Sacrilege: A Novel

by S. J. Parris

  “Better than I had hoped,” I said, taking the shovel from her. I inserted the digging edge under the flagstone, hoping it was not so fragile that it would snap with the weight. But the stone lifted easily, as if it was used to being moved. I motioned to Sophia to bring the lantern closer and my heart sank; in the cavity I could see only rubble.

  “There might be something beneath that,” she said.

  Kneeling, she began to scrape away the loose covering of stones and earth. I leaned in to join her, one eye still on Langworth, until eventually she gave a small cry.

  “I can feel a sharp corner here,” she whispered. I brought the lantern in close and she brushed away the dirt with her hand; there, only a foot beneath the surface, was the edge of what looked like a marble coffin.

  “We need to get up the other flagstones,” I said. I worked quickly; though the stones were heavy, I barely felt the weight of them as I lifted them and Sophia helped me to brush away the rubble hiding the box beneath. When we had cleared enough to see, I sat back on my haunches and surveyed what we had uncovered. A marble coffer, but not sufficiently long or wide to contain the body of an adult man. Unmarked, unadorned in any way. Sweat prickled on the back of my neck and the palms of my hands. Somewhere overhead, thunder boomed and died away, more distant than before.

  “Help me with this lid,” I hissed through my teeth. I moved to one end and she grasped the other. I nodded and we both lifted together and almost fell backwards; the slab covering the coffer was not attached in any way and was much lighter than I had expected. We shifted it to one side and I knelt to examine what lay beneath.

  As I looked, a strange frisson shook me the length of my body, and I felt my hands trembling. I had long ago left behind the Catholic faith and its rituals of saints and relics, but some dormant instinct prickled with awe at what I saw before me. At one end of the coffer was a raised stone square and placed carefully upon it, as if on a pillow, lay a human skull. Surrounding the skull were the remaining bones of the skeleton, arranged in three sides of a square. The body had evidently been moved to this place when the bones were all that remained. I did not dare touch them, though I could see they were very old—perhaps centuries old. But what caused the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck to stand up was the gaping hole at the back of the skull where a killing blow had broken away the crown of this man’s head. I exhaled slowly, hearing the shudder in my breath, and looked up to meet Sophia’s stare.

  “Is it him?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper. “Is it Becket?”

  “It could be. Certainly it looks as if people believe it’s him, and that is all a relic ever is. For their purposes, that is all that matters.”

  “It is absurd to believe that old bones have any power,” Sophia said, with a scornful frown. “Superstitious nonsense of old women.”

  “And yet, sometimes it seems to work. It’s almost as if it is the belief itself that is powerful.” I reached out and touched the top of the skull with my fingertips. “In Italy I once witnessed what you might call a miracle. A merchant’s wife healed of a wasting sickness by a vial of the holy blood.”

  “So you believe in it?” She looked sceptical.

  “Not in the relics, no. I think that somehow she cured herself simply by having faith that she would be healed. It is the human mind and will that have the ability to effect miracles—one day I should like to study this further. Our minds have untold power if we only knew how to harness it. But we haven’t much time. Look at this—” I leaned forward; at the far end of the stone coffer, separate from the skeleton, there were more objects buried. I shone the light over bulky shapes wrapped in oilcloth to protect them from decay and damp. Sophia took the lantern as I lifted the first item out and unwrapped it. I held up an ampulla of smoky glass, about the size of my hand, round and plain with a long neck and a handle on each side. It was full of a pale liquid; I pulled out the stopper and sniffed, but it had little odour, save for a slight stale, greasy smell. I tipped the ampulla and touched a drop to my finger; some sort of oil, certainly. The ampulla looked like the sort used by priests.

  “What do you think this is? Chrism, perhaps? Do they say the Mass down here over the bones?”

  Sophia tilted her head to one side and looked at the ampulla.

