Sacrilege gb-3

by Stephanie Merritt

  “Come,” I whispered, and led her upstairs to the room under the eaves as quietly as I could, though I feared every tread of the stairs would wake Harry and we would be obliged to sit with him and answer his questions. My blood was feverish with hunger for her now, quickened by the wordless encouragement of her apparent desire for me.

  I shut the door of my room behind us and dropped my wet cloak to the floor. The wooden casket I placed carefully on the window ledge, to be examined later; it had suffered a crack when Tom Garth threw me to the ground, but appeared otherwise undamaged. If you had told me a month ago that I would have the lost book of Hermes Trismegistus in my hands and leave it aside for a woman, I would have laughed; but Sophia had an effect on me that no woman had had for years and there were some longings that no book could satisfy.

  As the sky shaded slowly into the shimmering light of a wet dawn, I slipped the rough dress from her thin shoulders and laid her down on the narrow truckle bed, tracing circles over her damp skin with my tongue while she curled her fingers into my hair and arched her back like a cat in the sun, softly moaning as I moved lower, over the sharp bones of her hips and the softness of her belly and lower still. She wanted me: I felt it in the mounting tension of her muscles and the urgent way she gripped my head as my mouth matched the rhythm of her rocking motion, until eventually she subsided in a liquid cascade of snatched gasps and shuddering sighs. She reached down and pulled me to her, covering my face in kisses and whispering my name while I wrestled, impatient and clumsy, with the ties of my breeches. And then I was inside her, moving with her, looking into those wide tawny eyes that had haunted me since Oxford, hardly daring to believe that we were here, now, joined. She kept her eyes fixed on mine as I began to move faster, more deliberately, her gaze fierce and inscrutable, so that I could not tell whether she was looking at me with love or pity. Perhaps both. As my breathing grew more ragged, she seemed to awaken from her reverie and I felt her pushing me urgently away from her. It took me a moment to understand: her fear of getting with child again. I felt a brief pang of irrational, inexplicable rejection, but in the last instant I slid away from her and spent myself into the sheet beside her, my face buried in her shoulder to muffle any involuntary sounds.

  For a long while we lay without speaking, side by side; her hand continued to caress my hair, but absently, and when I glanced at her face I knew she was elsewhere, far from me, her eyes fixed on the ceiling but her gaze turned inward to her own thoughts, and a strange melancholy stole over me, a bleak fear that what we had just done marked not a beginning but an ending. Though my arm remained across her body, my fingers lightly stroking patterns along the curve of her waist, I fell asleep feeling oddly alone as the pale dawn light crept across the bare plaster of the walls.

  Chapter 15

  A persistent peal of bells from the cathedral tower woke me, though it seemed only moments since I had closed my eyes. I reached across and found the bed empty. Gulls were clamouring outside the window; when I squinted into the morning light, I saw Sophia, already dressed, leaning on the window ledge with the precious book in her hand. My throat clenched; I had to fight the urge to leap up and tear it out of her hands. But she could have no idea what she held, and I did not wish to whet her curiosity further.

  “Greek,” she said, without looking up. “What is it?”

  “Can you read it?”

  “Only a little. I had some schooling with my brother, but my Greek was never advanced and my father would not allow me to study with a tutor after my brother died. Why was this book buried with Becket? Is it forbidden?”

  She raised her head and looked at me and I saw the glint in her eye. In Oxford she had pestered me to tell her the secrets of natural magic and I recalled the same light in her expression when I had told her of occult books I had read on my travels. She would have made a fine scholar, I thought; she had the necessary hunger for any knowledge she was told she must not seek.

  “I think it is a book I saw once in London,” I said, waving a hand as if it hardly mattered, “but I need to study it further to be sure. In the meantime we have more pressing questions. I have only one more day before the assize judge arrives to try and find some evidence against your husband’s murderer.”

  “But you don’t know who he is yet,” she said, biting her lip. “That is, if you believe Tom Garth didn’t do it. We only have his word for that.”

