raise her up into a sitting position, resting her back against their shoulders, and swinging her legs down off the table. Finally, while Locke instructed her on deep breathing, so that her head might steady itself, Lower fetched a cloak, and with the utmost gentleness, covered her up.

A living, sitting woman is more difficult to contemplate killing than a corpse flat out on a table and, by the time the movement was finished, Lower’s attitude had entirely changed. His natural kindness, kept at bay on many occasions by his ambition, swept all before it and, whatever he thought he should do, he began to treat the girl as his patient almost without being aware of it. And he was always ferocious in the defense of those whom he considered to be under his protection.

“But what do we do now?” he said, and all of us in that room were aware that while this had been continuing, the noise from the street outside had insensibly grown, so that now there was the roar of a substantial number of people outside. Locke poked his head out of the window.

“It is the crowd. I told you they wouldn’t like this,” he said. “Just as well it is raining so hard, it keeps most of them away.” He peered up into the sky. “Have you ever seen rain like this before?”

Another groan from Sarah, who bent her head down and was violently sick, heaving and retching, distracted their attention once again. Lower brought some spirits, and patted her on the head as he forced her to drink some, although it only made her retch the more.

“If you tell them this, they will only say it was a sign of disfavor at what you intended. They will take her away and put her on the pyre, then stand guard to make sure you get nowhere near.”

“Are you saying we shouldn’t hand her over?”

Through all this, I had said not a word, but merely stood in the corner and watched. Now I found my voice was given back to me. I could make a difference in this balance, for it was clear that all must agree to whatever action was taken.

“You must not,” I said. “She has done no wrong. She is entirely innocent. I know it. If you hand her over, you will not only abandon a patient, you will abandon an innocent whom God has favored.”

“And you are sure of this?” Locke said, turning and apparently noticing me for the first time.

“I am. 1 tried to tell the court, but was hooted down.”

“1 will not ask you how you know,” he said softly, and his penetrating look made me realize, for the first and only time, how it was that he subsequently achieved such a place in the world. For he saw more than other people, and guessed more still. I was grateful to him for his silence, and have been ever since.

“Very well,” he continued. “The only problem is that we may take her place on the gallows. I am a generous man, I think, but even I have limits to what I will do for a patient.”

Lower, meanwhile, had been pacing up and down in the greatest agitation, occasionally sneaking a glimpse out of the window, then looking in turn at Sarah, then Locke, then me. When Locke and I had finished our exchange, he spoke—“Sarah?” he said softly, and repeated it until she lifted up her head and looked at him. Her eyes were bloodshot and ill, for the little vessels within them had ruptured, and gave her the air of a very devil, and the whiteness of her complexion made this seem even more frightening.

“Can you hear me? Can you speak?”

After a long pause, she nodded.

“You must answer me a question,” he said, coming and kneeling on one knee before her, so that she could see him clear. “Whatever you have said in the past, you must say the truth now. For our lives and souls depend on it, as well as yours. Did you kill Dr. Grove?”

Even though I knew the truth, I did not know the answer she would give. And she did not give one for some time, but eventually she shook her head.

“Your confession was false?”

A little nod.

“You swear this by all you hold dear?”

She nodded.

Lower stood up, and heaved a heavy sigh. “Mr. Wood,” he said. “Take this girl upstairs to Boyle’s chamber. He will be indignant if he discovers, so try not to make a mess. Dress her as best you can, and cut off her hair.”

I stared uncomprehending, and Lower frowned. “Now, Mr. Wood, if you please. You must never query a physician while he is trying to save a life.”

And I led Sarah out by the hand, hearing Lower murmur—in the next room, Locke. It is a long shot, but it may serve.”

Although there seemed little wrong with her, Sarah was still unable to speak or do anything except sit, staring into space as I followed my instructions. It is hard cutting off hair without a scissor, and the result would have done no credit to a woman of fashion. That, however, was not Lower’s intention, whatever else he had in mind, and within a short while I had done as I was told, then tried my best to clear up the mess.

Then I sat down beside her, and took her hand. There were no words I could say that would have answered my need, so I said none. But I squeezed lightly, and eventually felt the very slightest of squeezes back. It was enough; I broke down in the most complete of sobs, bending my head down across her breast while she sat there immobile.

“Did you really think I would leave you?” she said in a voice so soft and weak I could barely hear her.

“I could hardly hope for anything better. I know I did not deserve as much.”

“Who am I?”

It was the most glorious moment of my life. Everything before built to that question, everything after, the years of life which I have had since and still hope to have, are the merest coda to it. For the first and the last time, I had no doubts and had no need of thought or calculation. I did not need to consider, or assess evidence, nor yet to use any of the skills of interpretation needed for lesser matters; all I had to do was state the manifest truth without fear, and in perfect confidence. Some things, indeed, are so obvious that examination is redundant and logic contemptible. The truth was there to be believed, the most perfect gift because so undeserved. I knew. That was all.

“You are my Savior, the living God, born of the spirit, persecuted, insulted and abused, known to the Magi, who died for our sins and is resurrected as happened before and will happen again in every generation of man.”

Anyone who heard me would have thought me mad, and in that sentence I stepped forever out of the full society of my fellow men and into a peace of my own.

“Tell no one of this,” she said softly.

“And I am afraid. I cannot bear to lose you,” I added, ashamed of my own selfishness.

Sarah seemed scarcely to pay any attention, but eventually leaned forward and kissed me on the forehead. “You should not be afraid, and should never be afraid. You are my love, my dove, my dearest and I am your friend. I will not forsake you nor ever neglect you.”

