Revelation: A Shardlake Novel

by C. J. Sansom

  We fled the room, back down the corridor. Sir Thomas, Russell and Harsnet stared at us. 'Get everybody out, now!' I yelled. 'There's gunpowder, he's going to blow up the house!'

  I heard footsteps running towards us from all over the building. Those in the hall were already running for the door. Barak and I followed, with huge strides, almost leaping.

  Then I felt a hot heavy impact at my back. It blew me off my feet as though I was a doll. Everything round me seemed to quiver, though strangely I heard no sound. My last thought before losing consciousness was, he did it, he made the earth quake.

  Chapter Forty-two

  WHEN I WOKE my first terrible thought was that I was dead and had been sent to Hell for my unbelief, for all around me was smoke, lit from behind by fire. Then I saw white circular lights moving in the smoke. One approached and for a dizzy moment I feared to see a demon, but the shape resolved itself into Harsnet's face, looking shocked and streaked with smoke-marks. He knelt beside me and I realized I was lying on my side on damp grass, and then that my back was bare, for a chill breeze wafted across it.

  'Stay still, Master Shardlake,' Harsnet said in soothing tones. 'Your back is burned, not badly but the village healing man has been, he has applied some lavender to it.' I became conscious then that my back hurt; at the same time the echo of a distant, tremendous explosion seemed to sound in my ears. I realized that Harsnet's voice sounded strangely muffled.

  I sat up, shaking my head. A blanket half covered me and I pulled it round to cover my bare back, a movement that hurt it, making me wince.

  'I said that was the first thing you'd do when you woke up,' a voice beside me said. I turned to see Barak beside me, his lower half also covered with a blanket. Other men were lying in similar positions all over the long grass of the lawn. I turned my neck painfully. Behind me, at the far end of the lawn, the Goddard house was ablaze from end to end, flames and smoke belching from the windows and from the collapsed roof.

  'He had gunpowder,' I said, clutching Harsnet's arm. 'He was in there, he lit the barrels—'

  'Yes,' the coroner said gently. 'It is over. The back of the house has collapsed and the rest is burning fast. You saved our lives, sir, by calling out to us.'

  'Did everyone get out?'

  'Yes. But several others were injured by the blast. One of Sir Thomas' men was thrown through the air and landed on his head. He is likely to die. A doctor has been sent for from Barnet. You worried us, sir, you have been unconscious over an hour.'

  'Are you hurt?' I asked Barak.

  'Came down with a bit of a bang, like you. Think I've cracked a couple of ribs.'

  'Why is there a blanket over your legs?'

  'The explosion blew my hose off. Your robe was blown to tatters too, and your doublet.' He spoke lightly, but looking at his eyes I saw the horror in them that he probably saw in mine.

  'It is all over,' Harsnet said quietly. 'He poured out the seventh vial, and made the earth shake. He killed himself doing it, probably thought he would be taken up to Heaven.' His mouth set. 'But now he will have found himself in Hell!' He hesitated. 'We think the seventh victim was you.'

  'How did he know I would be here?'

  'He knew you were at the centre of the investigation,' he said. He grasped at his left shoulder and winced; he had been hurt too. 'You said yourself he would know a large party of men would come here. You would probably be with them. That fuse must have been set slightly too long, or everyone in that part of the house would have been killed. He didn't care how many died,' he added bitterly. 'Ah, there is the doctor.'

  I saw Sir Thomas and Russell, with a man in a physician's robe, walking among the wounded on the lawn.

  'The men are being told Goddard was an alchemist,' Harsnet went on. 'That we were after him for conducting forbidden experiments, and he blew the place up by accident. Half the local villagers have turned out; Sir Thomas' men are keeping them to the other side of the woods.'

  'Why would Goddard kill himself, just at the culmination of his great scheme?' I asked. 'Surely if he thought it would bring about Armageddon he would want to see it.'

  'Who knows what went on in his mind? I think he was possessed after all, Master Shardlake, and now the devil has gathered his soul.'

  Harsnet's voice still sounded muffled. I hoped my ears had not been permanently damaged. I lay back on one elbow, exhausted. 'Would you like me to fetch you some water?' he asked.

