Howard might have told him to entrust the book to someone far from the eyes of the queen’s pursuivants. If there was the slightest chance that Langworth knew the fate of that book, I was prepared to risk almost anything to find out.
I had no idea which of the houses around the edge of the precincts might be Langworth’s, nor how to ask without arousing suspicion. Neither did I want to walk past Harry’s house in case the sharp-eyed Samuel saw me through a window. I squinted to my left at the cathedral, pale and solid under the morning sun. Ahead of me, I noticed a man approaching from the eastern side of the precincts, pushing a barrow loaded with planks of wood; I quickened my pace and assumed an air of confidence.
“Excuse me,” I said as I drew level, “but I wonder if you can help me—I have to deliver a letter to the canon treasurer’s house, but I’m afraid I’m confused as to which one it is.”
The man rested his barrow on the ground, wiped his hands on the front of his dirty smock, and gestured the way he had come, through the middle gate.
“All the way round the end of the corona on the other side, opposite the treasury.” When he saw my blank look, he added, “The treasury is built on the side of St. Andrew’s chapel. Sticks out from the north side. You can’t miss the house—it’s the only one of three storeys on that side.”
“And will his servant be there to receive it, if he is not?”
“He keeps no servant. A woman from the town comes in to clean for him now and then, I believe. If he’s not there, you’ll have to come back later, or try one of the other canons.”
I thanked him, relieved, and watched as he hefted his load up again and set off towards the Archbishop’s Palace. Once he had rounded the corner, I glanced to my right and left; the precincts on the south side were still deserted. I could not walk around the end of the apse without passing Harry’s house. The only possibility was to go through the cathedral. There was a small door at the end of the southwest transept; I hurried across, tried the handle, and found it open. As silently as I could, I closed the door behind me and stepped into the sacred hush of the cathedral church.
Just as I had the day before, I experienced a slight dizziness, the sense of being suddenly dwarfed, as I looked upwards into the multiplying geometrical vaults that fanned out more than a hundred feet above me in all directions. Almost at once, I heard the echo of footsteps on the flagstones; I froze as they drew closer, and from the direction of the choir a ruddy-faced young man appeared in the plain robe of a minor canon, a pair of tall brass candlesticks tucked under his arms. He walked in haste with his head down; I pressed myself against the wall by the door and waited until he had passed. To my left, at the far end of the nave, I saw a number of men in clerical dress milling about, presumably preparing for the divine service of communion which would begin shortly at nine. I crossed the transept briskly and slipped out of the opposite door, the one I had entered the day before with Harry, beside the site of the martyrdom, and emerged at the corner of the cloister. Two men in black robes were approaching from the west side, but I turned purposefully to my right along the narrow passage that led alongside the Chapter House. I had learned over the years that the best way to avoid being confronted somewhere you don’t belong is to give the impression at all times of having every right to be there. So I held my head up and retraced the path I had taken with Harry until I saw ahead of me a rectangular building of one storey with a gabled roof, attached to one of the cathedral’s side chapels but of later construction, its windows secured with thick iron bars. I passed around this and almost opposite stood a narrow house, timbered in dark wood and three storeys high, each overhanging the one below. Beside it was a crooked row of smaller dwellings, all standing in the shadows of the ruined priory buildings. The great bulk of the cathedral blocked out the morning sun from the path on this side, and the windows of the treasurer’s house reflected the façade of the church, blank and impenetrable. I realised that Langworth’s door was very close to the spot where Sir Edward Kingsley’s body had been found. The dark stain was still visible on the path where Harry had pointed it out. Hardly surprising, then, that the treasurer on his way home had been the first to see his friend lying dead. But it was also extremely convenient.
I looked around. There was no one to be seen on this side of the cathedral, and I knew I must act quickly. Langworth had said that the broken window was in his back parlour, so I looked along the row of houses for any sign of an alley that would lead to the rear. There was a small path that disappeared around the crumbling arches of the priory infirmary; just as I made to follow it, a great peal of bells erupted from the tower above me, causing me to jump almost out of my skin. Catching my breath, my heart pounding in my throat, I moved as quickly as I could past the ruins and found myself facing the backyards of the row of prebendaries’ houses. These yards were no more than six feet across, separated from the path by a low wall. On the other side of the path more buildings backed onto these; I gave a quick glance to their windows, but decided I had no time to worry about who might be overlooking the treasurer’s yard. If I was lucky, everyone in the precincts would now be on their way to the service.
