Heresy
A vivid and gripping historical thriller set in Elizabethan England introducing Giordano Bruno - philosopher, spy and hero of the stunning new novel SACRILEGE - for all fans of C.J.Sansom and The Name of the Rose.In Elizabeth’s England, true faith can mean bloody murder…Oxford, 1583. A place of learning. And murderous schemes.The country is rife with plots to assassinate Queen Elizabeth and return the realm to the Catholic faith. Giordano Bruno is recruited by the queen’s spymaster and sent undercover to expose a treacherous conspiracy in Oxford – but his own secret mission must remain hidden at all costs.A spy under orders. A coveted throne under threat.When a series of hideous murders ruptures close-knit college life, Bruno is compelled to investigate. And what he finds makes it brutally clear that the Tudor throne itself is at stake…Heretic, maverick, charmer: Giordano Bruno is always on his guard. Never more so than when working for Queen Elizabeth and her spymaster – for this man of letters is now an agent of intrigue and danger.
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S. J. PARRIS
Heresy
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authorâs imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2010
Copyright © Stephanie Merritt 2010
Stephanie Merritt asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780007317707
Ebook Edition MARCH 2010 © ISBN: 9780007317684
Version: 2017-05-10
Table of Contents
Prologue: Monastery of San Domenico Maggiore, Naples 1576
The outer door was thrown open with a crash that resounded along the passage and the floorboards shook with the purposeful marching of several pairs of feet. Inside the small cubicle where I perched on the edge of a wooden bench, taking care not to sit too close to the hole that opened over the cess pit beneath, my little candle flickered in the sudden draught of their entrance, sending wavering shadows growing and shrinking up the stone walls. Allora, I thought, looking up. They have come for me at last.
The footsteps halted outside the cubicle door, to be replaced by the furious hammering of a fist and the abbotâs throaty voice, strained beyond its usual placid tones of diplomacy.
âFra Giordano! I order you to come out this instant, with whatever you hold in your hands in plain sight!â
I caught a snigger from one of the monks who accompanied him, swiftly followed by a stern tutting from the abbot, Fra Domenico Vita, and could not help smiling to myself, in spite of the moment. Fra Vita was a man who, in the ordinary course of events, gave the impression that all bodily functions offended him mightily; it would be causing him unprecedented distress to have to apprehend one of his monks in so ignominious a place as this.
âOne moment, Padre, if I may,â I called, untying my habit to make it look as if I had been using the privy for its proper purpose. I looked at the book in my hand. For a moment I entertained the idea of hiding it somewhere under my habit, but that would be fruitless â I would be searched straight away.
âNot one moment more, Brother,â Fra Vita said through the door, a quiet menace creeping into his voice. âYou have spent more than two hours in the privy tonight, I think that is long enough.â
âSomething I ate, Padre,â I said, and with deep regret, I threw the book into the hole, producing a noisy coughing fit to cover the splash it made as it fell into the pool of waste below. It had been such a fine edition, too.
I unlatched the door and opened it to see my abbot standing there, his heavy features almost vibrating with pent-up rage, all the more vivid in the gusting light of the torches carried by the four monks who stood behind him, staring at me, appalled and fascinated.
âDo not move, Fra Giordano,â Vita said tightly, jabbing a warning finger in my face. âIt is too late for hiding.â
He strode into the cubicle, his nose wrinkled against the stench, holding up his lamp to check each of the corners in turn. Finding nothing, he turned to the men behind him.
âSearch him,â he barked.
My brothers looked at one another in consternation, then that wily Tuscan friar Fra Agostino da Montalcino stepped forward, an unpleasant smile on his face. He had never liked me, but his dislike had turned to open animosity after I publicly bested him in an argument about the Arian heresy some months earlier, after which he had gone about whispering that I denied the divinity of Christ. Without a doubt, it was he who had put Fra Vita on my trail.