  'Please.' When he left me, I lay down in the long grass, wincing at the pain that spread across my entire back. Then I sat up again, drawing the blanket round me, and looked at the burning house. There was a crash and a cloud of sparks as the last of the roof caved in. I turned to Barak.

  'It's not over,' I said.

  'But we saw him, that was Goddard, the mole on his nose and the cut on his cheek from where Orr ripped off his fake beard. He set a trap, he had plenty of warning with the geese and then us crashing in to set the fuse so it would blow us all to kingdom come.'

  'But it didn't. We all got out.'

  'Only just.'

  I sat up slowly, rubbed a hand across my face, felt giddy for a moment. 'Did you see the window above those gunpowder barrels? The shutter was open slightly. There could have been someone else in there, who lit the fuse and got out. What if the fuse was timed so that whoever saw him would be able to get out of the room and testify the killer was himself dead?'

  'But he was sitting there grinning at us. We saw him. Sit down, please.'

  'What if Goddard wasn't the killer? What if the seven vials are only a stage in some larger pageant? The next stage of which he can go on to untroubled if he is believed dead?' I stood up, unsteadily. Barak grabbed at the blanket.

  'Lie down. You've been unconscious an hour.' But I planted my feet on the grass and called out to Sir Thomas' party, my voice sounding to me as though it was coming from under water. Barak plucked at my blanket again. 'If you tell Sir Thomas we haven't got the killer after all, he'll be furious. He's in a bad enough state as it is.'

  But I stepped away as Sir Thomas and Russell approached with the doctor. Sir Thomas looked subdued.

  'Well, Shardlake,' he said. 'Here's a spectacular end to your hunt. You got out.' He looked at me accusingly. 'One of my men is like to die.'

  'I am sorry for it. But I am not sure Goddard was the killer,' I said. 'I think there was someone else in that room, who may have got away.' I turned to Russell. 'Did any of your men hear or see anything in the woods after the explosion?'

  'Your brains are addled,' Sir Thomas said angrily, and the doctor, a thin elderly man with a long beard, looked at me sharply. But Russell nodded slowly.

  'Yes. Just afterwards one of my men saw something moving through the woods, said it looked like a man. But it was chaos there, the light almost gone, everyone shocked by the explosion and animals panicking and running to and fro in the shadows.'

  'A deer,' Sir Thomas said. But from the look Russell gave me I could see he doubted too.

  A HEADQUARTERS had been set up in the stables behind Goddard's house. I got Russell to help me there, then fetch the man who had seen something. He was another of Sir Thomas' young servants, keen and sharp. 'I was sure it was a man that darted past me,' he said. 'It was just a glimpse, a figure darting between the trees, but I would swear it moved on two legs, not four.'

  I was sitting on a bale of hay, Barak beside me. He looked at the young man and then at me. 'God help us. If not Goddard, then who is the killer?'

  'I do not know.' I turned to Russell. 'The back of the house did not catch fire?'

  'No. It collapsed in the explosion. Anything left of Goddard will be under there.'

  'I would like the rubble cleared, and Dean Benson brought here to identify anything that is left of Goddard.'

  'He won't like that,' Barak observed. 'He is still here, but he's been told Goddard blew himself up.'

  'Sir Thomas wants this matter closed, sir,' Russell said in a warning tone.

  'Perhaps i
f it is put to him that we need to ensure the killer is not still at large, and if he refuses and someone else is killed it will not reflect well on him.' I smiled at the steward. 'I am sure you are used to putting uncomfortable things to your master diplomatically.'

  The young man ran a hand to his thatch of blond hair. Like everyone else he was dirty and dishevelled. 'I'll do what I can.'

  'And I will tackle Harsnet,' I said.

  I HAD COME to have respect for Harsnet's acumen, but when he came into the stables, rubbing the shoulder he had hurt when the explosion blew him over, my suggestion horrified him.

  'We can't do that,' he said. 'All on the word of what a servant thought he saw in the dark. We'll have trouble with Dean Benson, and Sir Thomas will be furious. He dislikes you already, Master Shardlake. He is not a good man to make an enemy of

  'I have made greater enemies than him.'