  “There is a legend—I heard my husband speak of it once. The holy oil of Saint Thomas. In the story it was given to Thomas Becket by the Virgin, to anoint the true king of England. Then it was supposedly lost for centuries and found again hidden in a secret chest in the Tower. The legend says the last English sovereign to have been anointed with it at her coronation was Bloody Mary, Queen Elizabeth’s half sister.”

  “The last Catholic monarch of England,” I mused. “Who was married to Philip of Spain—that makes sense. ‘King Philip entrusts to the servants of the blessed saint his holy oil in readiness,’ ” I recited, recalling the words of Mendoza’s letter. “So they not only believe they have Becket himself, they also have his holy oil to give divine approval to England’s next Catholic king or queen.” I shook my head, half in admiration. “They have thought of everything. This might all have fallen into place if the invasion had succeeded last autumn.”

  A small moan came from my left; Sophia and I froze, staring at Langworth, but it appeared he had only made an involuntary noise exhaling. Nevertheless, we could not waste any more time. I wrapped the ampulla in its covering again and replaced it, then pulled out the last object hidden in the coffer and extracted it from its oilskin. As I brought it into the light, I experienced such a jolt of recognition and disbelief that I felt I had been struck by lightning; my heart and my breath seemed to stop, my brain swam, and I was forced to sit back quickly on the floor of the crypt, my prize held in my lap, for fear I would fall down in a faint.

  In my hands was a carved wooden casket, its surface traced with elaborate designs of geometric patterns all inlaid with gold. I had seen this box before, in the secret chapel of Lord Henry Howard. With trembling hands, I lifted the lid, hardly daring to hope…

  Inside the casket was a linen cloth, and inside the cloth, carefully protected, a book; small, about the size of a personal prayer book, with worn calfskin bindings. It had board covers holding together manuscript pages that were warped with age, though—as far as I could see in that light—the closely written Greek characters remained clear and bold. The book was not remarkable for its rich illustrations—it had none—nor for the sumptuous decorations of its binding. At first glance it would be of little interest to an antiquary or collector, since there was no obvious value in its shabby exterior. But I knew what this book was; I knew why Henry Howard had sent his nephew the Earl of Arundel to deliver it into Langworth’s hands for safekeeping before the queen’s searchers ransacked his house, and I also—together with only a handful of other men in Christendom—knew its true value. This book was the gem I had been searching for since I first learned of its existence some years before from an old Italian bookbinder in Paris. It seemed ironic, given its content, that the safest place Langworth could think of to hide it was in the coffin of the holiest relics in England.

  “Are you all right, Bruno?” Sophia said, holding up the lantern. “You look as if you’ve seen a vision.”

  I put the book quickly into its casket and tucked it inside my doublet. “We have to get out before he wakes. Quick—help me with this.”

  We shifted the coffer’s lid back into place with some effort and scraped the loose covering of rubble over it. The flagstones made an almighty crash as we dropped them back into place, but Langworth still did not stir, though it was with some relief that I caught the sound of his effortful breathing rasping beside us. I knew that I was risking my life in taking the book; Langworth could not publicly accuse me of theft without revealing the secret of Becket’s bones, but after tonight he might decide it was more efficient to dispose of me without waiting for the process of the assizes.

  I left the treasurer’s lantern burning low beside his prostrat
e form; holding the last candle, I picked up Harry’s cloak, grabbed Sophia’s wrist, and led her as quickly as possible—stopping only to pick up the old woman’s cloak she had worn as her disguise—back through the crypt to the vault below the treasury and out into the cathedral precincts.

  The storm had spent the worst of its energy and was rolling away towards the sea, leaving behind a thin rain that seemed to ripple in silver sheets across the grounds. I pulled up the hood of my cloak to hide my face and Sophia did the same with hers. With no light, we felt our way around the corona and were poised to make the dash across the exposed part of the cathedral close to Harry’s house.

  “I think it’s clear,” I whispered to Sophia, peering into the misty darkness. “Take my hand—as fast as we can now.”

