by C. J. Sansom
‘But who moves the pieces? Some would say the King, but I say God moves his servants, to his greater purposes.’
‘God’s stratagems,’ I said. ‘Many people get hard use from those, Gregory.’
Chapter Forty-one
WE TURNED AS Russell walked quietly towards us. ‘We are ready to go in,’ he said. ‘Sir Thomas, me, Barak, Serjeant Shardlake, and six others. Ten men. We’ll rush the house, break in, then two groups of two search upstairs, another two groups search downstairs. The rest of the men will stay in the woods, ready to catch him should he flee.’ He looked around him.
Sir Thomas appeared. ‘I will lead,’ he said. He took a deep breath, then marched out of the trees towards the house, stepping quietly and carefully. We followed silently. Sir Thomas reached the lawn, stepping out into the thick grass. Then we all jumped as a great tumult of sound erupted at his feet and a host of white shapes darted up from the grass. Sir Thomas let out a cry, and behind him came the whistling sound of swords being drawn from scabbards. Then Barak laughed. ‘It’s geese,’ he said. ‘A flock of geese!’ I saw that twenty angry birds were flying away over the grass, honking angrily.
Sir Thomas stood where he was, staring at the house. Nothing happened, but the strutting courtier looked suddenly vulnerable out there alone.
‘This is dangerous,’ I said to Barak. ‘Those geese were set to warn of intruders, it’s common enough in country places. He knows we are here now.’ I looked at the blank, shuttered windows. ‘We’ve lost surprise.’
Russell stepped out of the wood to join his master, waving to the rest of us, and we all loped through the grass and up to the front door. It was covered by a porch whose planks were rotted with damp, but the door itself looked strong enough.
‘Kick it in,’ Sir Thomas said brusquely, nodding to a large young man. He stepped forward and drew back a booted foot. Before he could launch a kick, Barak stepped forward quickly and grasped the handle. The door opened, smoothly, on well-oiled hinges.
‘He’s making it easy for us,’ he said.
We gathered round the doorway, looking in. With the shutters closed the interior was dim in the new dawn. I made out bare floorboards with old dry rushes on them and heavy, dusty furniture. Sir Thomas shouldered his way through and stepped inside. I thought, he does not lack courage. We followed him in, our eyes darting around fearfully.
We were in a large old entrance hall, a big wooden screen at the far end. On either side of it, two staircases ascended to a first-floor balcony with rooms leading off. Behind each of the two staircases a hallway led to further ground-floor rooms behind.
Sir Thomas walked to the heavy old wooden screen, pointed his sword into the space behind it, then threw it over. It hit the floor with a bang, raising great clouds of dust. Behind it there was nothing but a shabby old wall-hanging. The great crash had resounded through the house but as its echoes died away there was a resumption of deep silence, broken only by men coughing from the dust.
Russell spoke, rapping out orders. ‘You two, up that staircase. You two, the other one. I’ll take the left-hand doorway with Brown.’
‘Master Shardlake and I will take the right-hand doorway,’ Barak said.
‘Very well. Master Harsnet, Sir Thomas, please be ready to help secure any rat that comes running out.’
Harsnet nodded soberly. Sir Thomas smiled and laid a hand on his scabbard. ‘I’ll be ready to deal with him.’ I realized he meant to kill him; Goddard would not get out of here alive.
Men began running to the steward’s directions, their swords drawn. Footsteps echoed on the stairs. I followed Barak towards the right-hand doorway. Barak spoke, his voice a murmur. ‘I saw a faint light down here,’ he whispered. ‘Now I will get him.’ He gripped his sword firmly in his uninjured arm.
He was right. As we passed into a dusty hallway of shuttered windows, I saw that a door at the far end was half open. A dim red light came from inside, flickering softly. It must be the room where the fire was lit. I felt heat wafting out. Then a tinkling of breaking glass sounded, and we became aware of another sound within the room, a low continual hissing, like a disturbed adder.
‘What in God’s name is that?’ I whispered. I stared at Barak, wide-eyed. ‘What’s going on?’
‘I don’t know.’ Barak hesitated, then walked steadily on, his sword held before him. He reached the doorway and stood listening for a second. The hissing was louder now. With a backward glance at me, he pushed the door open. We stared in, at a scene that might have come from Hell itself.
