“That poor family. After all they have done for me. How will Hélène bear it? She only survives the days by praying her son will be found safe and well. Dear God.”
“It will be a dreadful blow, there is no doubt,” I said. “But perhaps at least they can do away with uncertainty. Once the boy’s body has been examined as evidence they will be able to give him a Christian burial and that might give them some comfort. Assuming the body is still there,” I added, almost to myself, remembering the unease I had felt at the news that Langworth had been to dine at St. Gregory’s the previous night. Nick Kingsley would surely have told him of my visit to the old priory and that I had been near the cellar. If Langworth suspected that I was close to understanding the business at Sir Edward’s house, he might well have taken the opportunity to dispose of the body in the tomb. Perhaps young Denis would go the way of the beggar boy, hacked to pieces and dumped on a rubbish heap. But no—to have surprised us in the crypt in the early hours Langworth must have returned from the Kingsley house by at least midnight, and if he dined and talked with Nick that would hardly have given him time to exhume a body and move it unnoticed. Besides, he seemed to have relied on Samuel for those kind of dirty jobs and though God only knew where Harry’s servant was at that moment, I doubted he was at liberty to dispose of corpses for Langworth.
“I tried to look in the cellar once and old Meg stopped me,” Sophia said, turning back to the window again. “She seemed genuinely frightened—she told me my husband would kill me. She must have known all along. How could she?”
“She felt she had no choice. Perhaps she was afraid your husband would kill her too. Oh, God in heaven!” I leapt out of bed and grabbed at my underhose, scrabbling around frantically for a shirt.
“What is it?” Sophia’s face mirrored my alarm.
“Meg is a witness. She saw Sir Edward with the beggar boy in the kitchen—she could testify. And Langworth was there last night. I have to find out if she’s all right.”
“Wait, Bruno. How will you do that? You can hardly just go and knock on the door—you said yourself, Nicholas Kingsley will kill you.”
I finished tying my shirt and pulled on the breeches I had discarded in such haste last night. I had hoped to wake with Sophia in my arms and attempt to recapture that fleeting intimacy of the night before. I could not help feeling a little cheated by her early rising and apparent indifference. But I had to put such thoughts out of my mind, I told myself, and concentrate on the matter in hand.
“There is someone who is sure to know any news as soon as it happens,” I said. “When I have broken my fast, I must go out to the marketplace. I will bring you some bread and small beer first, if you like. I’m afraid you will be confined to this room—and you would do better to keep away from the window.”
It was only a small casement jutting out from the sloping eaves of the attic, but it faced the cathedral and there was always a chance someone passing might glance up. I did not want to bring Harry any more trouble than was necessary.
“Who will help you in the marketplace?” she asked, curious, moving away from the window to sit on the end of the bed and curling a strand of hair around her finger. The severe boy’s cut was beginning to grow a little longer; it accentuated the sharp angles of her face.
“Oh, just a girl who is keen to help me any way she can,” I said, with deliberate nonchalance, and was gratified to see a brief expression of pique flit across her features. “I’ll take that, if I may.”
Reluctantly, she handed me the book. I wrapped it in its linen cloth and returned it to the damaged casket, then put the whole into my leather travelling bag and slung it over my shoulder. From now on I did not mean to let this book out of my sight.
In the kitchen I found Harry opening cupboard doors and slamming them with a disgruntled air. He straightened up when I entered and leaned on the edge of the table, looking at me knowingly.
“There you are. We have no bread or milk, you know—Samuel would go out for them early to the market and since he is not here because of you—”
“I am going,” I said, clapping him on the shoulder.
“You look rough,” he observed, without sympathy. “Don’t suppose you’ve had much sleep.”
I acknowledged the truth of this with a half nod and concentrated on my purse. I could not be sure how sharp the old man’s hearing was and how much he might have heard when Sophia and I returned last night, but he was no fool; he knew I was hiding her in my room and no doubt imagined the rest.
“Was your excursion useful?” he asked.
“I think so. At least, there is a body in the crypt that has every appearance of being Becket’s and could certainly be presented as such. An ampulla of oil was buried with it.”
“The holy oil of Saint Thomas,” he murmured. “So they claim to have that too, do they? Legend says it was given to Becket by the Virgin to anoint the true sovereign of England.”
“So I understand. Do the people care about such trifles?”
He considered.
“It would certainly lend weight to the coronation of a Catholic monarch, should such an event ever come to pass. It would have the appearance of being sanctioned by England’s greatest saint.”
“But it needs to remain where it is for the queen’s justice to see when he arrives. My fear is that Langworth and Sykes between them will find a way to move the relics to another hiding place.” I thought of Langworth lying half choked on the floor of the crypt. My situation would be much simpler now if I had finished him off last night. God knows that is easily done—a tavern brawl, a threat, your life or his—and I doubted I would have been the first to solve a problem that way on Walsingham’s business, but Langworth was the key to the whole plot in Canterbury and the connections with the French and Spanish conspirators; it was essential that he should be taken alive for questioning. The treasurer was nothing if not shrewd; he would have realised as soon as he came to with a swollen throat on that stone floor that I had discovered his great treasure; the question was whether he would have time to move his saint to another hiding place before I made my discovery public.
“Perhaps I should make it my business to pray in the cathedral today,” Harry said, rubbing his chin. “See who comes and goes. They can do nothing if they know they are being watched.”
“That would be an excellent idea.” I glanced uneasily at the ceiling. “But someone should stay in the house to keep an eye on your other guest.”
“That sounds like a job for a young man,” Harry said, a smirk playing around the corners of his mouth. “I haven’t the strength to get up those stairs, let alone attend to the needs of a female. Mind you, I’d be surprised if you have, after last night.” He gave me a stern look, but the ghost of a smile remained. “Now go and get me my breakfast, I’m half starved here.”
THE NIGHT’S STORM had broken the pressing heat of the last few days and outside it no longer felt as if we were living inside a glass jar; the sky seemed rinsed clean, pale with a thin gauze of cloud, and a crisp breeze whipped my shirt around my chest. The bells had fallen silent and the only sound was the frenzied cries of the gulls and the crunch of my boots over the wet ground. Fighting my lack of sleep, I tried to keep alert, glancing about me as I walked towards Christ Church gate. At the conduit house I turned back and looked up at the top storey of Harry’s house; I thought I saw a shadow move at the window, but I could not be sure. Tom Garth appeared in the doorway of his lodge by the gatehouse and nodded solemnly, as if to acknowledge the bond between us. I nodded in return and passed out into the Buttermarket, one hand laid protectively over the satchel hanging at my side.
The market was busy despite the early hour; by the stone cross, a pair of jongleurs had already drawn a small crowd as one casually juggled flaming torches and the other moved stiffly about on stilts, calling out to drum up an audience. His shouts could barely be heard over the cries of the market traders selling their wares and the barking of the dogs chased away from the food stalls; the air was thick with the smells of warm bread and fresh pies. I found Rebecca behind her bread stall; her face lit up when she saw me, though I did not fail to notice the disapproving glance her employer sent me from the corner of her eye while deep in conversation with a customer. I chose a couple of loaves and leaned in as I handed over the coins.
“I need your help again, Rebecca, I’m afraid. Do you know the housekeeper from St. Gregory’s Priory? Does she buy her bread from you?”
“Old Meg?” She looked surprised. “Some days she comes. They used to pay to have the bread delivered when it got too far for her to walk, but since Sir Edward was”—here she made a face—“they have fallen behind with their account. Mistress Blunt said not to take any more until the debt is settled.”
“Have you seen Meg this morning?”
