Sacrilege

Chapter 15

A persistent peal of bells from the cathedral tower woke me, though it seemed only moments since I had closed my eyes. I reached across and found the bed empty. Gulls were clamouring outside the window; when I squinted into the morning light, I saw Sophia, already dressed, leaning on the window ledge with the precious book in her hand. My throat clenched; I had to fight the urge to leap up and tear it out of her hands. But she could have no idea what she held, and I did not wish to whet her curiosity further.

“Greek,” she said, without looking up. “What is it?”

“Can you read it?”

“Only a little. I had some schooling with my brother, but my Greek was never advanced and my father would not allow me to study with a tutor after my brother died. Why was this book buried with Becket? Is it forbidden?”

She raised her head and looked at me and I saw the glint in her eye. In Oxford she had pestered me to tell her the secrets of natural magic and I recalled the same light in her expression when I had told her of occult books I had read on my travels. She would have made a fine scholar, I thought; she had the necessary hunger for any knowledge she was told she must not seek.

“I think it is a book I saw once in London,” I said, waving a hand as if it hardly mattered, “but I need to study it further to be sure. In the meantime we have more pressing questions. I have only one more day before the assize judge arrives to try and find some evidence against your husband’s murderer.”

“But you don’t know who he is yet,” she said, biting her lip. “That is, if you believe Tom Garth didn’t do it. We only have his word for that.”

“True. And perhaps I am mistaken. In any case, we have no choice but to rely on his oath—he could land you, me, and Harry in gaol with one word about your presence.” I shook my head. “But in my gut I do not feel it was Garth. It must be Langworth and Sykes, or Samuel acting on their behalf, and it must be because of the boys. What did your husband do that made him suddenly a danger to their plot instead of an ally, that is the question?”

She looked confused.

“What plot? Which boys?”

I told her, as briefly as I could, of my night at St. Gregory’s Priory, my altercation with Nicholas Kingsley, the gruesome discovery under the mausoleum, and the suspicions Harry and I had formed about the three men’s intention of staging a miracle by the bones of Saint Thomas when the time was right. When I reached the part about finding the medallion of Saint Denis around the neck of the corpse in the underground tomb, she covered her mouth with her hand and tears sprung to her eyes.

“Oh, sweet Jesus,” she said, when I had finished, her voice barely audible through her fingers. “To think of that happening underneath my own house.”

“The beggar boy would have been before you married Sir Edward. But the Huguenot child—yes. He was kept prisoner and poisoned while you were enduring your own sufferings above ground.”

“That poor family. After all they have done for me. How will Hélène bear it? She only survives the days by praying her son will be found safe and well. Dear God.”

“It will be a dreadful blow, there is no doubt,” I said. “But perhaps at least they can do away with uncertainty. Once the boy’s body has been examined as evidence they will be able to give him a Christian burial and that might give them some comfort. Assuming the body is still there,” I added, almost to myself, remembering the unease I had felt at the news that Langworth had been to dine at St. Gregory’s the previous night. Nick Kingsley would surely have told him of my visit to the old priory and that I had been near the cellar. If Langworth suspected that I was close to understanding the business at Sir Edward’s house, he might well have taken the opportunity to dispose of the body in the tomb. Perhaps young Denis would go the way of the beggar boy, hacked to pieces and dumped on a rubbish heap. But no—to have surprised us in the crypt in the early hours Langworth must have returned from the Kingsley house by at least midnight, and if he dined and talked with Nick that would hardly have given him time to exhume a body and move it unnoticed. Besides, he seemed to have relied on Samuel for those kind of dirty jobs and though God only knew where Harry’s servant was at that moment, I doubted he was at liberty to dispose of corpses for Langworth.

“I tried to look in the cellar once and old Meg stopped me,” Sophia said, turning back to the window again. “She seemed genuinely frightened—she told me my husband would kill me. She must have known all along. How could she?”

“She felt she had no choice. Perhaps she was afraid your husband would kill her too. Oh, God in heaven!” I leapt out of bed and grabbed at my underhose, scrabbling around frantically for a shirt.

“What is it?” Sophia’s face mirrored my alarm.

“Meg is a witness. She saw Sir Edward with the beggar boy in the kitchen—she could testify. And Langworth was there last night. I have to find out if she’s all right.”

“Wait, Bruno. How will you do that? You can hardly just go and knock on the door—you said yourself, Nicholas Kingsley will kill you.”

I finished tying my shirt and pulled on the breeches I had discarded in such haste last night. I had hoped to wake with Sophia in my arms and attempt to recapture that fleeting intimacy of the night before. I could not help feeling a little cheated by her early rising and apparent indifference. But I had to put such thoughts out of my mind, I told myself, and concentrate on the matter in hand.

“There is someone who is sure to know any news as soon as it happens,” I said. “When I have broken my fast, I must go out to the marketplace. I will bring you some bread and small beer first, if you like. I’m afraid you will be confined to this room—and you would do better to keep away from the window.”

It was only a small casement jutting out from the sloping eaves of the attic, but it faced the cathedral and there was always a chance someone passing might glance up. I did not want to bring Harry any more trouble than was necessary.

“Who will help you in the marketplace?” she asked, curious, moving away from the window to sit on the end of the bed and curling a strand of hair around her finger. The severe boy’s cut was beginning to grow a little longer; it accentuated the sharp angles of her face.

“Oh, just a girl who is keen to help me any way she can,” I said, with deliberate nonchalance, and was gratified to see a brief expression of pique flit across her features. “I’ll take that, if I may.”

Reluctantly, she handed me the book. I wrapped it in its linen cloth and returned it to the damaged casket, then put the whole into my leather travelling bag and slung it over my shoulder. From now on I did not mean to let this book out of my sight.

In the kitchen I found Harry opening cupboard doors and slamming them with a disgruntled air. He straightened up when I entered and leaned on the edge of the table, looking at me knowingly.

