Sacrilege

The manservant, Samuel, held the door for me, unsmiling, a chill of dislike emanating from him as I crossed the threshold. I wondered why his immediate response had been to lie about his master’s absence. Whatever his reason, he made no apology, nor did he seem at all sheepish at being exposed in a falsehood. He merely closed the door and trod silently behind me as I followed Harry Robinson into an untidy front parlour, airless and choked with the day’s accumulated heat.

Harry waved me to one of the two high-backed chairs by the empty hearth. Against the far wall stood an ancient wooden buffet and under the small window a table was covered with books and papers, more books piled high on the floor to either side. Through the leaded glass, sunlight still painted the façade of the cathedral gold, though the room was all sunk in shade and I blinked as my eyes adjusted. The old man’s shock of hair and bright eyes stood out against the gloom as he settled himself into the chair opposite me with difficulty, narrating the business with little grunts and huffs of discomfort as he tried to ease his stiff leg into position. When he seemed satisfied, he peered closer, reading my face, and nodded as if to seal his silent judgement.

‘So Walsingham has sent you to see if I am still up to the job?’

‘Not at all – that is, I …’ I faltered and saw a smile hovering at the corners of his mouth. He had wrong-footed me with the bluntness of his question, not only because it had not occurred to me that he might regard my presence in this light, but also because the servant Samuel had entered the room at the same moment and could not have avoided overhearing. Flustered, I glanced up at him as he set a pitcher down on the buffet and poured two cups of beer, smiling to himself.

Harry Robinson barked out a dry laugh.

‘Don’t mind Samuel – he knows all my business, and he knows who you are,’ he said. ‘Who else would carry my correspondence to London? There’s no talk hidden from him in this house. I’d trust him with my life.’

Samuel shot me a fleeting glance, ripe with self-satisfaction. I felt I would not trust him to hold my coat, but I nodded politely.

‘Doctor Robinson, my visit here has nothing to do with your own work, which I am certain –’

‘Don’t condescend to me, son. And call me Harry.’ He shifted his weight laboriously from one side of the chair to the other, rubbing his stiff leg. ‘If Her Majesty’s Principal Secretary is sending men from London to look into the murder of a provincial magistrate, it is only because he believes there is some matter here of wider significance to the realm, and that I cannot be relied upon to discover it without help. Not so?’

‘It is more that –’

‘But I question where he has this intelligence,’ he continued, regardless. ‘I had mentioned the unfortunate death of Sir Edward Kingsley in my most recent letter – I thought it of interest because he associated with those among the cathedral Chapter strongly suspected of disloyalty to the English Church – but that letter cannot have reached London yet, can it, Samuel?’

‘No, sir,’ Samuel replied, handing each of us a cup with his eyes demurely lowered. He retreated as far as the window, where he stood with his hands clasped behind his back, apparently surveying the cathedral close. I wished he would leave the room, but he clearly felt entitled to eavesdrop on the conversation and Harry seemed content to behave as if his servant were merely a part of the furnishings.

‘So whose suspicions brought you here, Doctor Giordano Bruno, I ask myself?’ Harry leaned forward on his stick and fixed me with those stern eyes. I cleared my throat, glanced at Samuel’s unmoving back, and pulled my chair a little closer.

‘I have a personal interest, you might say.’ I hesitated, before lowering my voice even further. ‘I knew his wife.’

Harry took a moment to absorb this, then he sat back and nodded. He seemed pleased by this idea.

‘Well, well. So she escaped to London, did she? Canny of her – the gossipmongers here had her on a boat to France. We are not far from the Kentish ports, you see, and there is a good deal of trade with Europe. Easy for a fugitive to get out.’

‘And secret priests to get in, so I hear,’ I said.

‘Very true. They apprehended a pair of them last month at Dover.’ He tilted his head to one side, studying me. ‘So you are here for the wife’s sake? Gallant of you, Doctor Bruno. You are probably the only person in this entire county who cares to find out whether she is innocent. If she’s caught, she’ll burn, and I doubt it would spoil the crowd’s enjoyment a jot if she hadn’t done it. They like a crime of passion, especially where there’s a spirited young woman involved. If she’s gone to London, she had better stay well hidden. Of course, I never thought it was her.’

‘Why not?’

He rubbed his chin.

