The Secret Dead by SJ Parris

Author:SJ Parris [Parris, SJ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Short Stories (Single Author), General, mystery, Mystery & Detective, Historical
ISBN: 9780007481187
Google: kQac1p82PcEC
Goodreads: 22670009
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Published: 2013-09-12T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

I crashed through the door of the infirmary, careless of the hour, careless of the noise I made. Fra Gennaro was bent over the bed of old Fra Francesco by the light of a candle, applying a poultice to his sunken chest to ease the fluid on his lungs. Gennaro started at the sound of the door, but as soon as he realized it was me, his expression told me he had been expecting this.

I glanced along the length of the infirmary, my ribs heaving with the effort of running through the back streets. Four beds in the row were occupied by elderly friars who wheezed and grunted in concert; they might have been asleep, but they might also have been quite capable of hearing and understanding. It was all I could do not to blurt out my accusations; Gennaro saw the urgency in my face and gestured me toward the dispensary, whispering words of reassurance to Fra Francesco as he stood to follow me.

“She was not a whore, was she?”

He closed the door behind us and set his candle down on the dispensary bench, signaling for me to lower my voice.

“I told you only what was told to me,” he said. His tone was clipped and cold, tight with suppressed anger.

“And you chose not to question it.”

He was across to me in one stride, his hand clamping my arm, face inches from mine.

“As I recall, Fra Giordano, you also swore an oath to ask no questions. Who have you been talking to?”

“I didn’t have to talk to anyone.” I dropped my voice to an urgent whisper. “Tonight her mirror image walked into the Cerriglio and accused one of our brothers of murdering her twin.”

He stared at me, his grip slackening.

“She was never found in the street by soldiers. She died inside these walls, didn’t she? That’s why you would not speculate on who killed her. Because you already knew.”

He breathed out hard through his nose, his eyes fixed on me for a long pause, as if I were a favorite son who had disappointed him. Eventually, he let go of me and rubbed his hands quickly over his face, like an animal washing.

“Where would we be, you and I, if we were not here?” he said, looking up.

I blinked at him, unsure whether it was a rhetorical question. He raised his brow, and I realized he wanted an answer. “If you had not come to San Domenico, Fra Giordano, what would you have done with your life?”

“I would have tried to obtain a place at the royal university,” I mumbled.

“Would you? The son of a mercenary soldier? With whose money?”

I looked at my feet.

“My father was well born, but he died desperately in debt to a Genoan banker,” he continued. “If I had not come to San Domenico, I would most likely have had to beg for a position as a tutor to idle rich boys. And you, Bruno — I doubt you would by now be the most promising young theologian in Naples, whatever you claim.

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