"It is a fine day when the rector of an Oxford college is told how he may proceed by an Italian papist," muttered Slythurst, but the rector coughed and looked embarrassed and grateful at the same time.

We descended the stairs gingerly, I leading the way with the lantern and pausing to examine the traces of bloody footprints still visible on the stone steps. They were still faintly visible on the floor of Coverdale's rooms below, but otherwise both the main room and the adjoining bedchamber in the tower were neat and orderly. I crossed and examined the door that led out to the courtyard staircase.

"The room was locked this morning when you arrived?" I asked Slythurst again.

He snorted impatiently. "I have already told you that three times. I assumed James had gone out and I wanted to deposit the monies and deeds I had brought from Aylesbury so I borrowed the spare key from Cobbett and let myself in. What is it you are trying to imply, Doctor Bruno?"

"Only that there is no sign of the door to the tower staircase or this main door to Doctor Coverdale's room being forced," I said. "So he must have willingly admitted his killer-or been killed by someone already in possession of a key."

Slythurst aimed at me a look of such venom then that I could easily believe him capable of murder. I turned to Underhill, his face painted in eerie shadows from the flickering light of the lantern.

"The tower will need to be sealed until the body is removed in any case," I said. "If you post one of the college servants at the foot of the staircase, we will soon learn if anyone tries to go near it. The killer may try to come back, perhaps to look for something in the room. But I would like to have a look around myself, to see if the killer left any trace behind him."

"Yes. Yes, that seems sensible." The rector's face was drawn and flustered. "I must send for the coroner. Walter-you are now the most senior official here under me, I will need your help in deciding what we tell the college community. Perhaps you could come with me to my lodgings? And tell Cobbett to set one of the kitchen men by the tower stairs."

Slythurst nodded and scuttled down the stairs to the porter's lodge. Underhill turned back and I sensed something unspoken in the long look he gave me.

"The arrows were shot after he died, you say?"

"It is hard to tell, but I think the blood came mostly from the throat wound. If he was not yet dead, he was near it-I think he would not have been sensible of what was happening, if that is what you mean to ask."

"So it would have been quick?" the rector asked, almost hopefully.

I hesitated, but decided it would be kinder not to dwell on the hacking I had seen at Coverdale's neck. The coroner would find it out soon enough.

"It was a terrible death, I will not pretend otherwise. But I have seen men with their throats cut before-they do not linger in this world."

Underhill regarded me with his head to one side. The candle in the lantern was dying and the room enfolded in shadows again despite the early hour; it seemed to me that the smell of decay was rising from the tower stairs behind us.

"You have lived a strange life for a philosopher, Doctor Bruno," he said quietly. "Ours must seem a soft and sheltered life to you. I thought it was so, until this week. I have hidden here from the world, thinking an Oxford college a place of sanctuary. Now I have turned a blind eye for too long, and it will be the destruction of me and my family."

"Rector Underhill," I said, leaning in toward him, "if there is anything you know or suspect, anything at all that may have a bearing on these deaths, do not hide it. To what have you turned a blind eye?"

He glanced nervously over his shoulder to the door, a quick, rodent movement, then leaned in closer, his round face lit from beneath by the lantern.

"Your friend, Sir Philip-"

"What of him?"

"He must not learn of this. You will promise me, Doctor Bruno, that you will not speak to him of what is happening within these walls? He is Leicester's nephew, he would feel compelled to tell him all."

At that moment footsteps echoed from below and Slythurst reappeared. Underhill shook his head at me tightly to warn me not to say anything further, then looked from me to the bursar apprehensively before turning to the door.

"Walter?"

"It occurs to me, Rector," Slythurst began, folding his hands together unctuously, "that if Doctor Bruno is to examine this room, it might be best if I help him. Two pairs of eyes are better than one, after all."

"Very well. But I have need of you, Walter-come to my lodgings as quickly as you can afterward."

He gave me a last, imploring look, before closing the door behind him. His footsteps echoed on the stairs as he descended to the courtyard with a heavy tread.

Slythurst crooked his head back and gave the room a cursory glance.

"What is it you think you will find here, then?"

"I had thought, Master Slythurst, that you would have a better idea than I of what a man might hope to find in this room," I said smoothly.

He turned to me then, his lips curled with undisguised contempt.

"And I might well ask what you took from this room, Bruno, the last time you and I found ourselves here among a dead man's things? What souvenir did you carry away then?"

"I took nothing," I said mildly, but I turned my face away all the same and stepped toward the window. Rain drove hard against the pane, washing in rivulets down the glass, blurring the view.

"Is that so?" He spoke through his teeth now, and I heard him close at my shoulder. "You may have duped the rector into giving you his trust, Bruno, but I see you for what you are."

"And what is that?" I asked, folding my arms across my chest as if I did not care one way or another.

"You are one of those men who thinks himself gifted enough to live by charm and wit alone rather than by hard work. You seek to ingratiate yourself with men of high position so that you may live in the gilded shadow of their favours. You arrive here flaunting your fame and your patronage from courtiers and kings, but this is the University of Oxford, sir-we are not impressed with such baubles. And you will get no position here, no matter how much you seek to involve yourself in matters that are not your business." Spume had gathered at the corners of his mouth by the end of this address and he paused to collect himself, his eyes still blazing with a hatred that surprised me with its force.

"You think I am angling for a position here?" I repeated, incredulous.

"I do not see why else you would be seeking to make yourself indispensable to the rector by meddling in these deaths," he snapped back.

"No-you would not see, because you could not imagine exerting yourself for any reason than your own immediate profit." Unfolding my arms, I stepped right across to him until I stood only a few inches from his face, daring him to look me straight in the eye. "Let me tell you something, Master Bursar. I was a fugitive in my own country for three years. I saw men murdered as casually as boys throw stones at birds, cut down for the shoes they wore or the few coins they carried, and I saw the law look the other way because it was too much effort to bring anyone to justice-because to the law, the dead men were as worthless as those who killed them, who would probably be killed tomorrow in their turn. And I believe that no man's life is worth so little that, if it is ended by violence, the crime should be shrugged away and a murderer left unpunished. That is why I involve myself, Master Slythurst-it is called justice." The vehemence of my reply was at least equal to his, but although he took a step back, the look he fixed on me was subtly mocking and it was I who looked away first, conscious that all my high-minded words were so much hot air. My interest in finding this killer was above all to prove myself to Walsingham and the Earl of Leicester, because this was my first mission and there would be reward and preferment if I were successful. "Let us return to the matter in hand," I said brusquely. "We are supposed to be holding each other accountable, after all."