Stephanie Merritt - Sacrilege

“Because …” I faltered. Had I misunderstood? She was looking at me as a governess might look at a child who has failed to absorb anything of his lesson, despite hours at the same exercise. “I presumed because you had few people left whose friendship you could rely on, in the circumstances,” I said, a little stiffly.

“Well, that is true,” she said, impatient. “But I remembered how you unravelled those murders in Oxford, when no one else seemed to have the slightest idea who was behind them. That’s why I wanted your help. I need you to find out who murdered my husband and clear my name. I don’t want to live the rest of my life looking over my shoulder, wondering when they will come for me.”

“No, you don’t,” I said with feeling, though I could not believe she was seriously asking this of me. She clutched at my sleeve then, and made me look her in the eye, her face close to mine. I could hear the urgency in her voice.

“If you don’t help me, Bruno, I shall live as a wanted murderess all my life, and if they find me I’ll be straight for the pyre. You know that’s the punishment for women who murder their husbands? Because the man is master of his wife, it’s regarded as an act of treason. So instead of hanging, they burn you.”

“Like a heretic,” I said, softly.

“Like a heretic.” She fixed me with a meaningful look.

I stepped back, rubbing my hand across the growth of stubble on my chin and shaking my head.

“You want me to go to Canterbury and find the killer?”

“If you could do it in Oxford, why not in Canterbury?” She sounded petulant, and I was reminded, despite her weight of experience, how young she still was.

“It’s not quite as simple as that. I can’t just take off across the country-I would need permission …” But as I considered the possibility, I felt my blood quicken with the prospect of it: a change of scene, a new challenge, and the ultimate prize of freeing Sophia from a sentence of death.

“Permission?” She looked scornful.

“From the ambassador. As a member of his household, out of courtesy I must consult with him before I go anywhere. And with the diplomatic situation so fraught at the moment, he may be reluctant to let me leave.” But it was not the ambassador’s permission I was concerned about. I sincerely doubted whether my real employer would want me away from the embassy at such a time.

“You are not the ambassador’s ward, Bruno. You are a grown man, or so I thought. Well, it doesn’t matter, then.” She wrapped her arms tightly around her chest and started walking briskly away towards the narrow bridge; I watched her for a moment, before hurrying to catch her up.

“Wait!” I had to work hard to match her determined stride, but on the bridge I caught her by the sleeve. “I have said I will help you, and I meant it. I will see if this can be arranged. But it will be difficult-I would have no authority to undertake an investigation of any kind in Canterbury, and you said yourself how they are suspicious of foreigners there.”

“You could pretend to be a visiting scholar,” she said brightly. “They have a fine library in the cathedral precincts, I am told. Please , Bruno? You are all the hope I have now.” Her eyes widened, and the pleading in them was in earnest. “If you don’t help me, no one will.”

She looked down at her boots, shamed by her own helplessness; Sophia, whose independent spirit chafed at being beholden to a man, any man. She kicked at a small stone, her arms wrapped again around her chest, as if to protect herself from further hurt. It was a gesture that clutched at my heart, and I knew that, whatever the obstacles, I must find a way to help her. If nothing else, it would assuage the lingering sense of guilt that still needled me over my actions in Oxford, and the fear that I had somehow been the indirect cause of everything that had happened to her since. I owed her a debt, I believed, and she had counted on my conscience.

“Very well then. Santa Maria! ” I grabbed at my hair with both hands in a gesture of mock exasperation that made her laugh. “You would wear down a stone, Sophia. But what will you do, if I get myself to Canterbury?”

“I will come with you, of course.” She looked nonplussed.

“ What? And how are you going to do that? You are wanted for murder.”

“I wouldn’t venture into the city, obviously. I will stay as a boy, and you can say I am your apprentice.”

“Travelling scholars don’t have apprentices.”

“Your scribe, then. Or servant, it doesn’t matter. But you will need me there, Bruno, to point you in the right direction-I know the city and I can direct you to Sir Edward’s associates. We could find lodgings somewhere on the edge of town. I could keep out of sight.”

Her face was animated now, her eyes bright and eager. We could find lodgings ? Was she proposing that we share rooms together? I looked at her doubtfully, but I could find no trace of teasing in her eyes, only earnest hope. Perhaps she believed her disguise was good enough to convince both of us that she really was a boy. Was that the kind of friendship she envisaged between us, despite the fact that in Oxford I had once been so bold as to kiss her, and she had responded? I wished I had a better sense of how she regarded me.

It would be an enormous risk for her, returning to the city where, even with her cropped hair and dirty clothes, there was every chance of being recognised as the murdered magistrate’s wife. On the other hand, she was right: I would fare better with someone to guide me around the city of Canterbury, and what would she do otherwise in London, alone and friendless as her money rapidly ran out? At least if she came with me I could do my best to take care of her-and the thought of spending days in her company, reviving the conversations we had enjoyed in Oxford, was more than I had dared to hope for, even if, for now, she saw me only as a trusted friend. Until that morning, I had thought she was dead to me, and I knew that I could not abandon her to circumstance again.

“Let me see if I can make arrangements,” I said.

“Good. But we must leave soon. Because of the assizes.”

“The assizes?”

“Yes. Once a quarter a judge comes from London to try all the criminals taken since the last session, the cases too serious for the local justice. The next one is due in early August. If you were to find the real killer by then, he could be tried at the assizes and I would be free.”

“You don’t ask much, do you?”

Outside the Hanging Sword, we parted company, I assuring her that I would secure permission from the ambassador as soon as possible, and warning her in the meantime to keep her money close about her person and not to walk around the streets of London after dark.

“But I have this,” she said, pulling aside the front of her jerkin to reveal a small knife buckled to her belt.

“That will come in very handy if you should need to peel an apple. But I don’t suggest you try your hand at any tavern brawls with it,” I said.

She smiled, and her face seemed more relaxed.

“I’d prefer not to.”

We stood awkwardly for a moment, uncertain of how to say goodbye. Sophia seemed less stooped, less diminished, as if a weight had lifted from her. “Thank you, Bruno,” she said, checking in both directions to see that the street was empty before leaning in and giving me an impulsive hug. “You are a true friend. One day I will find a way to repay you.”

I could only blink and smile stupidly as she stepped back and turned away towards the tavern. I moved to cross the street towards Salisbury Court, wondering what on earth I had undertaken.

“ Ciao , Kit,” I called, glancing over my shoulder to see her pause at the tavern door. She lifted a hand in farewell, then executed a mock bow.