Free Heresy by S.J. Parris

Sophia.”
    I wondered if having a daughter of marriageable age in this cloister of young men might account for the slightly harried expression that permanently troubled the rector’s face.
    “Was your daughter interested?”
    The rector’s nose wrinkled. “Oh, she has ever been troublesome on the question of marriage. Girls have foolish notions of love—I should not have allowed her to read poetry so freely.”
    “She is educated, then?”
    He nodded absently, as if his mind were elsewhere. “My children were close in age—barely more than a year between them—and I thought it unfair that my son should have lessons and my daughter be left only to sew. Besides, young John always had trouble keeping his mind on his books. I thought it would do him good to have to compete with his sister, for she was always the sharper of the two and he hated being bested by her. In that I was correct. But now it seems I have spoiled her for marriage—she loves nothing more than to dally in the library arguing ideas back and forth with the students when she has the chance, and is much too bold with her own opinions, which is hardly seemly in a lady and a trait no gentleman wants in a wife. So it was all for naught.”
    He turned his face away then and, with a great sigh, looked out toward some point across the courtyard.
    “Why for naught? Did your son not stick to his studies?”
    His face convulsed, as if with a sudden bodily pain, and with some efforthe answered. “My poor John died some four years past, God rest him—thrown from a horse. He would have been turning twenty-one this summer, he was of an age with Thomas Allen.”
    “I am sorry for your loss.”
    “As for Sophia,” he continued, briskly, “she was fond of Thomas and thought of him as a friend, but lately I have not thought it proper that they should associate, given the reputation of his family. His prospects are much diminished now, of course.”
    “Yet another loss for the boy, hard on the heels of so many others.”
    “Yes, it is a shame,” the rector said, without much sympathy. “But come, we must not stand here gossiping like goodwives—the servant will show you to your room, where I trust a good fire will be blazing for you to dry your clothes. By Jesus, that wind has grown cold, it is more like November than May. I shall look forward to seeing you at supper.”
    He shook my hand and I turned to follow the servant up the dim wooden stairway to my room.
    “Doctor Bruno,” the rector called, as I was almost out of sight. I leaned back to see his face looking anxiously up at me. “Please, out of charity, I ask that you do not make any mention of Thomas Allen or what I have told you of my poor John at supper—my wife and daughter find both subjects quite distressing.”
    “You must not worry on that count,” I replied, intrigued by the idea that in a short time I would meet this boldly opinionated daughter. The prospect of an intelligent young woman’s company made the idea of supper with the rector considerably more enticing than it had seemed before.

Chapter
3
    I dressed for dinner in a clean shirt with a plain black doublet and breeches, and paused for a moment to consider myself in the mottled glass that had been left resting on my mantelpiece. My hair and beard were a little too long, it was true, and the weather had left them more unruly than usual, though I had long ago decided at the Parisian court that I had neither the time nor the vanity to compete with gentlemen of fashion in matters of dress. But at thirty-five, I thought, I could still make myself presentable. My reflection looked back from large dark eyes pooled in shadow; our scuffle on the road had left a graze on my cheek, but perhaps a young woman confined in a college cloister might find that intriguing. I knew that women found enough in my appearance to please them, even though I was no prospect for a serious attachment, having neither property nor title but only a dubious