S. Parris - Sacrilege

I wanted to speak, but the words wedged in my throat. Instead I reached out and laid my hand over hers. She did not snatch it away, and for a moment we stayed like that, in silence, looking at one another with everything still unspoken as the dust danced in the thick sunlight, until she nodded to her right with a mischievous grin, and I glanced across to see two men at the next table watching this display of affection with expressions of disgust.

‘They will take me for your catamite,’ Sophia whispered, giggling.

I withdrew my hand quickly. ‘Careful, then. They hang you for that here as well.’

We left the tavern and walked back in the shimmering heat along Gifford Street and on down Old Bailey, Sophia contained in her silence, as if all her words were spent. I glanced sidelong at her as we walked, but she appeared deep in concentration, biting at the knuckle of her thumb, her dirty cap pulled down low over her brow, eyes fixed straight ahead. I decided it was best not to press her any further for now. At the bottom of the lane I paused; my way lay to the right, up Fleet Hill, but I had no more idea of where she intended to go in London than I did of where she had sprung from.

‘I have taken a room at the sign of the Hanging Sword, off Fleet Street,’ she said, pointing ahead, as if she had read my thoughts. I laughed.

‘But that is almost opposite Salisbury Court, where I have my lodgings.’

She seemed pleased by my expression of incredulity and grinned from under the peak of her cap. The food and the ale had heartened her, or perhaps it was the relief of having unburdened herself, and not having been turned away.

‘Of course. Why do you think I took the room?’

‘So how long have you been spying on me?’

‘It’s five days since I arrived. But I lost my nerve a little once I saw what a grand house you lived in – I knew I couldn’t just bang on the door. So I thought I would watch you, see if I could judge from your routine when might be the best time to approach you, if at all.’

‘My routine has little of interest to offer at the moment, I’m afraid,’ I said, spreading my arms apologetically, though the idea that I could have been watched for five days from the tavern across the street made me uneasy. Sophia wished me no harm, but there were those who did, and if she could follow me around London so easily, then so might they. I must not imagine for a moment that I was safe anywhere, I silently reprimanded myself, and resolved to keep my wits sharper in future. ‘As for the embassy, its grandeur is sadly faded, I think, but it is comfortable enough. I am fortunate to have such a residence.’

We fell into step in the direction of the Fleet Bridge, silent again as I turned over in my mind what assistance I might be able to offer Sophia. Money I could just about manage, and perhaps in the longer term I might be able to use some of my contacts to help her into work, but for that she would have to remain in her boy’s disguise, and it seemed impractical to think of keeping that up. It was easy enough to hide in London, with its rabbit warren of old streets and the thousands of people coming and going daily in search of work or trade, but the world was always a smaller place than you imagined, as I had learned to my cost when I was living as a fugitive in my own country. For as long as Kate Kingsley was wanted for the murder of her husband, Sophia Underhill, or whoever she chose to become next, would never be able to live freely in England.

‘Listen, Sophia – Kit ,’ I corrected myself hastily before she could. ‘You know I will give you whatever help I can while you are in London, and if you need money, well, my stipend from King Henri of France is sufficiently generous to allow me to support you for a while.’ This was untrue; my living allowance from the French King, in recognition of the fact that I had been his personal philosophy tutor, was barely enough to live on, and unreliable in its arrival. Such income as I had to allow me a reasonable standard of living in London came not from King Henri but from my work for the English government, though naturally no one at the French embassy knew this.

‘The Hanging Sword is expensive,’ I continued, ‘but I could help you look for cheaper lodgings elsewhere while you give some thought to what you are going to do. You might find it difficult to remain as a boy indefinitely, but perhaps …’

I stopped when I saw the look on her face. She had halted abruptly in the middle of the street and was staring at me, her brow knotted in confusion.

‘Bruno – have you not understood any of my story? Why do you think I came all this way to seek you out?’

‘Because …’ I faltered. Had I misunderstood? She was looking at me as a governess might look at a child who has failed to absorb anything of his lesson, despite hours at the same exercise. ‘I presumed because you had few people left whose friendship you could rely on, in the circumstances,’ I said, a little stiffly.

‘Well, that is true,’ she said, impatient. ‘But I remembered how you unravelled those murders in Oxford, when no one else seemed to have the slightest idea who was behind them. That’s why I wanted your help. I need you to find out who murdered my husband and clear my name. I don’t want to live the rest of my life looking over my shoulder, wondering when they will come for me.’

‘No, you don’t,’ I said, with feeling, though I could not believe she was seriously asking this of me. She clutched at my sleeve then, and made me look her in the eye, her face close to mine. I could hear the urgency in her voice.

‘If you don’t help me, Bruno, I shall live as a wanted murderess all my life, and if they find me I’ll be straight for the pyre. You know that’s the punishment for women who murder their husbands? Because the man is master of his wife, it’s regarded as an act of treason. So instead of hanging, they burn you.’

‘Like a heretic,’ I said, softly.

‘Like a heretic.’ She fixed me with a meaningful look.

I stepped back, rubbing my hand across the growth of stubble on my chin and shaking my head.

‘You want me to go to Canterbury and find the killer?’

‘If you could do it in Oxford, why not in Canterbury?’ She sounded petulant, and I was reminded, despite her weight of experience, how young she still was.

‘It’s not quite as simple as that. I can’t just take off across the country – I would need permission …’ But as I considered the possibility, I felt my blood quicken with the prospect of it: a change of scene, a new challenge, and the ultimate prize of freeing Sophia from a sentence of death.

‘Permission?’ She looked scornful.

‘From the Ambassador. As a member of his household, out of courtesy I must consult with him before I go anywhere. And with the diplomatic situation so fraught at the moment, he may be reluctant to let me leave.’ But it was not the Ambassador’s permission I was concerned about. I sincerely doubted whether my real employer would want me away from the embassy at such a time.

‘You are not the Ambassador’s ward, Bruno. You are a grown man, or so I thought. Well, it doesn’t matter, then.’ She wrapped her arms tightly around her chest and started walking briskly away towards the narrow bridge; I watched her for a moment, before hurrying to catch her up.

‘Wait!’ I had to work hard to match her determined stride, but on the bridge I caught her by the sleeve. ‘I have said I will help you, and I meant it. I will see if this can be arranged. But it will be difficult – I would have no authority to undertake an investigation of any kind in Canterbury, and you said yourself how they are suspicious of foreigners there.’

‘You could pretend to be a visiting scholar,’ she said brightly. ‘They have a fine library in the cathedral precincts, I am told. Please , Bruno? You are all the hope I have now.’ Her eyes widened, and the pleading in them was in earnest. ‘If you don’t help me, no one will.’