Sacrilege: A Novel

by S. J. Parris

  “For six months, I endured this marriage, if that is what you want to call it. I was known as Kate Kingsley, and my official history was that my father, a distant cousin of Sir Edward’s, had recently died, leaving me an orphan with a useful parcel of land in Rutland. I suppose he thought that was far enough away that no one would be likely to check. When I appeared with him in public, I was demure and well turned out, which was all anyone seemed to expect of me. And at home, I was regularly beaten and forced to endure what he called my wifely duty, which he liked to perform with violence, though he was always careful never to leave marks on my skin where it might show.” She flexed her hands, trying to keep her expression under control.

  “How did you bear it?”

  She shrugged.

  “It is surprising how much you can bear, when you are obliged to—as you must know, Bruno. My greatest fear was that I would get another child, he forced himself on me so often, and I knew I could never love any child of his. With every month that passed, I worried my luck would not hold. Lately I had started to think about running away. Olivier was going to help me.”

  I’m sure he was, I thought, uncharitably.

  “Did your husband suspect?”

  “I don’t think so. He was always preoccupied with his own business. In fact, from the first days in that house, I’d begun to notice odd things about my husband’s behaviour.”

  “Aside from his violent streak, you mean?”

  “Odder than that, even. He was often out of the house at strange hours, leaving in the dead of night and returning towards dawn. Once I asked him where he’d been when he got into bed with the cold air of night still on him, and he fetched me such a slap to my jaw that I feared I would lose a tooth.” She rubbed the side of her face now at the memory of it. “After that, I always pretended to be asleep when he came in.”

  “So he was a man with secrets. Women, do you suppose?”

  She shot me a scornful look.

  “When he had a whore ready at his disposal in the comfort of his own home, at no extra charge?” She shook her head. “I told you, my husband didn’t like to part with money if it could be avoided. No, there was something else he was up to, but I never found out what. Underneath the house there was a cellar that he always kept locked, with the key on a chain at his belt. And sometimes his friends would come to the house late at night.” Her face darkened. “By his friends, I mean some of the most eminent men of the city. My husband was a lay canon at the cathedral, as well as being magistrate, so he was a person of influence. They would shut themselves in his study and talk for hours. Once I tried to listen at the door, and it seemed they were arguing among themselves, but I could not stay long enough to hear anything useful—the old housekeeper found me there in the passageway and shooed me off to bed. She said Sir Edward would kill me if he caught me there, truly kill me, and she had such fear in her face that I believed it was a serious warning, honestly meant.” She paused to take another bite of bread. “But two weeks ago he had been up to the cathedral, to a meeting of the chapter, as he often did, and afterwards he was to take his supper with the dean. He never came home.”

  “What happened?”

  “One of the canons appeared at my door, about nine o’clock at night, with two constables. He had found Edward’s body in the cathedral precincts. He must have been on his way home when he was attacked.”

  “How did he die?”

  “Struck down with a heavy weapon from behind, they said, and beaten repeatedly while he lay there until his skull was smashed. They said his hands were all broken and bloodied, as if he’d been trying to cover his face.” She pressed her lips together. “I wasn’t sorry—the man was a brute. But it must have been a dreadful way to die. His brains were all spilled over the flagstones, they told me.”

  “His brains …” The detail sounded familiar, as if I had heard the description before, but I could not place it. “You did not have to see it, I hope?”

  “No, they took the body away. It was a vicious act. The killer must have been someone who violently hated him.”

  “Were there people who hated him that much?”

  “Apart from his wife, you mean?” She gave me a wry glance.

  I acknowledged the truth of this with a dip of my head. “But you said no one knew how he treated you in private. So how did they come to suspect you?”

  She poked at a piece of bread and leaned in.

  “I had the wit to realise when the canon came that if I didn’t give him a good show of shock and grief he would find that curious, to say the least. He handed me the sword that my husband had been wearing, still sheathed, and his gold signet ring, all daubed in blood. I played the distraught widow, thinking that would make them go away.”

  “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 t
he 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 my alibi, 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.”

  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 each other 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.”