Sacrilege

Chapter 9

In the privacy of my chamber at the inn, with the door firmly locked against the solicitous attentions of the landlady, I sat on the low bed, my legs crossed under me, hunched over a new sheet of paper with the letter and the cipher spread out before me, but when I applied myself to the first lines, I had another surprise. As I pressed on, it became clear that Langworth’s correspondent was writing to him in Spanish. This was curious in itself, given that it was dated from Paris, but as the sense slowly emerged from the mass of numbers like a picture appearing out of fog, I felt a smile stealing across my face as I guessed at the identity of the author. More than once I had to pause, wiping lines of sweat from my brow and shaking my head in disbelief at what I read.

As for this our most blessed and holy enterprise, wrote the author of the letter from Paris, His Catholic Majesty King Philip urges our brothers in England to remain steadfast and to regard the present difficulties as temporary.

God has delivered into our hands the Prince of Orange, whose death is surely the blow that will topple the fragile edifice of the heretic church in Europe. With English troops committed to the war in the Netherlands, Elizabeth’s defences will be weakened. At that moment, we will pray most fervently for a miracle from Saint Thomas, by the grace of God. As a sign of his good faith King Philip entrusts to the servants of the blessed saint his holy oil in readiness.

More pious exhortations followed, to trust in God and continue to serve him with patience in this matter.

We thank you for your recent news of my lord H and pray God grant his freedom, which we expect any day.

I sat back on my heels and breathed out slowly to steady myself. “Bernadino de Mendoza,” I whispered into the stifling air of my small room, as if speaking his name aloud would provide confirmation of my suspicions. For who else would be writing in his mother tongue from Paris but the gruff Spanish ambassador whom I had met the previous autumn at Salisbury Court? It was the nobleman Mendoza who had brought the promise of King Philip’s support to the invasion conspiracy, giving the fantasies of Henry Howard and the Duke of Guise some prospect of becoming reality. Queen Elizabeth had expelled him from London at the beginning of this year when his part in the plot was discovered, and I knew King Philip had sent him directly to Paris, where he had joined forces with Guise and his Catholic League, as well as those exiled English Catholics who still dreamed of putting Mary Stuart on the English throne.

So Langworth was corresponding with Mendoza. Harry Robinson must be ignorant of this, or Walsingham would have mentioned it. I pursed my lips and breathed out slowly. The conspirators who had gathered at Salisbury Court the previous autumn had been routed, but it seemed those who had driven the plot were still trying to keep it alive, waiting for the right moment to revive it. Langworth had as good as said so to Samuel. Now, this letter implied, the murder of William of Orange would hasten that moment; if the queen sent English troops to support the Protestants in the Netherlands, England’s own defences would be weakened against a joint attack by Spain and Guise’s French army. We will pray most fervently for a miracle from Saint Thomas, Mendoza had underlined. A pious figure of speech, or something more concrete? And what was the “holy oil”?

Whatever the meaning, I needed to send the information to Walsingham as quickly as possible. I carefully folded the original ciphered letter together with my translation of it and the code I had copied and tucked them all back into my purse, lest anyone should find their way into my chamber. For obvious reasons, I had little faith in locks, though I turned the key anyway. In the passageway downstairs I was intercepted by the landlady, Marina, before I could reach the door. She gave a squeal of delight, as if I were a long-anticipated surprise, and scolded me playfully for my absence at breakfast.

“Why, we hardly see you, Master Savolino, you are so busy with your affairs. Quite the mystery, you are. What can keep you abroad in the city at all hours, I wonder?” She sent me a look laden with innuendo from beneath her eyelashes. I returned a patient smile. “And here you are off out again! Where to this time, may I ask?”

I was tempted to reply that she may not, but knew from experience that it is prudent to keep on the right side of your host.

“I have a sudden desire to eat an orange,” I said. “I was going out to the market—unless you sell them here?” I raised my eyes in the direction of the taproom. She swatted at me in mock outrage.

“Do I look like an orange-girl to you?”

Orange-sellers, at least in London, were widely regarded as prostitutes. I glanced down at the mound of bosom straining against her corset and back up to her garishly painted mouth. With a basket of oranges under her arm she would not have looked out of place in a London theatre or pleasure-garden, save perhaps for her age, which was hard to judge under the makeup.

“Not at all. I meant no offence.”

