Sacrilege

Chapter 11

I dreamed fitful dreams in those early hours; of skeletal hands ragged with rotten flesh reaching out of a dark tomb to clutch at my clothes. At one point I imagined one of these hands took hold of my shoulder and began shaking it roughly as the foul air of the burial chamber breathed cold into my face, until I could stand it no longer and woke with a fearful cry—to find myself staring blearily into the face of Constable Edmonton, whose morning breath smelled of stale beer and onions through his ginger moustache.

“Get up, you,” he ordered.

I tried to sit, and the night’s excesses caught me like a fist to the head; I leaned forward and exhaled slowly while I regained my balance.

“What are you doing in here?” Edmonton said, in the same peremptory tone.

“Sleeping,” I said. “At least, I was.”

“Well, you can get up now. You’re under arrest.”

“What?” I pushed myself upright and winced as I leaned my weight on my bruised hand. A vivid image of Nick Kingsley’s bloodied face flashed in my memory. “Is it a crime to sleep in the stables?”

Edmonton allowed himself a little sarcastic laugh.

“Not compared to what you’re accused of, no.”

It began to dawn on me that he might be serious. I looked past him and saw Marina shifting anxiously at his shoulder.

“You didn’t come back last night,” she said, reproachfully. “I didn’t know where to find you, otherwise—” She glanced at the constable and held out her hands in a gesture of helplessness in the face of the law.

“This is absurd,” I said, remaining seated and tucking my bruised fist into my armpit. I could only assume young Kingsley had accused me of theft and assault. Just in case, I reached down with my left hand and began surreptitiously untying the leather pouch from my belt. If I were to be searched, I did not want anyone finding the copied keys or the papers I had taken from Fitch’s fireplace.

“Don’t make difficulties,” Edmonton said, as if the prospect wearied him. Then he moved to the door, shielding his eyes against the dawn light, and uttered a barking command. In the instant that his back was turned, I pulled the pouch from my belt and stuffed it firmly down behind the straw bale I was sitting on, until it was out of sight. There was just time to tuck my hands between my knees before two tall young men carrying pikestaffs appeared in the doorway of the stable.

“Are you going to walk with us of your own accord, eh?” Edmonton jerked his head towards the guards.

I stood up and felt my legs buckle beneath me for a moment. I hoped Edmonton had not noticed.

“Can you tell me what am I arrested for?”

“Murder,” he said, shortly.

A ripple of panic spread through me. Had Nick Kingsley died from his injury in the night?

“No—there is some mistake,” I protested. “Whose murder?”

“The apothecary William Fitch.” There was a note of satisfaction in Edmonton’s voice.

“What?” I shook my head. “It was I who found him dead! You were there! How can anyone think—?”

“Your name was written in his ledger from the day before.”

“With many others, surely—”

“Doctor Ezekiel Sykes has given testimony that he was leaving Fitch’s shop when you arrived. There is no name after yours in the ledger. That makes you the last person to see him alive, and the first to see him dead.”

“But that is not true!” I grasped at his sleeve in alarm. “It is the other way around—I was leaving as Sykes arrived. He asked Fitch to lock the shop door so they could talk in private.”

Edmonton merely raised an eyebrow.

“You are asking me to believe that our Doctor Sykes is deliberately lying to the law? And why would he do that, do you suppose? What would he gain?”

I pressed my lips together tightly. There seemed only one possible answer to that; Sykes was sharp enough to point the finger at me before I had a chance to tell anyone that he had been Fitch’s last visitor on the evening he was killed, knowing that the word of a stranger and a foreigner would not stand against that of a respected physician. Which meant—what? That Sykes had killed Fitch himself? At the very least it suggested he was implicated. I stared at the constable, knowing that to accuse the physician of lying would only make my situation worse. A legion of confused thoughts chased one another through my clouded brain. There was the half-burned page from the ledger in the fireplace showing Sykes’s purchase of—what had it been? I ransacked my memory, trying to picture the torn paper. Then I realised.

“Dio mio,” I whispered, my eyes fixed unseeing on Edmonton’s face. Mercury and antimony salts. I recalled reading somewhere that solutions of mercury and antimony were used in the East to embalm bodies—the connection had not occurred to me when I first found the page, but in the light of the previous night’s discovery … Edmonton must have caught my expression because he gripped my wrist and pulled my face close to his.

“What did you say?”

“I only said, ‘My God,’ in my own tongue.”

“Huh.” He regarded me for a moment, then reluctantly dropped my wrist. “Praying won’t help you now, and neither will blasphemy. Take him away,” he added, nodding to the guards. The taller of the two stepped forward and made as if to grab hold of my arm; I shook him off, grasping at Edmonton’s shirt.

“Wait—you can’t arrest me, I have done nothing! Fetch Doctor Harry Robinson at the cathedral—he will vouch for me. Or Dean Rogers. They will tell you I am a friend and a respectable scholar.”

“We’ll see.”

“I have friends at the royal court.”

“And I’m the King of Cockaigne.”