They were the last words she spoke to me, the last I ever heard from her lips, and I sat by her side, holding her hand and staring in awe at her until a noise from below roused me once more. Then I rose from the bed where she sat, staring blankly across the room, and went back down to Lower. Sarah now seemed completely unaware of my existence.

The carnage in that room downstairs was truly diabolical, and even I, who knew the truth, was appalled by it. How much greater must Cola’s shock have been when he forced his way in, and saw what he thought to be Sarah’s body. For Lower had taken the corpse he had acquired in Aylesbury, and roughly hacked it into unrecognizable fragments, so brutalizing the head that it was scarcely recognizable as human. He himself was covered in blood from a dog Locke had slaughtered to complete the illusion, and the stench of the alcohol in the room was unbearable, even though the window was wide open to allow the winds into the room.

“Well, Wood?” he said, turning to me with a grim expression. Locke, I saw, had resumed his languid, absent pose, and was standing idly by at the door. “Will anybody spot our imposition, do you think?” And with a knife, he levered an eyeball out of the skull on the table, so that it hung by a thread from its socket.

“I have cut her hair, but the experience has so affected her she is hardly capable of moving, I think. What do you suggest we do with her now?”

“Boyle’s servant has some clothes in the cupboard next the chamber,” he said. “At least, he normally keeps them there. I think we must borrow them. Dress her up, and get her out of the building so no one will recognize her. Meantime, keep her upstairs and quiet. No one must see her, or even suspect there is anyone there.”

Again I mounted the stairs, found the clothes and began the lengthy process of getting Sarah into them. She spoke not a word during the whole operation, and when I was finished I left her and went out by Mr. Crosse’s back door and followed a little lane down to Merton Street and my house.

First, however, I called into the Feathers, as I needed a few moments to steady my nerves and collect my thoughts. And was approached by Cola, looking tired and worn out himself, who wanted news of the execution. I told him the entire truth except for the one detail of importance and he, poor man, took it as confirmation of his theory about blood transfusion, that the death of the spirit in the donor must inevitably cause the death of the recipient as well. I could not, for obvious reasons, illuminate him on this point, and demonstrate that his theory had a fatal evidential flaw.

He also told me of the death of the mother, which grieved me greatly, for it was yet another burden for Sarah to bear. But I forced myself to put it aside as Cola went to remonstrate with Lower, and I went myself to my house to discover my mother in the kitchen. She had been greatly affected by Sarah’s fall, and had taken to sitting quietly by the fire when she was not praying for the girl. This morning, as I arrived—for despite everything it was still scarcely eight—she sat all alone in the chair no one else was allowed to occupy, and I saw to my astonishment that she had been crying when no one was there to see her. But she pretended not to do so, and I pretended not to notice, as I had no wish to humiliate her. Even then, I think, I wondered how something of normal life could continue despite the wonders I had just witnessed, and could not understand how no one had noticed anything, except myself.

“And it is done?”

“After a fashion,” I replied. “Mother, I must ask you something in all seriousness. What would you have done to help her, had it been in your power?”

“Anything,” she said firmly. “You know that. Anything.”

“If she had escaped, would you have assisted her, even though it meant breaking the law yourself? Not given her up?”

“Of course,” she said. “The law is nothing when it is wrong, and deserves to be disregarded.”

I looked at her, for the words sounded strange on her lips, until I realized it was something I had once heard Sarah say herself.

“Would you help her now?”

“She is beyond my help, I think.”

“No.”

She said nothing, so I continued, my words blurting out once I had gone too far to retract. “She died and is alive again. She is in Mr. Boyle’s apartment. She is still alive, Mother, and no one knows of it. Nor will they ever, unless you say something, as we have all decided to try and help her away.”

This time even my presence did not provide enough incentive to spare her dignity, and she rocked back and forth in her chair, clutching her hands together and muttering “Thank God, thanks to God, all praise to God,” with the tears welling up in her eyes and rolling down her cheeks until I took her by the hand and got her attention once more. “She needs hiding until we can get her out of the town. Do I have your permission to bring her here? If I hide her in my study, you will not betray her?”

Of course she gave her absolute promise, and I knew it was better than any I might make, so I kissed her on the cheek, and told her I would be back after nightfall. I last saw her bustling about the kitchen, dragging out vegetables and our last winter ham for a celebratory feast when Sarah should come again.

It continued a strange day, that one, for after all the frenzied activity of the first few hours, all of us—Lower, Locke and myself—found ourselves with time on our hands, and little to do until night came. Lower realized that the events at least had made up his mind about journeying to London, for his reputation amongst the townsfolk would never be the same again, such was the disapproval of his supposed activities. He now had no choice but to risk all and begin the long task of establishing himself elsewhere. The remains of the girl he had bought in Aylesbury were taken off to the castle and burned on the pyre—Lower’s humor returned sufficiently for him to remark that she had been pickled in so much alcohol it would be fortunate if she did not blow up the entire building—and I had been given money by Cola to ensure the decent burial of Mrs. Blundy.

Organizing the burial was a simple, if painful, process; there were plenty of people who were now prepared to do something, so great was the revulsion felt for the fate of the girl, that they were happy to make some amends by treating the mother as well as possible, especially as they were to be paid for their kindness. I had the priest at St. Thomas’s undertake to perform the rites, and set them for that evening, and he also sent his men round to collect the body and prepare it. It was not either the priest or the church the woman would have chosen for herself, but I had no clear idea who should do it, and as asking anybody but an established minister would create untold difficulties, I decided it was best to avoid unnecessary complications. The service was set for eight o’clock that evening and, as I left, the priest was already shouting at the sexton, telling him to dig a grave in the poorer, more neglected part of the churchyard so that a more valuable plot, such as is occupied by gentlemen, was not used by accident.

