Sacrilege: A Novel

by S. J. Parris

  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?”

  The boy looked up, visibly distressed. His lip was bleeding and he seemed taken aback by the abruptness of my manner.

  “My purse,” he said miserably, holding up his empty hands and nodding to where the gang of older boys had disappeared. I looked around at the rows of blank faces but saw no one stirring themselves to help the boy.

  “Hold these,” I said, thrusting my loaves into his arms, and tore off down the alley. The thieves, who were no more than fourteen or fifteen years old, had not run far; I caught up with them at the corner of the next street. When they saw me running towards them they attempted to flee again, but I pursued the biggest of them, who held the purse in his hand. Some of his fellows broke away into the gaps between houses, but I followed him doggedly. Though he was tall, he was a stoutish boy and could not outrun me for long; I threw myself at his legs and brought him down hard on the wet cobbles. He tried to lash out but I fetched him a swift punch to the ribs that knocked the breath out of him and he stopped struggling. I did not want to draw my knife unless it was absolutely necessary; I had acquired enough of a reputation for violence in this town without threatening children.

  “You have something there that doesn’t belong to you,” I said, kneeling hard on the small of his back.

  “What’s it to you?” he puffed out through clenched teeth, his prize still clutched close beneath him.

  I grabbed a handful of his hair and raised his head a little way off the ground.

  “You will be glad of your teeth later in life, son—don’t make me smash them out for you one by one. Give me the purse.”

  He hesitated, and I pulled his head back farther as if in readiness to thump it against the ground; with a cry of pain and fury he brought out the purse and smacked it into my palm.

  “He’s a whey-faced priest’s bastard,” he said belligerently, as he struggled to his feet and brushed his clothes down.

  “And you are a fat coward. But we are to believe that even you are made in God’s image.” I held the purse up and chinked it against my hand to see that he had not had time to empty it.

  I could see him weighing up whether to lunge at me, so I fixed him with my fiercest stare and allowed my right hand to wander to the knife at my belt. He eyed it warily and appeared to decide his best course was to back slowly away.

  “Spanish cunt!” he shouted, when he was safely at the corner of the street and poised to run.

  “Half right. Italian,” I called back and made as if to pursue him again; he yelped and fled and I returned to the marketplace, smiling to myself.

  The Widow Gray’s son was not smiling. He stood with his thin arms wrapped around my loaves as if his life depended on protecting them, a little apart from the crowd, none of whom seemed inclined to offer him any comfort. A few spots of blood had dripped from his cut lip onto his shirt. I felt a sudden stab of anger at these stolid, gossiping people: Would they hold off from taking care of a bleeding child because of the rumours they had sown about his mother’s virtue? Did they think they would find themselves somehow tainted? No wonder children could be dumped on rubbish heaps here without anyone turning a hair. The whispering intensified as I approached the boy and held out his purse. I allowed a defiant glare to roam around the onlookers; one by one, they lowered their eyes and turned away, murmuring among themselves.

  “Come.” I put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and he flinched. “Let me take you home. Is all your money here?”

  He opened the purse, scanned its contents and nodded, still without speaking.

  “Which way?”

  He pointed to the street that led away from the Buttermarket opposite the cathedral gate. I made to move in that direction but he held back, looking at me with the same dumb anxiety.

  “Those boys will not bother you again while I am around,” I said gently.

  He shook his head. “It’s not that. My mother will kill me.”

  I smiled.

  “I doubt that. She will be relieved to see that you and your money are safe, will she not?”

  “I am not supposed to go out on my own,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “But she was occupied and I took her purse.” He hung his head, contrite. “I only wanted to see the fire-eater and eat a pie, like the other boys are allowed to.”

  I glanced sideways at him as we began to walk in the direction he had indicated, the low hum of the marketplace talk following at our back. He was a tall boy for his age, but slight, with prominent cheekbones and solemn grey eyes.

  “What is your name?” I asked presently, as he pointed to the turning into another lane.

  “Matthias.”

  “Well, Matthias, I am Filippo. Was the fire-eater worth the trouble?”

  “Oh, yes!” He turned to me then as if seeing me for the first time, his expression alight with pleasure. “He juggles with flaming torches and he never misses once—have you seen? And after, he swallows the flames without burning his tongue—I wish I knew how he did it.”

  “It is an old trick and takes years of practice. Don’t try it at home, eh.”