Edmonton brushed my hand away, wrinkling his mouth in irritation, as the guards moved in to grasp me hard by the arms. I realised there was little point in struggling; my best hope was to submit and rely on Harry’s standing to protect me. He would not be pleased at the unwelcome attention I had once again drawn to him, but I was sure he would do everything possible to help me. At least, I had to hope so. Was this what Langworth had in mind when he spoke to Samuel of an idea to keep me out of trouble? I caught Marina’s eye over Edmonton’s shoulder.

“Doctor Robinson at the cathedral—let him know what has happened. Please?”

She wagged a finger in mock reproach, as if this whole business were a great joke.

“If you will go wandering about at night, sir. You have still not paid me for the orange.”

“When I get back,” I called, as the soldiers dragged me towards the gate. “But tell Harry Robinson.” She winked, and I hoped she would at least carry out my request; I had no faith that Edmonton would. At that moment, I would have paid almost any price.

I was marched through the streets towards the West Gate. Grey morning light only just brushed the sky; I was fortunate that not many people were about. Even so, I kept my head down, trying to hide my face. At the foot of one of the vast drum towers, we stopped and one of the guards rapped briskly on a door set into the wall. The other deftly removed my belt with my knife and handed it to Edmonton. There came a jangling of keys and the door was opened by a squat man in a dirty smock with shoulders like an ox and his front teeth missing.

“For the love of God, Constable, I’ve no more room,” he complained, looking me up and down and turning to Edmonton. “They’ve brought prisoners in from all over the county for the assizes next week. Where am I supposed to put him?”

“Put him in with the other murderers. Make sure you lock him up soundly—he’s dangerous.”

“I’m not,” I said. “And I haven’t killed anyone.” The gaoler looked at me briefly and curled his lip.

“If I had sixpence for every one of you that said that. Go on up, then, we’ll shove him in somewhere.”

The guards pushed me in the back towards the door. Edmonton stood with his arms crossed, looking pleased with his morning’s work.

“See you at the assizes,” he said.

I stared at him.

“You cannot leave me in here until the assizes!”

He laughed. “Then you had better find someone to stand bail for you. Good luck with that.”

“Harry Robinson will stand bail—you must send for him. And take care of that knife—I want it back!” I was dragged inside the prison door before I could finish the sentence. As it closed behind me, I caught a last glimpse of Edmonton with that infuriating smirk still painted on his face. He had no intention of sending for Harry if he could help it, I was sure. Had he not as good as told me that the appearance of justice counted for more than the truth of it in this town? The sight of a foreigner hung for Fitch’s murder would please the gallows crowd, but it would please Langworth more. I had no doubt that Langworth and Sykes were behind my arrest. Perhaps Edmonton had received money. I swallowed hard as I was led up a narrow spiral staircase inside the tower, and my throat hurt. I could only hope that Harry had the power—and the inclination—to save my neck.

At the top of the staircase the gaoler unlocked a thick iron-clad door and barked something incomprehensible, his hand still on the latch; from behind it came a chorus of plaintive cries and a frenzied scuffling.

“Get in,” he said to me, pushing the door open no more than a couple of feet, simultaneously kicking out at the bony hand that crept through the gap and flapped at his sleeve. “Hurry up, before these vermin try and get out.”

The guards shoved me up the next step and, before I could protest, the gaoler had laid a thick hand on top of my head and was trying to force me into the room.

“I have money,” I whispered, clutching at his tunic. If English gaols were anything like those in Italy, a prisoner’s comfort would depend entirely on his ability to hand out bribes. The gaoler’s fat face creased into a mocking smile, showing the hole where his teeth once were.

“Have a little taste of West Gate hospitality, why don’t you, and we can talk again about your purse when you’ve had time to reflect.” He winked grotesquely and pushed me hard in the chest, so that I fell through the half-open doorway onto a hard stone floor. I could not even pick myself up before the lock turned behind me.

“Figlio di puttana!” I shouted at the indifferent door.

Recovering my balance, I sat up and took in my surroundings. The room I had been hustled into was small and narrow. Thin arrow slits provided the only light, which fell in narrow shafts on the hunched shapes of perhaps nine or ten men, sitting in their own excrement in the drifts of filthy straw that covered the floor. Some had chains securing their hands or feet; all looked half starved. A hot, vivid stench of ordure and unwashed bodies filled the cell, together with a pervasive atmosphere of despair. These prisoners were facing the assizes in a few days’ time; if they were accused of murder, the only possible end would be the hangman’s rope, and you could see the knowledge of it in their dead eyes. My empty stomach heaved and I tasted bile at the back of my throat.

As my eyes grew accustomed to the dimness, I began to make out the other prisoners’ faces. Opposite me sat an emaciated man with a beard like a hermit and wild, staring eyes that appeared to look beyond me, as if he spied a sight of mortal terror just over my shoulder. No one spoke. I pressed myself into a space against the wall, pulling my knees close to my chest so that I took up as little room as possible. With my forehead against my knees, I closed my eyes and tried to breathe through my mouth as I struggled to piece together everything that had happened since I arrived in Canterbury, largely to keep my thoughts away from my own prospects if Harry did not intervene. A youth spent in the shadow of the Roman Inquisition had not left me with any faith in the idea that innocence was a guarantee of justice. But I did have faith in my own ability to organise the human mind and the knowledge it accumulates—my own, at least. Hours spent devising my systems of memory had kept me from despair during many lonely days and nights on the road north through Italy and beyond. This was not the first time I had been in prison, either; in Geneva the Calvinists had learned what I was teaching in my public lectures and had me arrested as a heretic and disturber of the peace. Ironic, when I had only gone to Geneva because the Catholic Church was pursuing me as a heretic.