I had entirely put out of my mind the unwelcome task of telling Sarah what had occurred. It would have to be done, of course, and I knew I would have to do it, but I simply postponed it as long as possible. Lower had already been told by Cola, and looked greatly upset by the news.

“I cannot understand it,” he said. “She was not well, and was very weak, but when 1 saw her she was not dying. When did she die?”

“I do not know. Mr. Cola told me of it. He was with her, I think.”

Lower’s face darkened. “That man,” he said. “I’m sure he killed her.”

“Lower! That is a terrible thing to say.”

“I don’t mean deliberately. But his grasp of theory is better than his practice.” He sighed heavily, and looked mightily concerned. “I feel bad about this, Wood. I really do. I should have attended the woman myself. You know Cola planned to give her more blood?”

“No.”

“He did. I could not stop him, of course, as she was his patient, but I refused to have anything to do with it.”

“It was the wrong treatment?”

“Not necessarily. But we had a falling out, and I did not wish to be associated with him. I told you that Wallis said he has in the past stolen other men’s ideas.”

“Many times,” I said. “So?”

“So?” Lower repeated, greatly affronted. “Is there anything worse?”

“He might have been a scheming Jesuit, here in secret to rekindle civil strife and subvert the kingdom,” I suggested. “That might be accounted worse.”

“Not by me.”

And the remark broke the tension which had been building up all day, and all of a sudden both Lower and I found ourselves collapsing in gales of laughter, roaring until the tears rolled down our cheeks, gripping each other tightly as our bodies shook with the most strange merriment. We ended on the floor, Lower flat on his back, still heaving, I with my head between my knees as the laughter made my head spin and my jaw ache. I loved Lower dearly then, and knew that, whatever our differences and whatever gruffness of character he might have, I would always love him, for he was a truly good man.

When we recovered and wiped the tears from our eyes, it was Lower who brought up the topic of what to do with Sarah. No laughing matter, that.

“She must obviously leave Oxford immediately,” I said. “She cannot stay in my chamber forever and even with her hair cut, she is easily recognizable. But where she should go, and what she should do, I am at a loss to suggest.”

“How much ready money do you have?”

“About four pounds,” I said. “Much of which is the money due to you and Cola for her mother’s treatment.”

He waved that aside. “Another patient defaults. Not the first, and not the last, I’ll be bound. For my part I have two pounds, and in a fortnight I am due my annuity from my family. Out of that, I can afford another two.”

“If you make it up to four, I will repay you the difference when my own quarterly comes in.”

He nodded. “Ten pounds then. Not a lot, even for a girl of her condition. I wonder…”

“Hmm?”

“You know my younger brother is a Quaker?”

He said it quite naturally, and without evident shame, although I knew it was a topic he touched on with only the greatest reluctance. Indeed, there were many who knew him well who were entirely unaware that Lower even had a brother, so greatly did he fear being damaged by the association. I met this man once, and did not dislike him. Just as his face was like Lower’s without the same expression, so his character was like that of his brother without the merriment and easy laughter, for laughter, I am told, is forbidden among them as a sin.

I nodded.

“He is in business with a group of like-minded people who wish to go to places where they will not come under attack; the countries of Massachusetts and suchlike. I could write to him, and ask him to get Sarah Blundy sent there. She could leave as a servant, or as someone’s relative, and would then have to make her own way when she arrives.”

“It is a harsh punishment for one who has done no wrong.”

“Few who go there of their own volition have done anything wrong. Yet they go nonetheless. She will be in good company, and will find more people there of her like than she will ever do here.”

After all that had happened, the thought of her leaving, of never seeing her again, tore at my heart and I know that I argued against the plan for selfish reasons. But Lower was right; if she stayed in England, then sooner or later she would be discovered. Someone—an old comrade of her father, or a traveling man from Oxford, or an old student—would see her and recognize her. Her life would be in the balance every day and so would ours be. I had no idea what, technically, the law said about what we had done, but I knew that few judges looked kindly on anyone who presumed to interfere with their prerogatives. She had been condemned to death, and was alive. All of Locke’s cleverness in argument would have a hard time explaining that one away.

And so we agreed; or at least, we agreed that it should be put to Sarah, as the scheme was impossible if she would not give her consent. Lower undertook to suggest the plan, as it was his idea and he would have to do all the arranging with the dissidents. I took myself back to St. Thomas’s to ensure that the preparations for the funeral were going well and fully expected that I would be the only person there at the service itself.

Sarah was not content because she did not wish to leave her mother, and it was only Lower informing her that the woman was dead which brought her to sense. All her own trials she had borne with fortitude; the loss of this woman brought out all her weakness. I will say no more, except that Lower was not the best of people to deliver comfort. He was kind and desired the best for all; but he did have a tendency to become gruff and unsympathetic when confronted with a misery he could do nothing to alleviate. I have little doubt that his tone—matter-of-fact to the point of being brutal—only made matters worse.

Sarah insisted on coming to the funeral, even though Lower remonstrated with her forcefully about the foolishness of such a desire, but she insisted and was quite impossible to divert. The fact that my mother backed her up, and said she would bring the girl to the church whatever Dr. Richard Lower said, decided the matter.

