The Heretics Read Online Free PDF

you, Shakespeare, or I will slit you with this dagger.’
    Now Lord Mountjoy was at Shakespeare’s side, then they were joined by more noblemen, all standing firm against Topcliffe. A man from the crowd stepped forward and assisted Boltfoot in his act of mercy, choking the life out of Father Southwell until he hung lifeless in their arms. They let him go and he swung, unresisting, in the cold breeze. Quite dead.
    Shakespeare stood back. ‘He’s all yours now, Topcliffe. He is gone way beyond your cruelty, I pray to a better place.’
    He looked at the frothing torturer with incredulity. He knew he was cruel and brutal. What he had not understood was quite how deranged Topcliffe had become by the gallons of blood that had washed through his fingers. This man should be locked away among the mad and the dangerous.
    Topcliffe cut the dead body from the hanging tree and brought it to the platform, where he attacked it with insane ferocity, slavering as he dragged out the entrails. He snatched the axe from the headsman and began chopping the flesh into quarters.
    At last he held up the once-beautiful head and shouted, ‘Here is the head of a traitor!’
    The crowd was supposed to shout back, ‘Traitor! Traitor!’ But they remained silent. Only the wondering Lord Mountjoy had anything to say, bringing his mouth close to Shakespeare’s ear so that no one else should hear.
    ‘I cannot answer for the Jesuit’s religion, Mr Shakespeare, but I wish to God that my soul may be with his.’
    Jane Cooper held little John in her arms outside the old stone house in Fylpot Street. The boy was two now, and could walk, but he was sickly and weak. She looked down at him, listless in her arms, and mouthed some words of prayer.
    Summoning up all her courage, she banged on the door. Boltfoot had forbidden her to come here, calling it a place of magic and necromancy, and declaring they should have none of it. Well, that was fine for him to say, but he had no ideas of his own how to help their son. Anyway, her friend Ellen Fowler had sworn that Dr Forman, who lived in this house, could cure any ill known to man.
    ‘I don’t know how he does it, Jane, honest I don’t, but I promise you that he makes things right. Whatever ails you. I’d go to him with the pestilence if I had it, and I’d hope to be saved.’
    Jane banged on the door again. A boy of about thirteen answered it and glared at her. ‘He’s busy. You’ll have to come back.’
    ‘When? When can he see me?’
    The boy ran his nail-bitten fingers through his straggled hair, and then scratched the front of his grubby hose. ‘When he’s free.’ He went to close the door, but Jane pushed forward.
    ‘No. I’ve come this far. I want you to tell him I’m here. Then he can tell me to go away if he wishes.’
    The apprentice spat into his hands and slicked the hair back from his forehead. ‘Wait here. Don’t come in. He don’t like to be disturbed when he’s about his business.’
    Was there something lascivious about the way the boy studied her? She never even considered her looks these days. All her thoughts were for others: little John, of course; getting food to the table for the master and his children; keeping an eye out for the new girl, Ursula Dancer. Anyway, she had no looking glass. Boltfoot Cooper loved her but he would never tell her she was pretty or any such thing.
    The apprentice wandered off upstairs, taking his time, glancing back. After a few minutes, he returned.
    ‘He says he’ll see you in a quarter-hour, when he’s finished with Janey. He says you can come in, wait here in the hall.’
    ‘Thank you.’
    ‘I’m John Braddedge. You can tip me a farthing for my trouble.’ He held out his hand.
    ‘Maybe after I’ve seen Dr Forman. Not before.’
    He nodded to a table by the window. ‘Go over there then.’
    She went and sat down. Baby John began to cry and she rocked him gently.
    The Braddedge boy stood and watched. ‘Shall I get him a beaker of