Book of Shadows by Paul Doherty

Author:Paul Doherty [Doherty, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780755395644
Publisher: Headline
Published: 2013-09-15T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

Back inside the chamber, Kathryn gave Colum a pithy description of what had happened. He stood by the window, listening to her carefully.

‘So,’ he concluded. ‘Master Tenebrae’s intended bride, perhaps, does not concern us, but the whereabouts of the grimoire does.’ He shook his head. ‘Yet it doesn’t make sense. How could Fronzac murder Tenebrae and take the Book of Shadows? Bogbean assured us the clerk left the house that day like everyone else. And, after his departure, the magus was visited by others, not to mention his own servant Morel. So,’ Colum slumped down on a chair, ‘where do we go from here?’

Kathryn wove her fingers together and stared at the expensive cloth hangings round the bed. Thomasina would like those, she thought, thick and heavy: difficult to clean but sturdy enough against the passage of time.

‘Kathryn?’ Colum insisted.

She smiled apologetically. ‘What we have done, oh dark-browed Irishman, is at least breach the wall these goldsmiths have built round themselves. Condosti had a great deal to hide and implied her companions also did. Perhaps it’s best if we saw them one at a time: we should start with Master Brissot.’

Colum went down to the taproom and returned with the rotund little physician, who came in brushing his neat moustache, blinking nervously as Kathryn invited him to sit.

‘Master Brissot,’ Kathryn began smilingly. ‘How much did Tenebrae pay you?’

The physician nearly fell off his stool. ‘What are you saying?’ he stuttered. ‘How dare you?’

‘Shut up! You know full well what I mean. You are a London physician, hired specially by the goldsmith’s guild for the care of their fraternity. You scurry around from house to house, you attend their functions and your sharp little eyes miss nothing. You were Tenebrae’s spy and told him about Condosti’s condition. Didn’t you ever suspect what such a hideous creature might do with such information?’

Brissot stared back.

‘I’m giving you the opportunity,’ Kathryn said conversationally, ‘to tell me the truth. If you lie, or we later discover you have lied, Master Murtagh here has powerful friends at court. He will make it his business to proclaim to the city what you are and what you do.’ Kathryn remembered Condosti’s fear and hurt, and pulled her chair closer. ‘And how would you prosper then, Master Brissot? I am a physician; we hold a secret trust to keep our mouths shut about what we know.’

Surprisingly, Brissot began to cry, the tears rolling down his red cheeks, his shoulders shaking uncontrollably. Kathryn stared in amazement and steeled herself against the sight of this pompous, little man blubbering like a child. At last he stopped, swallowed noisily and lifted his face. Kathryn flinched at the hatred blazing in his eyes.

‘Do you think I liked it?’ he asked slowly. ‘I, Charles Brissot, a student of the Sorbonne, Padua and Marseilles, in the hands of a man like Tenebrae?’ He shook his head. ‘I deserve everything you have said but, Mistress Kathryn,’ he leaned forward and tapped the side of his head, ‘up here the demons and ghosts dwell, in the dirty recesses of our minds.

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