Sacrilege

Chapter 12

A hot wind whipped up the dust in the streets as I made my way through the Buttermarket and on towards the Cheker. Pieces of straw eddied in the air and goodwives clasped their coifs to their heads. After the heavy stillness of the past days the breeze should have been welcome, but it was a sickly wind, humid and pregnant with the promise of a storm. Clouds bore down overhead as if in a basin that threatens to spill over at any moment.

I attracted glances from passersby as I walked but I kept my head down and ignored them, my thoughts once again turning to Sophia. My whole purpose in coming here had been to save her from the taint of murder and now I was faced with the same fate myself. Though I was not yet seriously afraid—I had a quick wit and powerful patrons, which was more than most of those wretches in the gaol could claim—I was nevertheless uncomfortably aware that I was a long way from the protection of Walsingham here, and that local justice was notoriously corrupt. I had no doubt that Samuel would do his best to delay or lose my message altogether, with the aim that I might be convicted before any help could come from Walsingham. My hope lay entirely in the message I had sent to Sidney with the weavers. I knew well enough from my years as a fugitive that only a fool puts his faith in the fact of his innocence, especially if he is a foreigner.

My heart was heavy as I entered the inn yard. Sophia was just a few streets away, yet it seemed impossible for me to see her until this business was all over, my innocence proved, and the real murderers brought to justice—if such a conclusion was even possible. As an accused man facing trial in a few days, my comings and goings would be noticed around the city; I could not risk visiting the weavers’ houses and drawing the people’s attention to them by so doing. I cursed quietly under my breath; Sophia was out of reach to me until I had found the killer—or killers—and all the while, I imagined Olivier at her side in that attic room, whispering his reassurances into her ear. Even if I were able to clear her name and my own in the assizes, would she not owe him almost as great a debt of gratitude by now?

The stable hands were busy across the yard and I was able to slip into the stall where my horse stood patiently chewing at his hay, his animal smell all the sharper in the heat, but strangely welcoming and wholesome after the foul stench of human waste I had endured in the gaol. He whickered softly at my approach and I laid my head against his neck for a moment as the full weight of my exhaustion began to seep through my body. My eyes drifted closed; I could have sunk to the floor right there and slept, but I caught the scratch of a broom on the cobbles in the yard and roused myself. I felt behind the straw bale and for an awful moment my stomach lurched as I feared the purse had been taken. But more frantic searching revealed that it had only slipped farther down; perhaps the horse had shifted the bales with its movements. I almost wept with relief as I drew it out and tucked it inside my breeches.

Before I reached the door of the inn, one of the stableboys caught sight of me and rushed inside, so that Marina was already waiting for me on the stairs as I entered. She came forward with her arms outstretched as if to embrace me, but drew back at the last minute at the smell, for which I was grateful.

“I knew they would have made a mistake,” she cried, though her face was still anxious. “I was going to give it until tomorrow morning before I let your room to another.”

“That was good of you,” I said. “A whole day.”

“This isn’t an almshouse.” She folded her arms and looked me up and down. “I sent a boy with your message to Doctor Robinson—was that how they let you go?”

“It must have been.” I smiled then, with genuine gratitude. As I had guessed, the constable would have let me rot until the assizes without ever taking word to Harry. I wondered if he was in Langworth’s pay as well. On an impulse, I took her hand between mine and kissed it extravagantly. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

Marina giggled like a girl and gave me a slow, lewd wink. “I daresay we’ll think of something. You’ll be wanting to clean up, I suppose?”

“I would like that more than anything.”

She nodded. “And the rest of my guests will thank you for it, too. I’ll have some hot water fetched up to your room, and fresh towels. Bring those clothes down and I’ll give them to the laundress—with luck she can have them drying by this evening. We’ll have a storm tonight for sure.”

“Thank you. Oh, and—may I have another orange?”

She shook her head indulgently, as if at a demanding child.

“You have not paid me for the last one yet. Go on with you, I’ll send it up with the rest. Anyone would think you were a great lord, the way you have me fetching and carrying.”

I thanked her, forcing myself to smile patiently, and took the stairs to my room. While I waited for the water, I found a clean sheet of paper and wrote a short note to Walsingham using the cipher I was accustomed to use in my communications with him. The orange would be an extra precaution; there was no way of knowing how proficient Samuel might be with ciphers, so I kept the content of my letter to the facts of my wrongful arrest, in case he should work out how to read it along the way. A serving girl arrived with an orange and a bucket of hot water; when she had gone I squeezed a little of the juice into the candle holder as I had before, crammed the flesh into my mouth, and along the bottom of the letter, below where I had signed off with the symbol of the planet Jupiter, I wrote, using the juice, “Arrest the bearer of this letter on suspicion of murder.” I had no great faith that this note would ever find its way to Walsingham, but it was worth a try. As the ink was drying, I stripped off my filthy clothes and tried as best I could to scrub the filth of the past night and day from my skin.

DRESSED IN CLEAN shirt and breeches, damp hair clinging to my face and with a full stomach, I waited in the inn yard while a stableboy saddled my horse and loaded him up with my packs. Marina had feigned great offence that I was leaving, but I soothed her by settling my account with a generous tip and assuring her that I would take my supper there the following day when I came to collect my clean clothes. The wind had risen further and I shielded my eyes against the grit blowing in gusts from the flagstones; above me gulls wheeled and shrieked in a sky that had taken on a lurid, shifting light behind the clouds, such as you find sometimes out at sea. A horse whinnied; I turned and caught sight of a figure skulking at the gate of the yard. He leaned against the gatepost and wore a cap with a peak pulled down low over his eyes; in the shadow of the stable building I could not get a clear look at his face.

My stomach clenched; since the previous night I had feared that Nick Kingsley and his friends would not let my ill-judged attack on him go unpunished. I felt the familiar quickening of the pulse, the prickling of my nerves as my hands balled into fists; would I have to stand and fight here, in the yard, and would anyone come to my aid? But as I squinted at the man, breath catching in my throat, I realised that he was alone, and that he was looking at me in a shifty manner from under his cap, as if he was waiting for my attention. He was too tall and rangy for Nick Kingsley; curious, I took a step in his direction and he nodded sharply, as if to beckon me. I glanced over my shoulder; the boy was still occupied with my horse and paid me no attention. I took another step towards the man and he slipped into the open doorway of an empty stall close to the gate. Bending slowly, I removed my knife from its sheath and followed him.

There was little daylight inside the stall, but I heard him moving to the left of the doorway, his feet scratching on the straw.

“Who are you?” I hissed, the knife held out before me.

“Shh! Viens ici.” He stepped forward and I lowered the knife with relief.

“Olivier. Why are you skulking about like a thief?”

“Because I don’t want to be seen with you. Listen.” He leaned closer, glancing over my shoulder towards the doorway as if fearful we might be overheard. “She cannot stay with us any longer. It is too dangerous.”

“It is only two more days, until the assizes. Please—”

“You don’t understand. You have made it impossible.” His words came sharp and urgent, as if he might impel me by the force of them. “The constable came to our house this morning. Someone told him you have been seen at our door—he asked my father a lot of questions about who you were, how we knew you.”

