S.J. Parris - Sacrilege

“Neither God nor the Devil,” Garth muttered.

“A man with no fear of the Devil would be a fool indeed,” said a new voice from behind me, smooth and polite. “Of whom do you speak, Garth?”

Garth flinched like a dog that fears a kick; I turned sharply to see John Langworth standing at the gatehouse entrance, wearing the same funereal black robe. He had appeared silently just as he had the previous day, like a bird of prey. In daylight his face seemed even sharper, the skin stretched tight over the bones so that, looking at him, I had the impression of seeing his naked skull as it would appear if his grave were opened years hence. Despite the warmth of the day, I shivered. Langworth seemed to trail the chill of the crypt around with him, as if the summer dare not venture too close to his person.

“Ah, and our Italian friend, Signor Savolino. Good day.” He gave me a thin smile and offered his hand. “Back to admire the glories of our church?”

“I had rather hoped to admire the glories of your library today,” I said, with forced politeness, shaking his cool hand. “Doctor Robinson has kindly offered to introduce me to the canon librarian.”

“Again, I fear we have little to excite a travelling scholar,” he said, inclining his head in an attitude of regret. “The great abbey of St. Augustine once boasted the finest library in England—some two thousand volumes. You may see the ruins of it outside the city wall, beyond the Burgate. A handful were saved from the flames and brought here, but nothing remarkable. Still,” he said briskly, as if pulling himself back from the past, “yours is a happier task than mine today. It seems another dreadful murder has been committed in the city only this morning. I must go and see what comfort I can offer the family. I’m afraid I shall miss divine service.”

I nodded and made as if to go on my way into the precincts. He swept past, his robe billowing at his heels. As he was about to pass into the market square, he turned.

“Oh—Garth! If you should happen to see any of the carpenters in the precincts, remind them of the casement in my back parlour, would you? I can never find any of the workmen when I need them. It would be convenient if they could do something this morning while I’m out.”

“If I see Master Paine, I’ll tell him, Canon Treasurer,” Garth called back, with a nod of deference. When Langworth had disappeared out of sight, he turned to me and rolled his eyes. “Thinks his broken window should be the master carpenter’s first priority,” he muttered, shaking his head.

I made a vague murmur of sympathy.

“Well, I will not trespass on your time any longer,” I said, smiling.

Garth squinted towards the street.

“Communion service’ll be busy this morning. Always is when there’s been a death. Best place for the gossips to get together.” He brandished my knife at me in its sheath. “Don’t worry, I shall take good care of this, sir, and see you by and by.”

I nodded and passed through the archway into the cathedral precincts, where I stood for a moment, allowing my eyes to adjust to the brightness of the day after the shadows of the gatehouse and trying to decide, with racing heart, where to go next. I had thought I might take the opportunity of being inside the precincts to visit the crypt again before I called on Harry, but Langworth’s departing words had given me a new idea. If the treasurer was out all morning and his house had a broken window…

My stomach tightened; it was almost too audacious, especially after Harry’s explicit warning about Langworth. But the treasurer’s friendship with Sir Edward Kingsley, together with the fact that he had found the body and raised the alarm, meant that he had to be regarded as a suspect, and if Harry was not willing to explore the possibility, despite being charged with watching Langworth, then I would not shy away from the prospect. I at least had no position in Canterbury to lose.

Sophia had mentioned that her husband kept the key to his mysterious cellar on a chain at his belt, yet Langworth had not returned any key to her along with Sir Edward’s other valuables. Had Langworth taken that key? If he was one of the magistrate’s close confidants, perhaps he had some idea of what was in the cellar. Was it something he needed to move, or keep hidden? Something that gave him reason to kill?

