by C. J. Sansom
‘Preaching to the multitude from the top of London Wall.’ A group of anxious faces stared from the doorway of the parlour, including the woman who had exposed herself on my last visit.
‘Oh Jesu.’ Ellen leaned against the wall. ‘I knew Adam would make another exhibition.’
‘Where is Shawms?’
‘Gone out, sir. I am here alone with the patients. One of the under-keepers is ill, sir, the other visiting his family in Kent. Master Shawms said he had to go out and he took our third keeper, Leaman, with him. I had thirty people to look after. I thought Adam was safe, I thought he was chained. He must have got out of the window, I came to his cell and he was gone—’
‘Let’s get him back in his room.’ At Ellen’s directions, Barak and Piers dragged Adam, still a muttering deadweight, to the open door of his chamber. Daniel and Minnie followed with Guy. I turned to Ellen.
‘So Shawms left you alone?’
‘Yes, sir.’ She hesitated, then said quickly, ‘I think he did it on purpose, I think he left Adam unchained so he would get out. He is the only one with keys to the chains.’
‘When did you find Adam was gone?’
‘An hour ago.’
‘But did you not raise the alarm?’ I frowned, puzzled. Why had someone as conscientious as Ellen done nothing?
She reddened and lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘I may not go out.’ She wrung her hands together, the gesture somehow full of the most terrible anxiety. ‘I did not know what to do. The other patients were afraid. I think Shawms wanted Adam arrested and dealt with as a heretic. He wanted him out. And I would be blamed for letting him go. Oh, he is cruel man, a savage—’
‘But why, Ellen? When you told me before you could never leave the Bedlam, I did not realize you meant you could not leave the building. Why?’
‘Do not ask me, sir.’ She gave me a desperate, pleading look. I began to wonder if this woman had perhaps done something terrible, that perhaps she was kept from leaving by order of the court. But then why was she given charge of the patients?
The main door opened and Shawms entered, another keeper at his side. When he saw me he smiled wickedly.
‘Good day, master lawyer. How is your charge?’
‘Safe in his cell,’ I answered grimly. ‘With his parents and his doctor.’
‘Oh.’ Shawms’ face fell.
‘He got out, as you planned, but we got him back safe.’ I stepped up to him. ‘Now, sir, listen to me. Your heartless plan to let him escape and blame this poor woman is discovered. I will raise what you have done with Archbishop Cranmer if anything like this happens again.’ His eyes widened. ‘Yes, I am the Archbishop’s man. Do you understand?’
He gave me a savage look. ‘I don’t know how he got out,’ he muttered. The other keeper meanwhile backed away and disappeared.
‘You are a brute, a brute!’ It was Minnie’s voice. She and Daniel had appeared in the doorway of Adam’s cell. Behind them I saw Barak looking grim, but Piers, just behind him, was smiling slightly. He was enjoying this.
‘So take care, master keeper.’ I looked at Ellen. ‘And do not take it out on her. I do not know what hold you have on her that she cannot go out, but you will not make her your scapegoat.’
Shawms laughed then, throatily. ‘Me got a hold on her? Is that what she told you?’
‘She told me nothing.’
‘I bet she didn’t.’ He laughed again, gave Ellen a look of cruel amusement, then stared round at the parlour doorway. ‘Come on, you lot, there’s been enough spectacle for one day.’ The patients retreated before his advance, and Ellen flitted quickly past me, vanishing up the stairs.
With a sigh, I turned back to Daniel and Minnie, standing outside Adam’s door. ‘The doctor asked us to come out while he talked to Adam,’ Daniel said. ‘There’s no hope for him, is there? With Bonner after him now?’ The big man’s whole body seemed to sag. ‘God help me, out there I half wished Adam would fall, end his suffering.’
‘No, Daniel, no,’ Minnie said fiercely. ‘He is our son.’
‘Even Reverend Meaphon abandoned us.’
‘I will not,’ I said. The big stonemason nodded, but his body still slumped hopelessly. Shawms reappeared, jangling his big bunch of keys. ‘He’d better be chained up again,’ he said grimly.
‘Must he, sir?’ Minnie asked me.
‘If he is not to escape again, I fear so.’