“None taken.” She giggled again, then beckoned me back along the passage. “But just for you, I’m sure I can find an orange tucked away somewhere. They’re expensive, mind.”

“I will pay, of course.”

“Oh, you can make it up to me later.” She winked.

God in heaven. I smiled again, more nervously this time, and followed her along the shadowy corridor towards the kitchen, wondering what price she had in mind.

“Here,” she said, pushing past the cook and kitchen maid and bending to rummage in a large basket before emerging triumphant, a small, wizened orange in her hand. “Careful eating that in your room, Master Savolino,” she said, making her voice husky. “You could get very sticky. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you, won’t you?”

I thanked her, then hurried back to my room as fast as I could, aware that she was watching me until I reached the stairs. Marina was harmless, I was sure, but the mere fact that she had decided to take a special interest in me was a disadvantage when I had hoped to pass unobserved at the inn.

With the door to my chamber locked again, I worked quickly, squeezing the juice from the orange into the shallow dish that had held the candle by my bed. I took a quill and new sheet of paper from my bag and dipped the sharpened nib into the juice. While it was still fresh, I copied out the decoded letter, noting that it was sent to Langworth and reproducing the author’s signature symbol, in the hope that Walsingham would be able to corroborate it as Mendoza’s. Underneath I wrote out the cipher, so that he would have it for future reference.

I waved the paper, watching as the juice dried and the words slowly faded to nothing, leaving the sheet blank, if a little warped. It was an old trick, well known to those familiar with secret correspondence; if the letter were to fall into the hands of anyone suspicious of its contents the first thing they would do would be to hold it up to the flame of a candle to see if there was a hidden message. I could only hope that no one would suspect the weavers of carrying intelligence to London, if they agreed to take the letter.

When the paper was dry, I wiped the nib of the quill, took some real ink, and scribbled a short note to Sidney on the other side, one that would not look unusual if anyone were to glance at the letter. “I am enjoying the sights of Canterbury and have hopes that my research into ecclesiastical history will soon bear fruit,” I wrote, hoping he would pick up on the mention of fruit. “I expect to be here a little longer as there is much work still to be done and it would cheer me to hear from you soon. Your messenger will find me at the Cheker of Hope, where I have much news for him.” I paused, the pen hovering over the paper, wondering if I should add more. The crucial thing was that Walsingham should know the invasion conspiracy was still active in Paris; it might make the queen think twice before committing troops to the war in the Netherlands. By suggesting that Sidney send his own private messenger with any letters, I was also implying that the usual channels of communication with Canterbury were not to be trusted. I signed the letter “Filippo” and sealed it.

This time it was Olivier’s sister Hélène who opened the door at the weavers’ house. She ushered me in quickly, her face pinched with anxiety. From behind her I heard the rhythmic clatter of the looms and women’s voices.

“Wait here. I will fetch my brother.”

“I’m sorry if I upset you earlier,” I said, as she turned towards the stairs. “I didn’t know about your son.”

She lowered her eyes, twisting her fingers together.

“How could you? No one here cares to know.” She fell silent for a moment, then raised her eyes and I saw they were full of tears. “Why does God test us like this?” she burst out, her fists clenched. “When all we have ever done is try to defend His truth?”

I shook my head. “I cannot defend or explain Him, I’m afraid. That’s why I gave up theology.”

“Sometimes it begins to look as if He is on the side of the Catholics after all. May God forgive me,” she added quickly, glancing around in case anyone had overheard.

“I often think He has turned His back on our petty squabbles altogether.”

She gave me a brief, sad smile.

“My Denis. He was all I had,” she whispered, the sudden passion gone out of her, seeming to shrink her again. “Why would they take him?”

“What makes you think someone took him?” I asked.

She shrugged, helpless.

“I don’t know … Another boy was found dead not long before. On a rubbish heap. Cut in pieces.”

“I had heard. But there is no reason to suppose they are connected, is there?”

“The worst is not knowing. It makes you imagine …” She rubbed brusquely at her cheek with the sleeve of her dress. “But it does no good to dwell on it. Let me find Olivier.”

Olivier, when he arrived, seemed irritated to see me again, but he reluctantly agreed to pass on my letter to one of the weavers who would be leaving for London the following day. I handed him some coins for the man’s trouble and told him the message must be carried urgently to Sir Philip Sidney at Barn Elms, assuring him that the letter was a request for more resources that would allow us to leave Canterbury all the sooner. I asked after Sophia, and he told me curtly that she was sleeping.

