Sacrilege: A Novel

by S. J. Parris

  “Open up, Doctor Robinson,” came Langworth’s voice from outside. “I have the constable with me and two armed men. We demand the right to search your property for stolen goods.”

  “Watch him like a hawk,” I hissed. “If he tries to pretend money was found anywhere here, we must contradict it on the spot, as eyewitnesses.”

  Harry raised a sceptical eyebrow.

  “You think that will help?”

  Another knock; louder, more impatient.

  “All right, all right,” Harry called. “Give an old man time to find his stick.” Under his breath he said to me, “Get upstairs and make sure there’s nothing of hers lying around that room.”

  When I returned, taking the stairs two at a time, Harry’s small entrance hall was full: Langworth, Constable Edmonton, and two armed men in the mayor’s livery. I recognised one of them as one of the guards that had taken me to the West Gate prison; I nodded to him and he blinked hard, surprised, before nodding back, as if we were old drinking companions.

  “Well, then,” Langworth said, barely troubling to conceal his pleasure at the prospect before him. “Constable, you begin upstairs. Find the Italian’s room. You know what you are looking for. I, meanwhile, will make a start in here.” He indicated Harry’s front parlour.

  “Where shall I search, sir?” one of the guards asked, hand on his sword hilt.

  Langworth looked at him with faint impatience.

  “You are not searching anywhere. What we are looking for requires a practised eye. Your job is to keep the peace, and make sure the householders give us no trouble.” He eyed me with resentment.

  “Yes—mind I don’t start a brawl and knock you to the ground, son.” Harry waved his stick at the guard in mock threat.

  We followed Langworth into the parlour. He crossed to Harry’s desk and regarded the jumble of papers and books.

  “This should prove interesting.” He lifted the topmost paper of one pile, gave it a cursory examination and discarded it on the floor.

  “You will discover nothing there but my work, John,” Harry said, rubbing a hand across his chin. “Hard as you will find this to believe, there is an order to those papers, though it is known only to me. I would be grateful if you—”

  Langworth waved a hand.

  “We are investigating a serious crime of theft, Doctor Robinson, you can hardly expect us to observe all the niceties.” He tossed a pile of papers onto the floor and looked at Harry as if daring him to object. I watched Harry’s jaw working as he battled to master his anger. When Langworth turned his attention to the desk once more, I backed slowly out of the room. If Edmonton was poking about in the upper rooms, I wanted to be there to witness whatever he claimed to find there.

  But I had hardly set foot on the stairs when there was more furious hammering at the door. I looked back at the guard in the hall.

  “Reinforcements?”

  He shrugged. Langworth emerged from the parlour, his mouth twisted in irritation, followed by Harry.

  “Yes?” Langworth flung the door open to reveal Tom Garth, breathing hard, his face flushed. “What is it, Garth? We are all occupied here.”

  “Masters—” Tom snatched a breath and his eyes flitted nervously from one face to the next. “There is a man at the gate just now wanting Constable Edmonton, as a matter of urgency. There’s been another killing, he says.”

  “Another—? Good God. Call the constable down,” Langworth barked over his shoulder to the guard. I pressed closer, so that I could see the vein begin to pulse in his temple. “Did he say who it was, Garth?”

  “Doctor Sykes, he says. Found in the river up past St. Radigund’s Street, where the two streams meet.”

  “Sykes? No—”

  Langworth staggered back a step; it was barely noticeable and he composed himself almost immediately, but I was near enough to see that this news had dealt him an unexpected blow. I was reeling from it myself. Over my shoulder I looked at Harry, who only opened his eyes wide in disbelief.

  “Where is this man?” Langworth demanded, his voice firm again.

  “Right here, sir,” Tom said, and stepped aside to reveal a young man, sweating profusely. When he saw Langworth, he ripped his cap from his head and stood twisting it between his hands.

  “A woman saw the body in the creek, sir, just a few moments past,” he blurted. “Well, she screamed and run for the nearest house. My father and I pulled him out, sir.”