“There you are. We have no bread or milk, you know—Samuel would go out for them early to the market and since he is not here because of you—”

“I am going,” I said, clapping him on the shoulder.

“You look rough,” he observed, without sympathy. “Don’t suppose you’ve had much sleep.”

I acknowledged the truth of this with a half nod and concentrated on my purse. I could not be sure how sharp the old man’s hearing was and how much he might have heard when Sophia and I returned last night, but he was no fool; he knew I was hiding her in my room and no doubt imagined the rest.

“Was your excursion useful?” he asked.

“I think so. At least, there is a body in the crypt that has every appearance of being Becket’s and could certainly be presented as such. An ampulla of oil was buried with it.”

“The holy oil of Saint Thomas,” he murmured. “So they claim to have that too, do they? Legend says it was given to Becket by the Virgin to anoint the true sovereign of England.”

“So I understand. Do the people care about such trifles?”

He considered.

“It would certainly lend weight to the coronation of a Catholic monarch, should such an event ever come to pass. It would have the appearance of being sanctioned by England’s greatest saint.”

“But it needs to remain where it is for the queen’s justice to see when he arrives. My fear is that Langworth and Sykes between them will find a way to move the relics to another hiding place.” I thought of Langworth lying half choked on the floor of the crypt. My situation would be much simpler now if I had finished him off last night. God knows that is easily done—a tavern brawl, a threat, your life or his—and I doubted I would have been the first to solve a problem that way on Walsingham’s business, but Langworth was the key to the whole plot in Canterbury and the connections with the French and Spanish conspirators; it was essential that he should be taken alive for questioning. The treasurer was nothing if not shrewd; he would have realised as soon as he came to with a swollen throat on that stone floor that I had discovered his great treasure; the question was whether he would have time to move his saint to another hiding place before I made my discovery public.

“Perhaps I should make it my business to pray in the cathedral today,” Harry said, rubbing his chin. “See who comes and goes. They can do nothing if they know they are being watched.”

“That would be an excellent idea.” I glanced uneasily at the ceiling. “But someone should stay in the house to keep an eye on your other guest.”

“That sounds like a job for a young man,” Harry said, a smirk playing around the corners of his mouth. “I haven’t the strength to get up those stairs, let alone attend to the needs of a female. Mind you, I’d be surprised if you have, after last night.” He gave me a stern look, but the ghost of a smile remained. “Now go and get me my breakfast, I’m half starved here.”

THE NIGHT’S STORM had broken the pressing heat of the last few days and outside it no longer felt as if we were living inside a glass jar; the sky seemed rinsed clean, pale with a thin gauze of cloud, and a crisp breeze whipped my shirt around my chest. The bells had fallen silent and the only sound was the frenzied cries of the gulls and the crunch of my boots over the wet ground. Fighting my lack of sleep, I tried to keep alert, glancing about me as I walked towards Christ Church gate. At the conduit house I turned back and looked up at the top storey of Harry’s house; I thought I saw a shadow move at the window, but I could not be sure. Tom Garth appeared in the doorway of his lodge by the gatehouse and nodded solemnly, as if to acknowledge the bond between us. I nodded in return and passed out into the Buttermarket, one hand laid protectively over the satchel hanging at my side.

The market was busy despite the early hour; by the stone cross, a pair of jongleurs had already drawn a small crowd as one casually juggled flaming torches and the other moved stiffly about on stilts, calling out to drum up an audience. His shouts could barely be heard over the cries of the market traders selling their wares and the barking of the dogs chased away from the food stalls; the air was thick with the smells of warm bread and fresh pies. I found Rebecca behind her bread stall; her face lit up when she saw me, though I did not fail to notice the disapproving glance her employer sent me from the corner of her eye while deep in conversation with a customer. I chose a couple of loaves and leaned in as I handed over the coins.

“I need your help again, Rebecca, I’m afraid. Do you know the housekeeper from St. Gregory’s Priory? Does she buy her bread from you?”

“Old Meg?” She looked surprised. “Some days she comes. They used to pay to have the bread delivered when it got too far for her to walk, but since Sir Edward was”—here she made a face—“they have fallen behind with their account. Mistress Blunt said not to take any more until the debt is settled.”

“Have you seen Meg this morning?”

She glanced about the marketplace and shook her head.

“Listen.” I beckoned her in closer, nodding sideways at the sturdy goodwife who was quite clearly whispering to her customer about me. “You said Mistress Blunt knows all the gossip there is to know in this town. I need to find out if all is well at St. Gregory’s with the old woman. I cannot explain, but it is important. Do you think you can find out somehow? But subtly. I only wish to be assured Meg is all right.”

Rebecca smiled.

“If anyone can find anything out, it is Mistress Blunt. I will see what I can do. Come back in a while.”

“Thank you. I will be forever in your debt.” I winked and the girl blushed violently. As I turned to leave, I caught Mistress Blunt’s eye and executed a deep bow, the bread clutched to my chest. She broke off her conversation with the goodwife and folded her arms across the vast ledge of her bosom.

“You,” she said, giving me a severe look, “are not welcome loitering about my stall.”

“Do you say that to all your customers?” I indicated the loaves.

She pursed her lips.

“Don’t think I’m not wise to your game. If there’s one blessing to growing old, it’s that you’re no longer taken in by a handsome face. And you, silly chit of a girl,” she said, turning to Rebecca with the same sour expression, “ought to have better sense, making eyes like a calf at the man who’s supposed to have killed your own uncle.”

Pink spots flared in Rebecca’s cheeks.

“Well, I don’t believe he did, and neither will the judge. Signor Savolino has friends at court, is it not so?” She looked up at me, her face flushed and expectant.

“I don’t care if he’s friends with Queen Bess herself, he’s not hanging about my stall trying his luck while you’re supposed to be working for me, girl.”