“You can’t keep coming to this house,” he said as I was leaving, his hand resting on the latch. “My father is afraid you will be noticed. Tomorrow morning I will come and find you at the Cheker and you can give me your news then.”

I strongly suspected that this was a ruse to keep me away from Sophia, but for the moment, with her safety still dependent on his family’s goodwill, there seemed little point in arguing. I merely nodded and asked him to find me there at breakfast.

It was almost time for me to dine with Harry, but on my way back through the town I made a detour in search of a locksmith. The keys I had taken from Langworth’s hidden chest were weighing down my pouch. I could only hope that the treasurer had been so occupied with the dean’s interest in his ledgers that he had not had time to return to his secret room and notice anything was missing. If I could make copies of the keys and restore the originals to the strongbox while Langworth was out at the chapter meeting, there was a chance that my theft might go undiscovered for the moment. Without any clue as to what the keys might open, I was guessing in the dark, but the fact that they had been so carefully hidden meant they must have some significance. There was always a chance that one had been taken from Sir Edward Kingsley’s belt as he lay dying. Somehow, I must contrive to find a means of trying the lock of his mysterious cellar during my visit to St. Gregory’s later that night.

Tom Garth waved me through the main gate into the cathedral precincts, after I had held up my hands to show him I had no knife at my belt. This time I had thought it prudent to tuck the knife inside my boot. Now that I knew I had an enemy within the cathedral, I had no intention of making myself any more vulnerable than I already felt, working here alone, a stranger and a foreigner with Harry Robinson my only ally—Harry, whom I was not sure I could trust and who I knew did not trust me.

It was not yet noon and I had hoped for a chance to talk to Harry alone while Samuel was preparing the meal, but before I could reach his house I spotted him by the Middle Gate, leaning on his stick and deep in conversation with a tall man, almost completely bald and wearing a black clerical robe. Harry nodded a greeting and his companion turned with a flustered expression, his hands folded inside the sleeves of his gown.

“Good day to you,” Harry announced with a cheerful smile as I approached. “Dean Rogers—may I introduce you to the esteemed Doctor Filippo Savolino, a scholar of Padua and Oxford and friend of the Sidney family, who is visiting me from London for a few days?” He gave a little flourish with his outstretched hand; I had the impression that he relished the chance to remind the dean of his connections at court.

I bowed to Dean Rogers, curious to see the man who had unknowingly saved me from discovery in Langworth’s bedchamber earlier. He had a long, equine face, large brown eyes and a harried air about him, as though he were constantly worried that he ought to be somewhere else. He smiled as he shook my hand.

“It is a pleasure to welcome you to Canterbury, Doctor Savolino,” he said. “I hope we will have the honour of seeing you at divine service here during your visit?”

“I look forward to it. I have heard glowing reports of your music.”

“Mm.” He looked vaguely up at the towers of the cathedral behind me. “You will find our services conducted according to the letter of the queen’s edicts. You know, the archbishop says there has been talk of Her Majesty visiting Canterbury as part of her summer progress next year. Perhaps a favourable report from her friends at court may help to influence her in that direction?” His smile grew brighter, but his eyes were sharp.

I inclined my head in acknowledgement.

“It is some years since she has favoured us with a visit,” he persisted, “but I’m sure she would appreciate the many ways in which we endeavour to maintain the preeminence of our cathedral, while also fulfilling our duties in the community—ah, education of the poor, and so on …” His words trailed off into a little nervous laugh; it sounded as though he had rehearsed this speech and used it before.

They are all afraid of losing their place, I thought. No wonder my presence here makes Harry nervous.

“I’m sure she would,” I said, “and I will mention as much to the Sidney family on my return.” The dean smiled gratefully and I could not resist adding, “Though she may like to postpone her visit until there are fewer unnatural deaths here.”

He blanched.

“I pray you—our recent tragedy is no matter for joking, Doctor Savolino. It was a dreadful shock to everyone that one of our most respected citizens could be struck down on hallowed ground, but I can assure you that such an occurrence is quite without precedent—”

“Saving Thomas Becket, of course,” Harry remarked.

The dean looked irritated.

