S. Parris - Sacrilege

‘I find it hard to imagine you in that role,’ I said, with a fond smile. She almost returned it.

‘Oh, you would be surprised, Bruno, how convincing I can be. He said the body had been taken to the coroner and asked if I wanted someone to sit with me that night, to save me being alone. I thanked him and said I had old Meg, the housekeeper, for company – that was stupid of me, because it was Meg’s day off and she had gone to visit a friend, but I just wanted him to go so I could stop pretending to cry and enjoy an untroubled night’s sleep. I could hardly explain to him that I wanted more than anything to be left on my own, for once.’

‘Did he know you were lying?’

‘Not at the time. He went away, and perhaps an hour later my husband’s son, Nicholas, came home, with the smell of the alehouse on him. The constables had found him in there with his friends and given him the news. He was cursing and shouting at me in his drunken rage that it was all my doing. He said nothing had gone right in that house since the day his father brought me into it.’ She paused, and I saw the anger flash across her face before she mastered it. ‘Then – well, I’ll spare you the details. Suffice to say, he thought he could take his father’s place in the marriage bed.’

‘Holy Mother!’ I drew a hand across my mouth and felt my other fist bunch under the table.

‘Don’t worry, I fought him off.’ She gave a brief, bitter laugh. ‘I was damned if I was taking that from the son as well. Fortunately, he was too drunk to put up much of a fight. But he was sober enough to be angered by the refusal. He told me I would get what was coming to me, gave me a slap for good measure, and stumbled and crashed his way to his own room.’

‘What did he mean by that threat?’

‘I hardly dared sleep that night – I thought he might come in and attack me while I lay in my bed. But I heard him leave the house early, at first light. I fell asleep again and the next I knew, old Meg the housekeeper was shaking me awake, whispering frantically that I had to run.’

‘Run? Why?’

‘She’d met the cathedral gatekeeper on her way back to the house. He’d come to find her, to say that the constables had discovered evidence at the scene to arrest me for the murder of my husband and were on their way round. I barely had time to get dressed. Fortunately I knew where my husband kept his strongbox.’

‘In his mysterious locked cellar?’

She shook her head.

‘No. Whatever was in there, it was not money. He kept that in various chests in the room he called his library, and the keys were hidden in a recess in the chimney breast. I took two pursefuls of gold angels, which was all I could carry, and fled through the kitchen yard.’

‘So …’ I sat back, feeling almost breathless at the pace of her tale. ‘Where did you go? What was this evidence – did you ever find out? Surely this Nicholas had something to do with it?’

‘One question at a time, Bruno. I ran through the back streets to Olivier’s house. His parents had already heard about Sir Edward’s murder – news spreads quickly in a cathedral city, where everyone knows everyone. But they didn’t know I was to be accused of it. They offered to hide me for a while, but I was afraid it would be too dangerous for them – the Huguenots are already treated with suspicion in the city, just because they are foreigners who keep close within their own community and try to preserve their own customs. We English are not terribly accommodating in that regard, I’m afraid.’

‘I have noticed.’

‘Later that same day, old Meg came by to tell us she had been questioned by the constables. They learned, of course, that I had lied about being at home with her the previous evening – poor thing, she had no idea I had told them that. But apparently early that morning someone had found a pair of women’s gloves, stained with blood, thrown on the ground in the cathedral precincts. Put that together with my lying about Meg, stealing my husband’s money and taking flight, they think they have all the answer they need.’

She folded her arms and dropped her head to stare at the table, as if the account had exhausted her.

‘Well, that is absurd,’ I said, indignant on her behalf. ‘Were they your gloves?’

She hesitated.

‘I don’t know – one pair of gloves looks much like any other, doesn’t it? I certainly wasn’t wearing them. But how am I to prove otherwise? When my husband was respected and influential, and I have no money of my own even to pay a lawyer? I’m sure it won’t take long for someone to uncover Mistress Kate’s real name and past, and that will be seen as proof of my degeneracy.’

‘Someone has tried to ensure you were blamed for this murder. Did this Nicholas, the son, know who you really were?’

She shook her head.

‘No. But it was plain he hated me.’

‘Hated you and desired you.’

‘Isn’t that often the case with men and women?’ She lifted her chin and fixed me with a twisted smile.

I was on the point of arguing when I recalled a woman I had known last year, and this memory gave me pause. I did not answer one way or the other.

‘What about the key?’ I asked.

‘What key?’

‘The one to his secret cellar, that you said he wore at his belt. If this canon gave you the valuables he took from the body, was the key not among them?’

She stared at me, her lips parted.

‘No! By God, with everything that happened after, I never once thought of that key. You mean the killer could have taken it?’

‘I don’t know. Only it seems that, if he was found with a gold ring and a sword still on him, the killer was not interested in robbery. Perhaps the key was not given to you because the person who found him didn’t regard it as valuable, that is all.’

‘Or because they knew precisely what it was and kept it.’ She frowned. ‘You think someone wanted to find out what was in that cellar?’

‘I don’t know. But surely any sane person would force the lock rather than hack a man to death for the key? I was only thinking aloud. So – then you came to London?’ I said.

‘As you see,’ she replied. ‘It took over a week.’

I shook my head, half in disbelief, half in admiration.

‘You are fortunate you were not robbed or killed on the road, or both. Did you travel alone?’

She smiled, and there was a hint of pride in it.

‘No. Some of the Huguenot weavers were coming to London, bringing samples of cloth to trade. It was safe enough to travel with them. Especially like this.’ She indicated her boy’s clothes. ‘These are Olivier’s. It was his idea to dress as a boy. Oh, I hated the thought of cutting off all my hair at first, but then his mother sensibly pointed out that they would cut it off for me on the gallows anyway.’ She gave a bitter laugh, but it didn’t mask the fear in her eyes. Although I couldn’t quite ignore my childish resentment of this Olivier for being the first man to her aid, I had to admit my admiration for this practical French family who had taken a considerable risk to help Sophia to safety. My eyes strayed inadvertently to her chest under the rough shirt as I wondered how she had managed to strap herself up. She noticed the direction of my gaze and smiled.

‘To tell the truth, Bruno, there was not much left of them after I had the child and then grew so thin. I wear a linen binding, but I had hardly anything to bind in the first place.’

I felt my face grow hot, which only seemed to amuse her further.

‘You are too easy to embarrass, Bruno. I suppose that comes of being a monk for so long.’ Then her expression became serious. ‘I thought if I could just get to London and find you,’ she continued, turning those wide, golden-brown eyes on me once more, ‘then everything would be all right. All those miles with the weavers’ cart, it was my only thought.’