“Alas, I cannot claim so grand a friendship, though I did see Her Majesty in person once, when I was invited to a concert at one of her royal palaces,” I said, casually looking away across the marketplace. “I am no expert in fashion, but I believe I have never seen a dress like it.”

“No! Did you really? In person? Was it French silk?” Mistress Blunt leaned forward, lips parted, her former severity entirely eclipsed by awe.

“The sleeves, I believe, but the bodice was cloth of gold, all embroidered with tiny seed pearls …”

She whistled, delighted, and I continued to embellish my description, making up details as best I could with Mistress Blunt hanging on my every word, nodding sagely, her hands clasped in delight as I elaborated on buttons, necklaces, lace collars, and anything else that came to mind, silently congratulating myself on having found a way to win her over. When there came a cry from behind me and her attention was distracted by something over my shoulder, I followed the direction of her gaze and saw that a scuffle had broken out in the little crowd around the fire juggler. A group of youths were jostling and shoving, and suddenly broke away to run down a side street. Left behind was another, younger boy, who stood white-faced, his hand clutched to his mouth. Through the bobbing heads I saw that it was the Widow Gray’s son.

I rushed across and pushed through the people gathered around him.

“What happened?”

The boy looked up, visibly distressed. His lip was bleeding and he seemed taken aback by the abruptness of my manner.

“My purse,” he said miserably, holding up his empty hands and nodding to where the gang of older boys had disappeared. I looked around at the rows of blank faces but saw no one stirring themselves to help the boy.

“Hold these,” I said, thrusting my loaves into his arms, and tore off down the alley. The thieves, who were no more than fourteen or fifteen years old, had not run far; I caught up with them at the corner of the next street. When they saw me running towards them they attempted to flee again, but I pursued the biggest of them, who held the purse in his hand. Some of his fellows broke away into the gaps between houses, but I followed him doggedly. Though he was tall, he was a stoutish boy and could not outrun me for long; I threw myself at his legs and brought him down hard on the wet cobbles. He tried to lash out but I fetched him a swift punch to the ribs that knocked the breath out of him and he stopped struggling. I did not want to draw my knife unless it was absolutely necessary; I had acquired enough of a reputation for violence in this town without threatening children.

“You have something there that doesn’t belong to you,” I said, kneeling hard on the small of his back.

“What’s it to you?” he puffed out through clenched teeth, his prize still clutched close beneath him.

I grabbed a handful of his hair and raised his head a little way off the ground.

“You will be glad of your teeth later in life, son—don’t make me smash them out for you one by one. Give me the purse.”

He hesitated, and I pulled his head back farther as if in readiness to thump it against the ground; with a cry of pain and fury he brought out the purse and smacked it into my palm.

“He’s a whey-faced priest’s bastard,” he said belligerently, as he struggled to his feet and brushed his clothes down.

“And you are a fat coward. But we are to believe that even you are made in God’s image.” I held the purse up and chinked it against my hand to see that he had not had time to empty it.

I could see him weighing up whether to lunge at me, so I fixed him with my fiercest stare and allowed my right hand to wander to the knife at my belt. He eyed it warily and appeared to decide his best course was to back slowly away.

“Spanish cunt!” he shouted, when he was safely at the corner of the street and poised to run.

“Half right. Italian,” I called back and made as if to pursue him again; he yelped and fled and I returned to the marketplace, smiling to myself.

The Widow Gray’s son was not smiling. He stood with his thin arms wrapped around my loaves as if his life depended on protecting them, a little apart from the crowd, none of whom seemed inclined to offer him any comfort. A few spots of blood had dripped from his cut lip onto his shirt. I felt a sudden stab of anger at these stolid, gossiping people: Would they hold off from taking care of a bleeding child because of the rumours they had sown about his mother’s virtue? Did they think they would find themselves somehow tainted? No wonder children could be dumped on rubbish heaps here without anyone turning a hair. The whispering intensified as I approached the boy and held out his purse. I allowed a defiant glare to roam around the onlookers; one by one, they lowered their eyes and turned away, murmuring among themselves.

“Come.” I put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and he flinched. “Let me take you home. Is all your money here?”

He opened the purse, scanned its contents and nodded, still without speaking.

“Which way?”

He pointed to the street that led away from the Buttermarket opposite the cathedral gate. I made to move in that direction but he held back, looking at me with the same dumb anxiety.

“Those boys will not bother you again while I am around,” I said gently.

He shook his head. “It’s not that. My mother will kill me.”

I smiled.

“I doubt that. She will be relieved to see that you and your money are safe, will she not?”

“I am not supposed to go out on my own,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “But she was occupied and I took her purse.” He hung his head, contrite. “I only wanted to see the fire-eater and eat a pie, like the other boys are allowed to.”

I glanced sideways at him as we began to walk in the direction he had indicated, the low hum of the marketplace talk following at our back. He was a tall boy for his age, but slight, with prominent cheekbones and solemn grey eyes.

“What is your name?” I asked presently, as he pointed to the turning into another lane.

“Matthias.”

“Well, Matthias, I am Filippo. Was the fire-eater worth the trouble?”

“Oh, yes!” He turned to me then as if seeing me for the first time, his expression alight with pleasure. “He juggles with flaming torches and he never misses once—have you seen? And after, he swallows the flames without burning his tongue—I wish I knew how he did it.”

“It is an old trick and takes years of practice. Don’t try it at home, eh.”

He smiled, but it faded quickly.

“I dream of running away with the jongleurs, but I have no skills to offer. I cannot even catch a ball. My mother took me to see them once in the yard of the Cheker at midsummer when I was younger—it was all lit up with torches and garlands and they did such tricks, it was like belonging to a magic world.” He paused, breathless, as the excitement of the memory subsided into fear. “We don’t go out much anymore.”

“But you go to school?”

The boy shook his head.

“I have a tutor at home. And Canon Langworth comes once a week to teach me Greek and Latin—” Here he broke off, as if afraid he might be sharing too much. “I have a weak chest, the doctor says, so it is better that I stay at home.” He lowered his gaze, as if apologising for all the trouble he gave everyone, including me.