  Harsnet shook his head. 'It is over. Goddard ended it on his own terms but he did end it. Our duty now is to tell the Archbishop so, urgently.'

  I looked at him. 'I know everyone would like it to be over. I wish I could believe that myself. But we cannot always believe what suits us.'

  THE STEWARD Russell turned out to be a better persuader than me, and an hour later those of Sir Thomas' men who were uninjured were dismantling the pile of rubble that was all that remained of the rear wing. Russell worked with his men. The explosion had thrown much of the stonework outwards, but part of the roof had collapsed straight down on to the interior of the house. I stood watching as the slates were lifted. Beside me was a frowning Sir Thomas. Harsnet stood at a little distance, occasionally shaking his head. Beside him Dean Benson sat on a lump of brickwork.

  'Wherever he goes,' Barak said, 'that old arsehole always finds somewhere to sit down.' He stood beside me nursing his ribs, which the doctor had tied up with bandages.

  To my relief, my hearing seemed to be clearing. 'Yes.' I looked out over the ghastly scene. Of the big old house nothing remained but a few skeletal walls within which rubble still smoked. The workmen cast nervous glances at the nearest wall, lest it collapse. On the lawn dazed figures wrapped in blankets still sat, looking at the burned house where they had so nearly died. A cart had arrived from Barnet and the more badly injured were being loaded on to it, supervised by the doctor and Magistrate Goodridge.

  A shout from Russell made me turn round. Sir Thomas and Harsnet joined me in scrambling up the rubble. He was pointing at something by his feet. I saw that he had uncovered a severed arm wearing the tatters of a monk's robe, the hand undamaged and ghastly white. A moment later a man lifted a slate and jumped back with a cry. Underneath we saw a severed head, barely recognizable, for it was covered in thick dust. Sir Thomas, quite unaffected, took a handkerchief and began cleaning dust from the ghastly thing.

  It was the man who had been sitting in the throne-like chair. The eyes had been blown out, leaving empty red sockets, but I recognized the mole on the nose, the slash on the cheek. Astoundingly the head was still smiling and then, fighting a rush of nausea, I saw why. Tiny nails had been hammered in to hold the mouth open, run through the flesh into the jaw. I looked up at Harsnet. 'This man was dead when we entered that room,' I said.

  Seymour bent and picked up the head with no more concern than if it had been a football. I remembered the ghastly story of the cart full of Turkish heads in Hungary. He carried it, a little blood still dripping from the severed neck, to where Dean Benson sat. The cleric jumped up, his eyes wide with horror. 'Is that a—'

  'A head, yes.' He held it up. 'Whose?'

  'That is Lancelot Goddard,' Benson said, and collapsed in a dead faint.

  EARLY IN THE MORNING of the next day, Barak and I sat at breakfast. The journey back from Kinesworth had been uncomfortable for both of us, we had gone to bed early and slept late. I had tossed and turned uneasily, for pressure on my back brought pain from my burns. Putting my hand behind me, I could feel blisters rising. 'How are your ribs?' I asked.

  'Sore,' he replied with a grimace. 'But they're only bruised, not cracked. I've had worse.'

  'Is Tamasin joining us for breakfast?'

  'I don't know. I left her dressing.' He sighed. 'Sometimes I wonder if she thinks I get these knocks to spite her.' 'Are you still on poor terms?'

  'Probably. When we got back I tried to tell her I just wanted to sleep, but she wanted to know everything. I was too tired to talk,' he added. 'Too worried, too, because this isn't over.'

  Before leaving the remains of Goddard's house, Harsnet and I and Sir Thomas Seymour had held a conference. It was clear now that Goddard had been a victim, not the perpetrator, of the killings. I wondered whether he, too, after leaving Westminster Abbey had flirted with radical Protestantism, but drawn back and thus had qualified to became the seventh victim. The killer was still on the loose, and we had no idea who he was, or where he would strike again.

  'Who is the bastard;' Barak asked. 'How did he get to know all these different people and their religious affinities;'

  'At least we know how he got to us. By watching and spying as a pedlar. By the way, that gash on poor Goddard's head was on the wrong side of his face. The killer put it there to encourage our belief we were facing the killer in that room.'

