C.J. Sansom - Revelation

'He is a detestable rogue. But we must take help where we can. The Archbishop and Lord Hertford are so close to the royal court that something happening in their households would be noticed. But no one will notice, still less care about, a lot of comings and goings at Sir Thomas Seymour's.'

'Can he be trusted?' I asked dubiously.

'He has reason to keep his mouth shut. This matter should have gone before the King, he is already implicated in the secret. I think he is safe.'

'Well, sir, you know far more about matters relating to the royal court than I. I will trust your judgement.'

Harsnet bowed his head in acknowledgement. 'Thank you.' He hesitated. 'Whatever our differences in matters of belief, I am sure we can work together well.'

'Indeed, I hope so, sir,' I said, a little embarrassed.

'Perhaps you would come and dine with my wife and me one evening,' he added. 'We could get to know one another better.' The coroner reddened, and I realized he was actually a shy man.

'I should be pleased.'

'Good.' He stood up. 'And now, let us take a look at the chapterhouse. I expect it will be full of papist imagery.'

WE ASKED a passing clerk where the chapterhouse was located. He pointed us to a heavy oak door some distance off. It stood ajar. We passed inside down a short passage into one of the most extraordinary rooms I have ever seen. It was enormous, octagonal, and lit by huge stained-glass windows. The floor was beautifully tiled. Brightly coloured, beautifully crafted statues of the Virgin and St Peter stood at the entrance, as though guarding the way in.

But what transfixed all three of us, so that we stood staring with open mouths, was that beneath the windows each wall was divided into panels, on each of which was painted, in bright colours and embossed with gold leaf, a scene from Revelation. There were scores of them, the whole story, in unsparing, vivid colour: St John, Christ in Judgement, the flaming pit of Hell, the beast with seven heads and ten horns, and the seven angels, pouring their vials of wrath upon a world red with torment.

WE STOOD IN SILENCE, turning on our heels to survey the great panorama of destruction. The unfolding story of the panels was interrupted, on one wall, by a Doom Painting showing the righteous ascending to Heaven while below the pale naked sinners were thrown into Hell. But even that image lacked the sharp colours and vivid scenes of the Revelation story. For the first time I felt its full power.

Barak went up to the panels to take a closer look, his footsteps echoing on the tiles. He stopped before a portrayal of a great beast with seven snakelike necks issuing from its powerful shoulders, at the end of each a snarling head crowned with either one or two horns. Before it, his head framed by a gold-leaf halo, stood the figure of St John, the witness of what was to come, his expression full of fear. I joined him.

'So that's what the beast with seven heads and ten horns looked like,' I said. 'I couldn't imagine it, somehow.'

The style of the paintings was that of two hundred years ago, the figures lacking the realistic fluidity we had achieved in these latter days. But it was vivid and terrifying nonetheless.

'The Westminster monks saw this,' I said quietly. 'Goddard, Lockley, Cantrell. Every day, in chapter. Yes, this could eat into a man's soul.'

'Lockley the lay brother wouldn't have come to chapter, would he:' Barak asked.

'A lot of other business would be done in the chapterhouse. He'd have seen the panels often.'

Harsnet joined us. 'The papists say we have given the Bible to people who cannot understand its message, who are driven to wild interpretations. But see, Master Shardlake, pictures may have the same effect. If this room had been slubbered over with whitewash like a good Reformed church, Goddard might never have had his mind turned. I think the devil came to him through these pictures.'

'If it is Goddard.'

'Yes, if. But he seems the most likely.'

I looked at him. 'Is this what the dean was hiding from us? Did he remember this panorama, perhaps the effect it had on someone?'

Harsnet set his lips. 'That we shall discover. Serjeant Shardlake, I will see the dean again tomorrow. Can you talk to those other two ex-monks, see what they know? Let us build up our knowledge before we confront Benson again.'

‘I will,' I said. 'After court today, if I may.'

He nodded agreement. 'And I will send word to the Common Council of London, someone there may know of Goddard's family.'

'I should like to take a look at what is left of the infirmary buildings before we go.'

'Yes. We should do that.' Harsnet cast a last look of distaste round the chamber, then led the way out. I paused at a panel show- ing a grim-faced angel, winged and clad in white, pouring liquid on to an earth that was turned to fire. Agonized white faces pierced the flames.

'The fourth vial,' I murmured to Barak. 'Dear God, I hope we catch him before he butchers someone else.'

OUTSIDE IN the cloister we asked another clerk where the old infirmary buildings were. He told us the monks' infirmary was demolished now, but that the lay infirmary which had cared for the poor of the parish lay a little distance off, through the old monks' graveyard. The rain ceased as we left the cloister and crossed a path through a grassy square dotted with headstones, some going back centuries. As with all the dissolved monasteries, the stones would soon be dug out, the coffins disinterred and the bones thrown into a communal pit.

The infirmary was a long, low building, apart from the main complex to safeguard against plague. The heavy wooden door was unlocked. Inside was a bare chamber, dimly lit by high dusty windows, nothing left but rags of cloth in the corners, marks on the walls where pictures and a large cross had hung, and an empty fire- grate with mouse droppings scattered around.

'Where do the Westminster patients go now:' I asked quietly, thinking of Roger's hospital plans. His face seemed to appear again before me, smiling cheerfully and nodding.

'They have nowhere,' Harsnet answered sadly.

We all turned quickly as the door creaked. Someone was trying to open it, slowly and stealthily. Barak put his hand to his sword as an extraordinary figure crept into the room. An old man, with a thatch of untidy fair hair like a bird's nest, thin and ragged, his cheeks fallen in. He had not seen us, and as we watched he took a long twig he had found somewhere and began poking at the rubbish in one of the corners.

'What are you doing here:' Harsnet's clear voice echoing round the chamber made the intruder start violently. He dropped his twig, clutched his hands together in front of his chest and stared at us in fear. 'Well:' Harsnet asked.

He cowered away. 'I — I washn't doing any harm, shir.' His voice was slurred, unintelligible, and at first I thought he was drunk. But then I realized that he was toothless. I also saw that he was actually a younger man, his sunken cheeks making him look older.

'You came here for a reason,' Harsnet went on. 'You're in the middle of the abbey precinct, you didn't just wander in.'

'I wash looking for my teeth,' he said, wringing his hands and backing away. 'I keep hoping I'll find them, in a corner. Shomewhere I haven't looked. Shomewhere at Westminster.' There was a look of baffled helplessness in his wide blue eyes, and I wondered if the fellow was an idiot.

'All right, but leave us,' Harsnet said more gently, evidently coming to the same conclusion. The man scurried out and closed the door behind him with the same slow, creaking motion, as though afraid of disturbing us further with the noise.

'What in Jesu's name was all that about;' Barak asked.

'Some poor beggar out of his wits,' Harsnet said. 'They are everywhere at Westminster, evidently they can even find their way in here. The guards should be told.' He frowned at Barak. 'And I would be grateful if you did not take the Lord's name in vain.'