You don’t look all that weak, I thought; nothing a bit of red meat and a good run about in the fresh air wouldn’t cure. But if I was right, it would make sense for those intending to use him to put about the rumour that the boy was sickly, fragile; it would make his planned demise all the more plausible when the time came. He could have no inkling of the part assigned to him in the restoration of a Catholic England, poor child. I wondered if his mother knew the full story. Was she also a zealot for the old religion, willing to hand her son over as a sacrifice for God’s purpose, or had Langworth and his fellow conspirators duped her in some way?

“But you sing in the choir. I have seen you.”

“I have to.” He sounded less than happy about it.

“You don’t like it?”

“I like the music. But the other boys are cruel. They say things …”

“Why do you not stop, then?”

“Canon Langworth makes me, in return for my lessons. Otherwise mother could not pay for them.”

He turned into another street and motioned to a handsome red-brick house of three storeys. I looked up at the diamond-leaded windows. Perhaps there would be answers here.

Matthias pulled on the bell rope and eventually a maidservant opened the large front door and ushered us into a high entrance hall tiled in black and white squares. A wide staircase swept upwards and the boy gestured to me to follow him up. The maid watched us from below, silent and unsmiling.

“The alderman and his family have the first two floors and we have the apartments on the top,” Matthias explained, as we ascended another floor. On the top landing, he pushed open a door and I stepped behind him into a pleasantly furnished parlour, not large but tastefully decorated. I could see at a glance that the carpets, tapestries, and cushions were of good quality, though old and faded. He was barely inside the room when the widow appeared like a fury, her dark hair unbound and swinging loosely about her shoulders as she lifted a hand as if to strike the boy.

“Where in Christ’s name have you been? What possessed you? Did you not think I would be sick with worry? And with Doctor Sykes coming out to see you this morning too! Oh, dear God, what has happened to your face?”

She seized the boy and clasped him violently to her chest, her arms wrapped around his head as if to prevent him ever leaving again, her cheeks flushed with rage and relief. It was at that moment that she looked up and saw me, still standing in the doorway.

“What have you done to my son?”

“Signora, I have only escorted him home to keep him from unwanted attention.”

“Why have you brought me bread? Do you think I need charity from foreigners?”

I glanced down at the two loaves in my arms. It seemed easier not to explain.

“Everyone likes fresh bread,” I said, and shrugged.

Her frown softened a little, as if she could not find an argument against this, though her eyes remained guarded. She relaxed her grip on her son, who took the opportunity to wriggle free.

“What happened to your face?” she demanded.

“Some boys knocked me down and took my purse.” He hung his head. “I was watching the jongleurs in the market. I am sorry.”

“My purse, you mean. And you will be sorry. What has this gentleman to do with it?”

“Filippo chased them and got the purse back. No one else would help.”

His mother clicked her tongue.

“Of course they wouldn’t. You know what people are in this town, Matthias. Let that be a lesson to you to stay away from them, as you have been told. Now go and draw some water and clean your face.”

She turned to me, clasping her hands in front of her. She wore a simple black linen gown that accentuated her slender figure and made her skin look pale as porcelain. Though she was of my own age, perhaps a little older, her face was almost unlined and her eyes the blue of Delft china. If I had not been so caught up in Sophia, I might have looked at her with more interest; even so, I could appreciate that she was beautiful and her aloofness added to her appeal. Little wonder the goodwives liked to make her an object of malicious talk. The blue eyes flickered over my face with an appraising look. “Filippo, is it? Well, you are quite the Good Samaritan, are you not? The outcast foreigner who still finds time to help those less fortunate.”

I shrugged again. “I am not one of those who would stand by and watch a child robbed, if that’s what you mean.”

A muscle twitched in her jaw.

“Then you are a rarity in this town.” For a moment she looked as if she would like to spit on the floor. “This is why he is not allowed to go roaming about as he pleases.” She glanced towards the door where the boy had gone out. “He thinks me harsh, but it is only to protect him.”

“Boys his age seem to need protecting in this town,” I ventured.

“What do you mean?”

“One found dead, one missing in the last year. It is the worse for them that their mothers were not able to protect them.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“This has nothing to do with us.”

“Of course not. And you would do anything to protect your son, I imagine. Anything necessary.”

“As any good mother would.”

“And any good father? Would a good father want what was best for his son?”

“My husband died when Matthias was an infant,” she said quietly, through clenched teeth. “I think it is time you left my house, sir.”

“Mistress Gray.” I shifted the bread in my arms. “If I told you your son was in danger, would you stay to listen?”

“Why should I listen to you? A stranger? A man who has not been in the town two days when he is accused of murder?” But there was a hesitation in her voice.

I acknowledged the truth of this with a nod.

“Accused by Ezekiel Sykes. You know Doctor Sykes?”

“Of course—he is my physician, and my son’s. In fact he was supposed to be coming to see my son this morning. He is late, but I expect him any moment.”

“Ah, of course. The boy’s weak chest. Well, then, you must trust Doctor Sykes implicitly. I will say no more.” I moved towards the door and paused with my hand on the latch. If Sykes genuinely was expected I would do well to be gone before he arrived. God alone knew what else he might try to accuse me of if he was given opportunity.

“Wait.”

I turned to see her closing the door to the corridor where the boy had gone out so that he should not hear. She did not invite me to sit down.

“I will hear you, but briefly. What is it that you think you know?”

“Mistress Gray,” I began, and she waved a hand.

“Alys. My name is Alys.”

“And mine, as you know, is Filippo.”

“Is it?”

She raised a carefully plucked eyebrow and for a long moment we looked at each other as sunlight streamed through the casement behind her, lighting the dust on the floorboards and making it sparkle. The tension in the room crackled like the air before last night’s storm; neither of us, it seemed, was willing to venture a confidence first, in case it was a trap. Yet I sensed that she wanted to trust me; what I had said about her son being in danger must have chimed with some intuitive misgiving on her part, or she would have thrown me out instantly.

