‘And now came another setback. Abbess Mathilde, Liese had counted on your relieving Veronica of her duties and putting someone less experienced in charge. Liese would surely have volunteered herself, since everyone else already had a clearly defined role. But you declared your faith in Veronica and ordered the treasury door left locked. Liese had inadvertently made things worse for herself! What an unwelcome discovery!

  ‘The only option was to render Veronica incapable of fulfilling her duties, which is why she was tripped outside the treasury as she left. It was clear that this was no accident. A cord had been looped around a table leg and pulled taut as she tried to walk past. I ask you to call to mind that the chapel occupies both storeys at the north side. I was in the vestry on the lower level. Liese was, by her account, at the altar rail, not far from me. There are stairs at the south-west corner of the chapel leading to the upper floor where the treasury is, and whoever pulled the cord taut must have been on the upper level. But when I asked Liese what had happened, she pointed out that the assailant was not in sight when she reached Veronica. If they had escaped along the west corridor, Veronica would have seen them quite clearly; whereas if they ran along the north corridor, Liese must have done so. And yet she did not. It was puzzling.

  ‘It was not until I thought more deeply about this later that I was able to resolve this conundrum. You see, the sisters left the chapel and went straight in to breakfast. To do this they climbed the stairs, turned left and walked by way of the north and east corridors to the refectory. Then, when they heard Veronica cry out, they hurried out of the refectory and retraced their steps. Whoever tripped Veronica could only escape detection if they were quick enough to get past the refectory before Veronica’s cry was heard, and no human being is that fast. If it was one of the other nuns, they might take advantage of the confusion to mingle with those leaving, but surely someone would have noticed a sister running away from the cry? She could barely have reached the corner when the first sisters came out of the refectory. No, that left only two options. Either Liese was very unobservant, or she saw nobody else in the corridor because she tripped Veronica. It was, of course, in vain. Still Abbess Mathilde did not relieve Veronica of her duties.

  ‘But on top of that Thomas had decided that the animal scratching at the mortar might be a badger and installed some badger snares. All the sisters knew that, but Liese had no way of telling Hugo. In daylight she would be able to see them, and might even have left a note in the wall, but when Hugo approached he was snared and his leg was injured. Fearing further injury if he continued, Hugo abandoned his plan for the night and retreated to seek treatment. Thomas and I found the blood, deduced that this was no badger but a very human interloper, and followed him into Melle, enquiring at the apothecaries and surgeons until we had some information about the intruder. And imagine our surprise when it became clear that there must be a pair of them, and they were Dutch!

  ‘There are not so many Dutchmen in Melle, so they were quite easily found when Thomas and I went there. We laid our information before the constable, who has had men watching their cart and followed them at a discreet distance tonight. But just in case our plan went awry and Hugo was able to grab the reliquary, I asked Abbess Mathilde to agree to nailing the alms hatch shut, because I could see no other way by which they could pass the reliquary over or through the wall.

  ‘I have no doubt that if we inspect Liese’s room now we will find her few possessions packed. She would have fled and we would have seen her no more.’

  A shocked silence greeted my exposition, and I was beginning to wonder if I needed to explain it all again when Mathilde spoke.

  ‘One question, Dr Mercurius. As I understand it, the treasury door was open when you came upon them. How did that come about?’

  ‘That was caused by the big problem with this whole conspiracy — the restricted ability of the two sides to communicate once Liese entered the convent. I surmise that Hugo had left a note saying that they could not delay much longer and appointing either tonight or the night after I left as the day of the robbery. Liese now had nothing to lose. She would not be here to face the consequences of her actions. I observe that the sisters’ chambers do not lock. Liese waited until Veronica was asleep and then stole her key.’

  Veronica was sitting with her head bowed. ‘It is true. My key is missing,’ she said, holding up the end of her cord.

  ‘Well, Master, what do you suggest we do with them?’ the constable asked.

  ‘I leave that to you,’ I replied. ‘I do not know your laws.’