Shawms went into the cell. There was a metallic clinking, then Barak and Piers came out with the keeper. ‘We’ll leave you,’ Barak said. ‘You should go home, with that arm.’
‘Ay. We can look for those - those people - tomorrow.’ I chose my words carefully under Piers’ curious eye. It struck me all at once that he was like a bird: a curious opportunistic predator in bright plumage. They walked off, Barak striding out firmly ahead, avoiding the company of the apprentice.
INSIDE THE CELL Guy was kneeling, face to face with Adam, who had squeezed himself into a corner once again. Somehow he had once more gained the boy’s attention, was whispering to him in soft tones. I stood watching.
‘Did you really think if you converted people, you might be saved?’ Guy was asking.
‘Yes.’ A whisper. ‘But I was wrong. How could I save them, if I am not saved myself?’
‘The dark angel told you that you were not saved. When did he tell you that?’
‘It was in a dream. After I sinned.’
‘How did you sin?’
‘No.’ Adam squeezed his eyes shut. ‘No. I have sinned in all ways. No.’
‘All right.’ Guy laid a hand on his shoulder as the boy gave one of his dreadful, wrenching sighs. ‘You must be tired, Adam. After all that running, and climbing.’
‘Tiredness does not matter,’ Adam muttered. ‘I have to pray.’
‘But tiredness saps the concentration. How can you pray well, then, or listen to God? Sometimes it is effortful to listen to Him. And what if you had fallen from that wall? You would have no more chance to pray.’
‘I was afraid. I did feel I might fall. It was such a long way down.’ And with those three sentences, the first I had heard from him that related to the real world, Adam’s face seemed to clear, to slip into the lineaments of an ordinary boy, if a terrified one.
‘I was afraid too, when I got up there,’ Guy said. ‘You step out on the wall and your head reels.’
To my amazement Adam smiled, a tiny watery smile. ‘Yes, it does.’ Then he frowned, checking himself. ‘I have to pray,’ he said.
‘No, not now. You are too tired. With sleep, and some food later, you will pray better. Do not go to God too tired and weak to attend to him.’ Guy leaned forward, his brown eyes boring into Adam’s. ‘There is still time, still time to be saved. But sleep now, sleep. Come, your eyes are closing.’ The boy’s eyelids fluttered. ‘Closing. Sleep. Sleep.’ He took Adam’s shoulders and gently laid him on the floor. The boy did not resist; he was already asleep. Guy rose, wincing as his joints cracked. Adam did not stir.
‘That was remarkable,’ I said to Guy.
‘It was easy. He was completely exhausted.’ He looked at me. ‘You too look tired to death, Matthew. And pale. How is your arm?’
‘Sore. I should go to Daniel and Minnie—’
Guy laid a hand on my arm. ‘I am worried about you, Matthew. All this is affecting you - this other matter.’
‘He was there, Guy, today, in the crowd. The killer. I only caught a merest glimpse, but it was him. I know. He taunts me. I am too weak for this,’ I burst out savagely.
‘No. You will press on. I know you.’ He spoke the words in a tone that was half comforting and half bleak. He looked sad.
‘It is Roger’s funeral tomorrow afternoon. Dorothy has sent me a note of the time.’
‘You should go home now, rest that arm.’
‘I know. Yet I fear that he will strike again, soon.’ I paused, then went on, ‘This is affecting me, Guy, not like Harsnet, who thinks we are dealing with a m
an possessed; nor like Barak, who has never come across the like of this before, and is frightened, thrashing about for an answer. It is the horror of it, it seems to seep into my bones somehow. Oh, I was content before Roger was murdered. Content for the first time in years. And now . . .’ I shook my head. ‘I think you are right about what he is, Guy; this is some strange and terrible form of madness.’ I looked at him. ‘You must have suffered mightily all those years ago, to be driven to such a strange and terrible course of study.’
‘I did. I told you. And yet all study is worthwhile, observing things and trying to understand their hidden patterns. Medical books alone can become binds and fetters, as can the Bible in the wrong hands.’
‘Do you think you understand the pattern of this killer’s mind?’
He shook his head. ‘No. It is too dark and too strange. With Adam Kite I am hopeful that I will come to understand, but this man - no.’
Again I saw how his thin face was lined with pain. ‘You suffer now, too, don’t you?’