“There is no need for anyone to fear on that account—our magistrate was killed by his wife in cold blood, for profit, and she will pay the price as soon as she is found. As for the unfortunate death of the apothecary this morning, to which I suppose you refer—it is a clear case of robbery and assault, of which I’m sure you see far worse in London. I’m afraid the influx of refugees makes such things a hazard.” He smiled again, as if everything were now cleared up, but the way he twisted his fingers together betrayed his agitation. “Well, I have much to do before this afternoon’s chapter meeting. You must do me the honour of dining at my table soon, Doctor Savolino. We are always glad of new company.”

I glanced at Harry; he sucked in his cheeks and looked away. Why was he so set against the idea of my sharing a table with the dean and the other canons, I wondered.

“You’re early,” Harry said, after the dean bade us good morning and strode away in the direction of the Archbishop’s Palace. “Samuel is not yet back from his morning’s errands. You may as well come in, though.”

This was welcome news to me. When we were inside the house, Harry gestured me into the small parlour and offered me the same seat I had occupied the day before. He pulled up a chair opposite and leaned forward, hands resting on his knees.

“You heard about the apothecary’s murder, then?”

“More than heard. I found him.”

“You are not serious?”

I told him briefly of my visit to the apothecary earlier and my encounter with the constable. Harry’s face grew grave.

“This is a bad business,” he said, lowering his voice. “The whole town is talking about the murder, and you are first witness to finding the body. You could hardly have contrived to make yourself more noticeable. Soon everyone will know your name. Think yourself lucky if they don’t try and pin the deed on you.”

“Me?” I laughed, assuming it was one of his dry jokes, until I saw his expression. “Why should they suspect me?”

Harry rolled his eyes.

“Look at yourself. Your skin, your accent. People here like the idea of murderous foreigners. Much easier than accepting one of their neighbours might be a killer.”

I nodded grimly.

“Well, I will have to rely on the truth. Can you think of any reason why someone would want to kill the apothecary?”

Harry shrugged.

“Most likely someone felt he cheated them. Maybe he sold them a remedy that didn’t work, or prescribed a fatal dose. Apothecaries do nothing but guess, for all they pretend to be men of physic.” He chuckled, but this time I did not join in. “In any case, what concern is it of yours?”

“A fatal dose,” I repeated. Dosis sola facit venenum. Had Fitch poisoned someone with a fatal dose of belladonna? He had certainly been afraid of doing so, according to the notes that were burned the night he was killed. “I wondered if his death might be connected to Edward Kingsley’s.”

Harry frowned.

“What makes you think that?”

I hesitated; I could not tell him about the conversation I had overheard between Langworth and Samuel. I had hardly had time to gather my own thoughts about it. Langworth had been to Fitch’s shop this morning to remove something; that much was clear. But was it something missed by the person who had ransacked the premises the night before, when Fitch was killed—something only Langworth knew how to find? Or was it he who had turned the shop upside down? Langworth seemed such a calculating man; I could not picture him chasing Fitch around the workshop in a frenzy, beating his skull in with a poker. “The place was left in such disarray,” he had said to Samuel; was that an observation or a reproach? I wished I had paid more attention to his tone.

“He was killed in the same manner,” I said. “His head beaten in.”

“That proves nothing. What else?”

“Ezekiel Sykes,” I said eventually. “Is he a good physician?”

“He’s an expensive one, which some fools mistake for skill. Why do you ask?”

“I’m curious about him. I heard he was something of an alchemist.”

“Perhaps. Don’t all physicians dabble in it? Listen, Bruno.” He sighed and laboriously stretched out his stiff leg, massaging it above the knee. “You seem determined to fix your attention on the most prominent men of the town. Maybe you have your reasons, but you had better make certain of your suspicions before you dare point a finger, or you will make yourself a target.”

I paused for a moment to master the irritation I felt at his tone.

“I have accused no one, Harry, and I would not dream of doing so without evidence I was sure of. But if eminent men in the town have committed murder, it is all the more important that they should be brought to justice.”

“You forget that it is the eminent men who dispense justice,” Harry said, with a resignation that suggested such things could not be changed or resisted. I thought of Tom Garth and his fury at Nicholas Kingsley the night before—the fury of a man who knows he is impotent against powerful interests. He spoke of taking the law into his own hands—did that include murder? Sykes had a part in that story too, though there was still much I didn’t know.

I watched Harry as he flexed one bony hand on his knee and studied it. I would make little progress here unless I had him as an ally, but I needed to break his unquestioning trust in Samuel.