  “True. And perhaps I am mistaken. In any case, we have no choice but to rely on his oath-he could land you, me, and Harry in gaol with one word about your presence.” I shook my head. “But in my gut I do not feel it was Garth. It must be Langworth and Sykes, or Samuel acting on their behalf, and it must be because of the boys. What did your husband do that made him suddenly a danger to their plot instead of an ally, that is the question?”

  She looked confused.

  “What plot? Which boys?”

  I told her, as briefly as I could, of my night at St. Gregory’s Priory, my altercation with Nicholas Kingsley, the gruesome discovery under the mausoleum, and the suspicions Harry and I had formed about the three men’s intention of staging a miracle by the bones of Saint Thomas when the time was right. When I reached the part about finding the medallion of Saint Denis around the neck of the corpse in the underground tomb, she covered her mouth with her hand and tears sprung to her eyes.

  “Oh, sweet Jesus,” she said, when I had finished, her voice barely audible through her fingers. “To think of that happening underneath my own house.”

  “The beggar boy would have been before you married Sir Edward. But the Huguenot child-yes. He was kept prisoner and poisoned while you were enduring your own sufferings above ground.”

  “That poor family. After all they have done for me. How will Hélène bear it? She only survives the days by praying her son will be found safe and well. Dear God.”

  “It will be a dreadful blow, there is no doubt,” I said. “But perhaps at least they can do away with uncertainty. Once the boy’s body has been examined as evidence they will be able to give him a Christian burial and that might give them some comfort. Assuming the body is still there,” I added, almost to myself, remembering the unease I had felt at the news that Langworth had been to dine at St. Gregory’s the previous night. Nick Kingsley would surely have told him of my visit to the old priory and that I had been near the cellar. If Langworth suspected that I was close to understanding the business at Sir Edward’s house, he might well have taken the opportunity to dispose of the body in the tomb. Perhaps young Denis would go the way of the beggar boy, hacked to pieces and dumped on a rubbish heap. But no-to have surprised us in the crypt in the early hours Langworth must have returned from the Kingsley house by at least midnight, and if he dined and talked with Nick that would hardly have given him time to exhume a body and move it unnoticed. Besides, he seemed to have relied on Samuel for those kind of dirty jobs and though God only knew where Harry’s servant was at that moment, I doubted he was at liberty to dispose of corpses for Langworth.

  “I tried to look in the cellar once and old Meg stopped me,” Sophia said, turning back to the window again. “She seemed genuinely frightened-she told me my husband would kill me. She must have known all along. How could she?”

  “She felt she had no choice. Perhaps she was afraid your husband would kill her too. Oh, God in heaven!” I leapt out of bed and grabbed at my underhose, scrabbling around frantically for a shirt.

  “What is it?” Sophia’s face mirrored my alarm.

  “Meg is a witness. She saw Sir Edward with the beggar boy in the kitchen-she could testify. And Langworth was there last night. I have to find out if she’s all right.”

  “Wait, Bruno. How will you do that? You can hardly just go and knock on the door-you said yourself, Nicholas Kingsley will kill you.”

  I finished tying my shirt and pulled on the breeches I had discarded in such haste last night. I had hoped to wake with Sophia in my arms and attempt to recapture that fleeting intimacy of the
night before. I could not help feeling a little cheated by her early rising and apparent indifference. But I had to put such thoughts out of my mind, I told myself, and concentrate on the matter in hand.

  “There is someone who is sure to know any news as soon as it happens,” I said. “When I have broken my fast, I must go out to the marketplace. I will bring you some bread and small beer first, if you like. I’m afraid you will be confined to this room-and you would do better to keep away from the window.”

  It was only a small casement jutting out from the sloping eaves of the attic, but it faced the cathedral and there was always a chance someone passing might glance up. I did not want to bring Harry any more trouble than was necessary.