Someone nearby struck up a low continuous moaning that seemed to ebb and flow, echoing mournfully from the walls. I turned my thoughts inward and imagined I was making notes on a clean sheet of paper. There were four deaths that may be connected—five, if you counted Sarah Garth nine years earlier. The beggar child found dismembered on the midden last autumn—there was no proof that it was the same boy Meg had seen Edward Kingsley feeding in the kitchen of St. Gregory’s, except for the bloodied sacks I had found in the underground tomb, but it was a strong possibility. Next there was the Huguenot boy Denis, who was certainly linked to Edward Kingsley and had most likely died in that dreadful burial chamber beneath the mausoleum. I did not yet know who had killed the boy or why, but the crude attempt at embalming his body—to disguise the smell of decay and prevent discovery?—must surely have something to do with Ezekiel Sykes’s purchase of mercury and antimony salts. Which leads to the third death: William Fitch. Someone had ransacked the apothecary’s shelves in a frantic haste to destroy incriminating papers—among them evidence of that purchase of Sykes’s. And afterwards, John Langworth had been back to Fitch’s shop to retrieve two stones of black laudanum. Why?

And then there was Sir Edward himself, the focus of my absurd journey. Why had he died? “Didn’t have the wit to look behind him on a dark night,” Langworth had said to Samuel, but his tone had been one of irritation, not triumph, as if his friend’s murder were more of an inconvenience than anything else. What was Sir Edward’s business with the boys? He was too eminent and too recognisable in Canterbury to have gone out scouring the streets for homeless children to lure back to the priory; he must have had someone to do that for him. Fitch? The apothecary would have had the means to drug the boys—perhaps with laudanum—to keep them quiet. I rubbed a hand across my face. None of it made any sense. Those poor boys must have been imprisoned to feed someone’s appetites. Both Langworth and Sir Edward himself were known to have relationships with women; that did not necessarily exclude baser tastes, but I remained unconvinced. Was Sir Edward procuring the boys for someone else, as a favour or a debt? Sykes, perhaps, or someone more powerful? As magistrate, it was a grave risk to take; if it was not for his own benefit, it must have been for substantial reward. But I still had no answer to the question of why he had to die.

Nor could I ignore the practical details of his murder. Whoever struck him down that night had been inside the cathedral precincts, taken the crucifix from the crypt, and waited for him, knowing he would come through the cloisters in the direction of Langworth’s house. Only the dean had a key to the crypt. And anyone trying to leave the precincts would have been seen by Tom Garth. I sighed. Unless, of course, it was Tom Garth. From what Meg had told me, he had good reason to want revenge on Sir Edward. But why now, after nine years?

I glanced up and saw that the old man with the beard was crawling towards me through the filth. Repulsed, I shrank back into the wall, but there was nowhere to go. His bony hand clawed at the sleeve of my shirt; a filthy smell came off him and the hand gripping my arm ended in long brown nails that curved over, reminding me of the dead boy’s hand in the prior’s tomb. White spume gathered at the corners of his mouth as it worked frantically with no sound. But though I flinched and pulled back, I noticed that one of his eyes was milky with the thick film of a cataract, and both were filled with tears. He was trying to say something. Holding my breath, I leaned closer.

“What is it, old man?”

He mumbled the same phrase again; it seemed to end in “me,” but he spoke so quietly I could not recognise the words.

“Tell me again,” I said, gently. His eyes opened wider and he repeated his phrase a little louder, shaking my arm as if his message was of great urgency. Wincing against his foul breath in my face, I watched the movement of his shrivelled lips and realised that he was not speaking English at all.

“Sinite pueros venire ad me,” he whispered again.

I stared at him.

“Suffer the little children to come unto me,” I repeated. “Which children?”

“Sinite pueros venire ad me, et nolite eos vetare talium est enim regnum Dei,” he muttered, completing the verse from the Gospel of Luke. His face clouded with despair.

“ ‘And do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.’ Do you know more Latin?” I asked, intrigued. “Are you an educated man?”

His good eye roamed my face and his mouth twisted into something like a smile.

“Monachus,” he said.

“You were a monk?” I asked, in Latin. He nodded sadly. I laid a hand over his and tried to keep my voice low as I pointed to my chest.

“And I.”

At first I thought he had not understood, but after a moment’s consideration he shook his head.

“Impossible. You are too young. They tore down the sanctuaries and put us on the road before you were even born, son.”

“Not here. In Italy. Were you a monk here in Canterbury?”