“The dean seems anxious for the queen’s approval,” I remarked, looking out of the window towards the vast walls of the cathedral outside.

He grunted. “Is it any wonder? There are those on the Privy Council who would like to close us down and take the money for the queen’s treasury, Walsingham chief among them.” He shook his head. “Let’s not pretend to be ignorant of that. But the Prince of Orange changes things. If the queen needs quick money for a war, then I think this time our future might really be in danger.” His hand bunched into a fist as he spoke, then he glanced up quickly to gauge my response.

“I am not here to find reasons to dissolve the foundation,” I said. “My business is only what I told you. But if this murder involves someone within the cathedral chapter, I cannot ignore it.”

“You imply that I would do so?”

“Not at all,” I said, trying to sound reassuring. He sucked in his cheeks for a moment, still holding my gaze.

“Are you here to report on me? You may as well be honest.”

“No, Harry. I am here to find out who killed Sir Edward Kingsley so that his wife need not fear for her life. But it begins to look as if this murder is part of something greater.”

He leaned forward, his expression of hostility giving way to interest.

“Tell me what you have found out, then.”

I hesitated. “It’s possible that Langworth—” I broke off at the sound of the door latch; Harry sat upright too.

“Only Samuel,” he said. “You were saying?”

I glanced over my shoulder at the parlour door and my hand moved instinctively to the pouch at my belt, where my fingers closed around the shape of Langworth’s keys.

“Nothing. Speculation. Another time, perhaps.”

THE MEAL PASSED awkwardly. Harry seemed angry that I refused to speak in front of Samuel, though he did not say as much, and I presumed he was also irritated that I was still concentrating my suspicions on Langworth after his warning. He made a point of talking to Samuel about cathedral business that was of no relevance to me and I was not sure who I resented more by the time we had finished the plain stew of vegetables with thin slices of salt beef—Samuel for the dark, insinuating glances he shot from under his eyebrows when he thought I wasn’t looking, or Harry for his stubbornness. I was relieved when Samuel cleared the plates away and Harry announced that he must prepare for the chapter meeting.

I told Harry I wanted to accept his offer to show me the cathedral library and he grudgingly agreed to take me on his way to the Chapter House, though his manner towards me was still prickly and I could tell he was disinclined to do me any favours. But the library was close enough to Langworth’s house to give me a reasonable excuse for being in that part of the precincts while the canons were occupied with their meeting; I hoped I might be able to replace the keys and letter I had stolen before the treasurer noticed anything had been touched.

“WHAT IS IT you want to look at, exactly, Signor Savolino?” The canon librarian regarded me with caution. He wore his advanced years well, though he stooped a little and I could see the joints of his fingers were stiff and swollen as he leafed absently through a large manuscript volume on the desk in front of him. Light fell through a tall arched window behind him, illuminating his few remaining tufts of hair into brilliant white. When he looked up, his face was deeply scored with lines that branched and bisected around his features like a map of a river delta.

“I am interested in the history of Saint Thomas, above all,” I said, with a pleasant smile.

“An unusual field of study for an Italian Protestant,” he remarked, glancing sideways at me as he levered himself up and crossed to the cases against the wall, stacked high with a jumble of books in precarious piles. Many looked to be in poor condition, their bindings gnawed by mice, pages spotted with damp. What good was it, I thought, with a stab of irritation, to save books from the destruction of a library only to neglect them like this, thrown together carelessly like corpses in a plague grave?

I thought I detected a note of suspicion in the old man’s voice, so I broadened my smile further.

“I suppose I have always believed we might avoid falling into the errors of the past by understanding them, rather than by burying them,” I said. “Even if we regard them as mere superstition, there is something to be learned about human folly from the legends of our forefathers, do you not think?”

He nodded with a speculative expression.

“Well said. We may as well destroy all libraries if we do not take lessons from the chronicles of history. And now,” he said, folding his hands together and making an effort to smile, “I must get along to the chapter meeting. I will leave you in the care of my assistant, who will endeavour to find you the books you want.” He indicated a morose-looking young man in the robes of a minor canon who was copying something laboriously at a desk in the corner. “Geoffrey! Our guest wants chronicles of the life of Saint Thomas—see what you can find for him,” he called, in a peremptory tone.

