Treachery (68 page)

BOOK: Treachery

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I stand and chime my glass with his. ‘To all those things,’ I say. ‘Especially the last.’ But as I drink, I feel a shiver pass through me, as if a cloud has crossed the sun. As if someone has walked over my grave, my mother would have said. I do not believe in premonitions, I tell myself. The candles have almost burned down to ashes.
To our futures
, I murmur again, as if, with enough conviction, I can will it to be true.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

S.J. Parris is the pseudonym of the author and journalist Stephanie Merritt. It was as a student at Cambridge researching a paper on the period that Stephanie first became fascinated by the rich history of Tudor England and Renaissance Europe. Since then, her interest has grown and led her to create this series of historical thrillers featuring Giordano Bruno.

Stephanie has worked as a critic and feature writer for a variety of newspapers and magazines, as well as radio and television. She currently writes for the
Observer
and the
Guardian
, and lives in Surrey with her son.
Treachery
is her seventh book.

www.sjparris.com

@thestephmerritt

ALSO BY S. J. PARRIS

Heresy

Prophecy

Sacrilege

Harper
An imprint of HarperCollins
Publishers Ltd

77–85 Fulham Palace Road

Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published by HarperCollins
Publishers
2014

Cover layout design © HarperCollins
Publishers
2014

Cover illustration © Daren Newman

Cover images ©
Shutterstock.com
(background textures)

Stephanie Merritt asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Map © Nicolette Caven

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This is entirely a work of fiction. Any references to real people, living or dead, real events, businesses, organizations and localities are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. All names, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007481194

Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2014 ISBN: 9780007481217

Version: 2014-02-05

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