Sacrilege: A Novel

by S. J. Parris

  THE ASSIZES WERE to be held in the Guildhall, being the only public building of sufficient size to contain the justice, his retinue of clerks and associates, the mass of accused prisoners, and the hordes of townspeople who came to watch for want of any better entertainment. The Buttermarket was already filling up with onlookers as we emerged from the shadow of the gatehouse; I had barely stepped into the sunlight when something whizzed past my ear and struck the guard on my right in the shoulder. I ducked out of instinct, turning to see him retrieve a limp cabbage and hurl it back where it came from.

  “It’s not personal,” he said, in a matter-of-fact tone. “They just like to make a noise and throw things. You could be anyone in chains, they wouldn’t care. It’s part of their day out, you know.”

  “Thank you,” I said, swivelling my head from side to side on the alert for missiles.

  “You will be taken into the holding room with the other prisoners who have been brought from the gaol,” Edmonton explained as we walked, evidently taking pride in airing his knowledge and quite unconcerned by the intermittent bombardment of vegetables. “The prosecutors and witnesses will be sworn in by the marshal. After this, the prisoners are called to the bar to hear the charges read. Cases of blood always take precedence,” he added, with a smirk.

  I could barely concentrate. Harry’s last words to me had had the effect of opening a shutter and allowing a shaft of light into a dim room, so that everything that had once been only outline and shadow now stood clearly illuminated. And the result was horrifying. I caught Edmonton’s last phrase and looked up.

  “Cases of blood?”

  “Crimes for which the punishment is death.” The smirk widened into a sideways smile. “Then you make your plea, guilty or not guilty—”

  “Not, as I have said a thousand times.”

  “—after which the jury will hear witnesses, the justice will direct them to a verdict, they retire to consider, then they return their verdict and the justice will pass sentence on those found guilty. He is efficient, Justice Hale. I’ve seen him work through as many as fifty cases in a day.”

  “Fifty? But how can they possibly weigh the evidence for each one in that time?”

  Edmonton only gave an unpleasant laugh, as if my naïveté were comical.

  “And I?” I asked. “When do I see my counsel?”

  “Your what?” He turned to look at me, mouth open, as if I had made a great joke.

  “A man of law who will speak for me against the charges.” I heard my voice rise, panicked. Edmonton stopped still in the street, hands on his hips, his neat moustaches trembling with suppressed laughter.

  “Oh dear—did you really think …?” He shook his head indulgently, as if at a slow child. “I’m afraid English law does not permit counsel for those accused of capital crimes. Now, if you stood accused of stealing five shillings, you would have a man of law to speak for you. But not for murder. It is one of those funny little quirks. The idea being, I suppose, that to hang a man the evidence must be so clear that there can be no defence.”

  “But the evidence against me is all fabricated,” I said, through my teeth. “I must be allowed to challenge it!”

  “You will have the chance to answer the charges,” he said, in a soothing tone, resuming his pace. “But you would be well advised not to raise your hopes.”

  The crowds lining the street grew denser as we approached the Guildhall. Outside the main door, a handful of men on horseback in city livery did their best to hold back the press of people, but it was almost impossible to get in the door. Men stood on each other’s shoulders, straining for a glimpse in the windows, while women shrieked vague generic abuse as we passed.

  “They are ripe for a hanging,” Edmonton murmured as our guards used the shafts of their weapons to encourage a path through the crowd. “Too many acquittals at the last assizes, they went home disappointed. People do like to see justice done, don’t they?”

  “Well, they have not much hope of that here,” I said.

  “Your quick tongue will avail you nothing with Justice Hale,” he said over his shoulder as he tried to elbow his way through to the door. He spoke as if the justice were an old drinking partner, a friend he had known for years. “He likes proper decorum in his courtroom. For pity’s sake, good people, let us through or there will be no trial today at all!” he bellowed at the broad goodwives in their best caps and bonnets, dressed up as if for a carnival.

  On the threshold I lifted my hands, the chains rattling, and clutched at Edmonton’s sleeve.

  “Constable? May I have one request?”