“Merda. I am sorry for that. What did he say?”

Olivier made a noise of contempt. “Don’t worry, my father is practised at thinking on his feet. He said you had come to pay your respects because you had known Protestant friends of ours when you lived in Paris.”

“And the constable believed him?”

He shrugged.

“How do I know? It was only as he was leaving that he told us you had been arrested for murder.” He curled his lip at me. “My father said he was sure there was some misunderstanding. But after the constable left—you can imagine.”

I nodded, picturing the distress of those good, beleaguered people. I had no affection for Olivier, but I could not deny how much his family had risked for Sophia. Now I had unwittingly brought the constable to their door while they harboured another murder suspect in their attic.

“My mother has not stopped weeping and wringing her hands,” Olivier said. “They fear it is only a matter of time before your arrest becomes an excuse to harass us further. And if they search our house and find her …” He did not need to finish the sentence. The whole family could be executed along with Sophia to make an example.

“What can we do?”

“My father says we must give her into your care. You brought her back to Canterbury, after we had got her safely away.” He gave me a hard look.

“I have only been allowed out of prison on bail, on condition that I lodge inside the cathedral precincts until the assizes.” I held out my hands in a show of helplessness.

“Exactly. They will not think to look for her in the house of a cathedral canon.”

I hesitated. With Samuel out of the way, it was almost conceivable, though the prospect of proposing such a plan to Harry chilled me; he had a duty to me because of our shared service to Walsingham, but Sophia was no part of that. Walsingham had no idea that I had brought her to Canterbury, and I suspected he would be furious if he knew I had compromised my own safety and Harry’s for her sake.

“My father says he will have no choice but to put her out on the street if you will not take responsibility for her this time,” Olivier added, sensing that I was wavering.

“And you would let him do that? You care for her, I think.” I met his gaze frankly for a moment but he looked away.

“I care for my family also. My parents have lived most of their lives in the shadow of death. Here they thought to escape it. They should not have to fear it again because of me.” He spoke quietly, but his voice was tight with feeling.

Because of me. What did he mean by that? Because he loved Sophia? I watched Olivier as he kept his eyes fixed on the ground, scuffing patterns in the dust with the toe of his threadbare shoes. He was not helping Sophia out of Christian charity, but because he hoped for a reward at the end of this ordeal—presumably the same reward I wanted. Which of us would win?

I pushed my hair back off my face and nodded. “Well, then. She cannot be left on the street. But how will you bring her to the cathedral without being noticed?”

“Our church holds a service this evening in the crypt, at the same time as Evensong in the cathedral. We could bring her there in disguise and hand her over to you.”

I paused to consider the implications.

“Not disguised as a boy, she will be too obvious here. Dress her as an old woman, heap her with scarves and shawls. She can walk crook-backed—it would be less noticeable. But I have to eat at the dean’s table tonight, I can’t take her back after Evensong.”

“Then when?”

“Wait, I am trying to think.” My hand closed around the purse at my belt and the shape of Langworth’s keys inside it. Into my mind flashed the image of the map I had found in the library, with the treasury and its sub-vault clearly marked. The crypt. I could not shake the sense that everything centred on the crypt, and tonight I would be inside the cathedral precincts with three untried keys in my possession. I recalled the old monk’s story about the exchange of coffins in the last days of the priory. If Thomas Becket was anywhere, he was down there, in some unmarked grave, and Langworth almost certainly knew where. Tonight I would find him, and anything else Langworth might have hidden down there with him. I turned to Olivier with renewed purpose.

“After your service ends, find a place to hide her in the crypt. There are nooks and crannies, side chapels, alcoves and shadows. Find somewhere. Tell her after dark I will come for her.”

He looked doubtful.

“The crypt is locked after dark.”

“Trust me.”

“I don’t like it. What if she should be found before you get there?”

“A moment ago you were ready to put her out on the street.” I folded my arms. “If she hides herself well, that won’t happen. Tell her to wait for me, keep silent until I call her by name, and have faith.”

“Faith.” He spat the word out like a bitter fruit. In that moment I contemplated telling him that I had found the body of his nephew, if only to put an end to the pain of uncertainty, but the set of his jaw persuaded me against it; he was young and hotheaded and the boy’s body would be vital evidence, it must not be revealed until I was sure the right person could be punished for it.

“Master? Your horse is ready.” The voice of the stableboy cut through the sounds of gulls and wind, carrying across the yard outside.

“I must go. Do everything as we have said. And take care you don’t get caught. All our lives depend on it.”

Olivier looked at me coldly. “Do not take me for a fool,” he said, retreating back into the shadows as the stableboy called again and I slipped out of the door to the yard, my heart hammering against the vault of my ribs as I tried not to contemplate the enormity of what we were to attempt that night.

THE MARKETPLACE WAS emptying as I led the horse towards the Christ Church gate. Hot gusts of wind snapped at the stallholders’ canvas awnings; some cursed and struggled to tie their ropes tighter, while others—those selling fresh produce—sought to cover their goods with weighted cloths to protect them from the whorls of dust whipped up from the dry earth. A man in the motley of a jongleur crouched on the ground, packing his juggling balls and spent firebrands into a square of canvas. People moved aside for me, staring, as I passed the market cross; to either side I caught the low rumble of murmuring as neighbours turned to one another, though perhaps it was fortunate I could not hear their commentary. Defensive, I glanced around and saw the apothecary’s niece, Rebecca, hovering beside a bread stall, now almost empty. She had hooked a covered basket over one arm and smiled shyly when she caught my eye, looking quickly down and back to me, then glancing over her shoulder at the broad-hipped goodwife who was untying the colourful awning from its posts.

“Do you still tarry, good-for-nothing?” The woman straightened with a scornful look at the girl. “Get you gone, or we shall have rain and those loaves will be spoiled before ever they get there.”

“But Mistress Blunt, I had much rather—”

“Enough of your contrariness—I don’t want to catch sight of your apron strings next time I look up. Get on that road.” So saying, she went back to the dismantling of her stall. When the woman’s back was turned, I mimicked her pompous expression and manner and Rebecca pressed her sleeve to her mouth to stifle a giggle. But her face quickly fell sombre and reluctantly she raised a hand in farewell before turning towards the street that led east out of the marketplace. An idea struck me; instead of continuing to the cathedral, I waited until Rebecca was out of sight around the corner before gently easing the horse in the same direction. This gesture did not pass unnoticed among the observers in the market square, though thankfully the formidable woman on the bread stall was too occupied in her business to pay me any heed.

I caught up with Rebecca a little way along the next street. Her blush and ready smile told me she was pleased by the attention, though she bit her lower lip and looked anxiously past me towards the market we had just left, as if someone would appear at any moment to chide her for talking to me.

“You seemed downcast back there, Rebecca,” I said, keeping my voice light. “I wondered if there was anything I could do to help?”

“I ought not to speak to you, sir,” she whispered. “All the talk in the market is of how you were arrested for the killing of my uncle. Mistress Blunt says it’s no more than can be expected of foreigners who are little better than savages with no respect for God or the queen. Begging your pardon,” she added in a mumble, looking down.