‘We all suffer, Matthew. We have to find our own ways through, with God’s help.’ He forced a smile. ‘I thought young Piers acquitted himself bravely today. He volunteered to come with me, volunteered to go up on that wall with Barak. You see, you had him wrong.’
‘I saw him smile as Minnie Kite railed at Shawms. He is not someone you should invest so heavily in.’
‘He will learn compassion.’
I did not argue with him then. Yet I doubted what he said was possible. But it also seemed to me then that there was little hope in the world, and a man should not be blamed for clinging on to that which he could find.
Chapter Twenty-one
IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON by the time I left the Bedlam. I was exhausted, my arm hurt, and I had not eaten since breakfast. The sun was setting as I arrived home. Barak was waiting for me in the parlour; it was a moment before I remembered he and Tamasin had moved in.
‘A message from Harsnet,’ he said. ‘He’s still trying to trace Goddard. He wants us to meet him tomorrow night to report on those two ex-monks. Apparently he’s attending the reopening of some church where the steeple fell down. St Agatha’s, down by the river.’
‘A radical church, no doubt.’
‘It is. Someone I worked with under Lord Cromwell used to go there. The vicar is a man called Thomas Yarington. We met him earlier.’
‘Did we?’
‘He was the white-haired cleric that was with Meaphon. The one who melted into the crowd when Bonner appeared.’
‘Oh, him.’
‘The note says Sir Thomas Seymour’s going to be there too.’ He handed it to me. ‘Harsnet invites you to dinner as well.’
The note was brief. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘We will go and visit the ex-monks tomorrow, after court. There is a case I must attend myself in the morning, but the afternoon is free, until five, when Roger is buried.’
‘Where’s the funeral to be?’
‘St Bride’s. It is to be quiet, only friends and relatives. Samuel will be home now.’ I massaged my arm. ‘We can see the ex-monk who lives at Westminster first, then ride out to the other one - where is he?’
‘Up at the Charterhouse, beyond Smithfield. Lockley, the lay brother.’
‘I am going to get something to eat and then I must go to bed. How is Tamasin?’
‘She’s sleeping too. Her broken tooth has been hurting her. She’s going to the tooth-drawer tomorrow.’
‘Go up to her. I will see you in the morning.’
I went to the kitchen to get some food. Joan was preparing some pottage, and looked more tired than ever. I had to get her some more help. My stitched and bandaged arm was hidden under my doublet; I did not want to worry her even more than she was already.
‘I’ll bring you up some cold food, sir,’ she said. Looking past her, through the open door to the scullery, I saw Harsnet’s man Orr sitting at the table with the kitchen boy Peter. A little book open before them.
‘He’s teaching Peter to read,’ I said.
‘Yes, but it’s all hot Bible stuff,’ Joan answered disapprovingly. ‘It’ll give the lad nightmares.’
I went up to bed. In my room, I looked through the window. A beautiful spring evening, my lawn a pretty design of crocuses, daffodils beginning to break through. A world away from the turmoil and darkness around me. During the night I had a strange dream of someone whimpering and pulling at my injured arm. When I turned round it was Bealknap, looking weak and wasted. ‘You could have helped me,’ he said, pleadingly. ‘You could have helped me.’
NEXT MORNING Barak and I rode down to Westminster. I felt safer riding, above the crowd and better able to watch it. My arm throbbed, but much less than yesterday. I had to admit Piers had made a good job of his stitching. Barak had been unusually quiet at breakfast, and Tamasin had not made an appearance.
‘It was brave of you to go out on London Wall yesterday,’ I said.
‘I feared young Kite might turn on us, throw us down to the street.’
‘That is not the sort of madness he has.’
‘Who knows what mad folks may do?’
I looked at him. ‘He was there, you know, our killer. I caught a glimpse of him, turning into the crowd, when you were in the gatehouse. ’
‘What did you see?’
‘A glimpse of a brown doublet. He was tall, I think.’
‘Might just have been someone in the crowd leaving.’
‘I don’t think so. I - I felt it. I feel he has me marked.’
Barak was silent for a moment. Then he asked, ‘D’you think he’s pretending to be a sectary somewhere, mixing with the radicals?’