‘I saw the corpse when they found him. Not the work of a woman. Apart from the gore, a woman wouldn’t have the strength to wield a weapon like that. Besides, if a wife wanted to kill her husband, as plenty do, surely she’d look for an opportunity closer to home? Poison his supper or some such? That’s a woman’s way.’ He shook his head.

‘Who do you think killed him, then?’

‘Ah, Doctor Bruno, I have not the evidence even to hazard a guess. That is your task, is it not? I will help you as much as I can with information on our late magistrate and his associates, but you will need to tread carefully. The friends of Sir Edward Kingsley have powerful interests in this town and they may not appreciate a stranger poking too closely into their business. Foreigners are not much liked here, I’m sorry to say, for all that this city had its greatest prosperity from visitors.’

I watched him for a moment as I took a drink of small beer, grateful for the sensation of liquid in my dusty throat.

‘You mentioned Sir Edward was involved with papists?’

Harry laughed again, an abrupt bark.

‘Papists. You make it all sound so black and white. Walsingham said in his letter you once professed the Roman faith yourself.’

I bowed my head in acknowledgement. ‘I was in the order of Saint Dominic.’

‘And why?’ He pointed a finger at me.

‘Why did I enter a monastery?’ I looked at him, surprised; it was rare that anyone asked me this. ‘Simple – my family was not rich. It was the only way for me to study.’

‘Precisely.’ He sat back. ‘So you understand that what we call faith may spring from many motives, not all of them purely pious. Particularly in Canterbury.’ He paused to take a draught from his cup. ‘There are many in this city whose loyalty to the English Church is only skin-deep, and not even that, sometimes – a few of them within the Chapter itself. But if they are nostalgic for the old religion, it is less from love of Rome than from attachment to their own Saint Thomas and the glory he brought.’

‘So I understand. The Queen’s father tried to wipe out the Saint’s cult completely,’ I mused, remembering suddenly a Book of Hours I had seen in Oxford, the prayer to Saint Thomas and the accompanying illumination scraped from the parchment with a stone.

‘Folly,’ Harry pronounced, shaking his head. ‘They say that before the Dissolution there were more chapels, chantries and altars in this land dedicated to Thomas Becket than any other saint in history. You can’t erase that from people’s minds, especially not in his home town, not even by smashing the shrine. You just drive it into the shadows.’

‘Not even by destroying the body?’

He regarded me shrewdly and smiled.

‘You’ve heard the legend of Becket’s bones, then?’

‘Is it true?’

‘Quite probably.’ He emptied his cup, bent awkwardly to set it on the floor, and leaned forward, one hand on his stick. ‘Yes, I’d say it’s very likely the body they pulverised and scattered to the wind was not old Thomas. Those priory monks were no fools, and they knew the destruction was coming. But in a sense the literal truth of it doesn’t matter, you see? If enough people in Canterbury believed that Saint Thomas was still among them, it might put fire in their bellies.’

‘And do they believe it?’

He made a non-committal gesture with his head.

‘Everyone knows the legend. I dare say many of them believe it in an abstract sense. What they really need, though, is a sign. That would rouse them.’

‘A miracle, you mean?’

‘The cult of Thomas began with a miracle – here, in this cathedral, less than a week after he was murdered – and it could be revived by one too. Imagine the effect among so many disaffected souls. Like throwing a tinder-box into a pile of dry kindling. And Kent is a dangerous place to risk an uprising, as Walsingham knows all too well. Last time Kentish men rebelled they marched on London, captured the Tower and beheaded the Archbishop of Canterbury and the royal Treasurer.’

‘Really?’ I stared at him, wide-eyed. ‘I had not heard – when was this?’

Harry laughed.

‘Two hundred years ago. But Kentish men are still made of the same stuff. And the coast here is so convenient for any forces coming out of France – it’s not a place they want to risk a popular rebellion against the Crown. The Queen needs to keep Canterbury loyal.’

He fell silent and stared into the fireplace while my thoughts scrambled to catch up.

‘Do you believe in miracles?’ I asked, after a few moments.

He looked up from his reflections, his eyes bright.

‘Do I believe that Our Lord can perform wonders to show His might to men, if He chooses? Yes, of course. But He chooses very rarely, in my view. If you ask, do I believe that a four-hundred-year-old shard of rotting skull can heal the sick, then I would have to say no.’ He shifted position again, rubbing at his leg. ‘When I was six years old, in 1528, there was a terrible outbreak of the sweating sickness in England. My parents and my five brothers and sisters all died, I did not even take ill. Was that a miracle?’