Sacrilege: A Novel

by S. J. Parris

  “Have you ever been married, Bruno?” he asked.

  “No,” I said, surprised by the question. Shielding my eyes, I looked up to our left; sideways on, the cathedral had the appearance of a vast warship, ribbed with buttresses, its high windows so many gunports.

  “Nor I,” he said. “When I entered the clergy, churchmen didn’t marry, and once it became acceptable, I had missed the boat. Instead I have Samuel—all the fussing and nagging of a wife, with none of the benefits.” He gave a deep, rasping laugh.

  “He doesn’t like me, I’m afraid.”

  “Don’t mind him, he doesn’t like anyone. He has a suspicious cast of mind and he’s jealous as a wife, too—likes to feel that I’m dependent on him. Can’t bear to share my attention. This way.”

  The path passed through a gate by a block of stables and continued around the east end of the cathedral. Cut timber and logs were piled against its wall behind a makeshift fence, covered by oilskin cloths. To our right, a wooded area of thick oak trees in full leaf cast long shadows over the grass beneath, stretching back as far as the precinct walls, a relic from the priory that had stood on the site before the Dissolution, I supposed. Here the heat of the day had begun to subside; I loosened my collar and breathed deeply. The leaves stirred as the breeze lifted, sending light flickering through the foliage. The place seemed so at peace with itself, it was hard to believe it could be the setting for bloody murder. Perhaps Thomas Becket had once thought the same, I reflected.

  Harry paused and craned his head back to look at the sky. “What a fine day. God’s bones, I should leave the house more often. I’m sure it would do wonders for my constitution.”

  “You are confined by your health?”

  He laughed again.

  “By my work. When I arrived in Canterbury six years ago, I took it upon myself to compile a history of the cathedral from its foundation in the sixth century to the Dissolution.” He smiled at my expression. “I know—utter folly. My allotted span is almost up and I’ve only got as far as the martyrdom. Still another four hundred years to get through.”

  “You may yet finish it.”

  “Even if I had another score years left to me, that would not be enough to sort through the manuscripts in the cathedral library—hundreds of years’ worth of documents and papers buried there, but they’ve never been archived or catalogued properly, and I doubt they ever will, unless someone comes along prepared to dedicate his entire life to the job. There could be all manner of treasures gathering cobwebs.”

  “Surely the librarian has some idea of what books are in his care?” I asked.

  Harry gave that dry bark of laughter that I now recognised as cynicism.

  “He may well. If so, it must suit him to keep them hidden from the rest of us.” He resumed his shuffling as the path curved around the eastern end of the cathedral. Here he raised his stick and pointed to the semicircular tip of the building. “The corona, they call this part. Built to house the reliquary that contained the fragment of Becket’s skull hacked away by his murderers. Come.” He waved me forward with his stick.

  On the north side of the cathedral more houses had been built amid the ruined masonry of the old priory, as if in their haste to replace the old religious house the builders had not even bothered to clear its traces away. Naked arches stood stark against the sky like the ribs of a great decayed beast. Harry led me around into the shadow of the cathedral church. Just past these houses, where a small chantry chapel jutted out from the side of the main building, he paused and pointed with his stick to a spot on the path. A dark stain, though faded, could still be seen in the dust, like the outline of a puddle.

  “There.”

  I crouched to look at the bloodstained ground. So this was the spot where Sophia’s vicious husband had lain for his last minutes, lifeblood leaking away into the dust, surprised by the blow that came out of the darkness. Had Sir Edward seen who stepped towards him, weapon held aloft? Would he have known his killer, or known why that person had come for him? I traced a line in the reddish dirt with the tip of my forefinger. It was hard to summon any pity for the man when you knew his history. Sitting back on my haunches, I peered up, trying to imagine the last sight he would have seen: the towering walls of the cathedral on one side, the houses among the priory ruins on the other. I noticed that the path continued around the side of the chantry chapel and disappeared.

