'Something I ate, Padre,' I said, and with deep regret, I threw the book into the hole, producing a noisy coughing fit to cover the splash it made as it fell into the pool of waste below. 'You have spent more than two hours in the privy tonight, I think that is long enough.' 'Not one moment more, Brother,' Fra Vita said through the door, a quiet menace creeping into his voice. For a moment I entertained the idea of hiding it somewhere under my habit, but that would be fruitless – I would be searched straight away. 'One moment, Padre, if I may,' I called, untying my habit to make it look as if I had been using the privy for its proper purpose. Fra Vita was a man who, in the ordi-nary course of events, gave the impression that all bodily functions offended him mightily it would be causing him unprecedented distress to have to apprehend one of his monks in so ignominious a place as this. I caught a snigger from one of the monks who accom-panied him, swiftly followed by a stern tutting from the abbot, Fra Domenico Vita, and could not help smiling to myself, in spite of the moment. 'Fra Giordano! I order you to come out this instant, with whatever you hold in your hands in plain sight!' The footsteps halted outside the cubicle door, to be replaced by the furious hammering of a fist and the abbot's throaty voice, strained beyond its usual placid tones of diplomacy.

Inside the small cubicle where I perched on the edge of a wooden bench, taking care not to sit too close to the hole that opened over the cess pit beneath, my little candle flickered in the sudden draught of their entrance, sending wavering shadows growing and shrinking up the stone walls. The outer door was thrown open with a crash that resounded along the passage and the floorboards shook with the purposeful marching of several pairs of feet. Monastery of San Domenico Maggiore, Naples 1576

Heresy parris