I was distressed when all three of them arrived, Lower looking anxious, my mother grim and Sarah blank, as though some vitality had left her body, never to return. They had done their best to disguise her appearance and had dressed her as a boy, covering her head with a cap pulled down low in front of her eyes, but I was terrified that at any moment the priest would look up from his book, and stare goggle-eyed before rushing off to call the watch. But he did nothing of the sort; merely droned through the service faster than was seemly, refusing to make the slightest effort for the soul of a woman who was not a lady, not a rich parishioner, nor indeed anyone who should attract the condescension of someone as grand as he. I felt, I must say, like slapping him, and telling him to do his job properly, so ashamed I was. With priests like that, no wonder so many people turn elsewhere. When he was over, he snapped the book shut, nodded at us, held out his hand for his fee, then stalked off. He would not, he said, finish the rest of the ceremony at the graveside as the woman was all but a heathen. He had done his legal requirement, and he would do no more.

Lower, I think, was even more furious than I at this callousness, although I like to believe the man would have been more considerate had he known that a member of the woman’s family was present. But he did not, so made no effort, and the result was one of the most painful events I have ever witnessed. And for Sarah, it must have been many times more anguishing. I did my best to comfort her.

“She will be sent on her way by her daughter, who loved her, and her friends, who tried to help her,” I said. “That is far better, and more appropriate. She would not have liked to be intoned over at the graveside by a man like that in any case.”

So Lower and I picked up the bier ourselves, and carried it out of the church stumbling across the yard in the dark with only one taper to guide us. A more different occasion than the one which attended the burial of Dr. Grove could not be imagined, but we were, at least, all at one now the minister was gone.

It fell to me to make the speech, for Lower did not know her well, and Sarah seemed unable to speak. I had no idea what was appropriate, but simply spoke the first thoughts that came into my head. I said that I had known her only in the last few years, that we were not of the same faith, she and I, and could not be further apart in matters of politics. Yet I honored her as a good woman, and a courageous one, who did right as she saw it, and was also a seeker after the truths she wished to know. I would not say she was the most obedient of wives, for she would have scorned to be described in such a way. Yet she was the greatest support for her husband, and both loved and helped him in all the ways he wanted and expected. She fought herself for what he also believed and brought up a daughter who was courageous, true, gentle and good, better than anyone could conceive. In this best of fashions she honored her Creator, and was blessed for it. I believed she had no faith in the afterlife, for she distrusted anything that came from the mouths of priests. Yet I knew she was wrong, and that she would be welcomed into God’s embrace.

It was an inarticulate mish-mash, that speech of mine, delivered rather to give such comfort as I could to Sarah, than to paint a true portrait of the dead woman. Yet I believed it all then, and believe it still. I know it is inconceivable that a woman like her, of her religion and her opinions, of her status and her deeds, could ever be accounted worthy or noble or virtuous in any form. But she was all of these, and I do not trouble any more about reconciling my beliefs with those of other men.

When I had done, there was an awkward pause before my mother led Sarah up to the body, and pulled back the cloth so that the face was exposed. It was raining heavily, and inexpressibly miserable as little spots of mud were thrown up by the rain, spattering on the dead woman as she lay there on the damp, cold ground. Sarah knelt down, and we all stood back while she muttered a prayer of her own; she finished by leaning over and kissing her mother’s forehead, then gently tidied away a wisp of hair that had come loose from the old woman’s best bonnet.

She stood up once more. Lower tugged me by the arm and together we lowered the corpse into the ground as gently and decorously as we could manage before Sarah performed her final duty as a daughter and scattered the earth over the grave opening. We all followed suit, and finally Lower and I wielded the shovels ourselves, filling up that hole as swiftly as we could. When it was all completed, and we were all thoroughly drenched and muddy and cold, we simply turned and walked away. There was nothing else to be done, except attend once more to the living.

Lower, as usual, had been busier and more effective than I. He had taken it upon himself to borrow Boyle’s coach—reasoning correctly that the vehicle of such a man would not be stopped or even examined by the watch, however late it was to be found on the road—and hired two horses to pull it. He proposed to take Sarah himself to Reading, sufficiently far from Oxford to be safe, especially as relations between the two towns were bad enough to ensure that there was, at present, little communication between them. There he would lodge Sarah with associates of his brother, a family of dissenters whom he could guarantee would guard her secret, or what little they were to be told of it. When his brother returned and passed through the town on his way back to Dorset, he would be informed of events and would certainly take the girl under his wing, putting her on the first ship available taking dissenters away from England. So it was agreed by all of us.

I cannot bring myself to write of my final parting from her, my final look at her face, and will not do so.

Sarah left ten days later in the company of his brother, made her way under his guidance to Plymouth and there took passage.

It was the last anyone ever heard of her. She never arrived in America and it was assumed she had fallen overboard. But the boat was becalmed at the time and was in any case so crowded it was difficult to imagine anyone coming to grief without being noticed. Yet she simply disappeared one day in full sunlight and without any sound, as though she had been taken up bodily into the heavens.

12

There the story, such as I know it, of Sarah Blundy comes to its end and I can say no more—those who wish to disbelieve me can do so.

It remains now for me to recount the last portion of the story, and show what the Italian had as his business in England. I confess I do not find it important, for in comparison to what I had witnessed, the errors of men who squabble in such ignorance of the truth, cannot but excite the most complete disdain. Yet as it is both part of these events, and a cause of them, so I should set all down that I might complete my labors and rest.