Emboldened by the knowledge that Langworth did not have a live-in servant, I scrambled over the wall and saw immediately the window he had complained about; its latch was broken and the weight of the leading was causing it to hang open. The casement itself, to the right of the rear door, was not large; a man like Tom Garth would not have stood a chance. Even for me it was an effort, but I was able to fold my limbs sufficiently to climb through and land, with dry throat and clammy palms, inside Langworth’s parlour.
The room was small, with a low wood-beamed ceiling, much like the inside of Harry’s house on the other side of the precincts. Little light entered from the windows facing the yard, making it all the more dingy and ominous. Langworth’s furniture was simple, austere even, like the man himself; there were no decorative touches, no ornaments. A high-backed settle of plain wood was placed near the hearth and against the right-hand wall a buffet displayed a few items of tableware, sufficient for one person; these were of silver, but unremarkable. If Langworth were siphoning funds from the cathedral treasury, he was not obviously spending them on fine living.
Where would a man like Langworth keep his most private correspondence? These old houses offered so many nooks and crannies for hiding places—loose bricks, floorboards, crevices in chimney stacks or under stairs—that I realised as I took my first step the absurdity of my ambition. The creak of the boards beneath my feet echoed through the house and I froze, listening for any telltale sign of movement. But the cathedral bells struck up another peal and after a moment I was satisfied that the house was empty.
The door of the little parlour where I had entered gave on to a narrow corridor leading to a small and basic kitchen, a staircase to the first floor, and, at the front of the house, a larger room evidently used as a library and study. Two cases of handsomely bound books stood against the wall, while a wide oak desk was placed before the windows, almost empty save for a pile of papers stacked neatly on one side with a book on top to weight them down, as well as an inkwell, penknife, and a block of sealing wax.
On my hands and knees, so that I would not be seen by anyone who happened to pass the front window, I crept over to the desk and cast my eye over the papers. Most contained columns of figures and details of expenditure on mundane items, the necessary outgoings of a cathedral community, with the occasional query in the margins. Nothing here of interest, but then I would hardly have expected him to leave any sensitive documents in plain view. There were no titles on the bookshelves to excite curiosity either; though they were fine editions, most were volumes of orthodox theology, classical literature, and approved Christian philosophy, such as you might expect to find on the shelves of any learned and pious official of the English church. Nothing contraband, nothing overtly controversial, nothing to indicate the Catholic loyalties that might tie him to Henry Howard. Here on the ground floor at least, any visitor could observe that Langworth’s personal effects were unimpeachable.
Creeping as quietly as I could manage, I climbed the stairs to the floor above. The bells had ceased and an anxious silence settled over the house, in which I imagined I could hear my own blood pulsing through my veins as I held my breath. At the top of the stairs I found myself on a small landing with only one door to my right, though directly ahead was a bare wall where it looked as if a doorway should have been. I pushed open the right-hand door into what proved to be Langworth’s bedchamber. The air held the faint musty smell that I associated with old men, but the bed was made and the floorboards swept clean. There was no other furniture save a wooden stand with a jug and bowl for washing. I looked around, feeling something was not right. The room was too small. This bedchamber must be directly above the study downstairs, so there ought to be another room on this floor over the back half of the house, above the parlour where I had come in. At some point, that room had been blocked off, the doorway plastered over.
On the back wall, beside the bed, hung a frayed tapestry depicting a lascivious version of the story of Susannah and the Elders. Though the colours were faded, the voluptuous curves of the nude bathing and the lustful eyes of the voyeurs were still lifelike enough to inspire less than virtuous thoughts. Quite a scene for the caustic treasurer to contemplate every night as he lay down to sleep, I thought, with a smile, amused by this indication of