  “Who will help you in the marketplace?” she asked, curious, moving away from the window to sit on the end of the bed and curling a strand of hair around her finger. The severe boy’s cut was beginning to grow a little longer; it accentuated the sharp angles of her face.

  “Oh, just a girl who is keen to help me any way she can,” I said, with deliberate nonchalance, and was gratified to see a brief expression of pique flit across her features. “I’ll take that, if I may.”

  Reluctantly, she handed me the book. I wrapped it in its linen cloth and returned it to the damaged casket, then put the whole into my leather travelling bag and slung it over my shoulder. From now on I did not mean to let this book out of my sight.

  In the kitchen I found Harry opening cupboard doors and slamming them with a disgruntled air. He straightened up when I entered and leaned on the edge of the table, looking at me knowingly.

  “There you are. We have no bread or milk, you know-Samuel would go out for them early to the market and since he is not here because of you-”

  “I am going,” I said, clapping him on the shoulder.

  “You look rough,” he observed, without sympathy. “Don’t suppose you’ve had much sleep.”

  I acknowledged the truth of this with a half nod and concentrated on my purse. I could not be sure how sharp the old man’s hearing was and how much he might have heard when Sophia and I returned last night, but he was no fool; he knew I was hiding her in my room and no doubt imagined the rest.

  “Was your excursion useful?” he asked.

  “I think so. At least, there is a body in the crypt that has every appearance of being Becket’s and could certainly be presented as such. An ampulla of oil was buried with it.”

  “The holy oil of Saint Thomas,” he murmured. “So they claim to have that too, do they? Legend says it was given to Becket by the Virgin to anoint the true sovereign of England.”

  “So I understand. Do the people care about such trifles?”

  He considered.

  “It would certainly lend weight to the coronation of a Catholic monarch, should such an event ever come to pass. It would have the appearance of being sanctioned by England’s greatest saint.”

  “But it needs to remain where it is for the queen’s justice to see when he arrives. My fear is that Langworth and Sykes between them will find a way to move the relics to another hiding place.” I thought of Langworth lying half choked on the floor of the crypt. My situation would be much simpler now if I had finished him off last night. God knows that is easily done-a tavern brawl, a threat, your life or his-and I doubted I would have been the first to solve a problem that way on Walsingham’s business, but Langworth was the key to the whole plot in Canterbury and the connections with the French and Spanish conspirators; it was essential that he should be taken alive for questioning. The treasurer was nothing if not shrewd; he would have realised as soon as he came to with a swollen throat on that stone floor that I had discovered his great treasure; the question was whether he would have time to move his saint to another hiding place before I made my discovery public.

  “Perhaps I should make it my business to pray in the cathedral today,” Harry said, rubbing his chin. “See who comes and goes. They can do nothing if they know they are being watched.”

  “That would be an excellent idea.” I glanced uneasily at the ceiling. “But someone should stay in the house to keep an eye on your other guest.”

  “That sounds like a job for a young man,” Harry said, a smirk playing around the corners of his mouth. “I haven’t the strength to get up those stairs, let alone attend to the needs of a female. Mind you, I’d be surprised if you have, after last night.” He gave me a stern look, but the ghost of a smile remained. “Now go and get me my breakfast, I’m half starved here.”

  The night’s storm had broken the pressing heat of the last few days and outside it no longer felt as if we were living inside a glass jar; the sky seemed rinsed clean, pale with a thin gauze of cloud, and a crisp breeze whipped my shirt around my chest. The bells had fallen silent and the only sound was the frenzied cries of the gulls and the crunch of my boots over the wet ground. Fighting my lack of sleep, I tried to keep alert, glancing about me as I walked towards Christ Church gate. At the conduit house I turned back and looked up at the top storey of Harry’s house; I thought I saw a shadow move at the window, but I could not be sure. Tom Garth appeared in the doorway of his lodge by the gatehouse and nodded solemnly, as if to acknowledge the bond between us. I nodded in return and passed out into the Buttermarket, one hand laid protectively over the satchel hanging at my side.