  “Drowned?”

  “No, sir, stabbed. Looks like he was put in the water after. He was weighted down.”

  “What?”

  “In the water. There was a stone tied around his neck with a rope, except it wasn’t really big enough for the job, he was still drifting with the current. We didn’t know it was him till we got him on the bank. You could only see his black robes billowing in the water.”

  Edmonton came bounding down the stairs at this moment and elbowed me aside to stand at Langworth’s shoulder.

  “This man says Sykes is dead,” Langworth muttered, and his voice grew shaky again. “We had better make haste—I cannot fathom …” He turned sharply to me, and if his face had been pallid before, it now seemed drained of all blood. “Where were you this morning?”

  I looked at him, unblinking. “I? At the market, buying bread. Then at divine service—you saw me there yourself. Much as you would like me to hang for every crime in Canterbury, I cannot oblige you this time. Your friends are very unlucky, Canon Langworth, I must say.”

  Langworth’s eyes flashed.

  “You would joke over a man’s corpse, you—?” He made a choking sound, as if he could find no ready insult that would do me justice. With bared teeth he took a step towards me; he might have lunged there and then if Edmonton had not put out a hand to restrain him.

  “Let us go and see this dreadful business, sir,” he said. “We can finish the search later. Come.” He gestured to the guards. “This fellow who fished him out can answer some questions on the way. You—can you bring us this woman who first saw the body?”

  “I should think so, sir—my mother was giving her a glass of something when I came to fetch the constable.”

  “Tell her to have a care for herself,” I called, from the hallway. “Tell her you can be arrested for merely finding a body in this town.”

  “You would do well to keep your mouth shut until you open it before the judge,” Langworth said through his teeth.

  “Come, Canon Langworth. Touch nothing, Harry Robinson,” Edmonton said in parting, holding up a warning finger. “We will return as soon as we are able.”

  The four of them left together with the young man, still twisting his cap as if he feared he might be blamed.

  Tom Garth remained on the path outside, staring at us.

  “Come in for a moment, Tom,” Harry said, holding the door. “We may have no bloody food in this house, but I can put my hands on a bottle of wine. God knows we could all do with a drink, even if it’s not yet dinner time.”

  Tom came in, apparently too stunned to speak, and the three of us settled around the kitchen table.

  “Thank God that infernal heat has broken, at least,” Harry said, uncorking a bottle.

  “Doctor Sykes,” Tom said, shaking his head, his eyes fixed on his glass. “Who would have thought.”

  “Langworth didn’t kill him,” I said, leaning my elbows on the table and pressing my fingers to my temples. I could hardly begin to see where this latest news fit into the tangle of deaths and plots. “You could see it in his face. Unless he is the most skilled actor I have ever witnessed. He looked as if he’d taken a blow to the balls when he heard the news.”

  “Besides,” Harry said, pouring out three glasses and knocking back his own in one draught, “he was within our sights almost all morning.”

  “Sykes was alive this morning,” I said, trying to piece it together. “He was called out to the Kingsley house to confirm the old housekeeper dead—”

  “Sir Edward’s
housekeeper is dead?” Harry blinked. “Old Meg? That is sad news—she was a good woman.”

  “My sister was fond of her,” Tom said, without looking up.

  “It’s more than sad,” I said. “And it was no accident. But that is another matter. So Sykes left St. Gregory’s in time for the news to have made it to the marketplace by about eight o’clock this morning. Where did he go after that?”

  “Into the river,” Tom said, helpfully.

  “Not of his own will he didn’t, not with a stone—oh, Mother of Christ!” I looked at Harry. He nodded.

  “I thought as much when the fellow said it.”

  “ ‘But whoso shall offend one of these little ones, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea,’ ” I murmured. “It was a punishment.”

  Tom lifted his head.

  “I know that Scripture. A punishment for what?”

  I looked at him for a moment, then fished in my purse.