“Mistress Blunt is a fat fool,” I said. Her hand flew to her mouth to cover a delighted gasp at the audacity of this. “You do not believe I killed your uncle, surely?”

Her eyes travelled my face for a moment as if uncertain. She shook her head.

“No. Why would you? Besides, no money was taken, so they said. You are right about Mistress Blunt, but I would not dare say so aloud. Like now, for instance.” She fell into step beside me, her talk more relaxed, as if our shared view of Mistress Blunt eclipsed all previous concerns. “I am to take this basket to old Mother Garth out by the Riding-gate, though her son Tom is gatekeeper at the cathedral only spitting distance from our stall. I don’t see why it can’t be left with him, but no—Mistress Blunt says I must take it in person, though all Canterbury knows Mother Garth is mad as a hare and like as not to scream blue murder at you just for standing on her doorstep. I wouldn’t even be surprised if she was a witch and all.” She nodded a full stop, as if this were the definitive verdict.

I smiled.

“Well, then—how would it be if I were to accompany you to her door, and if she screams at you I shall shout back at her in Italian, see what she makes of that. And if she sees fit to turn me into a cat or a rat, I shall depend on you to use what you learned from your uncle and make a remedy to turn me back.”

Rebecca laughed, looking up at me with all her young untried yearnings transparent on her face. I had no interest in her outside what she might know of her uncle’s business, but I realised again how easy it is to flatter a giddy girl, and how easily a man with fewer scruples might use that to his advantage. I thought of the maidservant Sarah Garth and how Sir Edward must have beckoned her to his bed—and his son’s bed—with a few judicious compliments. A quick stab of anger knotted my gut at the idea; if I could feel outrage at my own sex on behalf of a girl I never knew, how much fury must her own brother still carry in his breast? Perhaps a visit to Mother Garth might yield more than the chance to quiz Rebecca undisturbed.

“It is true that my uncle taught me plenty of remedies when I helped him in the shop,” she was saying, and I brought my attention back to the stream of her chatter. “But my mother will not let me practice them, for fear. She says a woman who knows how to heal is judged a witch.”

“Only by the ignorant. But perhaps your mother is afraid that you would have to work with dangerous ingredients. Your uncle must have kept many in his shop—poisons, even?”

“Only the dose makes the poison,” she said importantly, and the hairs on my arm prickled. “Uncle William always used to say that.”

“Surely not!” I affected to laugh. “A poison is a poison, is it not so? I mean, something like belladonna, for instance—what good remedy could you make from that?”

“You would be surprised,” she said, her face earnest. “People think it dangerous because of the berries, but I’ll wager you did not know that a tincture of belladonna is the only antidote to laudanum poisoning?”

I stopped dead in the street and stared at her. The horse snorted in protest at my sudden halt.

“Laudanum, did you say?”

She nodded, pleased to show off her store of knowledge.

“You can give a person laudanum to dull pain or help them sleep, as everyone knows, but if you give too much by mistake, the person passes into a state almost between life and death, where you cannot even tell that he breathes, and he will never wake unless he be given belladonna. Come—we must talk and walk at the same time, or I shall be in trouble.”

She giggled again and I resumed my pace, fighting to keep my face steady.

“So, you are saying—if you give a man a heavy dose of laudanum, he will pass into a sleep that looks almost like death, but if he is given belladonna, he will wake again?”

“So my uncle claimed, though I never saw it done. But he said the method had been tried.”

“What if you give too great a dose of belladonna by mistake?”

She shrugged.

“I don’t know. I suppose the person would die then as well. I will tell you another curious fact about belladonna, though,” she said, brightening. “Children can tolerate a dose of it that would kill a grown man. Is that not strange? You would think, being smaller, they would die quicker. But up to the age of twelve or thirteen it is the opposite, my uncle said.”

“How did he know this?” I asked, too sharply; I saw a flicker of concern cross her face.

“I suppose he read of it somewhere. He had a great curiosity for new ideas in physic, though he would not speak of it when there were customers in the shop. People have no spirit of adventure when it comes to remedies, he used to say. They want you to give them what they have always had, no matter whether it works or not. Try something new and they will accuse you of alchemy or witchcraft, he said.”

“That is sometimes said of Doctor Sykes, is it not?”

“Huh. Uncle William was a great admirer of Doctor Sykes for that.” The curl of her lip as she spoke made her own feelings clear. “He said Sykes was not afraid to experiment.”

“What did he mean by that, do you think?”

She gave an impatient little shake of the head, as if the subject was no longer of interest to her, holding on to her coif with her free hand against the chafing wind.

“Oh, I don’t know. Uncle William was always in awe of those he thought his betters. Fawning, my aunt used to call it. He liked to say he could have been a physician if he’d been born a gentleman’s son and had the leisure to study. I never liked Doctor Sykes, though perhaps that’s unkind of me, on account of his looks. Puts me in mind of a great toad, with all his chins. And the way he fixes you with those cold eyes—like he’s picturing cutting you open on a slab to see how your insides work.”

“I would not put it past him.”

I had only seen Sykes on that one fateful occasion in Fitch’s shop, but she was exactly right about his cold eyes. So Sykes liked to experiment. Something nagged at the corner of my thoughts. I took a deep breath and deliberately focused my mind inward to the theatre of memory. Yes—Langworth and Samuel had talked of experiments that day I had hidden under Langworth’s bed. Langworth had said they should wait, there had been too many deaths in the town; had he meant that further experiments would lead to more deaths? Was that what the dead boys had been—subjects of experimentation? Sykes and Fitch shared an interest in medicine, but what was Langworth’s motive in such business?

“Is Sykes married?” I asked Rebecca. She grimaced.

“Not he. What woman would choose to marry that foul toad-face?”

“Is there any gossip in the town that he inclines another way?”

“Men, you mean?”

“Or boys.”

She considered this for a moment before a decisive shake of the head.

“I have never heard it said. And Mistress Blunt knows every scrap of gossip in Canterbury, she prides herself on it. Goodwives come to her stall for the tales as much as for the bread. If there were rumours like that about Doctor Sykes, she would be the first to know of it. Why do you ask?”

“No reason.” I smiled. “Only that it is sometimes said of men who are not married.”

“Are you married?” she asked, with a coy sideways glance.

“I? No.”

“And is it said of you?”

I laughed. “Not to my face.”

She still looked a little concerned; I winked to reassure her and she blushed pleasingly. “We turn down here,” she said, indicating a narrow unpaved street that ran parallel to the city wall, whose squat flint towers rose over the roofs of the cottages ahead of us.

These were poorer dwellings, few of them more than one storey and many badly needed their plaster and thatch to be restored. There was a strong smell of refuse and human waste here; the horse seemed reluctant to be led this way. I tugged gently on his bridle, whispering encouragement, and as I did a large brown rat scurried between my feet and disappeared. So this was where Tom Garth lived with his mother. Small wonder he had such a grievance about the soft lives of youths like Nicholas Kingsley.