  I had run barely three steps when I felt Sophia’s hand slip from my grasp; an arm hooked around my throat and jerked my head back and I was thrown face forward onto the wet ground.

  Chapter 14

  The fall knocked the breath out of me for a moment and as I hit the ground I heard a sharp crack, accompanied by a pain in my side; I hoped it was the wooden casket I was carrying that had broken and not my ribs. As my face smacked into wet grass, my only confused thought was that Langworth must have recovered quicker than I could have imagined and had some other secret exit from the crypt that had allowed him to attack us on the way home. But the man now pinning me to the ground was too solid to be the treasurer, the arm that now tightened under my chin too meaty.

  “Let’s see who we have here then, sneaking around in the dead of night,” said Tom Garth’s voice.

  I tried to lift my head and protest but he was holding me too tight and when I tried to speak no sound came. I was afraid he might choke me by accident, not knowing his own strength—a fitting retribution, I could not help thinking, after what I had done to Langworth—but just as I was beginning to see flashing lights before my eyes I heard Sophia say, calmly, “Let him go.”

  Tom released his grip on my neck and lifted his weight from my torso; I gulped air desperately and tried to twist my head to see what gave her the confidence to command such a large man with such apparent coolness. In the dark and the mist I could only make out that she was holding a hand out towards his throat.

  “All right—put the knife away,” he grumbled, moving off me entirely.

  I sat up and almost laughed. Was Sophia brandishing the little knife I had told her was good only for peeling fruit? If so, I had to admire her spirit. Presumably Tom could only feel the edge of the blade on his skin; if the light had been better, he might have seen how ineffectual her weapon would be. Quickly I checked inside my doublet to see that the casket was still safe, then struggled to my feet, drew my own knife, and held it out, at the same time lifting back my hood.

  “Tom. We will not harm you if you promise the same.”

  “By the cross!” He sat back on his haunches and peered through the rain at me. “Master Savolino—what in the Devil’s name are you doing? And who is this?” He gestured at Sophia, who stepped away, pulling her cloak closer around her face. Fortunately there was not light enough for him to see her clearly; he jumped to his own conclusions and gave a low laugh. “A whore, is it? Well, you would not be the first of the clergy to use them, but inside the cathedral grounds? That is bold. I fear it is my duty as gatekeeper to report that.” He paused, as if weighing up his options. “Tell you what—I might be persuaded to keep my mouth shut if she would give me a little something for my trouble …”

  I sighed. “Tom, you and I must talk—”

  But I was cut short by Sophia, who flew at him like a wildcat, spitting and scratching, forgetting in her fury that she was supposed to be here in secret.

  “Call me a whore, would you? Call me it to my face then, coward!”

  Taken by surprise, Tom raised his hands to shield himself from her flailing nails. I jumped up to try and pull her off him and in the struggle her hood fell back, just as a weak flash of lightning jagged through the clouds, illuminating her face for an instant like a figure in a stained-glass window. Tom gasped in disbelief.

  “By Saint Thomas! Mistress Kingsley! But you were supposed to be gone …”

  “Supposed to be?” I leaned forward, my knife closer to his face, and spoke through my teeth. “You mean you wanted her to escape?”

  Tom looked up at me, his face twisted in fear.

  “It wasn’t me—” he began.

  “Wasn’t you? Not you who took a pair of your sister’s gloves, cut your own hand to cover them in blood, and left them where they would be found the morning after you killed Sir Edward Kingsley?”

  “What proof do you have?”

  “Only your mother’s word.”

  “My mother lost her wits years back. All Canterbury knows it.” His voice was strained.

  “Oh, I think your mother is quite clearheaded in many ways, especially when it comes to her daughter’s possessions. She would recognise those gloves in an instant. And you told the constable you did not see Mistress Kingsley leave the precincts after divine service, did you not?”