‘Ay, and garnering names of people to kill. The sectaries probably spend half their time cursing and criticizing backsliders.’
I spent the morning at court, and then we rode down into Westminster, moving slowly through the busy, narrow streets. A beggar came right up to me and I flinched away. ‘On your way!’ Barak shouted. ‘It’s all right,’ he said, ‘I had him marked.’
‘Now I must look out for beggars, instead of avoiding their eyes all the time. An ironic justice.’ I laughed bitterly.
We passed into the hive of activity that was the southern precinct. Barak looked round the buildings. ‘The record said he lived on the same street as the White Oak Inn. See, it’s over there.’ He pointed to a small, two-storey house. It was in poor repair, the paint flaking from the frontage. On the other side of the house was a large double-door, locked and padlocked. ‘Adrian Cantrell, Carpenter’ was painted above it in faded letters. We looked at it. ‘I thought all the ex-monks were offered church livings as well as their pensions,’ he said. ‘Yet neither of these two, Cantrell and Lockley, seems to have taken them.’
‘Lockley was only a lay brother, he wouldn’t have been offered a benefice. But Cantrell would. Quite a few did not take up the offer, though.’
‘Maybe he got himself a wife.’
We crossed the muddy road.
I knocked on the door. There was no answer, and I was about to knock again when I heard shuffling footsteps from within. The door opened to reveal a gaunt young man in his late-twenties. He wore a scuffed leather jerkin over a shirt that was in sore need of a wash. His face was thin, framed by a shock of straw-coloured hair, and he wore wood-framed spectacles, the glass so thick his eyes were like blue watery pools.
‘Are you Charles Cantrell?’ I asked.
‘Ay.’
I smiled to try and put him at ease. ‘I have come on behalf of the King’s assistant coroner. We hoped you might be able to help us with some questions. May we come in?’
‘If you like.’ The young man led us into the house, which had a sour, unwashed smell, up a dim corridor and into a parlour with only a table of rough planks and some hard stools for furniture. Through a dusty window we saw a yard, containing a small vegetable garden run to weeds, and a storage shed which must have been used by his father. I noticed Cantrell kept a couple of fingers again
st the wall as he walked, as though guiding himself. He waved us to the stools, sat down on one himself and faced us. His posture was slumped, dejected.
‘I understand you were an assistant in the monks’ infirmary at Westminster,’ I said. ‘Before the Dissolution. We are seeking information on your master, Dr Goddard.’
He screwed up his face in distaste. ‘Is he dead?’ he asked. For the first time, he seemed interested.
‘No. But he needs to be traced, there are some enquiries to be made. We wondered if you might know where he was.’
Cantrell gave a short, bitter laugh. ‘As though he’d keep in touch with me. He treated me like a louse. I didn’t want to stop being a monk when they closed us down three years ago, but I was glad I’d never see him again.’ He paused. ‘Has he killed a patient? It wouldn’t be the first time.’
‘What?’ I stared at him. ‘What do you mean?’
Cantrell shrugged. ‘There were one or two he sent to their rest before their time through bad treatment.’ He paused. ‘Goddard was a shit.’
‘You know this for sure?’ I asked.
He shrugged. ‘There was nothing I could do, Abbot Benson wouldn’t have listened to me. Besides - you didn’t cross Goddard.’
‘You were frightened of him?’ Barak asked.
‘You didn’t cross him.’ The boy swallowed, causing the prominent Adam’s apple Dean Benson had mentioned to jerk up and down. He licked his lips nervously, and I caught a glimpse of grey teeth.
‘We have spoken to Abbot Benson,’ I said. ‘He told us Goddard got you some glasses. You have problems in seeing?’
‘Yes. He got me the glasses because I was useful.’ I caught a bitter note in Cantrell’s voice, though I could not read his expression properly; those swimming blue pools behind his lenses were disconcerting. ‘He didn’t want the trouble of training someone else up,’ the young man continued. ‘Not when the abbey was soon to go down.’
‘How long were you a monk?’
‘I entered the novitiate when I was sixteen. My father got me in, he did carpentry for the abbey. He didn’t want me working for him, said I was clumsy. Though it was my eyes, of course.’ Cantrell’s voice had sunk to a sad monotone.