"Three men were killed under my nose in Oxford-my only interest was in finding out what happened. I did not come looking for secret priests."

"No?" He gave me a long look, the candle lighting his high cheekbones from below so that his face resembled a carved mask whose contours shifted in the dancing flame. "The Catholic church has threatened your life-do you not want revenge? Have you not sold your hatred to the Protestant cause to work against the church that has hunted you?"

"No," I said simply. "I hate no one. I want only to be left in peace to understand the mysteries of the universe in my own way."

"God has already laid out for us the mysteries of the universe, or as much as He permits us to understand. You think your way is better?"

"Better than these wars of dogma that have led men to burn and fillet one another across Europe for fifty years? Yes, I do."

"Then what is it you believe?"

I looked at him. "I believe that, in the end, even the devils will be pardoned."

"Ah. Tolerance." Jerome pronounced the word as if he had just eaten a bad olive. "Compromise. Yes, there are many in the seminaries who would advocate the same-failing to understand that this tolerance is equal to saying there is no right or wrong, no truth or heresy. Thank God my order fiercely opposes all such dilution of the faith. Do you not know, Bruno, that the fiercer the persecution inflicted on Catholics and priests in England, the more our numbers flourish? Your tolerance would destroy in twenty days what twenty years of suffering has only served to strengthen."

"So the holy bloodshed continues," I said. "Men and women rushing headlong into the executioner's embrace. Is that martyrdom or suicide?"

Jerome only smiled gently.

"Do you know what we call England on the mission?" He paused for effect. "'Death's antechamber.' I have never had any doubt as to how it will end for me-but there is a harvest of souls to be gathered first. Perhaps yours among them, Bruno."

He reached inside his shirt and pulled out a silver chain bearing a small key, then he knelt again at my feet and reached under the bench to pull out the wooden chest. Opening its padlock, he removed two small vials of holy oil and sat back on his heels, looking at me intently.

"I must make this plain," he said, holding up the bottle so that I could see it. "You are going to die. Whatever you have or have not already said, everything you have seen this past night makes you a danger to God's work here. But I would not leave you in your final moments without comfort, Bruno." He held out a hand to me. "Confess yourself, repent of your heresy, be reconciled to the Church in your last hour, and as a Jesuit I can give you the sacrament of absolution."

I read his sincerity in his face, and in spite of myself I laughed.

"You, Father Jerome-you would absolve me? You, who father a child and would kill its mother and two other men to protect the sanctity of your reputation-you presume to absolve me? My heresy was to read a few books of astronomy and philosophy. If you are right, and God weighs our sins in the balance on the Day of Judgment, whose do you think will weigh heavier?"

Jerome lowered his eyes for a moment before returning to meet my gaze defiantly.

"When Lucifer tempted Christ in the wilderness, did he tempt Him with women, with sins of the flesh? No. He tempted Him with the sin of pride. He dared Christ to prove Himself equal to God. I have sinned, but mine were sins of the flesh, for which the flesh atones with hard penance. Whereas you presume, in the arrogance of your intellect, to remake the fabric of the universe, to rip the earth from the centre of God's creation where His Word and all the teachings of the Fathers have set it! It is you who is the true heir of the rebel angels, Bruno."

"I prefer such a lineage to that of Cain," I replied. "Even if I wished to be reconciled to the Church, I would not take my absolution from such a man as you."

"As you wish," he shrugged, replacing the holy oils in the trunk. When he had locked it, he tucked the key back inside his shirt and stood to face me, hands on his hips. "It is strange that I should admire you, Bruno, but I feel a curious kinship. In different times I should have so enjoyed the chance to debate with you. I am trained first and foremost for scholarly argument, and you would have been a worthy opponent." He smiled sadly. "You and I are similar men, I think, though we stand on different sides of the great divide. For all your talk of tolerance, you will no more compromise than I will. You have endured great hardships for your beliefs, as have I, and you go to your death defiant, just as I will when the appointed time comes. For that I cannot help but respect you, and wish you had been one of us."

"Then in a spirit of kinship, let me ask one thing of you, Father, in place of my absolution," I said quickly. He gave me a questioning look and I continued. "Let Sophia go back home. Do not pursue the course you have set. Save one innocent life, at least."

Jerome sighed, a great shudder that seemed to wrack his whole body.

"You have not understood, have you, Bruno? She has no home. There is nothing in Oxford for her now. She will be spurned by her family for converting to the old faith, and spurned by the Catholics as a fallen woman."

"She is a Catholic and a dishonoured woman because of you," I said through gritted teeth, struggling to my feet, though there was little I could do except gesture with my bound hands. "Is it right that she should be disposed of so that you can walk free? Her sins are your sins, Father."

"Do you think I do not know that?" He grasped my wrists suddenly and held his face close to mine, and I saw for the first time the storm of emotion beneath the professional calm.

"You do not seem to feel much remorse," I remarked.

"Remorse?" He stared at me, then released my hands with a strange, desperate laugh. "Oh, I can show you remorse, Bruno." He began unlacing his doublet and I sat back on the bench, watching as he opened his fine silk shirt to reveal a cilice of coarse black animal hair. He unlaced the neck and drew the hair shirt gingerly down over his shoulders, wincing soundlessly as he did so.

"Here is my remorse," he said, turning away from me.

I looked for a moment at his broad naked back, at the welter of torn, bloody skin, some wounds still livid and seeping where the metal hooks of the whip had gouged great pieces of flesh, others forming scars over older scars. I had seen penitents many times on my travels through Italy, and I was freshly amazed that any living being could inflict such cruelty on their own body in the name of atonement. I drew my breath in sharply and turned away, but he wheeled around to face me once more. Something had broken in him; his eyes shone with fury and tears.

"Is that remorse enough for you? Do you think I did not love her? Do you know how it tore my soul in two, to choose between the vows I have taken and what I felt for her?"

"If you love her, then, do not sacrifice her," I said softly.

"For Christ's sake, Bruno, I am not going to sacrifice her!" he cried, running both hands through his hair. "She will be safe in France."

"I think you are lying," I said.

He took a deep breath, gathering in his turbulent emotions, then fixed me with a severe look.

"Then in that we are equal." He replaced the cilice, clenching his jaw hard as it made contact with his ravaged skin, then buttoned up his shirt and shrugged on his doublet, watching me all the time. Finally he bent down to retrieve the length of rope from the floor, and with it bound my ankles, not painfully but firmly. "Goodbye, Bruno," he said, standing and regarding me sadly before sweeping all traces of tears from his cheeks with a brusque movement. "I am genuinely sorry it ends this way. I pray God will speak to your soul in these last moments."