He smiled, but it faded quickly.
“I dream of running away with the jongleurs, but I have no skills to offer. I cannot even catch a ball. My mother took me to see them once in the yard of the Cheker at midsummer when I was younger—it was all lit up with torches and garlands and they did such tricks, it was like belonging to a magic world.” He paused, breathless, as the excitement of the memory subsided into fear. “We don’t go out much anymore.”
“But you go to school?”
The boy shook his head.
“I have a tutor at home. And Canon Langworth comes once a week to teach me Greek and Latin—” Here he broke off, as if afraid he might be sharing too much. “I have a weak chest, the doctor says, so it is better that I stay at home.” He lowered his gaze, as if apologising for all the trouble he gave everyone, including me.
You don’t look all that weak, I thought; nothing a bit of red meat and a good run about in the fresh air wouldn’t cure. But if I was right, it would make sense for those intending to use him to put about the rumour that the boy was sickly, fragile; it would make his planned demise all the more plausible when the time came. He could have no inkling of the part assigned to him in the restoration of a Catholic England, poor child. I wondered if his mother knew the full story. Was she also a zealot for the old religion, willing to hand her son over as a sacrifice for God’s purpose, or had Langworth and his fellow conspirators duped her in some way?
“But you sing in the choir. I have seen you.”
“I have to.” He sounded less than happy about it.
“You don’t like it?”
“I like the music. But the other boys are cruel. They say things …”
“Why do you not stop, then?”
“Canon Langworth makes me, in return for my lessons. Otherwise mother could not pay for them.”
He turned into another street and motioned to a handsome red-brick house of three storeys. I looked up at the diamond-leaded windows. Perhaps there would be answers here.
Matthias pulled on the bell rope and eventually a maidservant opened the large front door and ushered us into a high entrance hall tiled in black and white squares. A wide staircase swept upwards and the boy gestured to me to follow him up. The maid watched us from below, silent and unsmiling.
“The alderman and his family have the first two floors and we have the apartments on the top,” Matthias explained, as we ascended another floor. On the top landing, he pushed open a door and I stepped behind him into a pleasantly furnished parlour, not large but tastefully decorated. I could see at a glance that the carpets, tapestries, and cushions were of good quality, though old and faded. He was barely inside the room when the widow appeared like a fury, her dark hair unbound and swinging loosely about her shoulders as she lifted a hand as if to strike the boy.
“Where in Christ’s name have you been? What possessed you? Did you not think I would be sick with worry? And with Doctor Sykes coming out to see you this morning too! Oh, dear God, what has happened to your face?”
She seized the boy and clasped him violently to her chest, her arms wrapped around his head as if to prevent him ever leaving again, her cheeks flushed with rage and relief. It was at that moment that she looked up and saw me, still standing in the doorway.
“What have you done to my son?”
“Signora, I have only escorted him home to keep him from unwanted attention.”
“Why have you brought me bread? Do you think I need charity from foreigners?”
I glanced down at the two loaves in my arms. It seemed easier not to explain.
“Everyone likes fresh bread,” I said, and shrugged.
Her frown softened a little, as if she could not find an argument against this, though her eyes remained guarded. She relaxed her grip on her son, who took the opportunity to wriggle free.
“What happened to your face?” she demanded.
“Some boys knocked me down and took my purse.” He hung his head. “I was watching the jongleurs in the market. I am sorry.”
“
“Filippo chased them and got the purse back. No one else would help.”
His mother clicked her tongue.
“Of course they wouldn’t. You know what people are in this town, Matthias. Let that be a lesson to you to stay away from them, as you have been told. Now go and draw some water and clean your face.”
She turned to me, clasping her hands in front of her. She wore a simple black linen gown that accentuated her slender figure and made her skin look pale as porcelain. Though she was of my own age, perhaps a little older, her face was almost unlined and her eyes the blue of Delft china. If I had not been so caught up in Sophia, I might have looked at her with more interest; even so, I could appreciate that she was beautiful and her aloofness added to her appeal. Little wonder the goodwives liked to make her an object of malicious talk. The blue eyes flickered over my face with an appraising look. “Filippo, is it? Well, you are quite the Good Samaritan, are you not? The outcast foreigner who still finds time to help those less fortunate.”
I shrugged again. “I am not one of those who would stand by and watch a child robbed, if that’s what you mean.”
A muscle twitched in her jaw.
“Then you are a rarity in this town.” For a moment she looked as if she would like to spit on the floor. “This is why he is not allowed to go roaming about as he pleases.” She glanced towards the door where the boy had gone out. “He thinks me harsh, but it is only to protect him.”
“Boys his age seem to need protecting in this town,” I ventured.
“What do you mean?”
“One found dead, one missing in the last year. It is the worse for them that their mothers were not able to protect them.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“This has nothing to do with us.”
“Of course not. And you would do anything to protect your son, I imagine. Anything necessary.”
“As any good mother would.”
“And any good father? Would a good father want what was best for his son?”
“My husband died when Matthias was an infant,” she said quietly, through clenched teeth. “I think it is time you left my house, sir.”
“Mistress Gray.” I shifted the bread in my arms. “If I told you your son was in danger, would you stay to listen?”
“Why should I listen to you? A stranger? A man who has not been in the town two days when he is accused of murder?” But there was a hesitation in her voice.
I acknowledged the truth of this with a nod.
“Accused by Ezekiel Sykes. You know Doctor Sykes?”
“Of course—he is my physician, and my son’s. In fact he was supposed to be coming to see my son this morning. He is late, but I expect him any moment.”
“Ah, of course. The boy’s weak chest. Well, then, you must trust Doctor Sykes implicitly. I will say no more.” I moved towards the door and paused with my hand on the latch. If Sykes genuinely was expected I would do well to be gone before he arrived. God alone knew what else he might try to accuse me of if he was given opportunity.
“Wait.”
I turned to see her closing the door to the corridor where the boy had gone out so that he should not hear. She did not invite me to sit down.
“I will hear you, but briefly. What is it that you think you know?”
“Mistress Gray,” I began, and she waved a hand.
“Alys. My name is Alys.”
“And mine, as you know, is Filippo.”
“Is it?”