  He smiled, but it faded quickly.

  “I dream of running away with the jongleurs, but I have no skills to offer. I cannot even catch a ball. My mo
ther took me to see them once in the yard of the Cheker at midsummer when I was younger—it was all lit up with torches and garlands and they did such tricks, it was like belonging to a magic world.” He paused, breathless, as the excitement of the memory subsided into fear. “We don’t go out much anymore.”

  “But you go to school?”

  The boy shook his head.

  “I have a tutor at home. And Canon Langworth comes once a week to teach me Greek and Latin—” Here he broke off, as if afraid he might be sharing too much. “I have a weak chest, the doctor says, so it is better that I stay at home.” He lowered his gaze, as if apologising for all the trouble he gave everyone, including me.

  You don’t look all that weak, I thought; nothing a bit of red meat and a good run about in the fresh air wouldn’t cure. But if I was right, it would make sense for those intending to use him to put about the rumour that the boy was sickly, fragile; it would make his planned demise all the more plausible when the time came. He could have no inkling of the part assigned to him in the restoration of a Catholic England, poor child. I wondered if his mother knew the full story. Was she also a zealot for the old religion, willing to hand her son over as a sacrifice for God’s purpose, or had Langworth and his fellow conspirators duped her in some way?

  “But you sing in the choir. I have seen you.”

  “I have to.” He sounded less than happy about it.

  “You don’t like it?”

  “I like the music. But the other boys are cruel. They say things …”

  “Why do you not stop, then?”

  “Canon Langworth makes me, in return for my lessons. Otherwise mother could not pay for them.”

  He turned into another street and motioned to a handsome red-brick house of three storeys. I looked up at the diamond-leaded windows. Perhaps there would be answers here.

  Matthias pulled on the bell rope and eventually a maidservant opened the large front door and ushered us into a high entrance hall tiled in black and white squares. A wide staircase swept upwards and the boy gestured to me to follow him up. The maid watched us from below, silent and unsmiling.

  “The alderman and his family have the first two floors and we have the apartments on the top,” Matthias explained, as we ascended another floor. On the top landing, he pushed open a door and I stepped behind him into a pleasantly furnished parlour, not large but tastefully decorated. I could see at a glance that the carpets, tapestries, and cushions were of good quality, though old and faded. He was barely inside the room when the widow appeared like a fury, her dark hair unbound and swinging loosely about her shoulders as she lifted a hand as if to strike the boy.

  “Where in Christ’s name have you been? What possessed you? Did you not think I would be sick with worry? And with Doctor Sykes coming out to see you this morning too! Oh, dear God, what has happened to your face?”

  She seized the boy and clasped him violently to her chest, her arms wrapped around his head as if to prevent him ever leaving again, her cheeks flushed with rage and relief. It was at that moment that she looked up and saw me, still standing in the doorway.

  “What have you done to my son?”

  “Signora, I have only escorted him home to keep him from unwanted attention.”

  “Why have you brought me bread? Do you think I need charity from foreigners?”

  I glanced down at the two loaves in my arms. It seemed easier not to explain.

  “Everyone likes fresh bread,” I said, and shrugged.

  Her frown softened a little, as if she could not find an argument against this, though her eyes remained guarded. She relaxed her grip on her son, who took the opportunity to wriggle free.

  “What happened to your face?” she demanded.

  “Some boys knocked me down and took my purse.” He hung his head. “I was watching the jongleurs in the market. I am sorry.”

  “My purse, you mean. And you will be sorry. What has this gentleman to do with it?”

  “Filippo chased them and got the purse back. No one else would help.”

  His mother clicked her tongue.

  “Of course they wouldn’t. You know what people are in this town, Matthias. Let that be a lesson to you to stay away from them, as you have been told. Now go and draw some water and clean your face.”

  She turned to me, clasping her hands in front of her. She wore a simple black linen gown that accentuated her slender figure and made her skin look pale as porcelain. Though she was of my own age, perhaps a little older, her face was almost unlined and her eyes the blue of Delft china. If I had not been so caught up in Sophia, I might have looked at her with more interest; even so, I could appreciate that she was beautiful and her aloofness added to her appeal. Little wonder the goodwives liked to make her an object of malicious talk. The blue eyes flickered over my face with an appraising look. “Filippo, is it? Well, you are quite the Good Samaritan, are you not? The outcast foreigner who still finds time to help those less fortunate.”