  “Where was he coming from?” I asked, trying to work out the dead man’s last route.

  “He dined with the dean in the Archbishop’s Palace that night,” Harry said, leaning on his stick. “I was there.”

  “The Archbishop’s Palace is directly opposite the main gatehouse, though, at the western end of the cathedral, is it not? Why would he come around the back of the cathedral on his way home, then? Is there another way out?”

  “He mentioned at table he was going to take a glass with the canon treasurer after supper. They were friends. But I was tired and went home early that night so I didn’t see if he left the Archbishop’s Palace alone.”

  “Whoever attacked him must have known he would come this way,” I said. “You don’t cut a man down like that by chance. And you say anyone at the dinner could have heard him mention where he was going. What else is this side of the cathedral, apart from the cloister?”

  Harry considered.

  “The Chapter House, but that is only used for official meetings. And the library, which is housed in a disused chapel just behind us, the other side of this chantry. Then there are more of the canons’ residences.” He hesitated. “The canon treasurer’s house is on this side, of course.” He rubbed his stubbled chin.

  “Are the cathedral doors locked at night?”

  He shook his head.

  “God’s house should be open around the clock, according to the dean. Not to just anybody, of course—the precinct gates are closed so the town can’t get in. Only the crypt is locked after Evensong, by the dean himself, as some of the more valuable ornaments are stored there. He is the only one with a key. But any of the residential canons may go into the main church and pray at any time of the night. Provided they’re not afraid to brave the ghosts.” That rasping laugh again; he fluttered his free hand in an approximation of spectral movement.

  “You have ghosts?” I glanced at him, amused.

  “Oh, naturally we have ghosts. Several, I should think. The south-east end of the cathedral precincts was formerly the monks’ cemetery, and beyond it the lay cemetery. The dead of centuries are piled up under our feet. Not to mention our most famous murder victim.”

  “Perhaps your most recent one too.”

  “I’m sure he has joined the queue. Do you believe in spirits, Bruno?”

  I hesitated, considering how to answer this without compromising myself.

  “I have seen nothing to persuade me that the spirits of the dead walk among us, if that’s what you mean.”

  He smiled.

  “Nor I. Yet there are plenty who are persuaded, and not just among the simple folk.” He gestured towards the cathedral. “There are stories of candles lit at night, statues that shift shape, human figures that form themselves from the very shadows. I know good stout Protestant canons who will not walk the precincts after dark for fear of what might come out of the mist.”

  “A pity Sir Edward Kingsley didn’t have the same qualms—he might have kept his head intact.”

  Harry gave an irreverent chuckle. “Do you want to take a look inside?”

  I agreed eagerly, keen to see the interior of the great church, though my thoughts were distracted. I had even less idea since arriving in Canterbury of how to proceed with the business of Edward Kingsley’s murder. Seeing the place where he had died had only led to more questions, just like my encounter with Fitch the apothecary.

  Harry shuffled his way along as the path rounded the chantry chapel and we found ourselves in a small courtyard with the cathedral on our left and a smaller chapel on our right. Ahead of us was
a well-kept cloister, a stretch of green lawn visible through the range of rounded arches that enclosed it on all four sides. I followed at Harry’s frustrating pace, thinking as I watched him that his physical health must surely restrict his ability to gather information, even if his position in the cathedral chapter did give him intimate access to the dealings of the dean and the other canons. If he was confined to his house with his head buried in historical manuscripts most of the time, I wondered how much use he could be here to Walsingham.

  We passed into a flagstoned passageway touched with a sharp smell of damp, where the sudden cool of the shade made my skin prickle like gooseflesh. The passage ran between the body of the cathedral church and a majestic building on our right that Harry pointed out as the Chapter House, before opening out into the cloister. He turned left along the tunnel of columns branching into delicately traced vaults overhead and we found ourselves in front of a small door into the cathedral. Harry turned the handle and we stepped through into the reverent silence of ancient stone. The metallic click of the door closing behind us echoed a hundred feet above us in the vast arches of the ceiling. I craned my head upwards, realising only belatedly that I was holding my breath.