Silently, though with obvious bad grace, Geoffrey rose from his seat and made his way without haste to one of the book stacks. I privately doubted whether the young man could find anything on those shelves, but I thanked the librarian and settled at a desk set in an alcove beneath one of the windows, which must once have held a statue when this old chapel was still used for worship. The assistant Geoffrey, who communicated only in monosyllables, made a slow search of the shelves and returned with a small pile of books, which he dropped heavily in front of me before resuming his own task, though I noticed he moved his books and papers to another desk from which he could usefully keep me in his line of sight. I nodded my thanks and began shuffling the volumes with the appearance of interest, wondering how soon I could leave for Langworth’s house without seeming suspicious. The only sound in the empty library was the young canon’s heavy breathing through his mouth and the scratching of his pen.

The first book on the pile was a bound manuscript bearing the title Quadrilogus, clearly of some antiquity, which on closer inspection proved to be a collection of more or less fantastical accounts of the life of Thomas Becket produced by various English and French monks three centuries earlier. Beneath it, the Vita of Robert of Cricklade, a twelfth-century life of the former archbishop. I sighed, flicking idly through the pages, feigning interest and offering an insipid smile to the young assistant whenever he glanced in my direction, which was more often than was strictly necessary. I reminded myself that the surest way to look suspicious was to behave as if I feared suspicion.

The air of the library was thick with the smell of dust and old paper—usually a smell I savoured, but today I felt stifled by it. A damp heat stuck my shirt to my back and inside my boot, the handle of my knife dug into my ankle. I wiped my forehead on my sleeve and leaned my head on my left hand, my elbow propped up on the table as I skimmed the book, feeling an unreasonable irritation clenching like a fist inside my chest. What on earth was I doing here, sneaking around as if I were a thief among men who at best distrusted and at worst hated me, tangling myself in two murders that had nothing to do with me, all for the sake of a woman? Ah, but was it really all for a woman, responded another, more cynical voice in the depths of my mind. Was it not more truthfully your own absurd tenacity, this voice continued, that same dogged refusal to back down that forced you to become a fugitive in your own country and an exile through Europe, living by your wits for the past eight years, because you had to prove that you knew more than everyone else? I pushed my hair off my face and gritted my teeth. Men have committed greater acts of folly than this for a woman before, I countered; in any case, was I not permitted a little licence? Every reckless or impulsive decision I had made in my life until now had been in the pursuit of knowledge. All through the years when other young men were risking their dignity or their lives fighting over women, I had dared everything for the sake of books I was forbidden to touch, in search of answers to questions I had been told I should not ask. Surely now, at the age of thirty-six, I was allowed a little ordinary folly?

Yet, if I were completely honest, I thought, curling my lip as I watched the assistant librarian rummage absentmindedly in his ear with a forefinger and examine the result, my motives were not altogether selfless. If Sophia was cleared of murder, she stood to inherit all her late husband’s property. She would have achieved her heart’s greatest desire—independence. And you think she will share it with you, once she has it? cut in that same mocking voice. Marry you, so that you can stay in England, living off the profits of her first ill-fated marriage—is that what you hope for? You think she would win her independence and give it straight up again—knowing her opinion of men? Do you really imagine she sees you differently?

I clicked my tongue impatiently, causing the assistant librarian to jerk his head up with a hard stare in my direction. I had not confronted the possible end of this adventure so starkly until now, and it was a shock to acknowledge the truth of my own secret hopes. It was a life I had never dared imagine for myself, or desired, until now, because it seemed so far beyond the bounds of possibility: a wife, a home, a secure income, perhaps, in time, children. In Sophia I glimpsed the image of an entirely different future, and for the first time, I found it attracted me. Whether it would hold the same appeal for her was less certain.

Outside in the precincts the great bell swung into life, tolling the hour that signified the beginning of the chapter meeting. I flicked through another few pages, watching the young assistant Geoffrey, who had returned his attention to his work, his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth as he frowned in concentration. I was on the point of closing the book when I glanced down and one of the illustrations caught my eye. It was a plan of the cathedral, made at the time the first shrine was built. The crypt was clearly marked, as were all the chantry chapels that stuck out like fins either side of the vast body of the cathedral, as if it were some enormous sea creature. I peered closer; the treasury was not marked—it must have been built later—but the chapel it adjoined was drawn and someone had marked in ink over the book’s original plan a square shape with a dotted line, overlapping between the side chapel and the crypt. There were lines showing a staircase. Beside it, this unknown hand had written “sub-vault. Sometime prison.” Was this another way into the crypt, from beneath the treasury? The map was old; I wondered how many people knew about the sub-vault.

