Sacrilege

She shook her head indulgently, as if at a demanding child.

“You have not paid me for the last one yet. Go on with you, I’ll send it up with the rest. Anyone would think you were a great lord, the way you have me fetching and carrying.”

I thanked her, forcing myself to smile patiently, and took the stairs to my room. While I waited for the water, I found a clean sheet of paper and wrote a short note to Walsingham using the cipher I was accustomed to use in my communications with him. The orange would be an extra precaution; there was no way of knowing how proficient Samuel might be with ciphers, so I kept the content of my letter to the facts of my wrongful arrest, in case he should work out how to read it along the way. A serving girl arrived with an orange and a bucket of hot water; when she had gone I squeezed a little of the juice into the candle holder as I had before, crammed the flesh into my mouth, and along the bottom of the letter, below where I had signed off with the symbol of the planet Jupiter, I wrote, using the juice, “Arrest the bearer of this letter on suspicion of murder.” I had no great faith that this note would ever find its way to Walsingham, but it was worth a try. As the ink was drying, I stripped off my filthy clothes and tried as best I could to scrub the filth of the past night and day from my skin.

* * *

DRESSED IN CLEAN shirt and breeches, damp hair clinging to my face and with a full stomach, I waited in the inn yard while a stableboy saddled my horse and loaded him up with my packs. Marina had feigned great offence that I was leaving, but I soothed her by settling my account with a generous tip and assuring her that I would take my supper there the following day when I came to collect my clean clothes. The wind had risen further and I shielded my eyes against the grit blowing in gusts from the flagstones; above me gulls wheeled and shrieked in a sky that had taken on a lurid, shifting light behind the clouds, such as you find sometimes out at sea. A horse whinnied; I turned and caught sight of a figure skulking at the gate of the yard. He leaned against the gatepost and wore a cap with a peak pulled down low over his eyes; in the shadow of the stable building I could not get a clear look at his face.

My stomach clenched; since the previous night I had feared that Nick Kingsley and his friends would not let my ill-judged attack on him go unpunished. I felt the familiar quickening of the pulse, the prickling of my nerves as my hands balled into fists; would I have to stand and fight here, in the yard, and would anyone come to my aid? But as I squinted at the man, breath catching in my throat, I realised that he was alone, and that he was looking at me in a shifty manner from under his cap, as if he was waiting for my attention. He was too tall and rangy for Nick Kingsley; curious, I took a step in his direction and he nodded sharply, as if to beckon me. I glanced over my shoulder; the boy was still occupied with my horse and paid me no attention. I took another step towards the man and he slipped into the open doorway of an empty stall close to the gate. Bending slowly, I removed my knife from its sheath and followed him.

There was little daylight inside the stall, but I heard him moving to the left of the doorway, his feet scratching on the straw.

“Who are you?” I hissed, the knife held out before me.

“Shh! Viens ici.” He stepped forward and I lowered the knife with relief.

“Olivier. Why are you skulking about like a thief?”

“Because I don’t want to be seen with you. Listen.” He leaned closer, glancing over my shoulder towards the doorway as if fearful we might be overheard. “She cannot stay with us any longer. It is too dangerous.”

“It is only two more days, until the assizes. Please—”

“You don’t understand. You have made it impossible.” His words came sharp and urgent, as if he might impel me by the force of them. “The constable came to our house this morning. Someone told him you have been seen at our door—he asked my father a lot of questions about who you were, how we knew you.”

“Merda. I am sorry for that. What did he say?”

Olivier made a noise of contempt. “Don’t worry, my father is practised at thinking on his feet. He said you had come to pay your respects because you had known Protestant friends of ours when you lived in Paris.”

“And the constable believed him?”

He shrugged.

“How do I know? It was only as he was leaving that he told us you had been arrested for murder.” He curled his lip at me. “My father said he was sure there was some misunderstanding. But after the constable left—you can imagine.”

I nodded, picturing the distress of those good, beleaguered people. I had no affection for Olivier, but I could not deny how much his family had risked for Sophia. Now I had unwittingly brought the constable to their door while they harboured another murder suspect in their attic.

“My mother has not stopped weeping and wringing her hands,” Olivier said. “They fear it is only a matter of time before your arrest becomes an excuse to harass us further. And if they search our house and find her …” He did not need to finish the sentence. The whole family could be executed along with Sophia to make an example.

“What can we do?”

“My father says we must give her into your care. You brought her back to Canterbury, after we had got her safely away.” He gave me a hard look.

“I have only been allowed out of prison on bail, on condition that I lodge inside the cathedral precincts until the assizes.” I held out my hands in a show of helplessness.

“Exactly. They will not think to look for her in the house of a cathedral canon.”

I hesitated. With Samuel out of the way, it was almost conceivable, though the prospect of proposing such a plan to Harry chilled me; he had a duty to me because of our shared service to Walsingham, but Sophia was no part of that. Walsingham had no idea that I had brought her to Canterbury, and I suspected he would be furious if he knew I had compromised my own safety and Harry’s for her sake.

“My father says he will have no choice but to put her out on the street if you will not take responsibility for her this time,” Olivier added, sensing that I was wavering.

“And you would let him do that? You care for her, I think.” I met his gaze frankly for a moment but he looked away.

“I care for my family also. My parents have lived most of their lives in the shadow of death. Here they thought to escape it. They should not have to fear it again because of me.” He spoke quietly, but his voice was tight with feeling.

Because of me. What did he mean by that? Because he loved Sophia? I watched Olivier as he kept his eyes fixed on the ground, scuffing patterns in the dust with the toe of his threadbare shoes. He was not helping Sophia out of Christian charity, but because he hoped for a reward at the end of this ordeal— presumably the same reward I wanted. Which of us would win?

I pushed my hair back off my face and nodded. “Well, then. She cannot be left on the street. But how will you bring her to the cathedral without being noticed?”

“Our church holds a service this evening in the crypt, at the same time as Evensong in the cathedral. We could bring her there in disguise and hand her over to you.”

I paused to consider the implications.

“Not disguised as a boy, she will be too obvious here. Dress her as an old woman, heap her with scarves and shawls. She can walk crook-backed—it would be less noticeable. But I have to eat at the dean’s table tonight, I can’t take her back after Evensong.”

“Then when?”

“Wait, I am trying to think.” My hand closed around the purse at my belt and the shape of Langworth’s keys inside it. Into my mind flashed the image of the map I had found in the library, with the treasury and its sub-vault clearly marked. The crypt. I could not shake the sense that everything centred on the crypt, and tonight I would be inside the cathedral precincts with three untried keys in my possession. I recalled the old monk’s story about the exchange of coffins in the last days of the priory. If Thomas Becket was anywhere, he was down there, in some unmarked grave, and Langworth almost certainly knew where. Tonight I would find him, and anything else Langworth might have hidden down there with him. I turned to Olivier with renewed purpose.

“After your service ends, find a place to hide her in the crypt. There are nooks and crannies, side chapels, alcoves and shadows. Find somewhere. Tell her after dark I will come for her.”

He looked doubtful.

“The crypt is locked after dark.”