He nodded. “At Christ Church Priory.” Then he pushed back the matted strands of hair that grew around the fringes of his head to show me his burned ear. I studied his weathered face; he must have been near to eighty.

“I thought all the brothers were dead.”

“I am dead.” He gave a far-off smile and pointed at himself. “Look here—is this not the face of a corpse? I have been dead these fifty years.”

“What did you mean about the children?” I asked, still in Latin.

The old man’s eyes opened wider, his face tight with fear.

“ ‘But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea,’ ” he quoted again, this time from the Gospel of Matthew. “This is the word of the Lord.” He shook my arm, as though willing me to understand. “Better a millstone around his neck,” he repeated, his unfocused gaze sliding off me and around the walls.

“Whose neck?” I persisted.

“The one who hurts the children,” he hissed, snapping his attention back to me so suddenly that I flinched again, and it was as if a wick caught light in my mind. Meg said an old monk had been arrested for the murder of the dismembered child on the rubbish heap. Was that what he was trying to tell me about, in his confused way?

“Do you know him? The one who hurt the children?” I was gripping his hand harder now.

“It was not me!” he cried out, in English, as if someone had struck him. “I didn’t touch him!”

“ ’Course you didn’t, mate,” said a rough voice from the shadows across the room. “None of us did.” One or two of the others laughed weakly, until they lapsed back into their defeated silence.

“I know you didn’t hurt him,” I said softly to the old monk. “But who did?”

He fell silent and shook his head, and I thought I had lost him. I sat back, frustrated. Perhaps it was only the ramblings of a madman, after all. But he did not sound as if he had lost his wits—at least, no more than anyone would in a place like this.

“I only prayed for him,” he whispered, reverting to Latin, just when I thought he would not speak again. “That poor child. He left him there, like offal. I sat by him all night and prayed for his little soul, that was all. Our Lord welcomed the children.” He looked up as if imploring me to understand. Tears coursed down his cheeks. I stroked the back of his hand and nodded. I sensed that I was close to something vital here, and I did not want to ruin it by pushing the old man too hard; these memories were touching some deep grief in him.

“Where did you find him? Was it on the midden?” I prompted, cautiously.

“You saw it too?” His eyes widened, and he shook his head. He leaned closer, fixing me with his milky eye. “Cut in pieces. Such wickedness. He was a good child. Always a smile, for all he had nothing of his own. All I did was keep vigil and pray to Saint Thomas for his innocent soul. I told them that. I couldn’t harm a living creature. Do you know the worst of it?” He rubbed the tears away with the back of his hand, leaving grimy streaks down his face. “They claimed I butchered him for food, driven mad by hunger. For food! For pity’s sake—a child?” He ran a hand across his face. “God knows I have suffered hunger in my wanderings, well He knows how many times it has nearly taken me from this world. But I had rather die a bag of bones than let such a black thought enter my mind. Any Christian man would.” He scrabbled at my wrist again. “You believe me, son, don’t you?”

“Of course.” I could guess what had happened; the old monk had been found by the boy’s body and blamed for his murder. “You said ‘he left him.’ Who? Did you see him—the man who put the boy there?”

“The tall one.” His eyes drifted away again.

“Yes, that’s him.” I tried not to sound too eager. “You remember him? What did he look like?”

The old monk frowned, seemingly lost in the dusty corridors of memory. I wondered if anything he dredged up would contain a grain of truth or if he was mixing up recollections of different times and places from a long life, as old men do.

“Tall, he was. Thin.”

“Old or young?”

“I don’t know. Everyone looks young to me.” He broke into a cackle at this and I waited patiently while he recovered from the coughing fit it brought on. Finally he spat a gobbet of phlegm into the straw and looked back to me, his face serious. “He was bald, like me, but not old like me. You understand? But I didn’t see him close. He brought bread one evening and gave it out to the children that beg outside the walls. He spoke to them. After he’d gone, the boy—that poor boy—shared his bread with me, because I’d not eaten for days. I never saw him again until he dropped out of a sack in pieces.” He shuddered violently and clawed at my arm again.

“Was it night? Could you be sure it was the same man?”

He must have caught the urgency in my voice, because his eyes grew frightened and he seemed to shrink inside the rags that hung off his skeletal frame. He turned his face away.

“Sure … I am sure of nothing anymore, son, except that soon I will face judgement. And that I will not live to see Saint Thomas return to Canterbury.”

I stiffened.

“He will return, then? You are sure of that?”

The old monk turned his head slowly back to me, his face lit by a sly smile, like a child hugging a great secret to himself.

“He never left us.”

“It is true, then?” I whispered, though I doubted any of the prisoners around us understood Latin. “Where is he?”

A glimmer of life sparkled in the rheumy eyes. He gave a low, cracked laugh.

“Only the guardians can tell you that. And they are sworn to silence. Men have died to protect the secret of his bones.”

“Which men? When?”

He leaned in, his face earnest.

“You want to know the story?”

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

“It was near fifty years ago, you understand? In some houses, the monks who would not take the new religion were executed as traitors, their quarters nailed to the city gates. But Canterbury surrendered willingly. No monk here died on King Henry’s orders.” He left a significant pause. The emphasis had been on King Henry.