Rebecca’s pace slowed as we progressed along the street, as if dragging out the moments before she was obliged to face Mother Garth. I wondered how frightening one old woman could be.

“This one,” she whispered, stopping at a run-down cottage with a crooked roof. One pane of glass in the front casement was broken and the gap was stopped by a sheet of canvas, which the wind had loosened to slap against the frame. Rebecca looked at me expectantly, so I stepped forward and knocked smartly three times on the door. The wood was not sturdy and I felt it bend even under the force of my knuckles. We waited for a few moments, Rebecca nervously twining the strings of her coif around her fingers. Eventually it seemed clear that no one was going to answer. I knocked again and leaned close to the door to listen out for some movement inside, but there was only silence and the crying of the gulls above us.

“No one is home,” I said, after a few moments more. The horse was growing restless and I was also impatient to be gone. “Perhaps you could leave the basket with a neighbour—”

Rebecca shook her head.

“She is there. She never leaves the house. We will have to go in.” She bit her lip at the prospect.

“I cannot leave the horse alone in a street like this,” I said. “He is valuable and I have paid good money as a surety for him in London.”

“I will wait and hold him,” she said, eagerly holding out a hand for his bridle. “It won’t take you a moment.” She shone a hopeful smile at me and I rolled my eyes indulgently, reaching for the basket. It ought to prove easier to question Tom Garth’s mother alone and I could not refuse the chance.

I pushed at the flimsy door and it opened easily into one small, low room with a fire in the centre and a hole above in the blackened thatch to let the smoke escape. In one corner was an ancient-looking wooden settle and beside the fire two rough stools. Over the fire stood an iron frame for hanging a cooking pot. In a far corner, a straw pallet was stacked neatly against the wall. I wondered if that was where Tom slept. The room was empty of life.

“Hello?” I called out. “Mistress Garth? I bring your bread.”

There was no reply. I glanced over my shoulder to see Rebecca’s anxious face peering in the crack of the front door. Nodding to her, I pushed it closed behind me. Opposite this door was another that looked as if it might lead to a back room. I crossed and opened it to find a dim chamber dominated by a large bed and smelling thickly of stale clothes and unwashed bodies. The one small casement was hung with a ragged dark cloth to keep out the daylight. I could hear a fly buzzing persistently against the glass in the stillness. To one side of the bed a wooden ladder rose up to what might have been a kind of loft or storage area built with planks over the rafters under the eaves.

“Mistress Garth?” I called again and this time thought I heard a scratch of movement from above, so slight it might have been a mouse in the thatch. I placed the bread basket on the floor and put my foot on the first step of the ladder. It creaked loudly. There was no further sound from overhead, but I continued up the rungs to the space at the top cut into the planks that had been nailed across the roof beams. Just as my head emerged through the gap, a bony hand shot out and gripped me by the collar; involuntarily I cried out and the creature holding me did the same, though with a note of triumph.

“You!” she shrieked, and I found myself staring into a face that would have terrified children. Wasted by age and hunger so that the skin was stretched across the bones, making the wild blue eyes seem larger and brighter, she bore on her cheeks the marks of childhood pox and a broad scar ran through her left brow. Most of her teeth were missing and her thin lips curled back over the bare gums as she fixed me with her strange, unfocused gaze. A mass of wiry curls stood out around her head, still dark in places though streaked through with silver like the pelt of a badger; with each movement of her head these ringlets seemed to quiver with life of their own and I thought instantly of Medusa and her hair of writhing snakes. I started back and almost lost my footing on the ladder; her grip tightened and she coughed out a hoarse laugh into my face.

“Are you come from the mayor?”

“I am come from the bread stall.”

She took no notice of this.

“I told my Tom to send someone from the law. Thieves! They are taking her things. For what, I don’t know. To sell? You tell me. Are you a constable?”

“No,” I said, keeping my voice steady. She was touched in her wits, that much was clear, but I felt there was some sense in it, if I could only tune my ears. “I have brought you bread.”

The feverish eyes raked my face again, though this time there was uncertainty in them.

“They are taking her things,” she repeated, though more quietly, and her grip slackened on my collar. “Why? It is all I have left of her.”

“Sarah’s things?” I asked. Her eyes flashed with fury and she pulled my face closer. Her breath stank of sour milk.

“What do you know of it? You know something! Is it not enough that they took her from me, now they must come here in the dead of night like foxes and carry off her clothes?”

“What did they take?” I could not lean back for fear of toppling off the ladder; her face was as close as if she meant to kiss me.

“Her best gloves.” Finally she let go of me, as if to concede defeat, and gave a dry laugh. “Her only gloves, I should say. I keep all her things in a chest up here, you see.” She pointed to a rough wooden box in the corner of the loft. “I take them out and remember her. Sometimes I fancy they still smell of her, though my Tom says ’tis only mould and moths. He says I should have sold the good cloth years ago and burned the rest, but we have different ways of mourning. A mother doesn’t let go, you know.” I thought I saw the shine of tears in her eyes then, but it might only have been the fever of madness. She seemed to focus on me again and her face hardened. “So I keep vigil up here now, in case they come back for the rest. I won’t sleep neither. That’s when they’ll come, won’t they? In the night.” She raised her chin as if daring me to contradict her.

“Who do you think stole Sarah’s gloves?”

“The ones who killed her,” she hissed, through her remaining stumps of teeth.

“And who are they?”

“You know,” she said, and spat into the straw to show her contempt. “All the fucking town knows, but they will not bring him to justice. Ah, but one fine day justice will come to him, when he least expects it.”

She broke into a lunatic cackle and I was moved by pity for her state, though her words were sending my thoughts spinning, so similar were they to Tom’s. A missing pair of gloves. And a pair of women’s gloves found bloodied at the place of Sir Edward Kingsley’s murder. I needed to speak to Tom Garth again.

“You know Edward Kingsley is dead?” I said. The old woman stopped laughing abruptly and stared at me.

“Of course I know, you insolent fucking boy—I am not simple. My Tom told me. He should have been brought to public trial for what he did, but something is better than nothing. I hope the whoremongering devil suffered. I hope he suffers in Hell even now. But there are others must be punished for my Sarah.”

“Which others?” I asked, but her face closed up like a shutter and she gave only a low laugh, knowing and wicked.

“They will learn when their judgement day comes,” she muttered. Her eyes narrowed and she looked at me as if noticing me for the first time. “Bread, you say?”

“It is downstairs.”

“I suppose you want money?”

It had not occurred to me to ask Rebecca if the bread was already paid for. But the old woman settled the question with a wave of her claw-like hand.

“I have no money here. Tell them to ask my Tom, he takes care of matters. Besides, I cannot leave Sarah’s clothes unattended.” With this, she scuttled on her hands and knees back across the straw to the corner where the chest stood and laid a protective hand over it. “Now get out of my house,” she added, though without malice.

I bade her good day and retreated to the ground with some relief. Poor Tom, I thought, glancing at the straw pallet in the main room. To live like this, with her, might drive any man to violence. I had been so distracted by the discovery of Sir Edward’s underground tomb, his tangled relationships with Langworth, Sykes, and Samuel, and the implications of his will that I had all but dismissed Tom Garth’s motive for murdering his sister’s former employer. Could it be that Fitch’s murder and Sir Edward’s were unconnected, and Sophia’s husband had been killed in a simple act of revenge, an act imagined and brooded over for years in this squalid room?