“Why—have you heard otherwise?”

She made a slight movement with her head. “People talk, in a town like this.”

“I thought they didn’t talk to you. Or do you mean different people? Your friends at the cathedral, perhaps? Canon Langworth seems to take a great interest in your son’s education. Does he speak about me?”

She hesitated, glanced to the window.

“He said you were dangerous. That you live by dissembling.”

“As we all do. The canon treasurer included. As you yourself do, signora, unless I am mistaken. Where is he buried, by the way?”

“Who?” She sat upright.

“Master Gray, of course. Your late husband.”

“Oh. Cambridgeshire. With his people.” But the hesitation had been too noticeable, and she knew it. Our eyes met and held again; which of us would drop our guard first, I wondered.

“Tell me of this danger to my son, whatever you call yourself, and then leave my house, please.” She kept her voice level, but it was she who looked away first. I crossed the room to the window and stood for a moment looking out. I laid the bread on the window seat, glad to put it down.

“Sir Edward Kingsley left you some money in his will, did he not?”

Her face tightened and to give herself a distraction she gathered the length of her hair between her hands and pulled it into a twist over her shoulder so she could examine the ends.

“So Nicholas Kingsley has been shouting that to all comers as if he were the town crier, has he? Yes, his father left me a small sum and, such as it is, I cannot even claim it because the will is all up in the air until they find out who killed him. But it is not for the reason you think,” she added, with a stern look.

“And what is it that I think?”

“You will assume I was his mistress.”

“Oh, no, not at all. I had assumed you were John Langworth’s mistress.”

I waited for the sharp put-down, but it never came. Instead she lowered her eyes, and her silence was eloquent.

“So the question,” I continued, “is why Edward Kingsley was giving you money. My guess is that it was for some other service rendered, or promised. Am I close?”

She raised her head and answered with a defiant stare. I had placed myself to my advantage; to look at me she had to squint into the sunlight behind me.

“Some service involving your son.” When she still didn’t answer, I decided to venture all. “A service not to him personally, but to the Church. A service to God. Was that how they sold it to you?”

“Why should I tell you any of my business?” she said, but the fight had gone out of her voice and I knew my guess had struck home. I took the few steps across the room to stand close to her, so that I could drop my voice easily to make sure the boy did not hear.

“Because those other boys who died, Alys—they died in preparation for this service that your son is to perform. They died because the men you are trusting with your son’s life don’t know what they are doing. Did they tell you what would be required of him?”

She shook her head and her fingers fluttered to the gold medallion she wore around her neck.

“Only that it would be to the glory of God and the”—she faltered—“the Church.”

“By the Church they do not mean what the queen of England or the Archbishop of Canterbury mean by the same word, do they?”

“You would have to ask them that question,” she flashed back, quick as blinking. “Tell me about these boys.” She lowered her voice and her eyes flickered to the door she had just closed, in case her son should hear. “What happened to them? How did they die?”

“They were poisoned. One was a beggar child, the other a French boy they must have persuaded to go with them somehow. They died in the course of experimenting with a poison and its antidote. The poison would make the victim appear dead. The antidote, given some time later, was supposed to revive him. If it was successful, it would appear as if—”

“As if he had been brought back from the dead,” she breathed. She looked up at me, her eyes bright with fear and wonder. “And they were of my boy’s age, you say?”

“I am not an apothecary, but I understand the quantities of both substances would depend on the weight and age of the person taking them. They had to test whether their idea worked before they tried it out on a public stage, with their principal actor.” My gaze wandered to the door, where I suspected Matthias would be trying to listen.

“But it didn’t work.”

“No. There was no miracle for those boys.” I allowed a pause, while she pressed a sleeve to her mouth and cast about, as if unable to decide whether or not to sit. “Still—I’m sure they will do nothing without first practising on other children. They seem to have a knack of finding them.”

“Oh, Jesus, no.” She drew breath. “They talked of a miracle. By the power of Saint Thomas, to restore the true Church. They said no harm would come to him, and after, my boy’s name would be written in the history books, when England was brought back to God.” She pulled again at her hair. “And then he said if I did not agree, I would have no more money.”

“He? You mean Langworth?”

I took the bitter expression that passed across her face as answer. She cupped her hand over her mouth for a moment, as if afraid too many words might spill out uncensored, then she clasped me by the wrist and led me to the window seat, where she pushed the bread aside and gestured to me to sit beside her. When she spoke, it was almost soundless, so that I had to lean in and watch the shape of her mouth, as the deaf do.

“You are right to say that I dissemble. This”—she plucked at her widow’s clothes—“is a costume I have been obliged to wear these past twelve years, for a shred of respectability.” She sighed. “I was the youngest daughter of a county gentleman in Cambridgeshire with more family pride than income, who threw me out when I got with child. I tried to support us with sewing and little jobs but in the end I was forced to go to the cathedral in Ely and beg for alms. John Langworth was a canon there. He took a liking to me. I curse the day I ever knocked on that door, but what’s done is done.” She shrugged, as if the rest were obvious.

“He made you his mistress?”

“He paid for the boy’s education and a roof over our heads. Many are not so lucky. And he wouldn’t be the first churchman to keep a woman.”

“That much is certain. But he is not the boy’s father?”

“No. The man who sired Matthias is long gone. But since Langworth has paid for his upbringing, I suppose he has a claim to be something like a father. He brought us here with him when he was appointed canon six years ago.”

That at least explained how Langworth could feel entitled to make use of the boy without any of the compunction a father might feel about gambling with his son’s life.

