Sacrilege (48 page)

"She had complained of feeling ill," I said to Rebecca. "I was concerned for her. Perhaps she fainted and fell, poor thing."

"Hm." I had expected her to press further as to how I had become so intimate with the old woman in only a few days, but her mind was elsewhere. "And I have more news--I am bound over to appear as a witness at your trial."

I looked at her. "You will speak the truth?"

"Of course." She looked indignant. "I mean to persuade them of your innocence. He was my uncle, after all, and if I don't think you killed him, why should they?"

I smiled, though I feared in her puppyish enthusiasm she might protest too much, which would be of no help to my case.

"They sometimes try to put words in your mouth," I said. "Watch out for that."

She looked scornful.

"I would not fall for those tricks. Signor Savolino, do you mean to stay in Canterbury after the assizes?" She twined a strand of hair through her fingers as she asked this, sucking absently at the end of it like a child.

"I shall decide that once I have learned whether they mean to put a rope around my neck."

"But your friends at court, they would not let that happen, for certain. Even Mistress Blunt thinks you are innocent," she added, as if this were the decisive verdict. I smiled. As an eyewitness to the queen's brocades, I was clearly now redeemed in Mistress Blunt's eyes. If only the rest of Canterbury could be so easily persuaded.

"They say the queen's justice is expected this afternoon," Rebecca said. "There is always quite a procession--everyone turns out along the High Street to watch him arrive. He will take the best rooms at the Cheker, they say, and all his clerks and servants too. Perhaps I may see you among the crowds later," she added, looking up from under her lashes and twisting her hair. "You will want to see him in all his pomp?"

"I suppose. It would be as well to see the man who holds my life in his hands." I tried to keep my tone cheerful but I could not ignore the tightness in my chest. To unravel this unholy mess I must not rely on Canterbury justice, that much was clear. My fortunes, and those of Sophia and Harry, were truly in the hands of this unknown man riding in from London. I only hoped that he was not so easily corrupted--though my English friends' reports of the legal profession did not inspire too much optimism on that count.

I thanked Rebecca for her help and took my leave, pressing through the crowd towards Christ Church gate, unstrapping my knife from my belt and hiding it in my boot before I arrived so that Tom Garth would not confiscate it. After the previous night, I was not willing to enter the
precincts without a weapon. I was anxious to be back at Harry's. I had only a day to prepare the charges I wanted to bring against Langworth and Sykes and I needed to have them set out clearly if my story was not to sound even more improbable than it already did. Meg had been silenced, but there was still the old monk in the West Gate gaol--perhaps he could be made to testify to what he had seen. And there were the two buried bodies--the boy Denis and the one reckoned to be Thomas Becket--as evidence to my theory of the proposed miracle, even if the Widow Gray would not speak against Langworth. True, there was nothing to prove that he had killed Sir Edward Kingsley, but the fact that Kingsley had been on his way to Langworth's house and that he had been killed by a crucifix that only someone with access to the crypt could have taken made it almost impossible to believe that anyone else could be guilty. Edward Kingsley must have crossed the treasurer, or threatened the plot in some way, and Langworth had decided to get rid of him. And yet unease continued to gnaw at my mind as I passed through the gatehouse into the precincts and took the path towards Harry's house. Langworth was nothing if not subtle, and his friend Sykes was skilled in the use of poisons. If Kingsley had needed to be silenced, would the treasurer really have chosen to beat his former friend's skull in with a crucifix right outside his, Langworth's, house, in lieu of some less obvious means?

These doubts were dispelled as I passed the conduit house and saw Langworth himself standing at Harry's front door, gesticulating wildly and pointing up at the windows, the sleeves of his robe fluttering in the breeze like the ragged wings of a crow. Harry was planted staunchly before the closed door, hands crossed in front of him and leaning on his stick with an implacable expression. He looked up and met my eye with something between relief and exasperation as I slowed to a halt some yards away from them, my mouth dry.