“But on someone else’s orders, then?”

His fingers tightened around my wrist.

“The night they moved Becket’s bones, I saw what I should not have seen. I could not sleep and had gone to pray in the chapel of Saint Andrew, near to the great shrine of Saint Thomas. I hid when I heard the door, because I should not have been out of the dormitory and did not want to give account of myself to the prior.”

I nodded, half smiling, recalling the nights I had spent sneaking around the monastery, trying to avoid being caught by the abbot with my forbidden books.

“Five men came,” the old man continued, his breath buzzing hot against my ear, “carrying between them what looked like a coffin. Some while later they left carrying one likewise. So I followed them at a distance. They were taking it to the crypt.”

“Who were they?”

“They kept their cowls up. But one I saw by the light of the lantern he carried to guide the others—he was the assistant cellarer. A seven-night later he was dead.”

“How?”

“A fall, on a staircase in the tower. But he was one who had said he would not take the oath of allegiance to the king. No one knew, then, what the consequences of that might be.”

“So”—I frowned, trying to follow his reasoning—“you think the others were afraid he might be tortured and reveal the truth about Becket’s body?”

He nodded.

“I think they wanted to be sure of his silence. And he was not the only one. The day the king’s commissioners came and broke open the shrine, when they ground the saint’s bones into dust before our eyes so nothing remained as a holy relic, no monk standing there believed it was truly Saint Thomas. But we dared not speculate aloud.”

“But those who knew where the real body was hidden must all be dead by now?”

“They say there were four guardians, to match the number of Becket’s murderers. Each guardian hands on the secret to one who keeps the old faith in his heart, in preparation for the day England returns to the true Church, like the prodigal son.” He passed a hand over his brow. “But who the guardians are now, I cannot tell you. Ask me no more, son. They will hang me this time for certain, and I am ready. I am weary of this life. God knows I have only ever tried to serve Him faithfully, though He has seen fit to send me so much suffering at the hands of heretics.”

I laid a hand over his and a silent tear trickled down his hollow cheek. His words reminded me of Hélène’s, and I felt suddenly overwhelmed by the weight of their grief and bewilderment; all over our bloody continent, Catholics and Protestants alike went on dying at one another’s hands, all looking up to heaven and crying out to their God, Whose side are You on? While their God remains deaf, saying nothing, because on both sides they have failed to understand who or what He is, as they spill more blood in His name.

Hours passed, or what felt like hours. The old monk leaned against my side and I watched with almost filial concern as his papery eyelids fell and his ragged breathing slowed. I may have dozed myself for a while; it was hard to tell, in that half-light and filth, what was real. The only means of telling that time had passed at all was the way the light fell at a different angle through the arrow slit in the wall opposite. I rested my head back against the dank stone and repeated the old man’s words over to myself, trying to fit them into the puzzle.

Eventually there came the sound of a key grinding in the lock and the prisoners stirred as one from their stupor. The door opened a crack and the gaoler’s face appeared.

“You. The Spaniard.” He pointed his stick at me. “Get up.”

“I am Italian,” I said wearily.

“You’re a lucky bastard, is what you are. Don’t keep them waiting.”

I disentangled myself from the old monk, who clutched at my shirt in alarm.

“Frater!” he whispered, his voice hoarse. “Don’t leave me.”

“I will come back,” I told him, with a stab of guilt; still his hand flailed at me and I had to shake him off. As I stood, the gaoler gripped me tight around the arm and dragged me through the narrow gap to the top of the stairs. When he had locked the door behind me, he pointed his stick at my chest and motioned downwards.

“Follow me and don’t try anything. You’re wanted at the Guildhall.”

I had no idea of what this might mean, but his mention of luck kindled a small flicker of hope in my breast. Had my message reached Harry, and had he been able to use his influence with the authorities?

Edmonton awaited us at the foot of the stairs, his face tight with anger. The same two guards stood beside him and took up their places flanking me with their pikestaffs as I stepped out of the door, squinting into the shade beneath the gate, but this time they did not hold my arms. I was escorted back up the High Street, where curious shoppers and traders paused to follow our party with their eyes, leaning in and whispering to their neighbours. I did not meet their eyes, but kept walking in a straight line, following Edmonton’s stiff back. He had not said a word to me, but the contained fury of his demeanour encouraged my hopes further; he had the face of a man who is about to have a prize snatched out of his hands and can do nothing to prevent it. He strode on ahead of me and my guards, head set high, enjoying the appearance of control and the deference his position seemed to elicit from the townspeople. Let him have his little parade, I thought, as long as I walk free at the end of it. Above us the sky was still overcast, with rows of clouds bunched like dirty wool, and the heat trapped beneath it felt thick and stale, as if the air could not move. The sun was no more than a pale gleam; it was hard to tell what time of day it might be. I guessed at early afternoon.

