Sacrilege

‘And one of the most lucrative. The monks of the former priory raked in a fortune from pilgrims through their trade in relics and indulgences, and the rest of the city profited greatly from the vast numbers of the faithful – hostelries, cobblers, farriers, every industry that serves those who travel long distances.’ He set his mouth in a grim line. ‘There are a great many in that city who have seen their incomes dwindle and their family’s fortunes fall since the shrine was destroyed.’

‘So there are plenty who hanker after the old faith, I imagine?’

‘Exactly. Remember, the shrine was only destroyed in 1538. Forty-six years is not long for a city to forget or forgive such a loss of status. There are plenty still living who carry bitter memories of what the Royal Commissioners did to the abbey and the shrine, and hand that resentment down to their children and grandchildren.’

‘Who watch and wait, clinging to the belief that one day soon England will have a Catholic sovereign again, and the shrine of Canterbury will be restored to its former glory,’ Sidney cut in.

‘Except that lately we fear they have been doing more than merely watching and waiting,’ Walsingham added.

‘But the Archbishop of Canterbury is the most senior prelate of the English Church,’ I said. ‘Surely he is extra careful about religious obedience in his own See?’

‘The Archbishop is never there,’ Walsingham replied. ‘He is too busy politicking in London. The Dean and the canons have de facto power in the city, and one never knows how many of them may hold secret loyalties in their hearts.’

‘One in particular,’ Sidney added darkly.

‘Who has connections to some of those involved in the conspiracy against the Queen last autumn.’ Walsingham looked at me. ‘Including your friend Lord Henry Howard.’

I recalled Sophia saying that her late husband had been a lay canon at the cathedral. If there were plots brewing there, might he have known something of them, given his penchant for secrecy?

‘Then there is the cult of the saint,’ Walsingham added, lowering his voice as if to begin a ghost tale. ‘Do you know the story of Thomas Becket, Bruno?’

‘Of course – we had shrines to him even in Italy. The former archbishop who was murdered in the cathedral.’

Walsingham nodded. ‘He was a great friend of the King – Henry II, this is – who thought he could use Becket to promote his own interests against the Church. But Becket refused the King’s demands. In 1170 their quarrel came to a head.’

‘“Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”’ Sidney declared, with relish. ‘So the King said, according to the legend, and four of his knights chose to take that as a direct command.’

‘They murdered him as he knelt at prayer, if I remember right?’ I said.

‘Struck him down with their swords.’ Sidney’s eyes gleamed; he had not lost his schoolboy fascination for the details of violent death. ‘Cut off the crown of his head, so his brains spilled all over the stone floor.’

‘The King was stricken with remorse, of course,’ Walsingham continued, but I was staring open-mouthed at Sidney.

‘What did you say?’

He looked surprised.

‘They struck him down with a sword.’

‘After that. His brains.’

He made a ghoulish face. ‘An eyewitness account said the knights trod the whites of his brains across the flagstones, all churned up with his blood. Sorry to upset you, Bruno – I forget you have never been to war.’ He meant it as a joke, but his smile faded when he saw that I was not laughing with him. Sophia’s description of her husband’s murder had echoed dimly in my memory, but now it was clear; I had been thinking of the death of Thomas Becket. To cut a man down in the precincts of Canterbury Cathedral in the same manner as its most famous murder victim seemed a grim coincidence. But did it signify any more than that?

‘Are you all right, Bruno?’ Walsingham asked, leaning closer, his sharp eyes missing nothing.

‘Yes, your honour.’ I quickly composed my expression. ‘I was remembering the story.’

He looked at me shrewdly for a moment, then continued:

‘Becket’s body was buried under the floor of the crypt, for fear it would be stolen. Before long, the tales of miracles began and grew in the telling, as martyrs’ legends will, and the monks realised they were sitting on a pot of gold. If they could keep inventing stories of miraculous healing by the power of Saint Thomas’s body, the penitent would keep bringing their offerings.’

‘Until the tomb was destroyed,’ I said, almost in a whisper.

‘Well, that, of course, is the great question.’ Walsingham folded his arms and looked at me expectantly.

‘It was not destroyed?’ I turned to him, confused.

‘The shrine was smashed, certainly, and all its gold plate and jewels taken for the royal treasury,’ he said.

‘And the bones in the tomb were scattered on the ground with every last fragment crushed to dust,’ Sidney added.

‘Then what is the question?’ I asked, looking from one to the other.

‘Whose bones were they?’ Walsingham smiled as he watched my widening eyes.

‘Ah. So the body in the tomb was a substitute?’

‘No one knows for certain. But the legend persists that in 1538 some among the priory monks, knowing the sword was about to fall on the cathedral shrine, hid the real body of Becket to save it from destruction. Since then, custody of his bones has passed down to a small number of guardians, who are preserving it in secret until the great Catholic reconquest that many would like to believe is inevitable, when the shrine can be rebuilt. You understand?’

I nodded slowly.

‘If people believe the holy relics of Becket are still safe, they have a focus for their resistance.’