  He turned to me with a face of incredulity and brushed my fingers away from his arm as if they might leave a stain. “What do you think you are, a nobleman in the Tower? Even now, you think you merit special treatment just because Harry Robinson was fool enough to pay your bail?” When I did not respond, he sighed. “Well, what is it?”

  “I wish to speak to Dean Rogers.”

  “Before you are called? Impossible. Why?”

  “I would like him to pray with me. I am sure he would not refuse.”

  Edmonton hesitated.

  “If my friends at court should learn that I was refused that comfort, it will go the worse for you.”

  “Yes, yes. Your friends at court. Sing another song.” But he looked uncomfortable. “Make way for the prisoner there!” he called out, as the guards drove back the spectators to allow us to enter the Guildhall.

  The crush of people was even greater in the entrance hall, and small skirmishes were breaking out as the crowd fought with one another for access to the main hall. I was dragged through to an anteroom guarded by two solid-looking men holding pikestaffs at a slant across the doorway. A clerk of the court with a portable writing desk slung around his neck stood outside and looked up, enquiring, his pen poised.

  “Filippo Sav— What is your name, Italian?” Edmonton snapped, turning to me.

  “Savolino,” I said to the clerk. He ran a finger down his list and nodded.

  “Murder, attempted murder, and grand larceny,” Edmonton added with emphasis, as if I might be confused with another Filippo Savolino there on lesser charges. The clerk made a mark in his register and nodded to the guards, who lowered their weapons and allowed us to pass.

  The stench in this room hit you like a fist in the throat, the sick-bed, sewer stink of the gaol; at least fifty men and women were packed together as tight as cattle in a market, staring large-eyed at the door with blank faces. Seeing them here, in stark daylight instead of the gloom of the West Gate cell, they reminded me of pictures of the damned I had seen in frescoes; gaunt with hunger, misshapen with disease, their eyes already dead. For many of them, I supposed, this was death’s waiting room, the trial a mere shuffling of papers on their way to the gallows. They were curiously silent, the only sounds a muffled weeping and the slither and clink of chains whenever any of them moved. Looking at some of them, it was hard to feel death would not be a kindness.

  Edmonton had his sleeve pulled across his mouth against the foul air, so that his words could barely escape.

  “Get in. Now you wait here to be called. Use the time to pray for mercy, I should.” Behind his arm he was smirking again.

  “And Dean Rogers?”

  He made some dismissive noise and turned on his heel. The door was closed after him.

  I was forced to stand, pressed in on either side by the mass of prisoners. Across the room I saw the old monk, Brother Anselm, and sent him an encouraging smile, but he only stared, unfocused. I suspected his eyesight was not good enough to recognise me. Either that, or he was beyond encouragement, like most of those manacled together in here. I closed my eyes and retreated into my theatre of memory, that system of corresponding wheels and images that had made my name in Paris and brought me to the notice of King Henri, which in turn had led to his sending me to London, which had brought me here, to face trial at a provincial assizes alongside coiners and horse thieves. All for a woman a
nd a book, as Sidney had said.

  I knew now who had killed Sir Edward Kingsley and Doctor Sykes. I just had to make certain. And then I had to decide what I would do about it.

  Minutes stretched out; I do not know how long I waited there. One of the older women passed out and fell, dragging down those manacled to her; someone else pissed themselves where they stood, past any care for human dignity. Hemmed in on both sides, I retreated into my thoughts, feeling that a hole had been ripped through me, as if with cannon-shot.

  After a while the door opened a crack and the clerk’s face appeared in the opening.

  “Where is the Italian?” he said.

  I shuffled forward, raising my hands. The chains were growing heavier and my shoulders ached from the weight of holding them. He beckoned me forward and stepped back as I passed him, as if to avoid contagion.

  Dean Rogers stood outside, his long face tight with anxiety.

  “They said you wanted to pray?”

  So Edmonton was afraid of my connections after all. I nodded. “I also needed to ask you something.”

  “Whatever I can do.” He glanced around, then leaned closer. “I have spoken to Justice Hale on your behalf. But—the evidence …” He trailed off uncertainly.