Edmonton stopped in front of an imposing building in the old style, with crooked beams of black timber and stone pillars either side of the main door. He gestured brusquely with his head and I followed him up the steps, through a high tiled entrance hall where he paused for a brief exchange in low voices with a man in the robes of a clerk. This man glanced at me warily throughout the conversation, which I could not hear, at the end of which we were led through a small antechamber into a larger room with a high ceiling and a series of leaded windows. My gaze fell first upon two familiar faces—Dean Rogers and Samuel, who stood to the left of a broad oak desk. The dean took a half step forward as I was ushered in by the guards, his face creased with concern, but it was Samuel’s eyes I met and held with my own, wanting to see what might be written there. But the look he gave me was empty of any emotion, except perhaps insolence, as if he knew I was waiting for him to betray himself and did not mean to give me the satisfaction.

“You are the prisoner Filippo Savolino?” A clear, precise voice cut across my thoughts. Reluctantly I switched my attention from Samuel to the speaker, the man seated behind the desk, and noticed for the first time that he wore a heavy gold chain of office around his neck. He was perhaps in his early fifties, with fair hair that receded from his high forehead but compensated by curling down over his collar, and a beard thickly flecked with grey. He might have been a handsome man if his eyes had not been curiously small, as if he were permanently squinting into a strong light.

“I am,” I said, then, glancing at his chain, added, “Your Worship,” with a deferential lowering of my head. I did not get out of Geneva without learning how to deploy a little judicious humility. So this was the mayor Meg had warned me about. Also a friend of Edward Kingsley, according to Sophia.

The mayor’s face visibly softened at this recognition of his status, though I noticed he winced slightly every time he caught the stench coming off me.

“Well, Savolino. I am Humphrey Fitzwalter, Mayor of Canterbury, as you have divined. Dean Rogers tells me you are a distinguished scholar and an esteemed guest of one of his canons, with letters of introduction from one of the first families of Her Majesty’s court. Yet Constable Edmonton here seems to believe you are a dangerous brigand and murderer. Naturally, I am inclined to respect the dean’s judgement, but I am nonetheless curious as to how you could have given the constable reason to suspect you?”

“I fear my face and my voice are reason enough, Your Worship,” I said, again lowering my eyes.

“Your Worship,” Edmonton cut in, breathless, “I have sworn testimony from Doctor Sykes himself that this man was the last to enter the apothecary Fitch’s shop before he was beaten to death.”

“This is a lie.” I folded my arms. “I was the first to find the apothecary, as the constable knows. Perhaps this testimony was meant to draw attention away from the real perpetrators.” I glanced at Samuel as I said this, but he merely returned my look with that same level stare and I found myself gripped by a sudden urge to punch his inscrutable face.

The mayor looked from me to Edmonton with an expression of mild curiosity.

“Well,” he said, stretching out his arms on the desktop and clasping his hands together. On the little finger of each he wore a fat gold ring. “You are fortunate in your connections, it seems, Savolino. Doctor Harry Robinson has agreed to stand bail for you and Dean Rogers himself has come in person to attest to your good character. So I am persuaded to grant you your liberty, on condition that you do not leave the city. You may answer the accusations against you at the assizes in two days’ time.”

“It is absurd that I should have to answer any charges at all,” I said, drawing back my shoulders and looking him in the eye with as much dignity as I could muster in my present state. “This accusation is no more than malicious prejudice.”

Fitzwalter blinked.

“That statement could be construed as slander. The law must take its course, and the innocent have nothing to fear from its process.”

I gave a dry laugh. “In my country, the Holy Office says this to men it means to burn.”

Fitzwalter’s eyes narrowed until they were no more than red-rimmed slits in his pale face, and I glimpsed a hardness beneath the affable exterior.

“If I were you, Savolino, I would show a little more gratitude to the friends who bought your freedom, and a little more respect for authority while you are a visitor here, especially one whose name is not yet cleared.” He shuffled some papers on his desk and nodded curtly at the dean, as if to show we were dismissed. “I would also suggest you clean yourself up. You have the smell about you of a seven-day-old corpse.”

“I smell of the gaol where men are made to lie in their own filth among the rats. Your Worship,” I added, emphasizing the words.

“Oh? Would you have us provide them with feather beds?” He drew himself up, needled.

“No. But clean straw might let them feel they were still regarded as fellow men. You would not stable your horse in such conditions, I am sure.”

“No, sir, I would not. But then my horse has not murdered anyone. Dean Rogers, this man is released into your care. Against my better judgement, I will allow his knife to be returned to him. Now please get him and his peculiar ideas out of my office.”

The dean smiled nervously and bustled me out of the room, pressing my knife in its sheath into my hands. In the entrance hall, I bowed and thanked him for his intervention as I strapped it back onto my belt. He moved as if to shake my hand, but my present condition evidently made him think better of it. Instead he looked down at me with a crease in his brow as his fingers worried at the front of his robe.

“Doctor Savolino—I hardly know how to apologise for this insult to your person and your integrity. That a friend of Her Majesty’s court should have been treated so … But you understand there is a delicate relationship in this town between the cathedral foundation and the civic authorities. The cathedral remains powerful and”—here he gave a nervous little laugh—“for the moment, wealthy. There have been occasions when we have felt it necessary to intervene in matters of city governance, and this creates a certain, ah—resentment. If it were within my power to have this accusation against you withdrawn …” He held out his hands to indicate his helplessness.