  The constable stroked his chin. ‘The law says that if the goods stolen exceed one gulden or its equivalent in value, then the penalty is death.’

  I did not like that possibility. I have always been opposed to capital punishment, because only God has the right to decide when a life should end.

  The constable beckoned me towards him and spoke softly so as not to be heard by others. In this he failed, because everyone went quiet so that they could hear what was being said. ‘The problem is that, thanks to you, their theft was prevented. So they’re not thieves. I suppose we could turn a blind eye to that and hang them anyway, because they fully intended to be thieves.’

  ‘Isn’t that a matter for the magistrates to decide?’

  ‘Yes, but they’ll do what I tell them. They always do.’

  I had some experience of this attitude from my time in Moers when my underlings expected to tell me, the governor, what punishments I should inflict.

  ‘I’d settle for getting rid of them,’ continued the constable. ‘Can we send them back to your country?’

  I could see where this was heading, and I did not like it one bit. I was not about to escort three criminals back to Pijnacker single-handed. ‘I insist that you imprison them,’ I said. ‘Let the law take its course, whatever that might be.’

  The constable sighed. ‘Imprisoning the men is straightforward, but we don’t have a jail for women.’

  ‘What do you do with female criminals?’

  ‘We just brand them or hang them straightaway.’

  Liese shuddered and began to cry. I have never been comfortable with crying women. They bring out the tender side of me. Fortunately, Abbess Mathilde was made of sterner stuff.

  ‘Stop snivelling, Liese! You’re a woman, not a child. You must face the consequences of your actions with fortitude.’

  ‘Forgive me, Mother Abbess!’ cried Liese. ‘Isn’t that the Christian thing to do?’

  This seemed to me to be a good point, but Mathilde was having none of it.

  ‘If you stay, we will never trust you. If you are contrite then you may, perhaps should, embrace the religious life. I hope that your soul will be saved through contrition and penance, and I will pray that you may yet be saved from the burning fires of Hell, but your place is not here. We will return you to your father for suitable chastisement. Dr Mercurius, if I were to lend you my carriage for the whole of the journey, and send both Thomas and Georg to ensure the safety of all, would you return Liese to her father?’

  Put like that I could hardly say no. In fact, whatever Abbess Mathilde asked, I could hardly say no. One does not say no to such a woman.

  Thus it was that after a night’s sleep, or what was left of a night’s sleep before the first office of the day, and as much breakfast as I could be bothered to chew, I clambered aboard the carriage for the return journey to Pijnacker. Since nobody trusted Liese not to try to escape, she travelled with her wrist tied by a rope to the window frame of the carriage, which necessitated the windows to be open, so I was not only tired but also half-frozen.

  Liese’s conversation was hardly sparkling. She was by turns sullen, remorseful, grumpy, defiant and generally something of a spoilt child.

  ‘It’s all Father’s fault,’ she claimed. ‘If he had given us equal shares that would have been something. We could have managed. But no, he had to give it all to his favourite. Marieke has always had more than I have.’

  ‘What possible evidence could you have that your father favours your sister?’ I asked.

  That was a mistake. I was subjected to a litany of imagined slights over the past eighteen years, beginning with her sister getting new dresses when Liese had to make do with hand-me-downs as she grew up, including Marieke getting to name the lapdog they had — I pointed out that by her own account Liese was only three when this happened and therefore not well placed to name an animal, but I was firmly told that I was wrong about that — and, most recently, to her father telling her that she had to accept Marieke’s decision not to have her as a bridesmaid.

  I wanted to give up on conversation after this and took out a small book to read, but Liese was not a great one for reading.

  ‘What are you going to tell my father?’ she asked.

  Being a philosophy lecturer I answered her question with one of my own. ‘What do you think I should tell him?’

  She tossed her head defiantly. ‘It doesn’t matter. He won’t believe you.’

  ‘What possible reason would I have for lying?’ I wanted to know.