The room was large, probably the master bedroom. In one wall a large fireplace was set, and a fire burned brightly there, making the room stifling. Straight ahead of us was the only furniture in the room, an ornate, high-backed chair, such as a high official might use. A man was sitting there, dressed in the black robe of a Benedictine monk, the hood raised over his head. The face was middle-aged, with high cheekbones. The man stared straight at us, flames reflected from the fire dancing in his eyes. There was a large mole on one side of his long nose, a red gash across one cheek. Goddard stared at us. His lips were drawn back into a terrible, triumphant smile. One arm rested on the chair-arm, the other hung over the side. Beneath it lay a smashed lamp: that must have been the tinkling sound we heard. The candle within it still burned on the floor, on top of a thin trail of grey ash-like stuff. The ash led to a hissing, sparkling fire that was running quickly down a trail of dark powder to two large barrels under the shuttered window. It was at the far end of the room; we might not reach it before it burned down. I saw the shutters were not quite closed.
For once I reacted quicker than Barak, who seemed transfixed by the sight of the gunpowder trail. I grabbed his arm, twirled him round and shouted, ‘Run!’
We fled the room, back down the corridor. Sir Thomas, Russell and Harsnet stared at us. ‘Get everybody out, now!’ I yelled. ‘There’s gunpowder, he’s going to blow up the house!’
I heard footsteps running towards us from all over the building. Those in the hall were already running for the door. Barak and I followed, with huge strides, almost leaping.
Then I felt a hot heavy impact at my back. It blew me off my feet as though I was a doll. Everything round me seemed to quiver, though strangely I heard no sound. My last thought before losing consciousness was, he did it, he made the earth quake.
Chapter Forty-two
WHEN I WOKE my first terrible thought was that I was dead and had been sent to Hell for my unbelief, for all around me was smoke, lit from behind by fire. Then I saw white circular lights moving in the smoke. One approached and for a dizzy moment I feared to see a demon, but the shape resolved itself into Harsnet’s face, looking shocked and streaked with smoke-marks. He knelt beside me and I realized I was lying on my side on damp grass, and then that my back was bare, for a chill breeze wafted across it.
‘Stay still, Master Shardlake,’ Harsnet said in soothing tones. ‘Your back is burned, not badly but the village healing man has been, he has applied some lavender to it.’ I became conscious then that my back hurt; at the same time the echo of a distant, tremendous explosion seemed to sound in my ears. I realized that Harsnet’s voice sounded strangely muffled.
I sat up, shaking my head. A blanket half covered me and I pulled it round to cover my bare back, a movement that hurt it, making me wince.
‘I said that was the first thing you’d do when you woke up,’ a voice beside me said. I turned to see Barak beside me, his lower half also covered with a blanket. Other men were lying in similar positions all over the long grass of the lawn. I turned my neck painfully. Behind me, at the far end of the lawn, the Goddard house was ablaze from end to end, flames and smoke belching from the windows and from the collapsed roof.
‘He had gunpowder,’ I said, clutching Harsnet’s arm. ‘He was in there, he lit the barrels—’
‘Yes,’ the coroner said gently. ‘It is over. The back of the house has collapsed and the rest is burning fast. You saved our l
ives, sir, by calling out to us.’
‘Did everyone get out?’
‘Yes. But several others were injured by the blast. One of Sir Thomas’ men was thrown through the air and landed on his head. He is likely to die. A doctor has been sent for from Barnet. You worried us, sir, you have been unconscious over an hour.’
‘Are you hurt?’ I asked Barak.
‘Came down with a bit of a bang, like you. Think I’ve cracked a couple of ribs.’
‘Why is there a blanket over your legs?’
‘The explosion blew my hose off. Your robe was blown to tatters too, and your doublet.’ He spoke lightly, but looking at his eyes I saw the horror in them that he probably saw in mine.
‘It is all over,’ Harsnet said quietly. ‘He poured out the seventh vial, and made the earth shake. He killed himself doing it, probably thought he would be taken up to Heaven.’ His mouth set. ‘But now he will have found himself in Hell!’ He hesitated. ‘We think the seventh victim was you.’