Though I was oddly relieved to see Langworth alive and apparently not too badly affected by my assault on him the night before, it was a relief that only lasted a moment. He turned and looked at me with such intense hatred that I found myself reaching instinctively towards my
boot where my knife was hidden; I half expected him to hurl himself at me right there, and I knew in that instant that he meant to see me dead one way or another. Instead he curled and uncurled his fists several times, mastering his fury, and the smirking scar at the corner of his mouth turned white as he pressed his lips together until he was sure he had regained control of himself. I noticed that inside the collar of his black canon's robe he had wrapped a white linen scarf around his neck, presumably to hide the bruising.

I swung the satchel to my back, suddenly conscious of the stolen book as if it was burning through the leather, and took a couple of measured paces towards them, trying to betray nothing with my face.

"Ah, Doctor Savolino," Harry called out in a breezy tone, though I could see from his face that he was weary of this business. "Canon Langworth has come with a most singular set of accusations against you."

"Really? Who have I murdered this time?" I smiled at Langworth; he needed a long moment of breathing through his nose and sucking in his cheeks before he was equal to replying.

"I do hope your wit doesn't desert you when you stand before a judge, sir," he said, his voice so tight it sounded almost as if he were still being choked. "We are all looking forward to the performance. It is a charge of theft, as you well know."

"What I can't make out," Harry said, with the same forced cheeriness, "is what you are supposed to have stolen. It seems the canon treasurer cannot be specific on that count, which I can't help feeling undermines the force of his accusation. With the greatest respect," he added, with a small dip of the head to Langworth.

"I believe my house has been broken into," the treasurer said, fixing me with a hard stare. "Some personal items of value have been taken, as well as money. I believe it is also possible that the security of the cathedral treasury has been breached, which is a far graver matter."

"Indeed," I said, nodding to show that I appreciated the gravity. "How much has been taken from the treasury?"

"I--I am not certain yet," he faltered. "But if money has been taken from God's house, well, that would be a capital offence."

"Yes, indeed. And it would surely cast doubt on the competence of whoever is responsible for the security of the treasury," I said pleasantly. "But why do you suppose I have anything to do with it?"

"Tom Garth says he saw you abroad in the precincts last night. Don't play games with me," Langworth hissed, through his teeth. "You are already charged with murder and will be charged with attempted murder too. Nicholas Kingsley has told me how you tried to kill him and leave him for dead when he caught you attempting to steal from his father's cellar." Satisfied with the effect of this barb, he swung his warning finger around to include Harry. "Either you let me search your house now, Robinson, or I shall come back with armed men and a warrant from the constable, and then we shall see what we find. Eh?"

His voice was so brittle as he spoke that the veins at his temples stood out like cords against his pale skin, and he looked for all the world like a man straining at his closestool, so much so that I could not stifle a laugh in time. Langworth's throat--what could be seen of it--mottled with fury and the flush spread up over his gaunt cheeks until his eyes bulged and it seemed his head might explode. He swept his robe around him with a practised gesture and turned on his heel.

"By God you will pay for that laughter. You will all pay," he said, jabbing the pointing finger at my face as he stalked away towards the cathedral like the Devil in a masque delivering his final ominous curse.

A peal of bells clanged out from the bell tower behind us, making me start. Harry watched Langworth's retreating back and slumped forward over his stick, as if the breath had been knocked out of him.

"By God, I'm paying for it already, Bruno," he muttered. "Sometimes I can't help thinking he has sent you here to test my faith."

"God?"

"Walsingham." He looked at me darkly, then glanced up at the top storey of his house. "He is serious, you know." He jerked his head in Langworth's direction. "Whatever you took from him, he wants it back and he
will get his warrant and his men-at-arms and return to search the place. If she is found, we'll all be hanged." He scratched a hand across his silver stubble. "You and I must attend Holy Communion now. As must Langworth--at least we can keep an eye on him. I will lock the house soundly and when we come out we had better put her somewhere more convenient. And I am still not shaved--once again I must face the dean looking like a tramp." He turned back to me. "And where's my bloody breakfast? You are without doubt the worst servant I have ever had under my roof."

I acknowledged this with a weary grin, realising that I had left the bread at the Widow Gray's house.