  “Right here.” Harry lowered his voice; the place seemed to demand it. “This is where they killed Becket.” He pointed to the floor in front of a blank wall of white stone, to the right of an elaborately carved screen into a private chapel.

  Though sunlight still streamed through the high windows on the other side of the cathedral, licking the walls above our heads, this little corner was sunk in shadow. There was nothing remarkable about it; when I had learned the story of Becket’s murder as a young novice, I had pictured the saint struck down by the gang of knights before the high altar, in the heart of the church, not in some side chapel that was barely more than a vestibule. Harry moved to stand beside me and we remained in respectful silence for a moment; one sound Protestant churchman and one heretical ex-monk, both of us derisive of the superstition that attended saints’ cults, yet both apparently caught by the sense that this famous death demanded acknowledgement.

  I was distracted from my thoughts by the sensation that we were not alone. I glanced up and was startled by the sight of a woman standing just behind us, tall and slender, dressed in the mourning clothes of a widow, her face veiled in black. Beside her stood a thin boy with large eyes. They seemed to have been watching us. The woman lifted her veil to reveal an expression of curiosity. She was perhaps my own age, with delicate features and haughty blue eyes that roamed over my face mercilessly. Her skin was white as a marble effigy against the black of her dress.

  “Mistress Gray,” Harry said, with a polite bow. “Good day to you.”

  The woman dipped her head, her eyes still on me. Then, without a word, she reached for the boy’s hand and swept past us towards the door, giving me a nod on the way out as if to suggest that we knew each other. Something in her penetrating look made me uncomfortable.

  “Who is that woman?” I asked, when she had gone, still looking at the door.

  Harry smiled. “That is the Widow Gray. A woman of mystery.”

  “Really?”

  “Whether she is really a widow is the subject of much debate in the town.”

  “Ah.”

  “Some say she was a wealthy courtesan, that her son is really a bastard prince, that she is a disgraced royal cousin—you know what idle gossip is. I pay no attention, myself.”

  “Of course not.”

  “But she keeps to herself, the widow, and she is beautiful and evidently has means, so naturally people feel entitled to make up her story for her. Now—wait here.” He shuffled away into the chapel to our left. I waited, wondering if it was possible I had met the Widow Gray in another place or time. She had looked at me as if she knew me, but it seemed impossible. Harry returned a few moments later with a stub of candle.

  “Borrowed from the altar. They won’t notice. Hold this.”

  I took the candle while he fumbled in the pouch at his belt for a tinderbox and struggled painfully to light it with arthritic fingers. I had to bite my lip and resist the urge to snatch the box from him and finish the job myself. Finally, he conjured a spark, a small flame blossomed from the wick, and he nodded to a rounded archway beside the site of the martyrdom, where a flight of worn steps led down to an open door and smudges of shadow concealed what lay beyond.

  A faint line of light touched the darkness ahead of us as we descended. I kept close to Harry, one arm half extended in case he should need help, though not so obviously as to offend him, but he seemed to know the stairs into the bowels of the cathedral by touch alone, and it was I who almost missed my footing as we reached the bottom. The air felt denser here, cold and mineral, as if it had stood still in this unlit sanctum for centuries.

  As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I peered around and began to make out the dimensions of this vast crypt, which seemed to stretch ahead in an endless maze of columns and arches, disappearing tunnellike into the obscured distance and fanning overhead into vaults that bore traces of coloured patterns in cobalts and crimsons, untarnished by the passing of ages. Some of the columns had been carved with twisting, concentric designs, their capitals wrought with fantastical creatures: dragons and horned beasts, green men of pagan legend and gryphons seizing winged serpents in their jaws, men with tails fighting creatures with the heads of wolves and the bodies of dragons, that seemed to wink and shift shape in the dancing flame. To either side these vaulted arches branched out, repeating in parallel rows of thick pillars as broad as the trunks of oak trees, drawing the eye always forward. Some of the spaces between had been filled in with tombs, where stone effigies reclined prayerfully, their royal or episcopal features erased by time so that they wore the distorted expressions of lepers or the victims of fire.