  'He slipped up there,' Barak said.

  'It's the first time he has.'

  'How did he get to Goddard; How did he find out where he lived;'

  'Heaven knows. The magistrate said Goddard hadn't been seen for a few days. I'll wager the killer got into the house and tied him up, then sent that note to Dean Benson. And set up his greatest ever display.' I clenched my hands into fists. 'Who is he? Where is he now;'

  'We're back to square one.'

  'And without any idea where he will strike next. But one thing I am sure of. He will not end it now.'

  'Do you think he will come after you;'

  'I don't know. Why not just blow the house up with us all in it?' I sighed. I wished I could have consulted Guy. I had heard nothing since our quarrel. I would not have been surprised if Piers had returned, wormed his way back in with my friend.

  I pushed my plate aside and stood up, wincing at the pain from my back. 'I should go to the Bedlam today. Shawms should have his report ready for the court and I want to look it over, and see Adam. And Dorothy later. I expect Bealknap is still there.'

  'Are you all right to go out;' Barak asked.

  'I can't sit around here. I will go to Chambers and try to do some work after I have seen Dorothy. I—'

  The door opened and Tamasin came in. She wore a plain dress and her blonde hair was unbound, falling to her shoulders. She looked between us with a hostile glance. 'You have both been in the wars, I see,' she said.

  'Where is your coif?' Barak asked. 'Your hair is unbound like an unmarried woman.'

  She ignored him, and turned to me. 'Jack says you haven't caught him.'

  'No,' I said. I added quietly. 'We have to go on searching.'

  'He's killed eight people,' Barak said, impatiently. 'Nine, if Sir Thomas' man that was injured in the explosion dies. Seven of them in horrible slow ways.'

  'We have to go on,' I said.

  Tamasin sat down opposite her husband. She looked him in the eye, with an expression that was somehow both angry and sad. 'It is not what you're doing now that makes me angry with you. It is what you've been like since our baby died.'

  Barak looked at me, then back at her. 'You shouldn't be talking of this in front of someone else. Not that you haven't already, I know.'

  'I talk in front of someone else because you won't listen when we talk alone.' Tamasin's voice rose to a shout and she banged a hand on the table, making us both jump. 'Do you ever think what it's been like for me since the baby died? Do you think a day passes without it all coming back to me, the day he was born? You weren't there, you were out drinking. Yes, that was when that started—'

  'Tamasin—' Barak raised his voice, but she raised hers higher.

  'The pain, the
awful pain, I never felt anything like it. You don't know what women bear. And then the midwife telling me the baby was all twisted round in my womb, she couldn't bring him out alive and I would die unless she broke his little skull. You didn't hear that crack, it wasn't loud but it still sounds over and over in my head. Then she lifted him out and I saw he was dead — anyone could see he was dead — but still I wanted so desperately to hear him cry, hear him cry . . .' Tears were rolling down her face now. Barak had gone pale, and sat very still.

  'You never told me,' he said.

  'I wanted to spare you!' she cried. 'Not that you spared me. Coming back drunk, always going on about your son, your poor son. My son too.'

  'I didn't realize it had been like that,' Barak said. 'I just knew he was born dead.'

  'What in God's name did you think it was like?'

  He swallowed. 'I've heard - that when a baby is twisted in the womb like that it can stop a woman having others. We—'

  'I don't know if that's why there have been no others!' Tamasin shouted. 'Is that all you care about? Is that all you can say to me?'

  'No, no, Tammy, I didn't mean—' Barak raised a hand. He should have gone up to her, taken her in his arms and comforted her, but he was too shocked by her outburst. All he seemed able to do was raise that hand. Tamasin stood up, turned round and left the room.

  'Go to her,' I said. 'Go to her now.' But he just sat there, helpless, shocked. 'Come on,' I said more quietly. 'After all that we have been through, surely you can pull yourself together to comfort your wife.'

  He nodded then and stood up, wincing at a stab of pain from his cracked ribs. 'Poor Tamasin,' he whispered. He stepped to the door but as he did so the front door slammed. Joan was in the hall. 'Tamasin's just gone out,' she said. 'I told her we weren't supposed to go out alone, but she just ignored me.'