  “Tom—Doctor Robinson is near faint with hunger and likely to murder me if he doesn’t eat soon. Is there any chance you could send to the inn for some dinner? Here’s money—beef stew if they have any, and maybe a pie, and pickled beetroot. Oh, and bread. And get yourself a beer. I would go, but I should wait here in case Canon Langworth comes back with those apes.”

  Tom took the shilling I held out and turned it admiringly in the light, as if impressed that someone like me could so easily lay hands on ready money.

  “I will, sir. And would you like me to check on that outbuilding on my way, explain the situation?”

  I clutched my head. Poor Sophia—I had almost forgotten her in the drama of Sykes’s death. Now we had no way of knowing when Langworth and Edmonton would be back to search the house, and she could not return until they had done so. At least she had something to read, I thought, and the hairs on my arms stood up to think of her trying to unlock the secrets of that book with her scant Greek.

  “Thank you, Tom. Very much appreciated.”

  “Least I can do really,” he said, with a sheepish smile, and stood up, knocking over his stool. It was difficult not to like this big, clumsy man, despite the fact that he had tried to condemn Sophia to save his own neck. I hoped I was not wrong to take him at his word.

  After we heard the door slam closed behind him, Harry poured us each another glass and I continued to study the table, chin on my fist, as if the answer might be written in the coarse grain of the oak.

  “It’s not a coincidence. It can’t be. Someone knew about the children. That’s what the stone was for.”

  “Sure you’re not reading too much into it, Bruno? If you throw a body in a river, you want to make sure it sinks.”

  “Then you would use a bigger stone. Someone wanted this gesture to be seen. But who in God’s name was it, Harry? Who knew about the children? Only you and me, and Old Meg, but she is dead. After that, only Langworth himself. And if the Widow Gray is right, the mayor is the fourth guardian, but could the mayor of Canterbury stab a man in broad daylight and throw his body in a river in the centre of town?”

  “Could anybody, for that matter?” Harry peered into his glass. “You told the Widow Gray?”

  “That’s where I was this morning.”

  “When you should have been buying my bread.”

  “Yes. Sorry. I wanted to test the theory of the miracle. She is the only one left who could testify to it before a judge.”

  “You won’t get her to say a word against Langworth, no matter how often you bow and wink your big dark eyes at her, my friend,” he said, tracing the rim of his glass with a forefinger.

  “I don’t suppose she could have …?”

  Harry laughed.

  “Sykes was three times the size of her. Stabbed him and rolled him into the river, on her own?”

  “Then who else? The millstone—it was the verse the old monk quoted to me in prison, about the boys. It has to be. But who else knew about the boys? Could Langworth have confided to Nick Kingsley when he was there last night?”

  “Langworth wouldn’t confide to Nick Kingsley where he keeps his ale.”

  “No. Of course, the only one still at large is Samuel.” I raised my head and looked at him. He made a gesture of resignation.

  “You hold no hope of him being on the road to London, then?”

  “I don’t think he’s anywhere near London. Langworth wouldn’t let him. But I don’t see why he would need to kill Sykes, unless it was at Langworth’s order.”

  “Perhaps Langworth feared Sykes would not be able to hold his counsel if he was questioned about the Becket plot. Perhaps he now thinks the only way to manage this is to do so alone.”

  “But Sykes was essential to the whole scheme. Besides, to silence him would be one thing. Why the millstone? It draws attention to the business with the boys.”

  “Only to us, who know.”

  I sighed. “Perhaps you are right. I cannot make sense of it, Harry. God, what I would not give to search Sykes’s house. I’ll wager Langworth is there even now, tidying away anything that would expose him.”

  “Before he comes back and throws my papers to the four winds,” Harry muttered.