  “I understand. I just need to know if anyone apart from you has a key to enter the crypt.”

  The dean frowned.

  “Normally, no one but myself. Although,” he added, with a dismissive wave, “some weeks ago I did give a copy to the minister of the Huguenot Church, for access to their little chapel, but in practice he does not need to use it. They hold their services during the hours when the crypt is unlocked. Why do you ask?”

  “What is his name, the Huguenot minister?” My mouth had dried and the words came out cracked.

  “He is a lay minister only, but he is ordained. Pastor Fleury. Jacques Fleury, the master weaver. But has this anything to do with your case?” he asked, concern in his eyes.

  “I—” I looked up at him. “Will you pray with me now?”

  “Of course.” He laid a hand on my shoulder and embarked on some benign platitudes in his pleasant, soothing voice. I was grateful for the sentiment, but my thoughts were elsewhere. When he had finished, the clerk cleared his throat and opened the door into the anteroom.

  “The prisoner ought to go back until he is called,” he said, apologetically.

  “Have you seen Harry? Is he here?” I whispered to the dean, as the guards ushered me towards the door.

  He shook his head. “Not yet. I fear he may not be able to get through the crowds with his leg. Now I must take my seat in the courtroom. God be with you, Doctor Savolino.”

  I thanked him and submitted to being returned, none too gently, to my fellow prisoners. Had Harry found his way to Justice Hale in time to explain everything? I would only know the answer when I stood to face him.

  I was crushed next to one prisoner whose head hung towards the floor as if he had fallen asleep standing up.

  “Are you a Canterbury man?” I asked, nudging him in the ribs.

  He raised his head slowly and stared at me, amazed at being spoken to. I recoiled a little at the running pustules around his mouth.

  “Born and bred. And shall die here today, most like,” he said, as if it no longer mattered.

  “Where is St. Radigund’s Street?” I asked. He blinked slowly.

  “Out by the old Blackfriars. You know,” he said, when I looked blank. “Crosses the river a little way past the weavers’ houses.”

  “The weavers’ houses,” I repeated, nodding. The man looked at me for a moment longer, then hung his head again. He did not ask why I wanted to know. When you are facing the gallows, such things have no importance.

  THE COURTROOM ITSELF was less chaotic than the entrance hall and anterooms; here, at least, benches were provided along one side of the room for citizens of status, though people were packed standing into the spaces behind and to every side. The air was smoky and smelled strongly like the apothecary’s shop; in each corner, braziers stood on tall tripods burning aromatic herbs to ward off gaol fever. It must have been near to midday by the time I was led in along with nine other prisoners, including the old monk, all of us indicted for cases of blood; we were hustled into a corner behind a low wooden barrier. At the far end of the room a raised dais had been built, where Justice Hale sat at a broad table covered with piles of papers and surrounded by his retinue of earnest, black-robed clerks and juniors. Around his neck he wore a silver chain with a round pomander, which he raised frequently to his nose as protection against the pestilence. To his right, twelve grim-faced men shifted on their benches, arms folded. This, I guessed, was the jury; they did not have the look of men you would turn to for compassion. The murmur of conversation swelled as we filed in, chains clinking rhythmically like a tolling bell; I glanced up and saw that Hale was looking at me. Our eyes met and he held my eye for a moment with a grave expression, but he gave nothing away.

  The prisoners were taken up one by one to the bar to face the prosecutor and hear the charges against them read. The old monk, Brother Anselm, was the first to be called; as the guards unfastened him from the chain and shoved him to his place, I glanced around the courtroom. Dean Rogers was seated among the city dignitaries, as was Langworth, his brow drawn, the scar pressed white with apprehension. I had not missed the expression that flashed across his face when I was led into the hall; if he had depended on my being found dead in my bed this morning, he allowed his displeasure to show for only for a moment. He would have some other weapon up his sleeve, I had no doubt. Among the onlookers standing I saw Tom Garth and the Widow Gray; Rebecca and Mistress Blunt; Nicholas Kingsley and his hangers-on. There was still no sign of Harry. I closed my eyes, as if that might shut out the pain in my chest. Twice the justice tried to speak over the din of conversation, but the crowd were so animated, talking and pointing (for the most part, I was conscious, at me), that the court bailiff had to shout for order and thump his staff on the floor several times before Hale could make himself heard.