  “It wasn’t me who killed him!” His voice lurched up in pitch and I hissed at him to keep quiet; we were not far from some of the canons’ residences and it would only compound the night’s misfortunes if one of them should be roused by our voices and come out to investigate. “You have to believe me.” He glanced frantically from me to Sophia, the whites of his eyes gleaming in the darkness. “I can explain.”

  “Let us get out of the rain, then.” I lowered the knife cautiously but he made no threatening move. I sensed that he was more afraid of me than I of him, which I must use to my advantage for as long as I could.

  “There is a lean-to just around the corner by the timber yard,” he said, more quietly. “We can talk in there.”

  Keeping ourselves pressed against the stone of the cathedral, we felt our way around the jutting buttresses until we reached the shelter of a small wooden hut next to the stacks of timber. A few workmen’s tools hung on nails from the central roof beam and I moved preemptively to snatch up the axe, not wishing to leave anything to chance. Tom saw and gave a bitter laugh as he seated himself on a pile of planks.

  “You think I would strike you down? I could not kill a man in cold blood, master, though I have often wished I could. I’ll tell you this much—I envy whoever did kill that bastard. May God forgive me, but if I’d been a different man, I’d have loved to hear the sound of his skull smashing open.”

  “And I,” Sophia said, with feeling, and in the darkness I sensed rather than saw that they looked at each other with something like understanding.

  “Why should I believe you did not? When you went to such lengths to make sure his wife would be blamed?” I kept my tone deliberately hard; though I still struggled to believe that the gatekeeper really did murder Sir Edward, I had to get at the truth with the cold detachment of an inquisitor. I could not afford to let him see that I sympathised with him. Besides, I reminded myself, he would have been willing to let Sophia burn for a murder she did not commit.

  “I panicked,” he said, and his voice cracked. “When they found him, I knew I would be the first suspect. I was inside the precincts that night, and everyone knew I hated him. Not without good reason,” he added. “The constable asked me a lot of questions and I answered them honestly, but he has a way of needling people and I knew he was working up to accusing me. I was afraid I would condemn myself by mistake—I had to do something to point the finger elsewhere. Then I thought that I’d seen Mistress Kingsley earlier coming in for divine service and leaving alone. So in all the confusion I slipped away home and took our Sarah’s gloves—may she rest in peace—and, as you say, I bloodied them and left them where the constable was sure to find them first thing when he came back to search further in daylight.”

  I sighed. It was hard to believe that he was not sincere.

  “You didn’t care that Mistress Kingsley could have been burned alive for
it?”

  “But it was me that told Meg, the housekeeper, that Mistress Kingsley was under suspicion,” he protested. “I hoped that would give her the chance to escape, and so I thought it had. I supposed everyone’s problems would have been solved.”

  “Forcing an innocent woman to become a fugitive with a price on her head is hardly solving her problems,” I said.

  “You say that. But I know what Sir Edward Kingsley was,” Tom said, with quiet contempt. “Going on the run might be better than living with him.”

  “In a sense you are not wrong,” Sophia agreed. I shot her a look to suggest she was not helping, but it was lost in the dark.

  “For God’s sake, do not tell the dean, sir,” Tom said, turning to me and clutching blindly at my cloak. I could not see his expression but I heard the urgency in his words. “I cannot afford to lose this job. My mother—well, you have seen her, I suppose. She depends on me. And suspicion will fall on me doubly.” He stopped and sucked in a ragged breath, as if he were battling a sob. “I’m handy with my fists sometimes, but I could not kill a man,” he repeated quietly. “Not even him, who did so wrong by my poor sister. I no more killed him than you killed the apothecary.”

  I laid a hand on his arm.

  “I believe you. It seems that we must become the keepers of one another’s secrets, Tom. Listen—I am doing my utmost to find out who did kill Sir Edward by the time the assize judge arrives. If I succeed, you will be free of suspicion and so will Mistress Kingsley. In the meantime, then, you will say nothing to anyone of her presence here. Swear it.”

  “On my oath,” he said solemnly. In the silence, rain dripped steadily from the eaves of the shelter.