I traveled to London the day after Sarah left Oxford, still very much in a mood of most profound dismay and reverie; it was Lower’s idea to go, and he recommended it forcefully as a treatment for melancholy and brooding. A change of scenery, different company and a bit of entertainment, he insisted, would help shake off the sadness that had settled over me. I took his advice because my lassitude was such it was easier to do so than to resist. Lower packed my bag for me, walked me to Carfax, and put me on the coach.

“And enjoy yourself,” he said. “You must admit everything has turned out better than you could possibly have expected. It is time to put it behind you.”

Naturally, I could not do so quite so easily, but I tried to follow his advice as much as possible, and spent time forcing myself to visit people with whom I had corresponded over the years, trying hard to be interested in what they said. I did not succeed very well, as my mind kept drifting off to more important matters, and I fear I may have aroused some resentment among my colleagues because of a distance which they surely took as disdain and arrogance. Matters which ordinarily would have produced the liveliest fascination could generate no interest at all; I was told of the discovery of huge bones, turned to stone in a quarry in Hertfordshire, proving that the Bible spoke true when it said that once giants walked the earth, and I was less than fascinated. I was given hospitality by John Aubrey, at that time my good friend, but could display no enthusiasm for his ingenuity in discovering the purpose and nature of Stonehenge and Avebury and other such sites; I was invited to attend a meeting of the Royal Society, but turned this great honor down with ease, and never cared that I was not invited again.

And one evening, after I had been there but two days, I found myself walking past an inn in Cheapside called the Bells, and remembered I had seen the name in Cola’s chest, and felt the need to go in search of someone who had also known Sarah and seen something of what I had seen. And I had this great urge to know the answers to many questions, to understand the apparent chain of human events which had brought her end.

He was easily found, even though the innkeeper—whom I later knew to be a papist—did not know the name; all I had to do was ask for the Italian gentleman, and I was immediately shown to the grand room—occupied by himself alone—where he had lodged himself since his arrival.

His astonishment at seeing me was very great, but no more so than when I began to talk to him.

“Good evening, Father,” I said.

He could not deny it, could not bluster or protest or insist, for priests cannot do so. Instead, he stared at me in terror, thinking that I was sent to trap him and that armed men would soon be pounding up the stairs to take him to his martyrdom. But there was no sound, no noise of boots or shouts of urgent command, just the silence in the room as he stood by the window in shock.

“Why do you call me Father?”

“Because that is what you are.” I did not say, who else would go around with holy oil and holy water and a sacred relic hidden away in his belongings? Who else but a priest bound to celibacy would react in such horror when he realized the strengths of his carnal desires? Who else would secretly and in goodness give extreme unction to a woman he thought was dying, to intercede for her soul despite herself?

Cola sat down cautiously on his cot, and looked at me carefully, and with much thought, almost as if he was still expecting me to launch some surprise assault on him.

“Why have you come here?”

“Not to do you harm.”

“Then why?”

“I wish to talk.”

I felt sorry for putting him into such a dangerous situation, and did my best to assure him that I intended him no ill. I believe it was my face, rather than my words, which convinced him of my sincerity. Both can lie, but not in my case, for I have said already that the merest simpleton can see straight through me. Had I been lying, Cola would have known it, and yet he saw nothing of the sort on my face. So, after a long and very tense wait, he sighed and bowed to the inevitable, and asked me to sit.

“Is your name really Marco da Cola? I feel I should know whom I am addressing. Is there any such person?” I asked.

He smiled gently. “There was,” he said. “He was my brother. My name is Andrea.”

“Was?”

“He is dead. He died in my arms on his return from Crete. I grieve greatly for him still.”

“Why are you here?”

“Like you, I can say I wish no harm on any man. Not that many would believe me; hence my subterfuge. Your government does not greatly approve of foreign priests. Certainly not Jesuits.” He said it deliberately, eyes on my face all the while to see my reaction to his admission.

I nodded. “You have not answered my question.”

“Mr. Wood,” he continued, “you are the only person to have divined who I am, and you are the only man of your faith I have encountered who does not react as if I were the devil himself. Why is this? Are you, perhaps, drawn to the true church in your heart?”

“Let no man say that his is the best and only road, for they say so out of ignorance alone,’ “ I said and the words were out of my mouth before ever I remembered where I had heard them.

Cola looked disturbed at this—“A generous, though erroneous sentiment,” he replied, and I hoped he would not query me too much on it, for I knew I could neither defend it nor even explain it. Either the bread turns to flesh, and the wine to blood, or it does not; it cannot do so in Rome, but not in Canterbury. Either Christ made Peter and his successors the foundation stone of faith, conferring on them all authority in matters spiritual, or he did not; Our Lord did not tell Peter he would have authority over all the world except for those parts of Europe which think differently.

But Cola said no more on this subject, glad only that he had the fortune to have been discovered by perhaps the one person in the whole country who felt no need to betray him to the authorities. Nor was my mind in the spirit for theological debate, even had I a chance of winning it. Such discussions had always given me great delight, but I was overburdened with the knowledge I carried within me, and in no mood any more for what I could now only consider trivial.

Instead he asked, with exquisite kindness, about the funeral of Anne Blundy, and I told him as much as was seemly. He seemed satisfied that his money was well spent, and expressed sorrow that Lower had behaved so ill.

“You seem to have recovered from your distress at the girl’s death,” he said, with a penetrating look in my direction. “I am glad of that. It is not easy, I know; it is hard to lose someone who is important in your life, as she was in yours, and my brother was in mine.”