I closed the book and pushed my chair back.

“Thank you for your help,” I said to the assistant librarian, my voice sounding unnecessarily loud in the still air. “I’m afraid I must leave, but may I come back and read further tomorrow?” I indicated the pile of books; he gave a grunt that may or may not have been assent, and it was all I could do to keep myself from tearing down the stairs in my haste to get to Langworth’s house.

There was no sign of anyone along the path that led around the north side of the cathedral—I guessed every canon was required to attend the meeting in the Chapter House—and I was able to approach the rear of the treasurer’s house unobserved. The casement at the back still hung open on its hinges and again I squeezed myself uncomfortably through. This time it took only a matter of minutes to insert the blade of my knife into the lock of the door behind the tapestry in Langworth’s chamber and turn the lock; to my great relief I could make out through the gloom the shape of the packet Langworth had tossed inside the room in his haste to answer the door to the dean earlier, meaning he had not been back since and therefore would not have discovered my theft. I left the door to the chamber open so that a thin light filtered through into the back room. As quickly and quietly as I could, I lifted the loose hearth tile, replaced the keys and the original letter from Mendoza in the engraved casket, and carefully turned its clasp again. My heart was pounding as I fitted the tile back into place, but I was flushed with a sense of triumph. Langworth would never know anyone had found his secret hiding place, even as my transcript of his letter was making its way to London. The canon treasurer was already on his guard against me, but my one advantage over him was that he didn’t know that I was aware of this. For as long as he felt it was in his interest to keep playing along with me, thinking he was the one with the upper hand, I could hope to gain more time. But what had he meant when he said to Samuel that he had an idea of how to keep me out of trouble, if need be? I froze, glancing at the door, my skin prickled with gooseflesh despite the heat, but there was no sound except my own breathing. Whatever Langworth had in mind for me, I would need to keep my eyes at my back at all times.

The brown paper packet he had thrown inside the room when he was interrupted lay where it had fallen. I knelt and gingerly picked it up at the corners between the tips of my fingers so as not to leave any tell-tale marks on the wrapping. Almost as soon as he heard news of Fitch’s death, it seemed, he had hastened to the apothecary’s shop in search of something. What could be so important that he feared it might be found?

I untwisted the paper and laid it open on the boards. Inside were two black pills, about the size of a gold angel coin and the thickness of my little finger. I lifted one; it was solid enough not to crumble between my fingers, and as I bent to sniff it I caught an odour that was familiar but I could not quite place. I closed my eyes and tried to push from my mind every pressing thought and anxiety, focusing only on allowing my memory to dredge the silt of years in search of the source of that recognition. I sniffed the black lozenge again and there flashed into my mind an image of the infirmary at San Domenico Maggiore, a workbench strewn with chopped herbs, the brother infirmarian with his hooked nose hunched over a glass jar containing some substance with this faint, musky scent…

“Laudanum.” I whispered it aloud as the memory clicked into place, my voice immediately swallowed by the muffled silence. Laudanum—a remedy so powerful it was once considered to have magical properties, derived from the tears of the wild poppy. It was costly, certainly, but was that why Langworth had rushed to rescue it from the destruction of Fitch’s shop? There were doubtless other valuable substances there too, but he had gone specifically to bring back these two pills and hide them. I exhaled slowly, closed my eyes again, letting my memory feel its way.

I had learned a little of the uses of laudanum during my apprenticeship in the infirmary as a novice. The infirmarian had used it sparingly, because of the expense, but its effects were remarkable; given in a tincture with strong wine, it could temporarily dull pain and induce an intense sleep in which the patient appeared as good as dead. I recalled when one of the monks had fallen from a ladder while repairing a window in the monastery’s great church and shattered his leg; the infirmarian had tried to set it, but infection had taken hold and to save the poor brother’s life, it had been necessary to saw the leg off above the knee—an operation carried out with the man deep in the sleep of laudanum. As the infirmarian’s assistant, I had been the one to hold the man steady on the table as his leg was removed; I recalled watching in disbelief as the blade bit deep into his flesh while he barely twitched in his sleep. Dangerous stuff, the infirmarian had told me brusquely, seeing my amazement. Brings as much pain as it takes away. The Portuguese traders to the east smoked it, for a deceptively brief pleasure, but it drove them mad with demonic dreams. The Arabs had used it in medicine for centuries, he had explained, and because of that the Church had banned its use, believing that any substance beloved of the infidels must be the work of the Devil. So the Inquisition had ensured that for the best part of two centuries laudanum had fallen out of use in Europe, and it was only at the beginning of our own century that physicians had rediscovered its properties, thanks to the writings of—