  WE DID NOT leave the house until Evensong. Harry tried to read, though his eyes were more often fixed on the looming shape of the cathedral through the window than on the page. I paced endlessly, trying to piece together the disparate parts of my defence for the assizes the next day. By now I hardly knew whether I should be defending myself and Sophia, or bringing charges against Langworth for the murder of the two boys. The more I tried to make a coherent case, the more ensnared I felt; I could not mention the dead boys without explaining the plot to revive the shrine of Becket, and that was part of information so sensitive it properly belonged to Walsingham’s ears alone. He would not thank me for airing it in a public courtroom with all the citizens of Canterbury looking on, agog. If enough of them learned that their beloved saint was still among them, they might even start a riot. But without an explanation of the boys’ murders, how could I hope to incriminate Langworth for the deaths of Fitch and Edward Kingsley? And I had no firm proof that Langworth killed Kingsley, except that he knew Kingsley was on the way to his house and he was the only person who could have gained access to the crypt to get hold of the crucifix.

  Langworth and the constable returned with their armed guard shortly before Evensong. The canon treasurer was ghostly pale, his face grimmer than usual. He did not seem a man to shed tears, even for a friend; Sykes’s death seemed rather to have sparked in him a fiercer hostility. He carried himself now with the air of a man whose will has been thwarted, and who considers this a monstrous injustice for which someone must be made to pay. They tore the house apart with undisguised relish; I stood by with a hand on Harry’s arm as he stoically watched Langworth scattering his papers, rifling through his clothes, knocking his few ornaments to the ground. The only moment’s grace was when the canon attempted to poke about in the chimney breast in search of hiding places and dislodged a fall of soot on his own head. Stifling my laughter, I climbed the stairs to see what Edmonton was doing. I found him in my chamber, surrounded by scattered straw; he had slit the thin mattress open with a knife. When he heard my tread on the landing outside he started like a guilty creature and wheeled around, holding up a bag of money with a forced expression of triumph.

  “As we suspected,” he said, bouncing it in his palm so that the coins chinked. “There must be at least ten shillings in here. That qualifies as grand larceny in a court of law. Grand larceny is a hanging offence, as you surely know.”

  “Oh, please.” I leaned against the doorjamb, affecting a nonchalance I did not feel. “You took that from inside your own doublet this very moment.”

  His ginger moustache twitched and he looked away. “Naturally you would try to deny it. Canon Langworth!” he shouted down the stairwell.

  “It is laughable. I predicted this.”

 
“Oh, really? Because you knew you were guilty.”

  “Not even a simpleton would be fooled by this trick. Do you take the queen’s justice for a fool?”

  Langworth appeared behind me on the stairs.

  “It may interest you to know that there is a locksmith in the town who will swear on oath that the other day you came in and asked him to make a copy of four keys. Keys you could only have stolen from my house, one of which is to the cathedral treasury. How do you answer that, signor—I’m sorry, I forget your name. You have so many, do you not?”

  “I say it is pure speculation. But if you wish me to confess publicly to having been in your house and in the treasury, or rather beneath it, that could lead to an interesting discussion before the queen’s justice.”

  Langworth flicked a glance at Edmonton, who looked from one to the other of us, perplexed.

  “Don’t try to threaten me,” Langworth said, lowering his voice. “You will spend the night in gaol for this. Your friends in high places cannot reach you now.” His mouth curved into a slow smile, stretching his scar silver. I closed my eyes. I had thought I would have one last night with Sophia; if I were taken to the gaol, who would fetch her from the outbuilding? Who would protect her if Langworth and his thugs chose to come back unannounced and search the house again when I was out of the way?

  Edmonton pushed me lightly, his finger between my shoulder blades.

  “Let us go. Once again.”

  Langworth turned and began to descend ahead of me, still wearing his cold smile. I saw no choice but to follow.

  Harry turned pale and gripped the banister when he saw my face. I nodded to the bag in Edmonton’s hand. “Told you.”

  “We are taking your houseguest back to the West Gate, Doctor Robinson,” Langworth informed him, with impeccable politeness. “I fear that money you put up for his bail has been wasted. Never mind—perhaps you will learn to be a better judge of character in future.”

  Harry set his jaw and flexed his hands into fists. In spite of everything, I smiled; I could see how much he would have liked to punch Langworth in the mouth.