  I shrugged again. “I am not one of those who would stand by and watch a child robbed, if that’s what you mean.”

  A muscle twitched in her jaw.

  “Then you are a rarity in this town.” For a moment she looked as if she would like to spit on the floor. “This is why he is not allowed to go roaming about as he pleases.” She glanced towards the door where the boy had gone out. “He thinks me harsh, but it is only to protect him.”

  “Boys his age seem to need protecting in this town,” I ventured.

  “What do you mean?”

  “One found dead, one missing in the last year. It is the worse for them that their mothers were not able to protect them.”

  Her eyes narrowed.

  “This has nothing to do with us.”

  “Of course not. And you would do anything to protect your son, I imagine. Anything necessary.”

  “As any good mother would.”

  “And any good father? Would a good father want what was best for his son?”

  “My husband died when Matthias was an infant,” she said quietly, through clenched teeth. “I think it is time you left my house, sir.”

  “Mistress Gray.” I shifted the bread in my arms. “If I told you your son was in danger, would you stay to listen?”

  “Why should I listen to you? A stranger? A man who has not been in the town two days when he is accused of murder?” But there was a hesitation in her voice.

  I acknowledged the truth of this with a nod.

  “Accused by Ezekiel Sykes. You know Doctor Sykes?”

  “Of course—he is my physician, and my son’s. In fact he was supposed to be coming to see my son this morning. He is late, but I expect him any moment.”

  “Ah, of course. The boy’s weak chest. Well, then, you must trust Doctor Sykes implicitly. I will say no more.” I moved towards the door and paused with my hand on the latch. If Sykes genuinely was expected I would do well to be gone before he arrived. God alone knew what else he might try to accuse me of if he was given opportunity.

  “Wait.”

  I turned to see her closing the door to the corridor where the boy had gone out so that he should not hear. She did not invite me to sit down.

  “I will hear you, but briefly. What is it that you think you know?”

  “Mistress Gray,” I began, and she waved a hand.

  “Alys. My name is Alys.”

  “And mine, as you know, is Filippo.”

  “Is it?”

  She raised a carefully plucked eyebrow and for a long moment we looked at each other as sunlight streamed through the casement behind her, lighting the dust on the floorboards and making it sparkle. The tension in the room crackled like the air before last night’s storm; neither of us, it seemed, was willing to venture a confidence first, in case it was a trap. Yet I sensed that she wanted to trust me; what I had said about her son being in danger must have chimed with some intuitive misgiving on her part, or she would have thrown me out instantly.

  “Why—hav
e you heard otherwise?”

  She made a slight movement with her head. “People talk, in a town like this.”

  “I thought they didn’t talk to you. Or do you mean different people? Your friends at the cathedral, perhaps? Canon Langworth seems to take a great interest in your son’s education. Does he speak about me?”

  She hesitated, glanced to the window.

  “He said you were dangerous. That you live by dissembling.”

  “As we all do. The canon treasurer included. As you yourself do, signora, unless I am mistaken. Where is he buried, by the way?”

  “Who?” She sat upright.

  “Master Gray, of course. Your late husband.”

  “Oh. Cambridgeshire. With his people.” But the hesitation had been too noticeable, and she knew it. Our eyes met and held again; which of us would drop our guard first, I wondered.

  “Tell me of this danger to my son, whatever you call yourself, and then leave my house, please.” She kept her voice level, but it was she who looked away first. I crossed the room to the window and stood for a moment looking out. I laid the bread on the window seat, glad to put it down.

  “Sir Edward Kingsley left you some money in his will, did he not?”

  Her face tightened and to give herself a distraction she gathered the length of her hair between her hands and pulled it into a twist over her shoulder so she could examine the ends.

  “So Nicholas Kingsley has been shouting that to all comers as if he were the town crier, has he? Yes, his father left me a small sum and, such as it is, I cannot even claim it because the will is all up in the air until they find out who killed him. But it is not for the reason you think,” she added, with a stern look.

  “And what is it that I think?”

  “You will assume I was his mistress.”

  “Oh, no, not at all. I had assumed you were John Langworth’s mistress.”

  I waited for the sharp put-down, but it never came. Instead she lowered her eyes, and her silence was eloquent.

  “So the question,” I continued, “is why Edward Kingsley was giving you money. My guess is that it was for some other service rendered, or promised. Am I close?”