“Paracelsus!” I smiled to myself in the half-light, turning the fat pill over between my fingers. Of course—Paracelsus had brought it back from his travels in Arabia in just this form, supposedly hidden in the pommel of his sword. “Stones of Immortality,” he called them, these black tablets made from laudanum, mixed with citrus juice and quintessence of gold.

I thought of the burned scrap of paper I had taken from Fitch’s hearth. Paracelsus again. The apothecary’s papers had been burned to conceal a reference to Paracelsus, and now here was Langworth spiriting away laudanum pills which also spoke, at least obliquely, of the alchemist’s work. What was the connection?

I wrapped the black pills back in their brown paper and sat for a moment in the shadows, thinking of Paracelsus. I had felt an affinity with the maverick Swiss alchemist since I first encountered his proscribed books as a young monk. I had admired the way he refused to content himself with the ideas of the past and had set out to overturn the lazy, narrow thinking of the academies, whose learning derived from tradition, not experiment. In the process he had acquired a reputation as a troublemaker and frequently found himself hounded out of the universities, accused of necromancy by those made fearful or jealous by his hunger for knowledge and his rebellious independence. Without consciously intending to follow in his footsteps, I had found myself repeating his experience half a century later, driven by (I liked to think) the same tenacious spirit of enquiry into the nature of this vast universe we inhabit.

Like me, Paracelsus had been fascinated by the secret wisdom and natural magic of Hermes Trismegistus, the Egyptian sage who was called the father of alchemy and natural magic. It was a lost manuscript of Hermes that I had followed from Italy to France to England and finally held in my hands for a moment last autumn, before Henry Howard had snatched it away. A book believed to contain the secret of man’s divinity—a secret more powerful even than the philosopher’s stone, which Paracelsus was supposed to have received from an Arabian adept in Constantinople. This was the book I dared to hope Howard might have entrusted to Langworth, via his nephew, to keep it from the eyes of the government searchers he knew would ransack his own houses for evidence of treason. And now here was Langworth hiding stones of laudanum, and William Fitch—or his murderer—burning recipes that spoke explicitly of Paracelsus. I pushed my hands through my hair, gripping clumps between my fingers, as if to press my brain into making the connections, but the sense of it all eluded me, swirling through my muddied thoughts.

Angry at myself, I left the parcel on the floor where Langworth had thrown it and concentrated on securing the secret room behind me. My fingers moved more deftly with my own knife and this time I succeeded in turning the lock. I climbed through the broken casement unobserved, at least as far as I could tell (those opaque windows of the building that backed on to Langworth’s house seemed to bear down on me with accusatory stares, though I told myself not to be foolish). But as I was rounding the corner of the row of houses in sight of the cathedral once more, I almost collided with a black-robed figure heading in the opposite direction. I apologised, flustered, and looked up; to my surprise, it was not a cleric, as I had thought, but a woman.

“Oh. Mistress Gray—forgive me, I didn’t see you.”

She appraised me in silence from beneath her veil, then glanced over my shoulder, as if to judge where I might have come from. I met that look as confidently as I could, wondering for my part where she was going; there was nothing at the end of the path except Langworth’s house. We stood for a moment, looking at each other. Finally her eyes flickered briefly upwards to the sky.

“We shall have a storm, I think,” she observed, her tone pleasant, as if I were an old acquaintance. I followed the direction of her gaze to see that the layer of cloud had thickened into scalloped rows, pressing the heat down like a blanket. To the east, above the rooftops, the sky had taken on an edge of steel grey. I nodded, unnerved by the way she studied my face. What was her connection to Edward Kingsley? Why had he left her money? I wanted to ask her questions but could not think how to broach the subject without causing offence.

When it seemed that she intended neither to speak nor to move, I touched my forefinger to my fringe in an awkward salute, bowed my head briefly, and walked quickly away, with the uncomfortable sensation of her eyes on my back until I had turned the corner.