  A witness stepped up to say he had found the old monk beside the dismembered body of a young boy on a midden outside the city wall one morning when he was bringing his cart in for the market; Brother Anselm tried to explain to the bench what he had told me, but in his distress he became incoherent, clutching at his clothes and lapsing into Latin. When he spoke his plea of not guilty there was a chorus of loud boos and hisses from the onlookers. I watched, dismayed, as three of the jurymen turned to confer among themselves with barely disguised contempt. Another seemed more interested in the movements of a fly on the ceiling, leaning back with his hands folded behind his head, and another was quite brazenly falling asleep, his chin slumped onto his chest. Occasionally he would jerk upright and look around, as if unsure where he was, before his lids began to droop again. To sit through fifty or more of these cases unpaid would test any man’s patience, I supposed, but my gut twisted with anger at the thought that any man could be so casual with another’s life. Hale nodded for the old man to stand down. As he was taken from the bar, his eyes cast around wildly and landed on me, wide and pleading. “Speak for me, brother!” he cried out, as he was led back to us. “You know the truth!” I nodded, hoping to offer him some comfort, but that only caused more whispering and pointing in my direction.

  Hale shuffled papers, made notes, replaced his quill carefully in its stand, sniffed his pomander, and eventually looked up from his list.

  “The Italian, Filippo Savolino.”

  I was led out to the bar accompanied by a groundswell of murmuring that rose to such a crescendo that again the bailiff had to bang his stick for silence. I confirmed my name on oath, thinking as I did so that I had already perjured myself, so in a sense I was at liberty to say anything.

  “One count of murder and robbery, of the apothecary William Fitch. One count of attempted murder and robbery, of Master Nicholas Kingsley. Two further counts of robbery—of keys from the house of
Canon John Langworth and money to the value of ten shillings from the treasury of Christ Church cathedral. Quite a tally, for a man who has not been in the city a week, is it not, Master Savolino?” He raised an enquiring eyebrow, then glanced again at the paper in front of him. “Forgive me—Doctor Savolino.”

  I bowed my head in acknowledgement.

  “What are you a doctor of?”

  “Theology.”

  “Well.” He laid one large hand flat on the desk. “It will please the goodmen of the jury to know that I will not test this claim by engaging you in theological debate.” There was a smattering of polite laughter. He gave me a long, steady look, but his face was still unreadable. “Either you are a most heinous felon, travelling under false credentials and taking advantage of good men of this town to work your foul purposes”—here he left a little pause, enough to allow a hum of approval from the crowd—“or there are people here intent on making you appear so. We had better hear the witnesses to these charges before you give your plea.” He lifted the paper in front of him and checked it. “Unfortunately, as most of you will know, the principal witness in the murder of Master Fitch, Doctor Ezekiel Sykes, is unable to testify before this court, having been himself the victim of a terrible murder only yesterday.”

  “Not guilty,” I said, unable to resist. A ripple of laughter ran through the audience, in spite of themselves. Hale sent me a stern look, recalling Edmonton’s words about the judge’s dislike for sharp wits in court, though I fancied I saw the corner of his mouth twitch before he sucked it back to solemnity.

  “Instead the court will hear the deposition Doctor Sykes gave to Mayor Fitzwalter the morning of Fitch’s death.”

  Fitzwalter took the floor without looking at me, cleared his throat, and began to read. Whether the words had truly come from Sykes or been invented later by Langworth, it hardly mattered; the whole was based on the lie that Sykes had been present in the shop when I entered and had left me there alone with Fitch, rather than the other way around. Those of the jurymen that were still alert nodded sagely to one another; the spectators gasped and tutted at appropriate moments, like the audience at a play. I hardly listened; it hardly mattered. All my thoughts were bound up with what I should say when I was given the opportunity to speak.