  ‘To blacken my name. To protect the convent’s reputation and that of your friend Mathilde. I shouldn’t be surprised if there was something going on between you two.’

  ‘That’s a scandalous thing to say.’

  ‘I might say it anyway, just to see what happens.’

  ‘Abbess Mathilde has treated you with great kindness allowing you to leave. She has given you a second chance. I suggest you seize it with both hands.’

  ‘I will marry Hugo, you know.’

  ‘You’ll have to escape from your father’s house and make your way to whatever prison in Germany he is occupying.’

  ‘He will come for me, when he can.’

  This selfish young woman was annoying me, and I am afraid that I decided to be provocative to shake her out of her flippant arrogance. ‘Do you think he’ll be just as handsome once he has been branded on the forehead?’

  Liese bit her lip. ‘They wouldn’t do that to him. He’s too beautiful.’

  ‘Well, they might not. But they might. They could just cut his hand off, I suppose, as often happens to contumacious thieves.’

  ‘You heard the constable. Hugo is not a thief because you stopped him.’

  I resumed reading my book. ‘It’s of no interest to me anyway. But do you really think that your father will let you marry Hugo? He’ll find someone else.’

  ‘I’ll run away.’

  ‘As you wish. Now, may I read my book?’

  The closer we came to Pijnacker, the more agitated Liese became.

  ‘Are you going to untie me before my father sees me treated as a common criminal?’

  ‘First, a common criminal is exactly what you are. And second, you are being treated better than any common criminal. You’re being returned home in a carriage,’ I told her.

  ‘We didn’t do any real harm,’ she whinged.

  ‘Apart from trying to convince people that an inoffensive elderly sister was losing her understanding and tripping her so that she breaks an arm, you mean?’

  Liese pouted. ‘You could have chopped my fiancé’s leg off!’

  ‘He injured himself by deciding to trespass. And when did he become your fiancé?’

  ‘We’re going to marry. What else would you call him?’

  ‘Until he has your father’s permission, I wouldn’t know what to call him.’

  ‘You have an old-fashioned view of women,’ she claimed. ‘But what else can you expect from a priest?’

  I found that quite an astonishing charge. Not only had I regularly remarked on the unfairness of the law to women, I had done some of my proudest work in preventing one being returned to an abusive husband, though I suppose Liese was not to know that.

  She smirked as if she had me where she wanted me. ‘Just a minute,’ she said, ‘you work at the University of Leiden. That’s a Reformed institution. Do they know you’re a Catholic?’

  ‘The university prizes learning,’ I replied. ‘They do not interrogate us about our private religion.’ Perhaps my own uncertainty conveyed itself in my voice.

  ‘I tell you what,’ she said. ‘If you don’t tell my father that I’ve been thrown out of the convent, I won’t tell the university that you’re a Catholic.’

  Liese would have folded her arms if one had not been strapped to the window-post. As it was, she sat back with a smirk on her face and waited for my reaction.

  ‘You must do as you please. And so will I,’ I replied.

  I had no idea whether Liese den Uyl would carry through on her threat to expose me as a secret Catholic, but I knew that if she did then my days at the university would be numbered. The Rector, Jacobus Trigland, was a staunch defender of the Protestant ethos of the university and would demand my resignation. There were a few known Catholics at the University of Leiden by then, but they were much more exalted than I was. The curators of the university could be quite indifferent to a man’s private belief if he was a distinguished scholar.

  I was annoyed with myself. I had spent so many years studiously avoiding going to Catholic churches in Leiden in case I was seen there. Even my closest friends had not been told my secret. Had I been foolish in accepting Abbess Mathilde’s invitations, first to go to the convent and then to say Mass there? She had somehow divined my true faith during our time in Maastricht and I had not vehemently denied it as perhaps I ought to have done, although I am a poor dissembler and she would probably have known that I was lying — but would she dare to tell me so?