Rebecca, relieved of her onerous task, seemed lighter in spirit as we made our way back towards the market, chattering freely and swinging the empty basket at her side, walking a little too close to me and touching my arm often to accompany whatever point she was making. I heard but one word in twenty, my thoughts all caught up in what I had learned this past half hour. But as we neared the street corner that led to the marketplace, I came back to myself and brought the horse to a halt while we were still out of sight, conscious of how our appearance together would look to the busy goodwives.

“You should go on ahead,” I said, motioning briskly with my head. “It would not do for you to be seen with a suspected murderer.”

She twisted her fingers together and giggled. I was beginning to find this girlish simpering tiresome and grew impatient for her to be gone; once again I appreciated Sophia’s self-contained dignity and her disdain for such wiles as girls commonly use. The prospect of seeing her that night took on a sharper thrill as I remembered the graceful curve of her neck, the way she would turn her head and fix her silent steady gaze on me.

“You have done me a great service, sir,” Rebecca murmured, looking up at me from under her lashes. “I wish I could think of some reward.” This time she deliberately met my eyes and did not look away.

“Oh, I have had reward enough,” I said, pretending to be innocent of her meaning, and thinking of the two new nuggets of information I had gained from this detour. “The pleasure of meeting Mistress Garth, for instance. And your fascinating discourse on remedies,” I added hastily, seeing the girl’s face fall.

“Perhaps I shall see you again tomorrow?” she said, a hopeful note in her voice.

“Perhaps. It is a small town.” I smiled with what I hoped was polite detachment. Evidently this did not register, because she leaned forward on her tiptoes and planted a wet kiss full on my lips. Before I had time to react, she clapped a hand to her mouth as if scandalised by her own boldness, gathered up her skirts in both hands, and fled in the direction of the market. Left alone in the empty street, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and leaned back against the horse’s shoulder, smiling.

“Never the one you want, eh? Why is that, old friend?”

He snorted and shook his mane.

“You’re right. Human nature.” I slapped him gently on the side of his neck and led him onwards.

TOM GARTH CAME out to greet me at the Christ Church gate, surprise etched on his face.

“I heard you were arrested for murder,” he whispered, approaching and patting the horse on the shoulder. “Is it true you must stay here with Harry until the assizes?”

“Don’t worry, there is no case to answer,” I said, with more confidence than I felt. “Where do I take this fellow?”

“All the way around the corona and past the guesthouses at the end, you will see the stable block.” He hesitated, wiping his hands on his tunic, and there was a nervousness in his demeanour. I noticed he had not asked me to surrender my weapon this time. “Are you not afraid? Will you send for a lawyer from London?”

“I will defend myself by showing the court the real murderer. But you are right, Tom—it is a fearful thing to be accused of murder.”

He looked at me for a moment without speaking, and it seemed that he blanched; he licked his lips and swallowed, as if his mouth had dried and I thought he was going to speak, but he merely nodded in agreement. I noticed his fingers plucking at the bandage he wore around his hand. I turned away; there were questions to be answered about his sister’s gloves and his own movements on the night of Sir Edward’s murder, but now was not the time. For now all I wanted was to get Samuel on the road and unburden myself to Harry.

The stables were built close up against the walls of the cathedral precinct behind the ruins of the old priory. Outside, a boy was waiting with a horse ready, saddled and harnessed. I explained that I was using Harry Robinson’s stall and was reassured that the waiting horse was indeed Harry’s and was awaiting his servant who would leave that evening. I gave the boy a groat and left my own horse in his care, but as I walked away I turned back and noticed a broad chestnut tree growing outside the precinct wall, its lower branches overhanging the roof of the stables. At the far end of the stable block, a set of wooden steps led down the outside wall from what I guessed was the entrance to the hayloft. So much for their great gatehouse tower and gatekeeper; it would be easy work for any fit man or boy to climb this tree, shimmy over the precinct wall, across the roof of the stable, and down into the yard. My spirits sank further at the thought; in that case, anyone could have entered the cathedral grounds the night Sir Edward was killed without having to pass under the nose of Tom Garth at the gate. But they would still have had to gain access to the crypt to take the crucifix he was battered with; that could not have been taken before dark or the dean would surely have noticed it missing when he checked the crypt and locked up for the night. Which led me back to the same conclusion: only someone with a means of entering the crypt at night could have killed Sir Edward, and if the sub-vault below the treasury was a secret means of access, I found it hard to see how that someone could have been anyone other than Langworth, or perhaps Samuel on Langworth’s orders.

Samuel was waiting in the front parlour of Harry’s house when I arrived with my baggage, a travelling cloak thrown over his arm and a face darker than the bruised sky over the cathedral bell tower.

“Looks like that promised storm might break tonight after all,” I said cheerfully. “I hope you won’t get too wet.” He sent me a glare so murderous it was almost comical, until I reminded myself that this was very likely the man who had lured a child to his death and possibly smashed Fitch’s skull too. Harry shuffled into the room and leaned on his stick, eyes flitting from one to the other of us, appraising the situation.

“Well, Samuel, you had best get on the road before Evensong—you should make some progress by dusk. Every moment counts, I suppose.” He spoke grudgingly and I fought hard to keep my face sombre.

“I appreciate your efforts, Samuel, as will Sir Francis,” I said, with deep sincerity, as I brought out the letter, hastily sealed at the Cheker. I had the sense he would have liked to spit on me then, but for Harry’s sake he nodded and tucked it inside his doublet.

“Do not forget your licence to travel. And have you a cloak against the rain? Good. Take Doctor Bruno’s letter to the usual place and tell them it must reach Walsingham with all speed.” Harry pursed his lips and looked Samuel over like a grandfather fretting over a child. “Have you food for your saddlebag?”

“I have all I need for the journey, thank you, sir,” Samuel said. “And I should get on the road now, before the storm comes.” He shot a last glance at me and pushed past to the doorway.

“God go with you.”

Harry embraced him, and I saw how the old man lingered, reluctant to let his servant leave. He shuffled out after Samuel and I waited in the parlour, cracking my knuckles as I heard them murmuring at the front door, dreading the conversation I must now have with Harry and wondering what lies Samuel was pouring in his ears on the threshold.

Eventually I heard the door close and the tap of Harry’s stick on the boards as he limped back to the front room.

“I hope he travels safe,” he said, with an accusing look at me. “God knows the roads are dangerous enough in these times, with a poor harvest and fear of plague … Samuel will do his best, but you will be lucky if he reaches Walsingham in time for an intervention before the assizes. You will have to hope for clemency from the judge. And it will not be easy—people round here have no fear of perjuring themselves, they will say anything under oath if it means coins in their pockets. If Langworth and Sykes want you found guilty, they can make it happen.”

“I would be amazed if Samuel reaches Walsingham at all, and not because of any danger on the roads,” I said calmly. “Sit down, Harry. You are not going to like what I have to tell you.”

