C.J. Sansom - Revelation

'Yes.' He hesitated, then said, 'I do appreciate all the kindness he has shown me.'

'Yes, his kindness is of a rare sort.' I stood up. 'Thank you for seeing to my arm.'

Piers bowed. 'I am glad it is better.'

I left the room. He did not follow me. I remembered him listening at the door when we were talking of the murders. I thought, Guy might be kind, but you are not. You are cold and calculating, like a predatory animal. You have some hold over my friend, and I will discover what it is.

NEXT DOOR, Guy was still reading his book. He offered me a glass of wine and asked to look at my arm. He nodded with satisfaction. 'Piers has done a good job.'

'I do wonder if he possesses the human sympathy one would hope for in a physician.'

'He has had little chance to develop it. His parents died when he was young. And my late neighbour, Apothecary Hepden, worked him hard and taught him little.'

'He told me about his death. He seems to have thought little of him.'

'Yes, Piers can speak harshly. But I believe he has the capacity for sympathy, I believe I can teach it to him.'

'He says you are a father and mother to him.'

'Did he say that?' Guy smiled, then his expression turned sombre.

'What are you thinking?' I asked gently.

'Nothing.' He changed the subject. 'I have been to see Adam Kite again. You know, I think there is improvement. That woman keeper, Ellen, she works hard with him. She forces him to eat and clean himself, tries to pull him away from his obsession with constant prayer.'

'Did you know she is a former patient, and is not allowed to leave the precinct?'

'No.' Guy looked taken aback. 'That surprises me.'

'She told me herself

'She is gentle with Adam, but very firm. It has had an effect. The other day he even talked of normal everyday things for a minute. He said the weather is getting warmer, he did not feel so cold. But still I cannot get him to explain why he feels such a sense of sin. I wonder what brought it on.'

'What do his parents say? I saw you leave with them after the court hearing.'

'They say they have no idea. I believe them.'

'Thank you for doing this. Adam cannot be — easy to work with.'

Guy smiled sadly. 'He touches me, yet intrigues me too. So like you with Bealknap, my motives are not all pure.'

'I ought to visit Adam again.'

'I am going to see him again tomorrow morning. Would you like to come?'

'Very well. If I can.'

'You do not sound as if you want to.'

'I find it distressing. He is in such pain. And religious madness makes me think of the man we are hunting, and who has been hunting me.' I looked at my arm. 'How can he believe that what he is doing is inspired by God?'

'Have we not seen enough these last years to know that men may do cruel, wicked things, yet believe they have communion with God? Think of the King.'

'Yes. Belief in God and human sympathy can be very different things. Yet the killer is something different again. That obsessive savagery.' I looked at Guy. 'He still has three murders to commit. And if he succeeds, I, like you, do not think he will stop. I told Cranmer so today.'

'No. Such a momentum would have to be carried forward. Till he is caught, or dies.'

'How will he feel if he pours out the seven vials of wrath and the world does not end?'

'There have been many in these last years who thought they knew when the world would end. When it does not they go back to Revelation for the clues they have missed. And that is easy. It is not a story in sequence but a series of violent narratives giving alternative ways in which the world will finish. So they find a new formula.'

I nodded slowly. 'Does he suffer, I wonder?'

'The killer?' Guy shook his head. 'I do not know. My guess would be the acts of killing are a sort of ecstasy for him, but perhaps, that apart, he lives in a world of pain.'

'But he conceals it — he is able to live a normal life or something like it. Without standing out.'

'Yes. I think among the many things he is, he is a good actor.'

'Is it Goddard?' I shook my head. 'I don't know. Harsnet still thinks he is possessed.'

Guy shook his head. 'No. He is an obsessive, and all obsessions come from some maladjustment of the brain. Not the devil.' He set his lips. I thought, why are you sure?

We were silent for a moment. Then I asked, 'What happens after the vials are poured out? In Revelation. What comes next?'

Guy rose and went to his bookshelf. He brought down a New Testament and turned to Revelation.

'The seven vials of wrath are in Chapters 15 to 16. Already before then there has been another version of the end of the world, disasters coming when the seven angels blow their trumpets.' He turned the pages with his long brown fingers. 'Hail and fire, a mountain falling into the sea. But there is not such concentration on the torments of men as there is in the story of the seven vials. Perhaps that was what attracted the killer.' He paused, turned the page. 'The judgement of the Great Whore comes after.'

'When I read them, those passages seemed more obscure than most. Who is the Great Whore meant to be?'

Guy smiled sadly. 'It used to be thought she symbolized the Roman Empire, but now the radicals say she represents the Church of Rome. And after that, war in Heaven and Jesus' final victory.'

He passed the book across to me. I had studied the passages about the seven vials to exhaustion, but now I read on, aloud. 'I saw a woman sit upon a rose-coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.' I remembered the painting of the creature in the Westminster chapterhouse. 'And the woman was arrayed in purple and rose colour ... And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of whoredom and abominations of the earth ... and the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and shall go into destruction ... her sins have reached into heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities' I put the Testament down with a sigh. 'I can make little sense of it.' ‘Nor I.'

We both jumped violently at a loud hammering on the door to the street. We exchanged glances. As Guy crossed to open it, the inner door opened and Piers came in. I wondered whether he had been listening outside again.

'Who is it?' Guy called out.

'It is I, Barak!'

Guy threw open the door. I caught a glimpse of Sukey, tied to the rail beside Genesis. She was breathing heavily, Barak must have ridden here fast. There was no sign of drunkenness about him today, he was sober and alert, his expression hard and serious. He stepped inside.

'There has been another killing,' he said. 'There's some strange mystery about this one. Dr Malton, sir, can you come with us?'

'WHO!' I ASKED.

Barak glanced at Piers. Guy turned to the boy. 'Would you fetch my horse to the front of the house?' he asked. Piers hesitated for a moment, then went out. Barak looked between us. His face was set hard.

'It's Lockley's wife.'

'He has killed a woman?' Guy gasped.

'Sir Thomas sent a man round to keep guard at the inn. He was too late. He found her lying on the inn floor. She's been mutilated. The message said something strange, something about poisoned air. We're to join Harsnet there at once.'

'What about Lockley?'

'I don't know.'

Through the window I saw Piers leading Guy's old white mare round to the front. We went outside.

'May I come too?' Piers asked Guy as we mounted.

'No, Piers, you have studying to do. You should have done it last night.' The apprentice stepped back, an expression of angry sulkiness momentarily crossing his face.

'How much does that boy know about what has been happening?' I asked Guy as we rode quickly up the street.