I tried to lift my head and protest but he was holding me too tight and when I tried to speak no sound came. I was afraid he might choke me by accident, not knowing his own strength—a fitting retribution, I could not help thinking, after what I had done to Langworth—but just as I was beginning to see flashing lights before my eyes I heard Sophia say, calmly, “Let him go.”
Tom released his grip on my neck and lifted his weight from my torso; I gulped air desperately and tried to twist my head to see what gave her the confidence to command such a large man with such apparent coolness. In the dark and the mist I could only make out that she was holding a hand out towards his throat.
“All right—put the knife away,” he grumbled, moving off me entirely.
I sat up and almost laughed. Was Sophia brandishing the little knife I had told her was good only for peeling fruit? If so, I had to admire her spirit. Presumably Tom could only feel the edge of the blade on his skin; if the light had been better, he might have seen how ineffectual her weapon would be. Quickly I checked inside my doublet to see that the casket was still safe, then struggled to my feet, drew my own knife, and held it out, at the same time lifting back my hood.
“Tom. We will not harm you if you promise the same.”
“By the cross!” He sat back on his haunches and peered through the rain at me. “Master Savolino—what in the Devil’s name are you doing? And who is this?” He gestured at Sophia, who stepped away, pulling her cloak closer around her face. Fortunately there was not light enough for him to see her clearly; he jumped to his own conclusions and gave a low laugh. “A whore, is it? Well, you would not be the first of the clergy to use them, but inside the cathedral grounds? That
I sighed. “Tom, you and I must talk—”
But I was cut short by Sophia, who flew at him like a wildcat, spitting and scratching, forgetting in her fury that she was supposed to be here in secret.
“Call me a whore, would you? Call me it to my face then, coward!”
Taken by surprise, Tom raised his hands to shield himself from her flailing nails. I jumped up to try and pull her off him and in the struggle her hood fell back, just as a weak flash of lightning jagged through the clouds, illuminating her face for an instant like a figure in a stained-glass window. Tom gasped in disbelief.
“By Saint Thomas! Mistress Kingsley! But you were supposed to be gone …”
“Supposed to be?” I leaned forward, my knife closer to his face, and spoke through my teeth. “You mean you
Tom looked up at me, his face twisted in fear.
“It wasn’t me—” he began.
“Wasn’t you? Not you who took a pair of your sister’s gloves, cut your own hand to cover them in blood, and left them where they would be found the morning after you killed Sir Edward Kingsley?”
“What proof do you have?”
“Only your mother’s word.”
“My mother lost her wits years back. All Canterbury knows it.” His voice was strained.
“Oh, I think your mother is quite clearheaded in many ways, especially when it comes to her daughter’s possessions. She would recognise those gloves in an instant. And you told the constable you did not see Mistress Kingsley leave the precincts after divine service, did you not?”
“It wasn’t me who killed him!” His voice lurched up in pitch and I hissed at him to keep quiet; we were not far from some of the canons’ residences and it would only compound the night’s misfortunes if one of them should be roused by our voices and come out to investigate. “You have to believe me.” He glanced frantically from me to Sophia, the whites of his eyes gleaming in the darkness. “I can explain.”
“Let us get out of the rain, then.” I lowered the knife cautiously but he made no threatening move. I sensed that he was more afraid of me than I of him, which I must use to my advantage for as long as I could.
“There is a lean-to just around the corner by the timber yard,” he said, more quietly. “We can talk in there.”
Keeping ourselves pressed against the stone of the cathedral, we felt our way around the jutting buttresses until we reached the shelter of a small wooden hut next to the stacks of timber. A few workmen’s tools hung on nails from the central roof beam and I moved preemptively to snatch up the axe, not wishing to leave anything to chance. Tom saw and gave a bitter laugh as he seated himself on a pile of planks.
“You think I would strike you down? I could not kill a man in cold blood, master, though I have often wished I could. I’ll tell you this much—I envy whoever did kill that bastard. May God forgive me, but if I’d been a different man, I’d have loved to hear the sound of his skull smashing open.”
“And I,” Sophia said, with feeling, and in the darkness I sensed rather than saw that they looked at each other with something like understanding.
“Why should I believe you did not? When you went to such lengths to make sure his wife would be blamed?” I kept my tone deliberately hard; though I still struggled to believe that the gatekeeper really did murder Sir Edward, I had to get at the truth with the cold detachment of an inquisitor. I could not afford to let him see that I sympathised with him. Besides, I reminded myself, he would have been willing to let Sophia burn for a murder she did not commit.
“I panicked,” he said, and his voice cracked. “When they found him, I knew I would be the first suspect. I was inside the precincts that night, and everyone knew I hated him. Not without good reason,” he added. “The constable asked me a lot of questions and I answered them honestly, but he has a way of needling people and I knew he was working up to accusing me. I was afraid I would condemn myself by mistake—I had to do something to point the finger elsewhere. Then I thought that I’d seen Mistress Kingsley earlier coming in for divine service and leaving alone. So in all the confusion I slipped away home and took our Sarah’s gloves—may she rest in peace—and, as you say, I bloodied them and left them where the constable was sure to find them first thing when he came back to search further in daylight.”
I sighed. It was hard to believe that he was not sincere.
“You didn’t care that Mistress Kingsley could have been burned alive for it?”
“But it was me that told Meg, the housekeeper, that Mistress Kingsley was under suspicion,” he protested. “I hoped that would give her the chance to escape, and so I thought it had. I supposed everyone’s problems would have been solved.”
“Forcing an innocent woman to become a fugitive with a price on her head is hardly solving her problems,” I said.
“You say that. But I know what Sir Edward Kingsley was,” Tom said, with quiet contempt. “Going on the run might be better than living with him.”
“In a sense you are not wrong,” Sophia agreed. I shot her a look to suggest she was not helping, but it was lost in the dark.
“For God’s sake, do not tell the dean, sir,” Tom said, turning to me and clutching blindly at my cloak. I could not see his expression but I heard the urgency in his words. “I cannot afford to lose this job. My mother—well, you have seen her, I suppose. She depends on me. And suspicion will fall on me doubly.” He stopped and sucked in a ragged breath, as if he were battling a sob. “I’m handy with my fists sometimes, but I could not kill a man,” he repeated quietly. “Not even him, who did so wrong by my poor sister. I no more killed him than you killed the apothecary.”
I laid a hand on his arm.
“I believe you. It seems that we must become the keepers of one another’s secrets, Tom. Listen—I am doing my utmost to find out who did kill Sir Edward by the time the assize judge arrives. If I succeed, you will be free of suspicion and so will Mistress Kingsley. In the meantime, then, you will say nothing to anyone of her presence here. Swear it.”
“On my oath,” he said solemnly. In the silence, rain dripped steadily from the eaves of the shelter.
I glanced up at Sophia, who was no more than a shadow outlined among other shadows, her eyes and teeth pale in the dark. “We should not waste time. It will be getting light soon. One last question,” I said, standing stiffly and turning back to Tom.
“Yes?”
“If you needed someone to blame for the murder, why did you not accuse Nicholas Kingsley? You had a