As succinctly as I could, I laid out for Harry everything I had learned since arriving in Canterbury. For the most part he listened without interruption, the shrewd eyes fixed gravely on my face, with the occasional nod to demonstrate his attention.

“God’s teeth, man, have you lost your mind? You stole his keys?” he cried, when I told him about breaking into Langworth’s house.

“A key was taken from Edward Kingsley’s body after he died. Langworth found the body. I had to find out if it was one of those keys, and why.”

“And did you?”

“I am coming to that part.”

He fell silent and pressed a hand to his mouth when I told of Samuel’s conversation with the canon treasurer, so as not to betray any emotion. At one point he shook his head; I could not tell whether it was in sorrow or disbelief. Either way, he was gracious enough to hear me out until the end of my account, including my discovery of the mausoleum beneath Sir Edward’s house and the conversation with the old monk in the West Gate gaol. When I had finished he sat back in his chair, one hand resting on his stick, and looked at me for a long time, but as if his gaze was focused through and beyond me on some hidden meaning. I felt a profound sense of relief at having discharged all this, though I had no way of knowing yet whether Harry’s loyalty to his servant would outweigh the credibility of my story.

Finally he gave a great sigh that seemed to rack his whole body and he shook his head again.

“Samuel,” he said, and left a long pause. “He has been with me these ten years, since before I came to Canterbury. It is so hard to believe. And yet …” He left the thought unfinished.

“I am sorry,” I said, feeling the weakness of the words. “But I am speaking the truth, Harry. There is no one else in Canterbury who will believe me, if you will not.”

He gave a bitter laugh.

“I imagine this is how a cuckold must feel,” he said. “There is a very particular shame in having one’s poor judgement exposed, is there not, Bruno? Intelligent, educated men like us—it is hard to accept that we could be so easily deceived.”

I felt sorry for him—he had clearly developed an affection for his servant over the years and a betrayal of trust on that level was indeed a brutal shock.

“It would be hard to go through life suspecting everyone we know of deception,” I said, gently.

“And yet we are servants of Walsingham,” he said, with a sharpness that may have been directed at himself. “This is an age of deception—we should know to be vigilant. Every man has his price, I ought to have realised that. I cannot believe Samuel was moved by ardent devotion to the church of Rome. Langworth must have paid him well. Better than me. But even so—murder. And murder of children …” He shook his head again. “Do you have a theory yet that will draw all these elements together?”

I pushed my hair out of my eyes.

“My ideas are more tangled than any cat’s cradle. First there is the matter of the murdered boys. Sir Edward, Langworth, and Sykes seem to have been behind this, with the help of Samuel and possibly Fitch. I guess the boys were lured away by Samuel, taken to that underground tomb at St. Gregory’s, drugged with laudanum while they served the mens’ uses. Then perhaps the idea was to revive them with belladonna, but in both cases the dose was misjudged and the boys died, so the bodies had to be disposed of. When Fitch was murdered, all his writings referring to the uses of belladonna were burned and the laudanum removed. Perhaps they feared he had said more than he should to someone and they would be discovered.”

Harry sat in silence for a long while pondering this. I was unwilling to disturb his thoughts if he was reflecting on my hypothesis, but when it seemed he would not speak at all I began to shift in my seat. Finally I cleared my throat and he looked up, frowning.

“You have assumed that these boys were abducted and drugged because one or perhaps all of the men you have mentioned wanted to sodomise them?”

I blinked, surprised by his bluntness.

“I cannot see what other purpose they would have. A taste for boys is not one that men in prominent positions could indulge openly.”

“True. And yet … Edward Kingsley, John Langworth, Ezekiel Sykes? I do not believe they would risk so much for that—a brief taste of forbidden fruit. We are talking of men who play for much higher stakes.”

“Then what?”

By way of answer, he heaved himself from his chair and lurched across the room to a chest of books by the desk, his stiff leg dragging a trail through the dust on the boards. After a moment’s rummaging he emerged with a leather-bound volume.

“That letter from Mendoza—you say it spoke of a miracle?”

I nodded. He grunted and sat heavily, flicking through the pages of the book on his lap.

“One of the early miracles attributed to Saint Thomas Becket, not long after his murder, was the resurrection of a young boy, about twelve years old, the son of a nobleman who had died of an ague. It was the miracle that caused his fame to spread even beyond England. Here—” He passed the book across, indicating the page he had found. It was another chronicle of the life and sainthood of Becket. I read the account in silence and looked up to face Harry, my eyes widening as I grasped his meaning.

“You think they meant to reproduce this miracle? As a public display?”

“Think about it. When you tell me what this girl says about the properties of laudanum and belladonna together … In theory, with the right dose, you could produce the appearance of death and then, with careful timing, bring the boy back to life. The Huguenot boy, the beggar child—these were practice runs, experiments. Suppose they were testing so that, when the right time comes—”

“A Catholic invasion, for instance?”

“Exactly. Then a dead child is brought back to life by the relics of Saint Thomas, his first miracle in decades, as a mark of God’s favour to the people of Canterbury for keeping the true faith. Imagine the effect of it. The report would spread throughout Christendom like a wildfire, as it did the first time.” He gestured to the book.

I sat back, staring at him, amazed by the audacity of it.

“It would mean they have the body of Saint Thomas somewhere,” I murmured. “They must be the guardians the old monk spoke of.”

“Kingsley, Langworth, Sykes. And a fourth.”

“Samuel?”

Harry shook his head. “Not a servant. It will be another man of position in the city.” He pressed his lips together. “We are speculating, of course, Bruno. We have yet to prove it, and they will close ranks. But why was Edward Kingsley murdered, and in so violent a fashion? Did he threaten to betray the plot? Such canny men could surely have found a more discreet way to silence him, you would think.”

“Where was Samuel that night?” I asked.

“He was here with me when Kingsley was murdered. I told you—I left the dean’s supper early, well before Kingsley, and Samuel was at home when I arrived. He sat talking with me right up until we heard the cries outside and went to see what had happened.”

“Perhaps his death is not connected to the boys,” I said, and told him of my visit to Mother Garth’s cottage and the matter of Sarah’s missing gloves. “Tom Garth had opportunity and good reason to kill Sir Edward, and we can prove he tried to cast suspicion on Sophia by leaving a pair of women’s gloves near the place of the murder. He has a cut on his hand—he must have done that himself to wet the gloves with blood before he dropped them early the next morning.”

I heard my voice grow more animated as my theory took shape, though I was aware of a corresponding unease. If Tom Garth was guilty of Edward Kingsley’s murder, it was hard not to sympathise. What I had learned of the magistrate’s disregard for others—his willingness to treat them as commodities to be used as required and discarded when they had served their purpose, together with his callous certainty that he was above the law because he made the law—only made me feel that his violent death had been a sort of unorthodox justice, on behalf of Sarah Garth, Sophia, and the dead boys. Did I really want to hand Tom Garth over to the assizes to be hanged for a crime he had been driven to by desperation? Could I honestly say I might not be tempted to such actions, in his shoes? I passed a hand over my mouth, realising the enormity of what I was facing. But if the true murderer was not brought to justice, the sentence of death would always hang over Sophia, and one day it would surely catch up with her. I had promised to find the man who killed her husband and I could not back away from that promise now merely because the likely answer tore at my conscience. Still, my heart was heavy at the thought of it. I must talk to Tom; perhaps I could persuade him to sign a confession and leave the town before the assizes. He would have time to make it to one of the ports.