  Neither Harry nor I had spoken since entering the crypt. It was a place of silence thick as shadow, a silence ancient and brooding as the great stones. As my gaze roamed over the walls, I thought I heard a soft noise intrude into the stillness; an unexpected breath of cold air touched the back of my neck and I shivered violently. Harry, ahead of me with the candle, kept walking, noticing nothing; I turned sharply, but behind me there was only darkness. Yet as I followed the wavering light down the avenue of stone columns, I could not shake the sense that someone was watching.

  At the heart of the crypt stood a small enclosed chapel amid the arches, with a plain altar at the front and tombs to either side.

  “Is the crypt used for worship?” I asked.

  “The French Huguenots use the chapel at this end once a week. Her Majesty gave it to the community when they first arrived so they would have somewhere to hold their services in their own tongue. They brought their own pastors and deacons. The eastern end is only used for storage now.” Harry paused and held up his candle. “You know, the priory monks hid Becket’s body down here in the years after his murder, for fear it would be stolen,” he whispered.

  I glanced around again.

  “Perhaps he is still here. After all”—I gestured to the tombs that surrounded us—“where better to hide a tree than in a forest?”

  Harry shrugged. “Even if we opened every tomb, how would we know? The man has been dead for four centuries. His bones will look like anyone else’s.”

  “Except that the top of his skull is missing.” I shook my head. “Someone knows.”

  “I have sometimes wondered—” Harry began, when a noise to our left made him break off, his face alert; he reached out and laid a hand on my arm, as if for reassurance.

  By instinct my right hand flew to my belt, though even in the act of reaching for it I remembered that my little knife was in the care of the gatekeeper. Out of the shadows behind the tomb, a figure took shape as if from the darkness and approached, seeming to glide across the pavement with no sound other than the ripple of his black robe. Harry held up the candle and as the man moved closer its light revealed a bony face composed of har
d angles, stern eyes that fixed on me with restrained curiosity, a close-shaved skull whose stubble glinted silver-grey. It was a severe face, not without dignity, lined by perhaps fifty winters, with a thin scar that ran from his nose to the corner of his mouth, causing his lip to curl upwards in an unfortunate sneer. I fought the impulse to step back under the force of that direct stare.

  The man folded his hands together in front of him and turned to Harry, inclining his head with a polite smile.

  “Doctor Robinson. It is rare to find you down here. I hope I am not disturbing a moment of private devotion?”

  It was clear even to a stranger that Harry disliked this man intensely, despite returning his smile with an equally chilly civility. In nearly two years I have not yet managed to understand this about the English; in Naples, if a man despises another, he spits in his face openly or insults his family, and then a fight ensues. Here, they shake each other’s hand, dine together, smile with their teeth only, and wait until the other’s back is turned before striking their blow, and this agreed deception is called etiquette. Watching these two men, I had the sense that Harry would gladly knock this tall bony fellow to the ground in the blink of an eye. Instead, he returned the cursory bow.

  “I was showing my visitor the historical wonders of our church, Canon Treasurer. May I present Doctor Filippo Savolino, a scholar from Italy and a friend of the Sidney family?”

  The tall man turned his unhurried gaze back and arched his brow as he studied me.

  “Savolino, you say? A pleasure.” He reached out one hand and I took it, reluctantly; his fingers felt bloodless and dry against mine and I had for a moment the impression that he had just stepped out of one of the tombs. “John Langworth, canon treasurer. We have few visiting scholars here, Doctor Savolino. I wonder what could interest you about our little community.”