S.J. Parris - Sacrilege

“Under the floor,” I said, “at the eastern end, between two marble columns. I can show you the place.”

“No need.” He twisted his mouth in distaste, though I could not tell if it was at the wine or the outcome. “We found the place. The coffin is empty. Not so much as a holy toenail to be seen.”

“Langworth has moved him, then. He will tell you where.”

Sidney gave a grim laugh.

“Let us hope. When he is in the Tower he will be encouraged to tell us all manner of things.”

I winced. “Langworth must have told someone. There are no more guardians left—Kingsley and Sykes are dead, Fitzwalter is arrested.”

“Unless Fitzwalter was not the fourth guardian,” Hale said. “He swears he knows nothing of any relics. Admits to taking bribes from Langworth and Kingsley to smooth their financial interests, but nothing more. Of course, Fitzwalter is a coward,” he added, pursing his lips in disapproval. “He will say anything to spare himself hard questioning. We may yet learn something of use.”

“So there could be another guardian,” I mused. “If Langworth will not talk, we may never know where Becket is buried.”

“Oh, he will talk eventually,” Sidney said, as if there could be no dispute. He threw back the last of his wine and stood. “The pursuivants are all over Langworth’s house—I should go and see what more they have found. Then, Bruno, you and I deserve the finest supper this town can provide. We have much to talk about.” He gave me a meaningful look, stretched his arms above his head and cracked his neck from side to side, then swept out of the door again.

“I’ll tell you another thing—it’s a damned shame the physician Sykes was killed before he could be questioned,” Hale remarked, reading over his notes. “Now that is a curious business. Was it Langworth’s doing, do you think, Bruno? Stop him talking? Seems bizarre, if it was. You’d have thought Sykes was essential to the whole miracle plot.”

I hesitated. No one had yet mentioned Sophia. That meant only one of two things; either she was still hidden at Harry’s, or she had taken her chance to escape while the whole town was gathered at the assizes.

“Sykes’s housekeeper kept his appointment book, apparently,” Hale continued, in a tone of mild curiosity. “He made a note of all his patients so that he wouldn’t miss a fee. He was supposed to see the Widow Gray the morning he died but he never got there. The housekeeper says someone came to the door crying that there was an emergency, begged him to go with her there and then. She says Sykes didn’t even stop to write down the name of the patient or pick up his jacket, just went out like that in his shirtsleeves, with his bag of remedies.”

“It was a woman? At the door?”

“The housekeeper didn’t see, but she says it sounded like a woman’s voice. Curious. Well,” he put the paper aside and looked up, his jowls creasing into a weary smile. “I cannot worry about that now. Let us hear your story, Doctor Bruno, as quick as you can make it, so I can get back to my adulterers and coiners. Justice will not wait.” He rolled his eyes. “You,” he barked at the clerk to his right. “Sharpen your quill for this man’s words.”

SO I GAVE my deposition from the beginning; how I had come to Canterbury at Sophia’s request; how Walsingham had asked me to keep an eye on Langworth; how Sir Edward Kingsley had led me to the murdered boys and the plot to revive the cult of Becket. I did not mention at any point that Sophia had travelled to Canterbury with me. Hale interrupted only once.

“Where is she now? This woman—Kingsley’s wife?”

I paused, weighing up my answer. Was this a test? Had Harry already told them she was at his house? Would the men who came to take Samuel have found her? Lying to the justice would not serve me well; I had lied for Sophia once before and Walsingham had given me strong words for it.

“I don’t know,” I answered, truthfully.

His eyes rested for a moment on my face with a practised scrutiny, then he nodded for me to continue.

When I had told my story—as much of it as I felt necessary for a deposition—he folded his hands together and pushed his chair back.

“An audacious scheme,” he murmured, shaking his head. “You almost have to admire them for it. To revive the shrine of Saint Thomas with a miracle of resurrection—extraordinary presumption. Ha!” A sudden laugh erupted as if from deep in his chest, and his clerks echoed it with polite titters. “That a man should think to mock the powers of God Almighty. Beggars belief.”

“Your Honour, the Catholic Church has been doing this for years. Red powder you shake up to make the blood of Christ. Statues of the Virgin with mechanisms that make them weep on Good Friday. Man is ingenious when it comes to aping miracles.”

“And others are more than apt to believe in them. By God, Doctor Bruno—the longer I do this job, the more I feel nothing could surprise me when it comes to the baseness of human nature. It’s a wonder Our Lord bothers with us at all.” He stretched out his legs under the desk and leaned back. “I wish some miracle would relieve me of this day’s business. I will have two armed men escort you to Harry Robinson’s, in case the mob are still restless.”

THE STREETS were lively with people; the town seemed to have given itself a day’s holiday in honour of the assizes. If the crowds had been disappointed at being deprived of a spectacle at the gallows, they seemed mollified by the drama of the queen’s own soldiers coming to town to arrest their canon treasurer. This time there were no flying vegetables as I passed along the High Street in the company of my guards, but I felt the stares as I passed, the muted whispering, as if I were somehow more dangerous now that they did not know what to make of me.

Harry opened the door and his face gave me the answer I needed. The guards took their place unquestioningly outside and I stepped into the hall.

“She was gone when I came back from seeing the justice this morning,” he said, leaning heavily on his stick.

I nodded, summoning all my remaining strength to keep my jaw tight, my face steady.

“I have not had a chance to thank you for that,” I said. “You must have almost killed yourself getting there in time.”

“I knew he would not leave his lodgings until the last minute. His assistants did not want to admit me but I told them the safety of the realm was at stake. I may have mentioned the Privy Council.” He shifted position and sucked in a sharp breath, his face pinched with pain.

“You should get some sleep, Harry,” I said. “You look exhausted.”

“My leg is bad today. I have not walked so fast nor up so many stairs for months, and I can’t remember the last time I nearly killed a man in the middle of the night.” He tried to laugh but it ended with another wince. “Did you know she would be gone?”

“I guessed.”

“But you don’t know where?”

I shook my head and leaned against the wall, the exhaustion of the day and the previous night settling on my shoulders like a lead cloak. She must have realised that there was little hope of her being able to claim her inheritance as Kingsley’s widow if no one could be found guilty of his murder; perhaps she suspected that I would eventually piece together the truth. But the killing of Sykes had not been part of her plan. Had Olivier decided on that course alone after Sophia had related to Hélène what I had told her about finding Denis’s body? I pressed my palm to my forehead. Like Tom Garth, Olivier had believed there was no justice for people like him under the law. He had dispensed his own hot-blooded justice to Edward Kingsley and to Sykes, and part of me understood how a man might be driven to that. I could tell Hale, have the hue and cry sent after them, but what would it achieve, in the end, if they were caught and hanged for the murder of two men whose actions—some might argue—had deserved a sentence of death? I sighed. In Oxford, I had stopped Sophia from running away because I thought I was saving her life. This time, I would let her go. There was a kind of justice in that, I thought.