Sacrilege (40 page)

"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 Helene 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."

T
HE 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?"