“I have posed as a widow since my son was born,” she continued. “Gray is not even my real name, though Alys is.” She gave a little sad laugh, then looked up sharply, her face suddenly serious. “What can I do? I had no idea Matthias’s life was in danger, and if more children might die …” She bit at the skin around her fingers and I realised that beneath the cool poise I had admired from a distance lay a welter of fear and confusion, a life lived under the threat of destitution, at the mercy of someone else’s demands. She knew too well what it meant to live by dissembling.

“Testify for me,” I whispered. “Tell the queen’s justice what you were asked to do.”

“At the assizes? In a public courtroom?”

“No. A written deposition. One you will swear by.”

She shook her head.

“My word against Langworth, Sykes, and Mayor Fitzwalter?” She snorted. “I would succeed only in stirring up their anger against me. And if I stand in their way, it is much easier to remove me than abandon their plans. And then what becomes of my son?”

“Is that what happened to Sir Edward Kingsley? Did he threaten to stand in their way, in the end?” So the mayor was the fourth guardian. I absorbed this news with a level expression.

“I don’t know what happened to Edward Kingsley,” she said, looking me right in the eye. “Though I don’t mourn him.”

“Testify, Alys. Back me up with the truth, against their lies. You could be free of Langworth.”

“You really think they would listen to us? A foreigner and a woman, against the mayor, a canon of the cathedral, and a physician?” She shook her head with a dry laugh, as if my naïveté amused her.

I pushed my hands through my hair in frustration. This was Tom Garth’s attitude too; was justice so easily bought and sold in this town that no one dared stand up and speak the truth? Would it always be the same: corrupt and self-serving men exploiting those who had no voice, because they were comfortably sure they would never be challenged? Certainly it would, if no one had the courage to at least try and face them down.

“I am not talking about justice as this town understands it,” I said softly. “There are those who will listen to me.”

I stood and stretched in the dusty sunlight. The widow watched me, appraising; I saw how her eyes travelled over my body. Twelve years at the mercy of Langworth, I thought. God, it is a cruel thing to be born a woman.

“Who are you?” she whispered.

“Someone who wants to help you. Give it some thought, at least,” I said, turning to the door. “You could save yourself from Langworth. And your son from Saint Thomas.”

“And who would provide for us then? Will you, Master Filippo, or whatever your real name is? I didn’t think so. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices.”

“Would you sacrifice your son?”

She stood too and looked at me, wrapping her arms around her chest as if hugging herself against a coming assault.

“Thank you for helping us,” she said, in a tone of empty politeness. “You may see yourself out now.” And she watched me all the way to the door, her face guarded once more against any show of emotion. I had done my best, I thought, as I ran down the wide stairs and past the staring servant. I had no promise that she would help me, and if she chose to tell Langworth what I had just told her, he might well see fit to try and finish me off this very night, before I had a chance to spill a word of it to the queen’s justice. I felt a tightness in my chest and throat; so much was still unknown, the outcome still uncertain. By tomorrow we would see how the cards would fall. For Sophia, Harry, and me, a bad hand could mean the difference between life and death.

I walked back to the marketplace, emptying now as people made their way towards the cathedral to wait for divine service, baskets of goods hanging from their arms, jostling and chatting as they funnelled towards the gatehouse. I had just edged into the crowd when I felt a tug at my sleeve and turned to see Rebecca beside me, wide-eyed. In my brooding on my exchange with the Widow Gray, I had all but forgotten what I had asked the girl to find out for me. Her apprehensive expression gave me a terrible sense of foreboding; I beckoned her over to one side, out of the flow of people.

“What you asked me to find out? It is the most curious thing, but not a few moments after you left the stall, one of the goodwives from the North Gate parish came bustling up to tell Mistress Blunt that apparently Doctor Sykes was called out at first light to the Kingsley house to attend the old housekeeper.” Her hand still rested on my sleeve and her eyes were bright with the excitement of sharing her news; now she adjusted her face to a more appropriately sombre mien. “It is the saddest thing, but it seems the old woman had a bad fall in the night. Down some steps to the cellar, so the goodwife said, though I don’t know where she had that from. But Doctor Sykes said there was nothing he could do to save her by the time he arrived.”

“I’m sure he did his best,” I said, mechanically. I felt as if a stone had lodged in my chest. I had known Meg was in danger; I had heard Langworth as good as say that she knew too much. She had seen the beggar boy in the kitchen at St. Gregory’s; she could have said so in a courtroom. Now she could say nothing. If the fall—which I had no doubt was the result of Langworth’s visit last night—had not killed her outright, Sykes with his bag of potions would certainly have made sure of it, even as he pretended to try and save her. Just like Sarah Garth. But had I not tried to warn Meg, I argued with my conscience; what more could I have done, when she was as good as resigned to whatever befell her there?

“It is so curious, though,” Rebecca was saying. “How did you know? To ask after old Meg, the very morning she died?”

“Did you say anything to Mistress Blunt about that?” I asked, lowering my voice.

“Not a word. But tell me. It is like you have the gift of seeing the future.” She smiled; this, I supposed, was meant as a compliment.

Yet somehow I am always too late to save people from it, I thought. Old Meg would join the parade of accusing faces I saw sometimes in dreams, the people who had died because I had not been able to protect them, because I had not moved fast enough, or else as a direct result of my actions. “You cannot blame yourself,” Walsingham had told me once, and he knew all too well what it meant to have blood on his hands for the sake of a greater cause. “You cannot be everywhere and save everyone, Bruno,” he had said. “You must make your choices. Sometimes there will be casualties. This is a war, after all. We fight it with intelligence and ciphers and hidden writings delivered in the dead of night, but it is a war nonetheless, and sometimes it will exact a price.”

“She had complained of feeling ill,” I said to Rebecca. “I was concerned for her. Perhaps she fainted and fell, poor thing.”

“Hm.” I had expected her to press further as to how I had become so intimate with the old woman in only a few days, but her mind was elsewhere. “And I have more news—I am bound over to appear as a witness at your trial.”

I looked at her. “You will speak the truth?”

