Traitors Gate by Anne Perry

experience a man can endure. I hate a traitor more than anything else on earth.” He looked at Pitt quickly, his blue eyes penetrating. “Are you a classicist, Mr. Pitt?”
    It was an absurd question, but Pitt took it as a compliment that Chancellor obviously had no idea of his background. He could have been speaking to Micah Drummond, or even Farnsworth. It was a compliment to Arthur Desmond that he had helped his gamekeeper’s son to the degree that such an error was possible.
    “No sir. I am acquainted with Shakespeare, and the major poets, but not the Greeks,” Pitt answered with a sober face.
    “I was thinking more of Dante,” Chancellor said. “He grades all the sins in his picture of the descent into Hell. He places traitors in the lowest circle of all, far beneath those who are guilty of violence, theft, lust or any other depravity of mind or body. He holds it the worst sin which mankind can conceive, uniquely an abuse of our God-given gifts of reason and conscience. He places the betrayers eternally alone, held fast in everlasting ice. A very terrible punishment, Mr. Pitt, do you not think? But meet for the offense.”
    Pitt felt a moment of chill, and then a clarity that was almost uplifting.
    “Yes …” he said. “Yes, perhaps it is the worst offense, the breaking of trust, and I suppose the eternal isolation is not so much a punishment as a natural conclusion which would be bound to follow such a nature. It is a self-chosen Hell, if you like.”
    “I see we have much in common, Mr. Pitt.” Chancellor’s smile was dazzling, a gesture of both warmth and intense, almost luminous, candor. “Perhaps there is nothing more important than that. We must get this abysmal affair dealt with. It darkens everything until we do.” He bit his lip andshook his head fractionally. “The worst of it is that until it is exposed it poisons every other relationship. One quite unjustifiably suspects those who are perfectly innocent. Many a friendship has been broken for less. I admit, I should not look on a man the same if he had found it possible to suspect me of such treachery.” He gazed at Pitt. “And yet since it is my duty, I cannot place any man beyond my suspicion. I dare not. What a filthy crime!” For a moment there was a bitter smile on his face. “You see what damage it has done already, by the mere fact of its existence?”
    He leaned forward across the desk earnestly. “Look, Pitt, we can afford no niceties. I wish it were otherwise, but I know this office well enough to be perfectly aware, tragically, that it must be someone in considerable authority, which means probably Aylmer, Hathaway, Arundell, Leicester, or even, God forbid, Thorne himself. You will not be able to find which by chasing pieces of paper around here.” Unconsciously he was drumming his fingers on the desk, almost without sound. “He will be cleverer than that. You will have to get to know the man himself, see a pattern, a flaw, and however small, a weakness. For that you need to know him in his personal life.” He stopped, regarding Pitt with exasperation. “Come, man, don’t show such surprise. I am not a fool!”
    Pitt felt the color burn up his cheeks. He had not perceived Chancellor as a fool, or anything like it, but he had not expected such forthrightness either, nor such perception of what his investigation would entail.
    Chancellor smiled quickly. “Forgive me. That was too frank. But nevertheless, what I say is true. You must meet them all socially. Can you come to the reception at the Duchess of Marlborough’s this evening? I can obtain an invitation for you without any trouble at all.”
    Pitt hesitated only a moment.
    “I realize it is absurdly short notice,” Chancellor wenton. “But history waits for no man, and our treaty with Germany is on the doorstep.”
    “Of course,” Pitt accepted. What Chancellor had said was true. It would be an ideal situation in which to make some judgment of the men in a more