C.J. Sansom - Revelation

'No,' Harsnet answered noncommittally. 'You can't.'

Toby shook his head sadly. Yet I sensed he had had no great affection for his master.

'So he found the girl in the stews?' I asked.

Toby shrugged. 'I think he went there often. Funny thing, since he brought Abigail here you'd think he'd be happier, but he only ranted against sin more and more. Bad conscience, I suppose. Religious folk are mighty strange, I say. I just go to services as the King commands.'

'What about the boy? He must have known she was here.'

'I told him to keep his mouth shut or he'd lose his place. He wouldn't dare do anything — he's an orphan and he'd end on the streets if he was kicked out of here. Master kept her well hidden. If the churchwardens had found out he'd have been defrocked.'

'We have reason to believe whoever killed him knew he had the girl here,' I said.

Toby sat up, alarmed. 'I told you, I said nothing to anybody—'

'Then who else could have known?' Harsnet asked. 'Who came

here?'

'If he had business to conduct he met people in the church. No one came into the house but me, I had all the cleaning of it. If I went out I left Timothy with instructions to tell callers to come back later. He's bright enough, he knew what to do.'

Harsnet got to his feet. 'You are coming with me, Goodman White. You and the girl can spend a night in the Lollards' Tower, see if you remember any more. Jacobs!' he called. One of the guards came in. Toby looked at him in fear.

'I've done nothing,' he said, his voice rising.

'Then you've naught to fear,' Harsnet replied, as the guard lifted the old man to his feet.

I rose. 'I think I'll question the stable boy,' I said.

Harsnet nodded. 'Good idea.'

I went out to a little yard at the side of the house. Candlelight winking through an open door led me to the stable. The boy sat there on an upturned bucket beside a straw mattress, leaning against the side of a big grey mare and stroking it. I saw a crude straw bed in one corner. He looked up, terrified, his dirty face stained with tear-tracks. I felt the softening I always did when faced with lonely, unhappy children.

'Are you Timothy?' I asked gently.

'Yes, sir,' he whispered. 'Sir, Toby says Master is dead. Did a bad man kill him?'

'I am afraid so.'

'What is happening to Master Toby?'

'He is going with the coroner. I would like to ask you some questions.'

'Yes, sir?' Soothingly as I had spoken, he still looked frightened.

Hardly surprising, a group of strangers clattering in at near mid- night.

'You know about Abigail, the woman who lives here?' I asked. He did not reply.

'Were you told to keep it secret? It does not matter now.'

'Toby said Master would beat me if I ever mentioned her name. Master did hit me once, for swearing. But I wouldn't have told, sir, she was kind to me for all Toby said she was a great sinner. Sir, what will happen to Abby? Will she be all right?'

Not if Harsnet has his way, I thought. I took a deep breath. 'You told no one about her? You will not be punished for telling the truth.'

'No. No, I swear I didn't. On the Bible, sir, on the Bible if you wish. I told no one about her. I liked her being here. She was kind, sometimes this last winter she would give me pennies, let me sit by the fire indoors if Master and Toby were out, She said she knew what it was to be cold and hungry.' His eyes filled with tears again. I guessed he had had no kindness from Yarington nor from the steward. Only from the whore.

I sensed there was something more, something he was keeping back in his fear. But if I told Harsnet of my opinion, the boy would be dragged with the others to the Archbishop's prison. And some- thing within me rebelled at that, I could not do it.

'Master Shardlake!' Harsnet's voice called from outside, making the boy jump.

'I must go now, Timothy,' I said. 'But I will come and see you tomorrow. You will be without a place now your master is dead. Toby said you have no family.'

'No, sir.' He sniffed. 'I will have to go a-begging.'

'Well, I will try to find you a place. I promise I will come again tomorrow, and we will talk more, eh? For now, close the stable door and go to sleep.'

'I told the truth, sir,' he said. 'I told nobody about Abigail.'

'Yes, I believe you.'

'Did the constables catch the man who killed Master?'

'No. Not yet. But they will.'

I left the stable. Outside, I bit my lip. What if he ran away? But he would not, not with the prospect of another place. He knew something, and it would be easier to find out what it was once he had got over his initial shock.

'Master Shardlake!' Harsnet called again impatiently from the open doorway.

'Yes, I am coming!' Suffer the little children, I thought bitterly.

I JOINED HARSNET, who had gone down the street and stood looking at the church with Barak.

'How did the killer know about Yarington's whore?' He sighed. 'I'll have the girl and that servant questioned hard, but I don't think they know anything. What about the boy?'

'He told no one about Abigail. I said I'd come and see him again tomorrow, when he's calmer. He will be without a place now. I told him I'd try and find him one.'

He looked at me curiously. 'Where?'

'I don't know yet.'

'I hope you can. Or if he lives he'll grow to be another beggar starving in the streets and threatening the peace.' He shook his head. 'I would they could be cared for, and brought to God.' His anger seemed to have passed.

'My friend Roger was starting up a subscription among the lawyers for a poor men's hospital.'

'Good,' he said. 'That is needed. Preachers too. The beggars are utterly devoid of the fear of God. I've seen that in my work.'

'They are outcasts.'

'So were our Lord and his disciples. But they had faith.'

'They thought a better world was about to come.'

'It will,' he said quietly. He smiled at me. 'I am sorry for my anger earlier. You will still come to dinner tomorrow?'

'Of course.'

'I wonder if Yarington had any family. I will find out from the servants.' He turned as the guards appeared in the doorway. Abigail and Toby slumped between them, looking terrified. 'I must go with them.' Harsnet bowed quickly, and walked away.

'I don't envy them,' Barak said as the two were led away.

BARAK AND I walked back to Chancery Lane. I was bone-tired, the stitches in my arm tweaking and pulling.

'We should have a few hours' sleep when we get back,' Barak said. In the moonlight he too looked exhausted. 'There's Adam Kite's case tomorrow, then Smithfield with Harsnet, then the dean.' He groaned at the thought of it all.

We walked on in silence for a while. Then Barak said, 'That poor arsehole Yarington a lecher, eh?' He sounded almost back to his usual mocking self, perhaps glad to be dealing with ordinary human weakness again after the horror at the church.

'Yes. And the killer knew that somehow.'

'How?'

'I don't know. If we can find out, we may have him.'

'What will he do next?'

'It's impossible to say. As Hertford said, the fifth prophecy is vague.'

'What do you think those people are hiding — Lockley and the dean? They're hiding something.'

'Yes, they are. We must find out tomorrow.'

'Do you think they were part of some nest of sodomites? The monasteries were full of those filthy creatures.'

'I don't know. Lockley certainly didn't strike me as being inclined that way.'

'You can't always tell.'

'You sound as fierce against sin as Harsnet.'

He grinned. 'Only sins I don't feel drawn to myself,' he said with a flash of his old humour. "Tis always easy to condemn those.'

We arrived back at Chancery Lane. 'I must go and see that boy Timothy first thing,' I said wearily. Behind a window I saw a lamp raised. Harsnet's man Orr, on watch.