“Of course.” She looked indignant. “I mean to persuade them of your innocence. He was my uncle, after all, and if I don’t think you killed him, why should they?”

I smiled, though I feared in her puppyish enthusiasm she might protest too much, which would be of no help to my case.

“They sometimes try to put words in your mouth,” I said. “Watch out for that.”

She looked scornful.

“I would not fall for those tricks. Signor Savolino, do you mean to stay in Canterbury after the assizes?” She twined a strand of hair through her fingers as she asked this, sucking absently at the end of it like a child.

“I shall decide that once I have learned whether they mean to put a rope around my neck.”

“But your friends at court, they would not let that happen, for certain. Even Mistress Blunt thinks you are innocent,” she added, as if this were the decisive verdict. I smiled. As an eyewitness to the queen’s brocades, I was clearly now redeemed in Mistress Blunt’s eyes. If only the rest of Canterbury could be so easily persuaded.

“They say the queen’s justice is expected this afternoon,” Rebecca said. “There is always quite a procession—everyone turns out along the High Street to watch him arrive. He will take the best rooms at the Cheker, they say, and all his clerks and servants too. Perhaps I may see you among the crowds later,” she added, looking up from under her lashes and twisting her hair. “You will want to see him in all his pomp?”

“I suppose. It would be as well to see the man who holds my life in his hands.” I tried to keep my tone cheerful but I could not ignore the tightness in my chest. To unravel this unholy mess I must not rely on Canterbury justice, that much was clear. My fortunes, and those of Sophia and Harry, were truly in the hands of this unknown man riding in from London. I only hoped that he was not so easily corrupted—though my English friends’ reports of the legal profession did not inspire too much optimism on that count.

I thanked Rebecca for her help and took my leave, pressing through the crowd towards Christ Church gate, unstrapping my knife from my belt and hiding it in my boot before I arrived so that Tom Garth would not confiscate it. After the previous night, I was not willing to enter the precincts without a weapon. I was anxious to be back at Harry’s. I had only a day to prepare the charges I wanted to bring against Langworth and Sykes and I needed to have them set out clearly if my story was not to sound even more improbable than it already did. Meg had been silenced, but there was still the old monk in the West Gate gaol—perhaps he could be made to testify to what he had seen. And there were the two buried bodies—the boy Denis and the one reckoned to be Thomas Becket—as evidence to my theory of the proposed miracle, even if the Widow Gray would not speak against Langworth. True, there was nothing to prove that he had killed Sir Edward Kingsley, but the fact that Kingsley had been on his way to Langworth’s house and that he had been killed by a crucifix that only someone with access to the crypt could have taken made it almost impossible to believe that anyone else could be guilty. Edward Kingsley must have crossed the treasurer, or threatened the plot in some way, and Langworth had decided to get rid of him. And yet unease continued to gnaw at my mind as I passed through the gatehouse into the precincts and took the path towards Harry’s house. Langworth was nothing if not subtle, and his friend Sykes was skilled in the use of poisons. If Kingsley had needed to be silenced, would the treasurer really have chosen to beat his former friend’s skull in with a crucifix right outside his, Langworth’s, house, in lieu of some less obvious means?

These doubts were dispelled as I passed the conduit house and saw Langworth himself standing at Harry’s front door, gesticulating wildly and pointing up at the windows, the sleeves of his robe fluttering in the breeze like the ragged wings of a crow. Harry was planted staunchly before the closed door, hands crossed in front of him and leaning on his stick with an implacable expression. He looked up and met my eye with something between relief and exasperation as I slowed to a halt some yards away from them, my mouth dry.

Though I was oddly relieved to see Langworth alive and apparently not too badly affected by my assault on him the night before, it was a relief that only lasted a moment. He turned and looked at me with such intense hatred that I found myself reaching instinctively towards my boot where my knife was hidden; I half expected him to hurl himself at me right there, and I knew in that instant that he meant to see me dead one way or another. Instead he curled and uncurled his fists several times, mastering his fury, and the smirking scar at the corner of his mouth turned white as he pressed his lips together until he was sure he had regained control of himself. I noticed that inside the collar of his black canon’s robe he had wrapped a white linen scarf around his neck, presumably to hide the bruising.

I swung the satchel to my back, suddenly conscious of the stolen book as if it was burning through the leather, and took a couple of measured paces towards them, trying to betray nothing with my face.

“Ah, Doctor Savolino,” Harry called out in a breezy tone, though I could see from his face that he was weary of this business. “Canon Langworth has come with a most singular set of accusations against you.”

“Really? Who have I murdered this time?” I smiled at Langworth; he needed a long moment of breathing through his nose and sucking in his cheeks before he was equal to replying.

“I do hope your wit doesn’t desert you when you stand before a judge, sir,” he said, his voice so tight it sounded almost as if he were still being choked. “We are all looking forward to the performance. It is a charge of theft, as you well know.”

“What I can’t make out,” Harry said, with the same forced cheeriness, “is what you are supposed to have stolen. It seems the canon treasurer cannot be specific on that count, which I can’t help feeling undermines the force of his accusation. With the greatest respect,” he added, with a small dip of the head to Langworth.

“I believe my house has been broken into,” the treasurer said, fixing me with a hard stare. “Some personal items of value have been taken, as well as money. I believe it is also possible that the security of the cathedral treasury has been breached, which is a far graver matter.”

“Indeed,” I said, nodding to show that I appreciated the gravity. “How much has been taken from the treasury?”

“I—I am not certain yet,” he faltered. “But if money has been taken from God’s house, well, that would be a capital offence.”

“Yes, indeed. And it would surely cast doubt on the competence of whoever is responsible for the security of the treasury,” I said pleasantly. “But why do you suppose I have anything to do with it?”