“I thank you for your support, Dean Rogers,” I reassured him. “The only way for me to answer these charges, it seems, is to find out who really killed the apothecary.”

The dean looked doubtful. “But how could you begin to do that?”

“I might consider the motive of the man who wants me found guilty.”

His face tensed at this.

“I am sure Doctor Sykes was only acting as he thought best.”

I was poised to argue but was aware of Samuel’s sharp gaze boring into me.

“Of course,” I murmured.

The dean looked relieved. Why was everyone so afraid of Sykes, I wondered?

“Harry would have come for you himself, but the walk would have been a trial for him. He sent Samuel with the bail money, but asked me to accompany him to support the case for your innocence.”

I glanced at Samuel. “It was good of you both to take the time.”

Samuel merely offered a thin smile.

“A condition of the bail is that your whereabouts are now Harry’s responsibility,” the dean continued, as we stepped out into the High Street and began to walk in the direction of the cathedral, attracting curious glances along the way. “I’m afraid you will have to leave your lodgings at the Cheker and stay in his house until the assizes.”

I nodded, keeping my face steady, but this news was a blow. To be trapped there, under Samuel’s eye, with the prospect of his relaying my every word back to Langworth, was not how I had envisaged my return to freedom. I had to find some means to get Samuel out of the way; without his influence, there was a chance Harry might listen to me. I was already compromised on every side: Langworth knew who I really was and to the rest of Canterbury I was now a suspected murderer. I badly needed even one ally here, and I had no choice but to trust Harry. The fact that he had paid my bail out of his own pocket suggested that he had a little faith in me—or at least respect for Walsingham—which I might hope to work on, if only I could do something about the brooding, watchful presence of his servant.

I glanced over my shoulder at Samuel; at my side, the dean was earnestly explaining how helpful it would be in my current situation if, for the sake of public opinion, I were to be seen frequently at divine service in the cathedral in the company of the canons. Samuel walked a few paces after us, dressed in his customary doublet and breeches of plain black linen, his hands folded behind his back, as if he were our appointed escort. I noted with distaste how several long strands of black hair still clung stubbornly to the front of his bald scalp like the legs of spiders. Tall and bald, the old monk had said of the man who came to give bread to the beggar children. Was it Samuel, at the bidding of his powerful friends? He caught me looking at him and returned my stare with a raised eyebrow, as if daring me to state my challenge. Calmly I shifted my attention to the dean, who was still talking though I had not heard a word, recalling as I did so what Harry had said about Samuel carrying his messages to Walsingham. That was the answer. I was so pleased with the idea that I had to stop myself smiling like a half-wit. Samuel must be made to carry a letter to London; not only would that take him out of the way, but I would contrive to include an invisible message in the letter that the bearer should be detained and taken for questioning.

“And I should be honoured if you would accept,” the dean said, laying a hand on my shoulder before withdrawing it in haste and surreptitiously wiping it on the side of his robe.

“The honour would be mine,” I replied, smiling, though I was not sure what I had just agreed to.

“Splendid. Directly after Evensong, then—you and Harry can come together. I keep a plain table, as you will see—no untoward extravagance, as befits a servant of God and Her Majesty, I assure you”—here he gave his nervous little laugh again—“though I venture to boast that my cook has talents enough to make a feast from the simplest fare.”

Ah. So I had been invited to dinner.

“I am easy to please at table, sir. So long as it is hot and filling.”

This was untrue; such atrocities as the English practised upon their food I found baffling and almost impossible to stomach, though I had been obliged to accustom myself to it over the past year. But my denial seemed to please the dean.

“The best kind of guest,” he beamed, as we reached the Christ Church gate. “Very well, then. I shall leave Samuel to deliver you safely to Harry and will see you at divine service this evening.” His brow furrowed again as his eyes travelled over me. “I trust you have a change of clothes?”

“Do not fear, sir—I will have shed all traces of the gaol by this evening,” I reassured him.

He sighed. “If only one could wash away the stain to one’s reputation so easily,” he murmured, before taking his leave and passing through the gate in the direction of the Archbishop’s Palace.

Samuel gestured towards the cathedral with his head and I stepped through the archway. Tom Garth appeared from his cubbyhole to stare at us and even moved forward as if he would speak to me, but I walked on without a word. My thoughts now were all on the purse I had stuffed behind the hay bales in the stable of the Cheker; once I had thanked Harry and found a way to dispatch Samuel to London, my first priority must be to retrieve it. And then what? I rubbed my forehead, catching again the sickening smell of dead flesh still clinging to my fingers. Go after Sykes? Could I find a way to get into his house and find some proof to connect him to the death of Fitch before the assizes?

Samuel and I walked in silence to the door of Harry’s house. Perhaps he thought, as I did, that to speak was the surest way to betray oneself. I had no idea how much he guessed I knew about him, but between us there was a wariness and suspicion so pronounced you could almost hear it crackling in the air; I sensed it as if we were two strange dogs circling each other, each waiting for the other to bare its teeth first. He paused with his hand on the latch.