Harry continued to watch me, his face guarded.

“And how shall we prove it, Bruno? Any of this?” His chin tilted up as he spoke, as if in challenge.

“Tom Garth may be persuaded to confess,” I said, knowing the weakness of it. “Or his mother at least will testify about the missing gloves. If the constable has kept the one found at the place of the murder, she could identify it. As for the boys—the old monk in the gaol could be brought as witness. He is not so clouded in his wits as he first seems—”

I broke off; Harry was shaking his head.

“I know this old man—his name is Brother Anselm and he is a familiar figure around the town. People give him alms out of superstition or some respect for the old priory, and the watch are reluctant to arrest him for vagrancy. Every now and again he is sent on his way with a warning, yet he always finds his way back. But if he has been blamed for the murder, his testimony would never be taken seriously. As for old Mother Garth—her wits fled the day her daughter died. The mad cannot testify in court. It is hopeless.”

“Then there must be another way,” I said with feeling. “I will find the body of Saint Thomas.”

“Ha! You think they will have left it lying around for all to see? With an epitaph, perhaps?”

“They will have distinguished it somehow.” I was growing impatient with his determination to fix on every disadvantage. “There is also the body of the Huguenot boy in the mausoleum at the Kingsley house. It is not yet so badly decayed that it could not be identified.” I stopped for a moment, imagining Hélène confronted with that terrible sight, and felt a stab of guilt that the family still knew nothing of Denis’s fate. “No one but us and the old housekeeper knows of it. When the assize judge arrives—”

Harry raised a hand.

“We must tread with the utmost care now, Bruno. You have already seen how this business is protected by powerful interests. They have had you arrested on the flimsiest of pretexts and they could find a way to silence me as well, if they chose. And the unknown fourth guardian will also be a man with significant influence in the town.”

“Someone like the mayor? Meg said I would get no justice from him.” I thought of Fitzwalter with his pompous air of entitlement and his evident irritation at having to give way to the dean over my release.

“Possibly. Or even closer to home.” He raised his eyes to the window. I followed his gaze and took in the towering shadow of the cathedral.

“Someone here? Other than Langworth?” I looked back to Harry in amazement. “Not Dean Rogers, surely?”

Harry held his hands out, palms upwards, to indicate helplessness.

“As you said, we cannot be sure of anyone. It would be very difficult to hide anything in the crypt without his knowledge. No one can gain access without him.”

“Not necessarily.” I told him of the old map I had discovered in the cathedral library showing the sub-vault beneath the treasury that appeared to open onto the crypt. “There are two keys untried on the ring I copied from Langworth. Tonight, under cover of darkness, I intend to try them. Becket is down there somewhere, I am sure of it. If we find the relics, we can expose the whole conspiracy.”

“How?” Harry threw his hands up, exasperated. “We come to the same problem every time, Bruno. Even if you find a casket of bones in the crypt and they can be unequivocally proven to be Becket’s—how do we tie them to Langworth and Sykes? If we accuse them without evidence, it is we who will be exposed. And who will help us? We cannot rely on Samuel to take that letter to Walsingham now.”

“I have no doubt that Samuel will destroy that letter as soon as he has the chance,” I said. “Fortunately, my hope lies elsewhere.” I told him of the copy I had made of Mendoza’s letter to Langworth and how I had sent it with the weavers to Sidney. “There is a chance, if they make good time on their journey, that Walsingham could send a fast rider to intervene by the day of the assizes. Cheer up, Harry—remember we are protected by powerful interests too. The queen herself.”

Harry’s face remained clouded.

“Aye. And how will she take this, I wonder—a conspiracy to revive the cult of Saint Thomas, right in the heart of the cathedral? A conspiracy that has flourished under my nose while I was buried in my books. Walsingham will strike me from his service after this. And it is all the reason Elizabeth needs to suppress the foundation and take its funds for her wars.” His eyes lingered on mine for a moment with an expression more of resignation than anger. “All this to save one girl from the pyre, Bruno? A girl who is far away from this town by now and has nothing to fear from its justice. Was it worth your while?”

I caught the bitter edge in his voice and paused for a moment before I spoke, leaning my elbows on my knees and steepling my fingers together as I weighed up my words.

“I was not sent here to find reasons to shut down the foundation, Harry, whatever you may believe. I did it all for the girl. And, yes—if I save her it will have been worth it.” I hesitated again and took a deep breath. “But, actually, she is not as far away as you think.”

Harry raised an eyebrow and I told him how Sophia had journeyed to Canterbury with me, how the Huguenots had sheltered her but were afraid to go on doing so since my arrest, how I had promised to find her this coming night in the crypt.

“And bring her here?” He looked less outraged by the idea than I might have supposed.

“With Samuel away she would be well hidden. It is only until the assizes. Everything will be resolved then.”

“I admire your optimism, Bruno. But by this you would make me an accessory to murder.”

“She is not a murderer.”

“You are chopping logic—she is a thief and a fugitive from justice, and that is a felony.” He shifted in his chair and let out a despairing laugh. “It doesn’t seem that I have any choice in the matter. I suppose I am already harbouring one suspected murderer—the more the merrier. Well then, Bruno, you had better find this evidence, or we may all end with a rope around our necks.”

THE BELLS JOLTED me awake in an instant, so loud they seemed to make the walls vibrate, and I came to on the narrow bed in Harry’s guest chamber, sitting up in all the disarray and confusion of interrupted sleep. I had only meant to lie down for a moment, but the bells must mean Evensong; I had no idea how long I had slept. Harry’s voice floated indistinctly up the stairs, no doubt urging me to hurry. I dressed quickly, ran a comb through my hair, and hastened to join him.

The first fat drops of rain had begun to fall as we made our way at Harry’s halting pace along the path to the south transept entrance. Overhead the clouds were swollen and heavy and the air was taut with heat and the salt wind, as if waiting for the one great cleansing burst that would discharge all the pent energy of the sky.

“One thing puzzles me,” Harry said, holding his free hand ineffectually over his head against the rain. “Where did they mean to get another boy when the time came to stage their great miracle? Pluck one off the streets again?”

“Beggar children are easy enough to find in these times,” I said.

“I’m not so sure. And how to persuade the people to take notice of this supposed death and resurrection? It pains me to say it, but the death of a street boy would hardly concern most of our good citizens. They would need someone of more significance. The boy in the legend was a noble’s son.”

“Perhaps the beggar boy and young Denis were just to test the dosage. My friend Doctor Dee used to keep mice in his laboratory for the same purpose. It was all the same to him whether he killed them in the course of his experiments. He used to say the pursuit of science took precedence.” I felt my throat tighten at the thought of treating children in the same way.

