She raised a carefully plucked eyebrow and for a long moment we looked at each other as sunlight streamed through the casement behind her, lighting the dust on the floorboards and making it sparkle. The tension in the room crackled like the air before last night’s storm; neither of us, it seemed, was willing to venture a confidence first, in case it was a trap. Yet I sensed that she wanted to trust me; what I had said about her son being in danger must have chimed with some intuitive misgiving on her part, or she would have thrown me out instantly.
“Why—have you heard otherwise?”
She made a slight movement with her head. “People talk, in a town like this.”
“I thought they didn’t talk to you. Or do you mean different people? Your friends at the cathedral, perhaps? Canon Langworth seems to take a great interest in your son’s education. Does he speak about me?”
She hesitated, glanced to the window.
“He said you were dangerous. That you live by dissembling.”
“As we all do. The canon treasurer included. As you yourself do, signora, unless I am mistaken. Where is he buried, by the way?”
“Who?” She sat upright.
“Master Gray, of course. Your late husband.”
“Oh. Cambridgeshire. With his people.” But the hesitation had been too noticeable, and she knew it. Our eyes met and held again; which of us would drop our guard first, I wondered.
“Tell me of this danger to my son, whatever you call yourself, and then leave my house, please.” She kept her voice level, but it was she who looked away first. I crossed the room to the window and stood for a moment looking out. I laid the bread on the window seat, glad to put it down.
“Sir Edward Kingsley left you some money in his will, did he not?”
Her face tightened and to give herself a distraction she gathered the length of her hair between her hands and pulled it into a twist over her shoulder so she could examine the ends.
“So Nicholas Kingsley has been shouting that to all comers as if he were the town crier, has he? Yes, his father left me a small sum and, such as it is, I cannot even claim it because the will is all up in the air until they find out who killed him. But it is not for the reason you think,” she added, with a stern look.
“And what is it that I think?”
“You will assume I was his mistress.”
“Oh, no, not at all. I had assumed you were John Langworth’s mistress.”
I waited for the sharp put-down, but it never came. Instead she lowered her eyes, and her silence was eloquent.
“So the question,” I continued, “is why Edward Kingsley was giving you money. My guess is that it was for some other service rendered, or promised. Am I close?”
She raised her head and answered with a defiant stare. I had placed myself to my advantage; to look at me she had to squint into the sunlight behind me.
“Some service involving your son.” When she still didn’t answer, I decided to venture all. “A service not to him personally, but to the Church. A service to God. Was that how they sold it to you?”
“Why should I tell you any of my business?” she said, but the fight had gone out of her voice and I knew my guess had struck home. I took the few steps across the room to stand close to her, so that I could drop my voice easily to make sure the boy did not hear.
“Because those other boys who died, Alys—they died in preparation for this service that your son is to perform. They died because the men you are trusting with your son’s life don’t know what they are doing. Did they tell you what would be required of him?”
She shook her head and her fingers fluttered to the gold medallion she wore around her neck.
“Only that it would be to the glory of God and the”—she faltered—“the Church.”
“By the Church they do not mean what the queen of England or the Archbishop of Canterbury mean by the same word, do they?”
“You would have to ask them that question,” she flashed back, quick as blinking. “Tell me about these boys.” She lowered her voice and her eyes flickered to the door she had just closed, in case her son should hear. “What happened to them? How did they die?”
“They were poisoned. One was a beggar child, the other a French boy they must have persuaded to go with them somehow. They died in the course of experimenting with a poison and its antidote. The poison would make the victim appear dead. The antidote, given some time later, was supposed to revive him. If it was successful, it would appear as if—”
“As if he had been brought back from the dead,” she breathed. She looked up at me, her eyes bright with fear and wonder. “And they were of my boy’s age, you say?”
“I am not an apothecary, but I understand the quantities of both substances would depend on the weight and age of the person taking them. They had to test whether their idea worked before they tried it out on a public stage, with their principal actor.” My gaze wandered to the door, where I suspected Matthias would be trying to listen.
“But it didn’t work.”
“No. There was no miracle for those boys.” I allowed a pause, while she pressed a sleeve to her mouth and cast about, as if unable to decide whether or not to sit. “Still—I’m sure they will do nothing without first practising on other children. They seem to have a knack of finding them.”
“Oh, Jesus, no.” She drew breath. “They talked of a miracle. By the power of Saint Thomas, to restore the true Church. They said no harm would come to him, and after, my boy’s name would be written in the history books, when England was brought back to God.” She pulled again at her hair. “And then he said if I did not agree, I would have no more money.”
“He? You mean Langworth?”
I took the bitter expression that passed across her face as answer. She cupped her hand over her mouth for a moment, as if afraid too many words might spill out uncensored, then she clasped me by the wrist and led me to the window seat, where she pushed the bread aside and gestured to me to sit beside her. When she spoke, it was almost soundless, so that I had to lean in and watch the shape of her mouth, as the deaf do.
“You are right to say that I dissemble. This”—she plucked at her widow’s clothes—“is a costume I have been obliged to wear these past twelve years, for a shred of respectability.” She sighed. “I was the youngest daughter of a county gentleman in Cambridgeshire with more family pride than income, who threw me out when I got with child. I tried to support us with sewing and little jobs but in the end I was forced to go to the cathedral in Ely and beg for alms. John Langworth was a canon there. He took a liking to me. I curse the day I ever knocked on that door, but what’s done is done.” She shrugged, as if the rest were obvious.
“He made you his mistress?”
“He paid for the boy’s education and a roof over our heads. Many are not so lucky. And he wouldn’t be the first churchman to keep a woman.”
“That much is certain. But he is not the boy’s father?”
“No. The man who sired Matthias is long gone. But since Langworth has paid for his upbringing, I suppose he has a claim to be something like a father. He brought us here with him when he was appointed canon six years ago.”
That at least explained how Langworth could feel entitled to make use of the boy without any of the compunction a father might feel about gambling with his son’s life.
“I have posed as a widow since my son was born,” she continued. “Gray is not even my real name, though Alys is.” She gave a little sad laugh, then looked up sharply, her face suddenly serious. “What can I do? I had no idea Matthias’s life was in danger, and if more children might die …” She bit at the skin around her fingers and I realised that beneath the cool poise I had admired from a distance lay a welter of fear and confusion, a life lived under the threat of destitution, at the mercy of someone else’s demands. She knew too well what it meant to live by dissembling.
“Testify for me,” I whispered. “Tell the queen’s justice what you were asked to do.”
“At the assizes? In a public courtroom?”
“No. A written deposition. One you will swear by.”
She shook her head.
“My word against Langworth, Sykes, and Mayor Fitzwalter?” She snorted. “I would succeed only in stirring up