And we talked of such matters, Father Andrea with such sense and kindness that, even though he knew little of what had occurred, he soothed my loss and did something to reconcile me to the loneliness I already knew would be my fate. He was a good man and a good priest, though a papist, and I was lucky to find him, for such people are rarely encountered. It is hard to be a physician of the body and even though many try, few have the skills or the sympathy for success. How much more difficult it is to give physick to the soul, to guide a man in sorrow to calmness and acceptance, yet Father Andrea was one who could. When we had finished, and I had no more to ask him and he had no more comfort to offer, I told him of my appreciation and decided to give him something in return by way of recompense.

“I know why you came to Oxford,” I said, and he spun round quickly to stare me in the face.

“You were in correspondence with Sir James Prestcott, and those letters were lost when he died. They would greatly damage the cause of your religion in this country, and you wished to recover them so that they might not become generally known. That is why you searched the Blundys’ cottage.”

His eyes narrowed. “You know of this? You know where they are?”

“I know you need have no fear about them. I give you my word no one will ever see them, and they will be destroyed.”

He was in two minds about trusting me, I could see, but knew he had no choice, and that he was profoundly fortunate. After a while he nodded. “That is all I ask.”

“And you will be given it. Now, I must go.”

He descended the stairs with me, resuming his disguise with each step, and while he had blessed me as a priest upstairs, he bowed to me as a gentleman in the street, before we went our separate ways.

“I suspect you will never come to Rome, Mr. Wood,” he said with a smile. “You are not a man for traveling. It is a pity, for you would find it the most extraordinary of places, and there are many fine historians and antiquarians there who would delight in your company as much as you would delight in theirs. But. should the urge to travel ever come upon you, then you must write to me. and I will ensure you the finest of welcomes.”

I thanked him, we bowed to each other one last time, and I walked off. never to see him again.

But I did hear of him; for I had gone no more than a few yards when I encountered my friend John Aubrey again, a man whose abilities as a gossip were as great as my reputation for such nonsense is undeserved.

“Who is that man?” he asked curiously, peering over my shoulder at Cola as he walked away. “Are you not going to introduce us?”

“He is a physician,” I said. “Or at least, a gentleman interested in physick. Why do you ask? You talk as though you have seen him before.”

“Indeed I have,” he said, still peering, even though Cola by now had disappeared around the corner. “I saw him in Whitehall yesterday evening.”

“A man may walk without arousing interest, I expect.”

“In the palace itself? Not easily. And not when you are being accompanied by Sir Henry Bennet to the king’s bedchamber.”

“What?”

“You seem excessively surprised by this. Might I ask why?”

“No reason,” I replied hastily. “I did not know he had such illustrious connections in this country. I am afraid that in Oxford we have all been patronizing him mightily as an impoverished foreigner, down on his luck. What is more, he never sought to enlighten us. We must have come across as very dismal people. But tell me exactly, when did you see him? And where?”

“It was late, well after dusk, possibly as late as eight o’clock. I had the great boon of being invited to a supper—very private and informal—with my Lord Sandwich, and his lady, and a cousin of his who receives his patronage. A bumptious man who works in the Navy Office, forever discoursing on subjects he knows nothing about, but very enthusiastic, and quite likeable in his simplicity. His name, as I recall, is…”

“I do not wish to know his name, Mr. Aubrey. Or what you ate, or the details of my Lord Sandwich’s table. I wish to know about my acquaintance. You may tell me of your good fortune later, if you wish. ‘

“1 left his lodgings, you see. and walked back to my small abode, and when I was almost there I remembered I had forgotten a box of manuscripts that the chancellor had said I could look at for my work. As I was not tired and had scarce drunk a quart of wine, I thought I would read them before sleeping. So I went back and, rather than walking across Whitehall to the office, I went via St. Stephen’s yard. There is a corridor there, and at the end it turns right and leads into offices that contain my papers, while a left turn leads to a back entrance to the king’s apartments. I will show you later on today, if you wish.”

I nodded, impatient for him to continue. “I got the papers I wanted, and tucked them under my cloak, then walked back. And coming toward me down the corridor was Sir Henry Bennet—did you know he is now Lord Arlington?—and this man, whom I had never seen before.”

“You are sure it is the same man?”

“Absolutely. He was dressed in exactly the same fashion. The thing which attracted my attention as I bowed to let them pass before me was that he was carrying what looked like a lovely book. I am sure I had seen something like it before, Venetian work, very old indeed, in gold on a calfskin base.”

“How do you know it was the king he was seeing?”

“Nearly everyone else is away. The Duke of York keeps separate apartments and in any case is at St. James’s with the king’s mother. The queen is at Windsor with all her attendants. His Majesty is still there until he leaves in a few days. So unless Bennet was bringing this man, late at night, to visit a footman…”

And that, tantalizingly, was all I ever discovered for certain of the last few days that this Venetian spent in London, before he took ship for the continent once again. I cannot work it all out precisely, but it must have been a few days later that, again leaving by the same route, he was seen by Dr.Wallis and arrested. And all the while Sir Henry Bennet was organizing the search for him, and concealing the fact that he had himself taken him to visit the king in the greatest secrecy.

Clearly there were murky affairs of state involved, and I knew that the innocent never emerges with credit if he involves himself in such matters without good reason. The less I knew, the safer I would be, and although it was hard, for once, to rein in my curiosity, I nonetheless left London on the university coach that evening, and was glad to be away.