‘How did he know I would be here?’
‘He knew you were at the centre of the investigation,’ he said. He grasped at his left shoulder and winced; he had been hurt too. ‘You said yourself he would know a large party of men would come here. You would probably be with them. That fuse must have been set slightly too long, or everyone in that part of the house would have been killed. He didn’t care how many died,’ he added bitterly. ‘Ah, there is the doctor.’
I saw Sir Thomas and Russell, with a man in a physician’s robe, walking among the wounded on the lawn.
‘The men are being told Goddard was an alchemist,’ Harsnet went on. ‘That we were after him for conducting forbidden experiments, and he blew the place up by accident. Half the local villagers have turned out; Sir Thomas’ men are keeping them to the other side of the woods.’
‘Why would Goddard kill himself, just at the culmination of his great scheme?’ I asked. ‘Surely if he thought it would bring about Armageddon he would want to see it.’
‘Who knows what went on in his mind? I think he was possessed after all, Master Shardlake, and now the devil has gathered his soul.’
Harsnet’s voice still sounded muffled. I hoped my ears had not been permanently damaged. I lay back on one elbow, exhausted. ‘Would you like me to fetch you some water?’ he asked.
‘Please.’ When he left me, I lay down in the long grass, wincing at the pain that spread across my entire back. Then I sat up again, drawing the blanket round me, and looked at the burning house. There was a crash and a cloud of sparks as the last of the roof caved in. I turned to Barak.
‘It’s not over,’ I said.
‘But we saw him, that was Goddard, the mole on his nose and the cut on his cheek from where Orr ripped off his fake beard. He set a trap, he had plenty of warning with the geese and then us crashing in to set the fuse so it would blow us all to kingdom come.’
‘But it didn’t. We all got out.’
‘Only just.’
I sat up slowly, rubbed a hand across my face, felt giddy for a moment. ‘Did you see the window above those gunpowder barrels? The shutter was open slightly. There could have been someone else in there, who lit the fuse and got out. What if the fuse was timed so that whoever saw him would be able to get out of the room and testify the killer was himself dead?’
‘But he was sitting there grinning at us. We saw him. Sit down, please.’
‘What if Goddard wasn’t the killer? What if the seven vials are only a stage in some larger pageant? The next stage of which he can go on to untroubled if he is believed dead?’ I stood up, unsteadily. Barak grabbed at the blanket.
‘Lie down. You’ve been unconscious an hour.’ But I planted my feet on the grass and called out to Sir Thomas’ party, my voice sounding to me as though it was coming from under water. Barak plucked at my blanket again. ‘If you tell Sir Thomas we haven’t got the killer after all, he’ll be furious. He’s in a bad enough state as it is.’
But I stepped away as Sir Thomas and Russell approached with the doctor. Sir Thomas looked subdued.
‘Well, Shardlake,’ he said. ‘Here’s a spectacular end to your hunt. You got out.’ He looked at me accusingly. ‘One of my men is like to die.’
‘I am sorry for it. But I am not sure Goddard was the killer,’ I said. ‘I think there was someone else in that room, who may have got away.’ I turned to Russell. ‘Did any of your men hear or see anything in the woods after the explosion?’
‘Your brains are addled,’ Sir Thomas said angrily, and the doctor, a thin elderly man with a long beard, looked at me sharply. But Russell nodded slowly.
‘Yes. Just afterwards one of my men saw something moving through the woods, said it looked like a man. But it was chaos there, the light almost gone, everyone shocked by the explosion and animals panicking and running to and fro in the shadows.’
‘A deer,’ Sir Thomas said. But from the look Russell gave me I could see he doubted too.
A HEADQUARTERS had been set up in the stables behind Goddard’s house. I got Russell to help me there, then fetch the man who had seen something. He was another of Sir Thomas’ young servants, keen and sharp. ‘I was sure it was a man that darted past me,’ he said. ‘It was just a glimpse, a figure darting between the trees, but I would swear it moved on two legs, not four.’
I was sitting on a bale of hay, Barak beside me. He looked at the young man and then at me. ‘God help us. If not Goddard, then who is the killer?’
‘I do not know.’ I turned to Russell. ‘The back of the house did not catch fire?’