“You should not expect to find him in a good humour, after your antics.” He did not even give me the courtesy of looking at me while he spoke.

“My antics, as you call them, consist of no more than being falsely accused by a man who has judged me because my face and voice are unfamiliar to him.”

Samuel sniffed.

“Nonetheless, you have cost my master dear. No one asked you to come here,” he added, unnecessarily.

I bit my tongue and looked at the ground. Someone did ask me to Canterbury, I wanted to say, and she still has faith in me. Though I feared I was running out of time to justify it.

“I am sorry to have caused him trouble, and I will tell him so,” I said. Samuel hesitated, but seemed wrongfooted by my show of humility. He could find nothing to say in response, and instead opened the door.

“By the cross, you are determined to be a thorn in my side, Bruno.” Harry heaved himself up from his familiar place in the front room when I entered. Grey afternoon light fell across his face and his bushy brows cast his eyes into shadow. “You must be parched. Samuel, fetch our guest a jug of beer and some bread.”

“Thank you. I will reimburse your expenses—”

He waved a hand, as if this were unimportant.

“Of course you will. That’s not my worry. Christ’s body, you stink, man—where have you been?”

“I will tell you everything in due course—there is much to tell. But first, with this arrest, it is essential that I get a message to Walsingham—some intervention by his hand may be my only hope at the assizes. And the message must be taken with the utmost urgency.” I looked at him expectantly. Slow realisation dawned on the old man’s face as his servant came back bearing a tray.

“But—Samuel would be gone for some days.” His voice rose a notch and I realised that, for all his gruff show of independence, he was alarmed at the prospect of being left alone.

“Gone where?” Samuel asked, his tone sharp, glancing from me to his master.

“I have no other means to send a message to London,” I said, ignoring him and turning to Harry. “In any case, I will be staying here with you. I understand those were the terms on which I was released?”

“You?” Harry looked doubtful. I wondered again how close he was to Samuel and how much he might know of his servant’s deceit, but there was no time to worry about that now; I had no choice other than to confide in Harry. There was no one else. “Can you light a stove and cook a meal? Can you lay out my clothes of a morning?”

I smiled in a manner which I hope inspired confidence.

“I can try any task, if you instruct me.”

“A philosopher to make my breakfast. There’s a fine thing.” Harry turned again to Samuel and a look passed between them that I could not read. “Well, I suppose we have no choice. We are all Walsingham’s servants, and it appears your recklessness in blundering about this town with no regard for the sensitivities of position and authority has landed you in a bind that only Master Secretary can get you out of.”

I lowered my head and took his reproach without protest; there would be time enough to explain myself to Harry. For now, as I looked at my boots, I fought against a smirk of triumph at the prospect of Samuel’s imminent departure.

“I thank you both.” Raising my head, I shone the full beam of my most sincere smile at Samuel. “You may be sure Sir Francis will reward you for your trouble.”

“Oh, I shall tell him you have promised me so on his behalf,” he replied softly, his smile dripping sarcasm.

“I will return to the inn for my belongings and come back with the letter I need Samuel to take,” I said. “The dean has asked me to be present at Evensong tonight, Harry, and to accompany you to his table for supper.”

Harry grunted.

“Well, it won’t do any harm for folks to see you showing a bit of Christian piety,” he muttered. “God alone knows what they are saying about you in the town. And what they will say of me for giving you lodging.”

“My name will be cleared at the assizes,” I said.

“Maybe.” He did not sound convinced. “But mud sticks. Come back with your things, then, and make yourself comfortable. Samuel can ready his horse.”

“I hope he is a fast horse,” I said, with a meaningful look at Samuel to let him know I was in earnest.

“He’s the only horse we have, so you’ll have to make do,” Harry snapped back, and his tone warned me not to overstep the mark. I was fortunate that he was willing to part with Samuel at all.

I wolfed down the bread so quickly that I could not swallow it fast enough and it lodged like a ball in my upper chest; I had to sip at the beer to try and shift it, pain shooting into my dry throat as I doubled over. Samuel watched me with contempt for a few moments before stalking from the room in silence.

“There is much I need to say to you,” I told Harry, when I had recovered enough to speak.

“Take your time. Collect your things, and you and I shall talk,” he said. “You may as well bring your horse—there is stabling here and Samuel’s will be out. Save you paying at the inn.” This time there was a kinder note in his voice. My earlier doubts began to recede and I dared to hope that I might yet be able to confide in Harry and find him ready with some advice. My spell in the gaol and my appearance before the mayor, when I had been so relieved to see the dean and even Samuel, had served to remind me of how alone I was in Canterbury, and how vulnerable. There was no question in my mind that Langworth and Sykes between them had contrived to have me arrested to stop me asking questions. Their plan had been thwarted by Harry’s willingness to stand bail and the dean’s testimony, and I imagined they would not be pleased by the fact that I was once more abroad in the city. I would have to keep my wits about me; if the process of the law did not serve their purpose in removing me, there was every chance they might decide to bypass it. After all, I had seen what they did to William Fitch, even if I did not yet know which of them had done it.