I say “discovered for certain,” because I do know what happened with as near to certainty as is possible without having been present at that most secret of interviews. Now that I have read the manuscripts by Cola, Prestcott and Wallis as well, I take great pleasure in them, for the reasons behind Cola’s decision to write is plain and clear. All the purpose lies in the intent to sow uncertainty, and the dispute with Lower—real though it was to him—is presented simply to deflect attention from those matters he wishes to remain in the dark.

The manuscript was produced to establish the continued existence of Marco da Cola, who has been dead now for so many years, and prove that he, a soldier and a layman, came to England and was seen in Whitehall that day. Because if Marco da Cola was in England, the Jesuit Andrea da Cola was not. Therefore what I believe took place at Whitehall could not have occurred, because it could only have happened if a priest, a Catholic priest, saw the king that day. And at a time when hatred of papists is greater than ever, and any man tainted with the merest hint of popery is at risk, that is of the utmost importance.

Dr. Wallis came very close to seeing the truth; indeed, he had it in his hands but threw it away as incidental. I refer you to his manuscript, wherein he quotes his traveling picture dealer in Venice that Marco da Cola “had no reputation for learning or diligence in study at that time”; yet the man I met was learned in medicine, with a fine knowledge of many of the best authors, and an ability to discourse interestingly on the philosophies of the ancients and the moderns. Add to this the account of the merchant Wallis interviewed, who described Marco da Cola as “gaunt and thin, gloomy of attitude,” and contrast that with the stout, cheerful man who came to Oxford. Add to it Cola’s refusal to discuss soldiering in Crete when at Sir William Compton’s, then tell me what soldier you have ever met who would not talk endlessly about his heroism and actions. Think of those articles I found in his chest, and consider their meaning. Think again of his reaction when confronted with the power of his lust at Sarah Blundy’s that night and say how many soldiers you know who are so delicate. Truly the man was like one of those puzzles, so difficult to comprehend, yet so simple when the truth is finally known.

I knew by then that the book in my possession was one of the copies of Livy that Wallis and Cola both sought, and that it was the key to at least some of the letters that Jack Prestcott had handed over to me. Reading those scripts, however, was no simple matter; by recounting my ultimate success, I do not desire to undermine or in any way denigrate the achievements of Dr. Wallis.

At first I hesitated, and not only because I was certain that any knowledge thus won would do me no good; the events of those days still bore so heavily on my mind that I lost myself in lassitude for months. As is my habit, I consoled myself among my books and my papers, reading and annotating with a fury I could scarcely contain. The activities of the long-since dead became the greatest consolation, and I became almost a hermit, noting with only passing interest that my reputation for strangeness grew to the point that it became unshakeable. I am, I think, held to be a queer, unmannerly sort of fellow, ill-humored, irascible and of a sour disposition, and I think this character grew in those days without my even noticing. And it is true, now—I am dead to the world, and delight to converse more with the dead than the living. Being so ill at ease with my own times, I seek refuge in the past, for only there can I show the affection I am unable to give to my contemporaries who do not know what I know, and could not see what I saw.

A few things only kept me from my books, and so careless was I of human society that I hardly noticed how my acquaintanceship was diminishing. Lower slowly transferred himself to London and was so successful that (favored by the patronage of Clarendon and the death of many serious rivals) he soon became the most successful physician in the country, was given a place at court and took to having not only a fine house but even a coach with his family crest on the door—for which he was criticized greatly by those who thought it a presumptuous display. It did him no harm, however, for the wealthy and well-born like to be treated by those they consider of proper background. On top of all this, he even paid his sisters’ dowries and reestablished his family in Dorset, for which he was greatly admired. But while he published his great work on the brain, he never did any serious investigation again. All that he considered truly noble, the pursuit of knowledge through experiment, he abandoned in search of worldly gain. I alone, I think, understood the sorrow of this, that what the world considered success was, in Lower’s mind, waste and a failure.

As for Mr. Boyle, he also went to London and, I think, came to Oxford only twice more in his life. A greater loss to the town could not be imagined for, even though he was never of the university, yet his presence illuminated it, and brought it renown. That fame he took with him when he left, and in London he built on it incessantly with a never-ending stream of ingenuity which has guaranteed that his name will live forever. Locke also left, once he found himself a suitable sinecure, and he too abandoned experiment for the world, although in his case he became so involved in the most dangerous form of politics that his position is forever shaky. He may, one day, achieve fame through his writings, but he may equally become so swept up in events that he ends on the gallows if he dares return to these shores from his exile. That remains to be seen.

Mr. Ken, as was inevitable, gained the living that would have been Dr. Grove’s had that man lived, and thus was perhaps the only man to benefit from the tragedies I relate. He became a good man, of moderate religion and noted for his charity. All this came as something of a surprise to me, but occasionally, I feel, people rise up to match the dignity of their office, rather than dragging its honor down to their own level. It happens only rarely, but often enough for reassurance. And, for the general good of all mankind, he gave up playing the viol through being too busy with his duties, and we must all thank those who gave him a bishopric for visiting this kindness on God’s creation.

Thurloe died a few years after, and took his secrets to the grave—except for those which, I believe, are among the papers he hid somewhere when he first felt illness coming upon him. He was the strangest of men, and I regret very much not knowing him. I am convinced that he not only knew all the secrets of which I talk, he was instrumental in guiding many of the government’s actions in those days. This may seem remarkable considering his devotion to Cromwell, but he served that great man because he brought order to our poor country, and he worshiped order and civilized quiet far more than he reverenced men, king or commoner.