“And they will test on more, according to what you heard Langworth say,” Harry said, lowering his voice as we approached the door. “They will need to be certain of the mixture if they are not to ruin their public conjuring trick.”

“All the more reason to stop them now.”

We joined the line of townspeople entering the cathedral and I noted how they looked sidelong at me. Harry affected not to notice, though I knew he was sensitive about his reputation in the town. He led me to the right, up a wide flight of steps to the canons’ stalls, which faced one another across the tiled floor of the quire. We shuffled into place beside the other canons, many of whom also regarded me with naked curiosity before turning to whisper to their neighbours, barely bothering to conceal the direction of their stares. I leaned forward and rested my clasped hands against the smooth wood of the seat in front as if praying. Candle flames danced inside their glass lanterns at intervals along the stalls, fugitive light scattered and duplicated by the curve of the casings, reflected back in the dark wood.

As the solemn clamour of the bells died away, a new sound echoed up to the stone vaults a hundred feet above us, a sweet and melancholy psalm sung in the fluting voices of the choirboys as they processed through the nave below us, the dean at their head carrying a silver cross on a stand. Though it was sung in English, there was such a comforting familiarity about the scene—these men in their black robes, heads bowed, the gentle light of the candles, the haunting polyphony of the boys’ song—that for a moment I imagined myself back in the monastery of San Domenico Maggiore, and I was overcome by an unexpected surge of nostalgia, so that my throat constricted and I felt tears prick at the back of my eyes. Fool, I muttered to myself. I had not wanted the religious life—I had felt oppressed by it and begun to rebel against its constraints long before I was suspected of heresy—but at this moment I could not deny I missed the sense of community and of order it gave, the feeling of belonging to something greater than oneself. I pinched the bridge of my nose and blinked hard as the procession passed in front of us, reminding myself that the illusion of belonging is only ever skin-deep. This place is as riven with factions and backbiting as San Domenico and every other religious community I have known, I thought, idly watching the flushed faces of the boys as they walked solemnly onwards, lips pursed in song, obediently following the silver cross held aloft by Dean Rogers. As I watched, my eyes came to rest on a boy who seemed familiar. After a moment I realised he was the son of the Widow Gray, the boy I had seen that first day with Harry at the site of Thomas Becket’s martyrdom. He was taller than his fellows and carried himself with unusual poise, head aloft as he sang, his gaze turned somehow inward as if he dwelt in some private world of his own. I jerked upright as an idea took shape and leaned across to dig Harry in the ribs, at the exact moment he turned to me and whispered, “Where is Langworth?”

THROUGH THE SILENCES of the service the rain could be heard gaining force against the high windows of the cathedral, lashing the panes so hard that the canons who ascended to the lectern to read aloud from the Scriptures had to raise their voices above it and the dean almost had to shout his address from the pulpit. The jewel colours of the glass flattened and dulled as the sky outside grew darker with the storm. Inside, the shadows lengthened and the candles seemed to glow brighter. Beside me, Harry curled and uncurled his fingers repeatedly over the carved top of his cane as he muttered the psalms and prayers by rote, never once taking his eyes off Langworth’s empty seat in the stalls opposite.

I shared his foreboding about the treasurer’s absence. Langworth was like a snake: less dangerous if you could keep him in view and move accordingly. The senior canons were all expected to attend divine service and my thoughts travelled downwards to the crypt below, where the French church would be celebrating their own service in their small chapel. With gritted teeth, I offered a silent prayer to whoever might be listening that Olivier had successfully smuggled Sophia into the crypt and that she would find a safe place to hide until the night. I only hoped that Langworth was not down there as well, prowling between the tombs as he had been the day I first met him, a silent guardian angel with black wings.

After the service was concluded, the dean hurried down the steps to the nave. Harry motioned to me to follow him and I held out my arm for him to balance as we descended towards the vast body of the cathedral, where the congregation were making their way to the west door, understandably in no great hurry to leave the shelter of the church for the sheeting rain outside.

Harry ushered me through the crowd in the direction of the door. I glanced up and by the entrance to a small oratory I saw the Widow Gray standing alone, elegant in her customary black gown, her hair bound up and her face veiled in black lace. I supposed she was waiting for her son. It was hard to tell under the veil where her eyes were focused, but as I continued to watch her she lifted the lace for a moment and met my look with a smile. I returned it with as much detachment as I could, though the exchange of glances did not escape Harry’s sharp eyes.

“Would that the women still smiled at me that way,” he murmured, with a gentle nudge to my ribs.

“Edward Kingsley made her a settlement in his will,” I whispered. “Perhaps she received other payments from him. What if they had made some sort of bargain?”

Harry looked puzzled for a moment, then understanding lit up his face.

“You mean, for the boy?”

I nodded.

“He is of an age with those that were killed. Suppose he was intended for the miracle all along—they would have chosen boys of a similar age and build to ensure they had the dosage right. And the death of a gentlewoman’s son would attract more attention in the town than that of a beggar boy.”

Harry rubbed a hand over his chin and moved in still closer.

“You know some like to say the boy is Langworth’s.”

“Is it true?”

He shrugged.

“Perhaps there is a resemblance, but then once the thought has been put in your head you are primed to see it, no? But to sell your own child—” He broke off and looked past me with disgust to where the Widow Gray stood, aloof and a little fragile, silhouetted against the candles.

“Perhaps they assured her it was safe,” I said. “She may not know how many other boys have died in preparation.”

“May still die,” Harry said ominously, a little too loudly, for we had reached the door by now and arrived within earshot of Dean Rogers, who looked up from shaking the hands of his congregation and twitched like a startled rabbit.

“Goodness—who may still die, Harry?” he said, with a tight little laugh.

“This wind,” Harry said, pointing outside. Through the open door rain gusted in curtains so thick you could barely see the buildings opposite. People huddled in the porch, those who wore cloaks or jerkins drawing them up over their heads in readiness for stepping out into the downpour. “I was just saying this wind may still die down in time for us to walk home.”

“Ah.” The dean smiled, but it looked strained. “I hope you have not forgotten you are both dining with me tonight? If you want to make your way to the Archbishop’s Palace, my steward will serve you drinks. I will join you when I have bid good night to my flock and locked up the crypt. It is but a short walk and there will be fires to dry your clothes,” he added, seeing us hesitate at the prospect of a soaking.

“No sign of the canon treasurer tonight, then?” Harry said cheerfully, almost as if it was an afterthought.

“Alas, no. John received a rather distressed message earlier this evening from young Nicholas Kingsley. The son of our late magistrate,” he added, turning to me.

“I have made his acquaintance,” I murmured. The dean nodded.

“A wayward boy, I’m afraid. He is not coping at all well since his father’s death, and as John was close to Sir Edward I think he feels an obligation to look out for the lad, offer him some guidance. So John is dining there tonight and sadly won’t join us for supper. Still, I hope we will have lively company nonetheless.” He beamed and I did my best to return the smile, though my skin prickled with unease. I exchanged a look with Harry. Langworth at St. Gregory’s was bad news, but there was nothing we could do now if his purpose was to remove any evidence. I only hoped that old Meg was able to take care of herself.