‘No. It collapsed in the explosion. Anything left of Goddard will be under there.’
‘I would like the rubble cleared, and Dean Benson brought here to identify anything that is left of Goddard.’
‘He won’t like that,’ Barak observed. ‘He is still here, but he’s been told Goddard blew himself up.’
‘Sir Thomas wants this matter closed, sir,’ Russell said in a warning tone.
‘Perhaps if it is put to him that we need to ensure the killer is not still at large, and if he refuses and someone else is killed it will not reflect well on him.’ I smiled at the steward. ‘I am sure you are used to putting uncomfortable things to your master diplomatically.’
The young man ran a hand to his thatch of blond hair. Like everyone else he was dirty and dishevelled. ‘I’ll do what I can.’
‘And I will tackle Harsnet,’ I said.
I Had come to have respect for Harsnet’s acumen, but when he came into the stables, rubbing the shoulder he had hurt when the explosion blew him over, my suggestion horrified him.
‘We can’t do that,’ he said. ‘All on the word of what a servant thought he saw in the dark. We’ll have trouble with Dean Benson, and Sir Thomas will be furious. He dislikes you already, Master Shardlake. He is not a good man to make an enemy of.’
‘I have made greater enemies than him.’
Harsnet shook his head. ‘It is over. Goddard ended it on his own terms but he did end it. Our duty now is to tell the Archbishop so, urgently.’
I looked at him. ‘I know everyone would like it to be over. I wish I could believe that myself. But we cannot always believe what suits us.’
THE STEWARD Russell turned out to be a better persuader than me, and an hour later those of Sir Thomas’ men who were uninjured were dismantling the pile of rubble that was all that remained of the rear wing. Russell worked with his men. The explosion had thrown much of the stonework outwards, but part of the roof had collapsed straight down on to the interior of the house. I stood watching as the slates were lifted. Beside me was a frowning Sir Thomas. Harsnet stood at a little distance, occasionally shaking his head. Beside him Dean Benson sat on a lump of brickwork.
‘Wherever he goes,’ Barak said, ‘that old arsehole always finds somewhere to sit down.’ He stood beside me nursing his ribs, which the doctor had tied up with bandages.
To my relief, my hearing seemed to be clearing. ‘Yes.’ I lo
oked out over the ghastly scene. Of the big old house nothing remained but a few skeletal walls within which rubble still smoked. The workmen cast nervous glances at the nearest wall, lest it collapse. On the lawn dazed figures wrapped in blankets still sat, looking at the burned house where they had so nearly died. A cart had arrived from Barnet and the more badly injured were being loaded on to it, supervised by the doctor and Magistrate Goodridge.
A shout from Russell made me turn round. Sir Thomas and Harsnet joined me in scrambling up the rubble. He was pointing at something by his feet. I saw that he had uncovered a severed arm wearing the tatters of a monk’s robe, the hand undamaged and ghastly white. A moment later a man lifted a slate and jumped back with a cry. Underneath we saw a severed head, barely recognizable, for it was covered in thick dust. Sir Thomas, quite unaffected, took a handkerchief and began cleaning dust from the ghastly thing.
It was the man who had been sitting in the throne-like chair. The eyes had been blown out, leaving empty red sockets, but I recognized the mole on the nose, the slash on the cheek. Astoundingly the head was still smiling and then, fighting a rush of nausea, I saw why. Tiny nails had been hammered in to hold the mouth open, run through the flesh into the jaw. I looked up at Harsnet. ‘This man was dead when we entered that room,’ I said.
Seymour bent and picked up the head with no more concern than if it had been a football. I remembered the ghastly story of the cart full of Turkish heads in Hungary. He carried it, a little blood still dripping from the severed neck, to where Dean Benson sat. The cleric jumped up, his eyes wide with horror. ‘Is that a—’
‘A head, yes.’ He held it up. ‘Whose?’
‘That is Lancelot Goddard,’ Benson said, and collapsed in a dead faint.
Early in THE morning of the next day, Barak and I sat at breakfast. The journey back from Kinesworth had been uncomfortable for both of us, we had gone to bed early and slept late. I had tossed and turned uneasily, for pressure on my back brought pain from my burns. Putting my hand behind me, I could feel blisters rising.