"You will have your reward some day, Harry, I promise."

"Huh. In heaven, perhaps. Now, go up quickly and tell her not to stir a muscle. I wouldn't put it past that dog to have someone break in and turn the place upside down while we are at prayer." His eyes narrowed as he looked back towards the cathedral.

I pushed my hands through my hair and cast my eyes up to the bell tower. Where the Devil was I supposed to put Sophia--and the book--out of Langworth's reach for the next few hours?

I found her slumped on the truckle bed, dressed in clothes of mine that she had evidently pulled out from my travelling bag and reading my old battered copy of Copernicus, the one I had carried halfway across Europe. She sat up when she saw me and there was something wary about her smile, as if she feared she would be reprimanded. The shirt was too broad for her across the shoulders and she had laced it only loosely; as she moved it slipped down, revealing one shoulder and the curve of her collarbone. I swallowed. She had not bound her breasts either and the small pointed shape of them was visible through the thin linen. I walked across the room to the window so that she would not see how badly I wanted to push her down on the mattress and tear it from her.

"My last clean shirt," I said softly, still not looking at her.

"Sorry. I had to take off those hideous skirts Madame Fleury dressed me in last night. They belonged to Olivier's grandmother, apparently. They smell like she died in them."

I laughed and came to sit on the end of the bed, watching her. She returned my gaze steadily but I could not be sure what I read there.

"How do you like Copernicus?" I indicated the book. "I'm afraid you will find no magic spells in those pages."

The corner of her mouth twisted into a wry smile.

"I don't suppose even you would be so bold or so foolish as to carry books of magic about the country, Bruno," she said. There was a hint of sadness in her smile. "Though God knows we could do with a magic spell at the moment."

"Even more so now," I said, and told her of Langworth's intention to return with armed men to search the house. She put her face in her hands and sank back against the wall. I took it for crying and leaned closer to rest a hand on her arm, but she lowered her hands and looked at me with the blankness of exhaustion.

"Is he looking for me? Or that book you are carrying about with you as if it were a newborn infant?"

"I don't think he saw you last night. Not clearly enough to recognise you, anyway, or he would have made reference to it as a threat, I'm sure of it. But he knows I have the book and he can't tell the constable what he's really searching for. I would not put it past him to contrive that a purse of money from the treasury should be found here too--that would as good as seal my sentence. Christ!" I ran a hand through my hair and thumped my fist into the mattress. "He means to finish me off one way or another. How did I not see the danger?"

Sophia crept forward and gently laid her forehead against my shoulder, her hand on my thigh.

"I am so sorry, Bruno. I had no idea it would be so tangled. Becket, the dead boys--I knew nothing of any of it. I thought it would be a simple matter of proving that Nicholas Kingsley did it so that I could be free. I believed he did. I never imagined you would end up--"

She left the words unspoken.

"The fault is mine. I should have seen the danger."

"But then, would you still have come?"

"Probably."

She looked up at me, eyes wide.

"Why?"

"You know why, Sophia."

She said nothing, only continued to look at me expectantly with that unreadable expression. Did she need to hear me say aloud that I loved her? The words were poised on my tongue, but some unexplained instinct held them back. Instead I reached for her hand and she twined her fingers with mine, but it seemed more a gesture of sorrow. We were both under sentence of death now, unless a miracle happened, and even Thomas Becket was unlikely to deliver one of those.

Something, some phrase I had heard that morning chafed at my mind, as if I had missed a vital part of the picture, but when I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate to recall what it might have been, I was distracted by a great shuddering sob from Sophia that racked her thin body as she leant into me, a sob that seemed to contain all the frustration and rage of the past year. I held her while she vented her pain, her face pressed to my shoulder, my cheek leaning against her hair, but although she clung to me like a child with night terrors, I sensed with a growing hollowness in my chest that after the heightened excitement of the night before, I had passed back into my previous role of reassuring friend, a part I hoped I had left behind. I kissed her hair softly. Well, I could be patient. At this moment we were both in dire need of a friend.