Sacrilege gb-3

by S. J. Parris

  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 r
ing 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.