Dr. Wallis changed little, but became ever more irascible and violent as his eyesight deteriorated. Apart from myself he is the only one, I think, who is still living the same life now as then. Publications—on English grammar, on how to teach the mute to talk, on the most obscure and incomprehensible forms of mathematics which no one but he and a half-dozen others in the world can understand—flow from his pen, and from his mouth comes a matching stream of criticism and abuse of those colleagues that he always believes to be his worthless rivals. He has many admirers, and no friends. I have no doubt he continues his work for the government, for his skills in decipherment are as great as ever. Now Thurloe is dead, and Bennet has faded from power as all men of politics are bound to do, only the old king knows the true secret of how Wallis was deceived, lied to and made a fool.

And myself. For, on my own and unaided, I deciphered that letter which Wallis intercepted on its way to Cola in the Low Countries, and laid bare the entire secret it contained. It was not easy. As I say, I avoided even looking at it for a long time, and did not seriously engage myself until well after the plague and the fire of London, which filled Oxford once again with poor frightened people trying to escape destruction. I was frightened myself, and it was only when I was certain from long inactivity that the matter was forgotten by all concerned that I removed the papers from my secret hiding place underneath the floorboards in my room, and began to examine them.

That was only the start, of course. What Dr. Wallis could have done in a few hours took me many weeks, as I had to search out books in many places before I understood the principles involved. The simple explanation which Wallis gives in his manuscript would have saved me much pain and labor had I possessed it then, but he was the one person I could not ask. Nonetheless, I eventually grasped what was required through my own efforts. The letter starting the code every twenty-five characters was not the next letter in the text, nor the first letter of the next word, but the next letter which had been underlined. It sounds simple, and thus explained it is so—so simple a soldier on campaign could write it up in an instant, given the right book. That was the point of it.

And so, once this marvelous discovery had come to my mind, the whole secret of those letters was revealed to me after a morning’s labor. And it took many months more before I could believe what I had read.

I have destroyed everything, as I promised. Only one copy of the translation I made is in existence, and I will destroy that, along with this manuscript of mine, when I know my last illness is upon me. I have asked Mr. Tanner, a young librarian and scholar of my acquaintance, to arrange my estate on my death and this will be part of his duties. He is a good and honest man, who will keep his word. Let it not be said that I have broken faith with anyone, or revealed anything which should be kept in the dark.

The letter, written in code to Andrea da Cola by Henry Bennet, Secretary of State and (the greatest joke of all) employer of Dr. Wallis, read as follows, after the usual introductory remarks:

The matter discussed in our recent correspondence is now come to fruition, and His Majesty has indicated his desire to be received, as soon as possible, into the Church of Rome, this being in full conformity with his true faith and belief. I am instructed that a priest who can be relied on be sent in the most total secrecy to fulfill his wishes, and I very much hope you will take this task on yourself, since you are already well known to us and trusted. It will be understood that the greatest disaster would result should any of this become known; rather, a steady policy to loosen me ties which bind Catholics will be adopted, and hatred insensibly reduced over a period of years, before any public acknowledgment can be made. At present, all that can be done will be done, as a gesture of intent. The king will try to persuade Parliament to allow greater toleration of Catholics, and is confident that this first step will lead to many others, before the reunification of the churches can proceed. An emissary, Mr. Boulton, will travel to Rome once the reception is accomplished, to discuss the manner and style which will be needed.

As for yourself, dear father, you may travel in peace to this land; although no official protection can be offered you for obvious reasons, we will endeavor to ensure your safekeeping, and make sure your identity does not become known.

The king of England, the supreme governor of the Protestant Church of England, is, and has been since 1663, a professed Catholic, acknowledged in secret and taking the rites of the Catholic church. His chief minister, Mr. Bennet, was also a Catholic, and had as his secret policy the destruction of that national church he was sworn to protect. Far from a failed assassination attempt, Cola came to England to receive the king into the Church of Rome and, I believe, did so when he went to Whitehall that evening with his holy oil and his crucifix and his relic.

And all along, Wallis had his obsessions, and Henry Ben-net listened, and encouraged him, so that not only did the story never emerge into the light of day, it would be more obscured than ever. I am sure (but have no proof) that it was Bennet who ordered the destruction of Wallis’s servant Matthew to ensure the secret was guarded, for I do not believe that Cola could have done such a thing—he was not a man of violence, while the cutting of throats had all the hallmarks of the man John Cooth whom Wallis himself employed on occasion.

If I published this letter, or even delivered it in secret to someone like Dr. Wallis, the monarchy of this country would come to an end within a week, consumed by civil war, so great is the present public detestation of all things Roman. Wallis’s wrath at the humiliation he suffered would be so great he would whip up a campaign of such vitriol that the Protestants of England would soon be on the march, baying for the blood of another king. If I went to the king himself I could become a wealthy man, living in comfort for the rest of my days, for the value of this paper—or its continued obscurity—is beyond price.

I will not do so, for how paltry all this is to a man who has seen such marvels, and felt such grace, as I have seen and felt. I do believe and know that I have seen and heard and touched the incarnate God. Quietly, out of sight of mankind, divine forgiveness descends again, and we are so blind we do not even realize what inexhaustible patience and love is ours. Thus it happened, and has happened in every generation and will happen again in every generation to come, that a beggar, a cripple, a child, a madman, a criminal or a woman is born Lord of us all in entire obscurity, and is spurned and ignored and killed by us to expiate our sins. And I am commanded to tell no one, and I will keep that one commandment.

This is the truth, the one and only truth, manifest, complete and perfect. Beside it, what importance have the dogma of priests, the strength of kings, the rigor of scholars or the ingenuity of our men of science?