But hovering above all this was the figure of Lord Henry Howard. He trusted Langworth; did he trust him enough to make him custodian of the secret book I had seen in his house last autumn, before his arrest? That book—the lost book of the writings of the Egyptian sage Hermes Trismegistus, perhaps the only remaining copy in existence, the book Howard had believed would teach a man the secrets of immortality—was as precious to Howard as it was to me. I was certain he would not have risked leaving it among his own possessions, where the queen’s searchers might find it on the occasion of his arrest. And shortly afterwards, his nephew, the Earl of Arundel, had come into Kent to meet Langworth. Arundel had also been under suspicion over the conspiracy last autumn; Howard might have told him to entrust the book to someone far from the eyes of the queen’s pursuivants. If there was the slightest chance that Langworth knew the fate of that book, I was prepared to risk almost anything to find out.

I had no idea which of the houses around the edge of the precincts might be Langworth’s, nor how to ask without arousing suspicion. Neither did I want to walk past Harry’s house in case the sharp-eyed Samuel saw me through a window. I squinted to my left at the cathedral, pale and solid under the morning sun. Ahead of me, I noticed a man approaching from the eastern side of the precincts, pushing a barrow loaded with planks of wood; I quickened my pace and assumed an air of confidence.

“Excuse me,” I said as I drew level, “but I wonder if you can help me—I have to deliver a letter to the canon treasurer’s house, but I’m afraid I’m confused as to which one it is.”

The man rested his barrow on the ground, wiped his hands on the front of his dirty smock, and gestured the way he had come, through the middle gate.

“All the way round the end of the corona on the other side, opposite the treasury.” When he saw my blank look, he added, “The treasury is built on the side of St. Andrew’s chapel. Sticks out from the north side. You can’t miss the house—it’s the only one of three storeys on that side.”

“And will his servant be there to receive it, if he is not?”

“He keeps no servant. A woman from the town comes in to clean for him now and then, I believe. If he’s not there, you’ll have to come back later, or try one of the other canons.”

I thanked him, relieved, and watched as he hefted his load up again and set off towards the Archbishop’s Palace. Once he had rounded the corner, I glanced to my right and left; the precincts on the south side were still deserted. I could not walk around the end of the apse without passing Harry’s house. The only possibility was to go through the cathedral. There was a small door at the end of the southwest transept; I hurried across, tried the handle, and found it open. As silently as I could, I closed the door behind me and stepped into the sacred hush of the cathedral church.

Just as I had the day before, I experienced a slight dizziness, the sense of being suddenly dwarfed, as I looked upwards into the multiplying geometrical vaults that fanned out more than a hundred feet above me in all directions. Almost at once, I heard the echo of footsteps on the flagstones; I froze as they drew closer, and from the direction of the choir a ruddy-faced young man appeared in the plain robe of a minor canon, a pair of tall brass candlesticks tucked under his arms. He walked in haste with his head down; I pressed myself against the wall by the door and waited until he had passed. To my left, at the far end of the nave, I saw a number of men in clerical dress milling about, presumably preparing for the divine service of communion which would begin shortly at nine. I crossed the transept briskly and slipped out of the opposite door, the one I had entered the day before with Harry, beside the site of the martyrdom, and emerged at the corner of the cloister. Two men in black robes were approaching from the west side, but I turned purposefully to my right along the narrow passage that led alongside the Chapter House. I had learned over the years that the best way to avoid being confronted somewhere you don’t belong is to give the impression at all times of having every right to be there. So I held my head up and retraced the path I had taken with Harry until I saw ahead of me a rectangular building of one storey with a gabled roof, attached to one of the cathedral’s side chapels but of later construction, its windows secured with thick iron bars. I passed around this and almost opposite stood a narrow house, timbered in dark wood and three storeys high, each overhanging the one below. Beside it was a crooked row of smaller dwellings, all standing in the shadows of the ruined priory buildings. The great bulk of the cathedral blocked out the morning sun from the path on this side, and the windows of the treasurer’s house reflected the façade of the church, blank and impenetrable. I realised that Langworth’s door was very close to the spot where Sir Edward Kingsley’s body had been found. The dark stain was still visible on the path where Harry had pointed it out. Hardly surprising, then, that the treasurer on his way home had been the first to see his friend lying dead. But it was also extremely convenient.