  The new academic year was about to begin. I had put my unworn mulberry silk breeches away until next summer, not without a small pang of regret. I had been to see how Fat Lysbeth was faring after her surgery, and was surprised and delighted to find her at the beguinage baking bread with every sign of contentment.

  ‘They feed me, they house me, and I don’t have to worry about losing my looks,’ she said. ‘I miss my rouge and hair powder, but it’s worth it. I must thank you again for taking such good care of me. I bless the day you crossed my path.’

  ‘And has your wound healed well?’

  ‘Very well, thank you. It gives me no trouble at all, and I can’t feel any lump now.’

  We exchanged a few more words and I walked back, entered the Academie building and came face to face with the Rector, probably the last person I wanted to meet.

  ‘Welcome back!’ said Trigland. ‘Did you enjoy your visits to the cathedrals?’

  I had forgotten that I had never quite got round to telling anyone that I had changed my plans. ‘I didn’t actually go,’ I admitted.

  ‘Ah! You heeded my words. I’m glad. Visiting Catholic cathedrals can only lead to questions being asked.’ He turned and started to ascend the staircase. ‘Oh, I almost forgot,’ he said. ‘I had an anonymous letter accusing you of being a Catholic priest.’

  I hope he did not see my gulp.

  ‘Such nonsense! Professor Voet and I had a good laugh about it.’

  So you do have a sense of humour after all, I thought.

  ***

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  A NOTE TO THE READER

  Dear Reader,

  Writing these stories is fascinating for me because Mercurius continues to let slip little snippets from his life that I had not previously expected. As he ages he becomes more grouchy and, perhaps, a slightly less reliable narrator, though he would certainly dispute that. I am lost in admiration for his clerk, Van der Meer, who persists in his employment despite great provocation. I can only assume that Mercurius paid him well.

  A number of readers expressed the hope that we had not heard the last of Abbess Mathilde, though I regret to say that some proposed an entirely unseemly reason for Mercurius to meet Mathilde again. We must remember that one is a nun and one is a priest, pledged to remain celibate all their days.

  The convent in the story is an amalgam of several and is not to be found anywhere, let alone where I have placed it. For a sense of what convent life was like, I relied to some degree on Elizabeth Makowski’s excellent book, Canon Law and Cloistered Women (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1997), though my imagination was centred on the exceptions to compulsory cloistering rather than the rule itself, and on Laura Swan, The Wisdom of the Beguines (Goldens Bridge, NY: BlueBridge, 2014). I should also acknowledge two publications by Christine Kooi that I found helpful for background: ‘Popish Impudence: The Perseverance of the Roman Catholic Faithful in Calvinist Holland, 1572–1620’, The Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 26, No. 11, Spring 1995, pp.75–85, and ‘Katholieken en tolerantie in de Gouden Eeuw’, Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse Kerkgeschiedenis, December 1999, vol. 2 nr. 4, pp. 112–117.

  Mercurius is quite enjoying the distance between himself and Stadhouder William now that the latter is in Britain. Of course, he does not know how long this will last but while they are apart the nature of his enquiries must change. That is not to say that other great men might not be in need of his services or that William might not send for him. Who knows? I look forward to delving further into Mercurius’ papers to find out.

  If you have enjoyed this novel, I’d be really grateful if you would leave a review on Amazon and Goodreads. I love to hear from readers, so please keep in touch through Facebook, Threads or Twitter/X, or leave a message on my website. I’d love you to subscribe to my newsletter there.

  Dank je wel!

  Graham Brack

  ALSO BY GRAHAM BRACK

  Master Mercurius Mysteries:

  DEATH IN DELFT

  UNTRUE TILL DEATH

  DISHONOUR AND OBEY

  THE NOOSE’S SHADOW

  THE VANISHING CHILDREN

  THE LYING DUTCHMAN

  MURDER IN MAASTRICHT

  THE MOERS MURDERS

  Josef Slonský Investigations:

  LYING & DYING

  SLAUGHTER & FORGETTING

  DEATH ON DUTY