  The market was busy despite the early hour; by the stone cross, a pair of jongleurs had already drawn a small crowd as one casually juggled flaming torches and the other moved stiffly about on stilts, calling out to drum up an audience. His shouts could barely be heard over the cries of the market traders selling their wares and the barking of the dogs chased away from the food stalls; the air was thick with the smells of warm bread and fresh pies. I found Rebecca behind her bread stall; her face lit up when she saw me, though I did not fail to notice the disapproving glance her employer sent me from the corner of her eye while deep in conversation with a customer. I chose a couple of loaves and leaned in as I handed over the coins.

  “I need your help again, Rebecca, I’m afraid. Do you know the housekeeper from St. Gregory’s Priory? Does she buy her bread from you?”

  “Old Meg?” She looked surprised. “Some days she comes. They used to pay to have the bread delivered when it got too far for her to walk, but since Sir Edward was”-here she made a face-“they have fallen behind with their account. Mistress Blunt said not to take any more until the debt is settled.”

  “Have you seen Meg this morning?”

  She glanced about the marketplace and shook her head.

  “Listen.” I beckoned her in closer, nodding sideways at the sturdy goodwife who was quite clearly whispering to her customer about me. “You said Mistress Blunt knows all the gossip there is to know in this town. I need to find out if all is well at St. Gregory’s with the old woman. I cannot explain, but it is important. Do you think you can find out somehow? But subtly. I only wish to be assured Meg is all right.”

  Rebecca smiled.

  “If anyone can find anything out, it is Mistress Blunt. I will see what I can do. Come back in a while.”

  “Thank you. I will be forever in your debt.” I winked and the girl blushed violently. As I turned to leave, I caught Mistress Blunt’s eye and executed a deep bow, the bread clutched to my chest. She broke off her conversation with the goodwife and folded her arms across the vast ledge of her bosom.

  “You,” she said, giving me a severe look, “are not welcome loitering about my stall.”

  “Do you say that to all your customers?” I indicated the loaves.

  She pursed her lips.

  “Don’t think I’m not wise to your game. If there’s one blessing to growing old, it’s that you’re no longer taken in by a handsome face. And you, silly chit of a girl,” she said, turning to Rebecca with the same sour expression, “ought to have better sense, making eyes like a calf at the man who’s supposed to have killed your own uncle.”

  Pink spots flared in Rebecca’s cheeks.


  “Well, I don’t believe he did, and neither will the judge. Signor Savolino has friends at court, is it not so?” She looked up at me, her face flushed and expectant.

  “I don’t care if he’s friends with Queen Bess herself, he’s not hanging about my stall trying his luck while you’re supposed to be working for me, girl.”

  “Alas, I cannot claim so grand a friendship, though I did see Her Majesty in person once, when I was invited to a concert at one of her royal palaces,” I said, casually looking away across the marketplace. “I am no expert in fashion, but I believe I have never seen a dress like it.”

  “No! Did you really? In person? Was it French silk?” Mistress Blunt leaned forward, lips parted, her former severity entirely eclipsed by awe.

  “The sleeves, I believe, but the bodice was cloth of gold, all embroidered with tiny seed pearls …”

  She whistled, delighted, and I continued to embellish my description, making up details as best I could with Mistress Blunt hanging on my every word, nodding sagely, her hands clasped in delight as I elaborated on buttons, necklaces, lace collars, and anything else that came to mind, silently congratulating myself on having found a way to win her over. When there came a cry from behind me and her attention was distracted by something over my shoulder, I followed the direction of her gaze and saw that a scuffle had broken out in the little crowd around the fire juggler. A group of youths were jostling and shoving, and suddenly broke away to run down a side street. Left behind was another, younger boy, who stood white-faced, his hand clutched to his mouth. Through the bobbing heads I saw that it was the Widow Gray’s son.

  I rushed across and pushed through the people gathered around him.

  “What happened?”