“Tom Garth says he saw you abroad in the precincts last night. Don’t play games with me,” Langworth hissed, through his teeth. “You are already charged with murder and will be charged with attempted murder too. Nicholas Kingsley has told me how you tried to kill him and leave him for dead when he caught you attempting to steal from his father’s cellar.” Satisfied with the effect of this barb, he swung his warning finger around to include Harry. “Either you let me search your house now, Robinson, or I shall come back with armed men and a warrant from the constable, and then we shall see what we find. Eh?”

His voice was so brittle as he spoke that the veins at his temples stood out like cords against his pale skin, and he looked for all the world like a man straining at his closestool, so much so that I could not stifle a laugh in time. Langworth’s throat—what could be seen of it—mottled with fury and the flush spread up over his gaunt cheeks until his eyes bulged and it seemed his head might explode. He swept his robe around him with a practised gesture and turned on his heel.

“By God you will pay for that laughter. You will all pay,” he said, jabbing the pointing finger at my face as he stalked away towards the cathedral like the Devil in a masque delivering his final ominous curse.

A peal of bells clanged out from the bell tower behind us, making me start. Harry watched Langworth’s retreating back and slumped forward over his stick, as if the breath had been knocked out of him.

“By God, I’m paying for it already, Bruno,” he muttered. “Sometimes I can’t help thinking he has sent you here to test my faith.”

“God?”

“Walsingham.” He looked at me darkly, then glanced up at the top storey of his house. “He is serious, you know.” He jerked his head in Langworth’s direction. “Whatever you took from him, he wants it back and he will get his warrant and his men-at-arms and return to search the place. If she is found, we’ll all be hanged.” He scratched a hand across his silver stubble. “You and I must attend Holy Communion now. As must Langworth—at least we can keep an eye on him. I will lock the house soundly and when we come out we had better put her somewhere more convenient. And I am still not shaved—once again I must face the dean looking like a tramp.” He turned back to me. “And where’s my bloody breakfast? You are without doubt the worst servant I have ever had under my roof.”

I acknowledged this with a weary grin, realising that I had left the bread at the Widow Gray’s house.

“You will have your reward some day, Harry, I promise.”

“Huh. In heaven, perhaps. Now, go up quickly and tell her not to stir a muscle. I wouldn’t put it past that dog to have someone break in and turn the place upside down while we are at prayer.” His eyes narrowed as he looked back towards the cathedral.

I pushed my hands through my hair and cast my eyes up to the bell tower. Where the Devil was I supposed to put Sophia—and the book—out of Langworth’s reach for the next few hours?

I found her slumped on the truckle bed, dressed in clothes of mine that she had evidently pulled out from my travelling bag and reading my old battered copy of Copernicus, the one I had carried halfway across Europe. She sat up when she saw me and there was something wary about her smile, as if she feared she would be reprimanded. The shirt was too broad for her across the shoulders and she had laced it only loosely; as she moved it slipped down, revealing one shoulder and the curve of her collarbone. I swallowed. She had not bound her breasts either and the small pointed shape of them was visible through the thin linen. I walked across the room to the window so that she would not see how badly I wanted to push her down on the mattress and tear it from her.

“My last clean shirt,” I said softly, still not looking at her.

“Sorry. I had to take off those hideous skirts Madame Fleury dressed me in last night. They belonged to Olivier’s grandmother, apparently. They smell like she died in them.”

I laughed and came to sit on the end of the bed, watching her. She returned my gaze steadily but I could not be sure what I read there.

“How do you like Copernicus?” I indicated the book. “I’m afraid you will find no magic spells in those pages.”

The corner of her mouth twisted into a wry smile.

“I don’t suppose even you would be so bold or so foolish as to carry books of magic about the country, Bruno,” she said. There was a hint of sadness in her smile. “Though God knows we could do with a magic spell at the moment.”

“Even more so now,” I said, and told her of Langworth’s intention to return with armed men to search the house. She put her face in her hands and sank back against the wall. I took it for crying and leaned closer to rest a hand on her arm, but she lowered her hands and looked at me with the blankness of exhaustion.

“Is he looking for me? Or that book you are carrying about with you as if it were a newborn infant?”

“I don’t think he saw you last night. Not clearly enough to recognise you, anyway, or he would have made reference to it as a threat, I’m sure of it. But he knows I have the book and he can’t tell the constable what he’s really searching for. I would not put it past him to contrive that a purse of money from the treasury should be found here too—that would as good as seal my sentence. Christ!” I ran a hand through my hair and thumped my fist into the mattress. “He means to finish me off one way or another. How did I not see the danger?”

Sophia crept forward and gently laid her forehead against my shoulder, her hand on my thigh.

“I am so sorry, Bruno. I had no idea it would be so tangled. Becket, the dead boys—I knew nothing of any of it. I thought it would be a simple matter of proving that Nicholas Kingsley did it so that I could be free. I believed he did. I never imagined you would end up—”

She left the words unspoken.

“The fault is mine. I should have seen the danger.”

“But then, would you still have come?”

“Probably.”

She looked up at me, eyes wide.

“Why?”

“You know why, Sophia.”

She said nothing, only continued to look at me expectantly with that unreadable expression. Did she need to hear me say aloud that I loved her? The words were poised on my tongue, but some unexplained instinct held them back. Instead I reached for her hand and she twined her fingers with mine, but it seemed more a gesture of sorrow. We were both under sentence of death now, unless a miracle happened, and even Thomas Becket was unlikely to deliver one of those.

Something, some phrase I had heard that morning chafed at my mind, as if I had missed a vital part of the picture, but when I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate to recall what it might have been, I was distracted by a great shuddering sob from Sophia that racked her thin body as she leant into me, a sob that seemed to contain all the frustration and rage of the past year. I held her while she vented her pain, her face pressed to my shoulder, my cheek leaning against her hair, but although she clung to me like a child with night terrors, I sensed with a growing hollowness in my chest that after the heightened excitement of the night before, I had passed back into my previous role of reassuring friend, a part I hoped I had left behind. I kissed her hair softly. Well, I could be patient. At this moment we were both in dire need of a friend.