‘Precisely. The bones of Saint Thomas are said to have miraculous powers. Some claim they have even raised the dead. For those who believe, they can certainly raise the city of Canterbury back to prosperity again.’

‘But you have no idea where the body might be hidden?’

‘We have no idea if the story is even true,’ Walsingham replied, a little curtly, as if I had cast aspersions on his efficiency. ‘But the fact that it exists at all is a problem. Someone with enough cunning could wave around the thigh-bone of an ox, claiming it was Becket’s, and there are plenty who would flock to it if it promised them prosperity and salvation.’

‘And is there a suggestion that this could happen?’

‘There are always rumours,’ he said, with a dismissive wave. ‘Most of my work is sifting through rumour and speculation, hoping to chance upon a grain of truth like a gem in a dungheap. You have seen for yourself how the English love their superstitions and prophecies.’ He gave a quiet snort and resumed his pacing. ‘And Canterbury is significant, in that it is close to the Kent coast. If the city was sympathetic, it could be of great assistance to a Catholic invading force. I have a man there inside the cathedral Chapter, Harry Robinson, who keeps an eye on those we suspect of disloyalty and reports back to me.’

‘But Harry grows old now, Sir Francis, and his eyes and ears are not what they were,’ Sidney persevered. ‘And there are many places he cannot tread, given his position.’ He made his voice persuasive, but Walsingham looked unmoved.

‘This is not a good time to be a foreigner in England, Philip. The poor harvest, the threat of plague – and now there will be more refugees arriving from the Netherlands if the Spanish come down harder on them. Her Majesty would not countenance closing our ports to Protestants fleeing persecution, though there are those on the Privy Council who would argue for it. But the feeling among the common people is that there are just too many incomers now, taking bread and work from Englishmen. Resentment stews until it erupts in violence. Saving your presence, Bruno. But you would be a good deal safer if you stay at Salisbury Court.’

‘Not if the plague comes,’ Sidney argued, with a note of triumph. ‘Besides, you cannot rely on Harry to tell you the truth about the money.’

‘What money?’ I looked at Walsingham.

He sighed. ‘Do you know how much the cathedral foundations of England are worth, Bruno?’ I shook my head. ‘More than thirty-five thousand pounds, put together,’ he continued. ‘And what are they? For the most part, that money does nothing but support small communities of learned men to live in fine houses debating theology among themselves over a good dinner. While the poor parishes all around are served by barely literate priests, and superstition and popery are allowed to flourish. England’s cathedrals have become no better than the monasteries they replaced. With sufficient evidence of mis-spending, it would be quite admissible to close some of them down.’

‘My father-in-law wants to do for the cathedrals what Lord Cromwell in the Queen’s father’s time did for the religious houses,’ Sidney said, with a mischievous glance at Walsingham. ‘To pay for the Dutch war.’

Walsingham looked exasperated, and seemed about to reprimand him when we heard a sharp knock at the door.

‘Yes?’ Walsingham snapped, and his steward put his head apologetically through the smallest possible gap.

‘There is a gentleman at the door says he must see you, sir.’

‘What gentleman?’

‘He will not give his name, but he says you will want to hear his message.’

I was touched to see how Sidney rose instantly, his hand reaching instinctively to his left side, where he would carry his sword if he were more formally dressed.

‘Should I come?’

‘He has been searched, Sir Philip, and he is not armed,’ the steward assured him.

Walsingham laughed then, and I read affection in the way he looked at his son-in-law. ‘Peace, Philip. I have survived this long without you guarding my every step. Besides, there are armed men at the gate.’

It was true; given the number of Catholics who would like to run the Queen’s Principal Secretary through with a dagger, Walsingham’s house was as well guarded as if he were a royal heir.

‘Don’t go anywhere,’ he said, with a warning finger directed between us, ‘while I see whether this messenger brings a gem, or more dung.’

As soon as the door had shut, Sidney turned to me and grinned broadly, stretching his legs out on the window seat and clasping his hands behind his head again. ‘He will let you go, fear not. He only objects to remind you who is in charge, and because he hates the idea of changing plans without due consideration.’

‘Well, I thank you for your efforts on my behalf,’ I said, loosening my collar and flapping the material of my shirt to create a semblance of a breeze. ‘Anyone would think you wanted rid of me,’ I added, returning his smile. I was curious as to why he would run the risk of displeasing Walsingham in order that I should have my own way.

‘Listen, Bruno …’ He yawned, stretched his long limbs, and fixed me with an earnest look. ‘It would do you good to get out of London. God knows, I feel the need for it myself. But you have been confined to the embassy for a year, spending all your time with that book of yours. I don’t like to see you brooding so much.’

‘I prefer to call it “thinking”,’ I said. ‘I am a philosopher, after all.’

‘Call it what you will, I think you could do with a bit of adventure in every sense. You need to live a little.’ He gave a crude thrust of his hips and winked.

‘I had my share of adventure during my first six months in England. I cheated death more than once. Besides,’ I added, ‘I am not the one idling around the house growing fat while my wife embroiders my shirts.’

He jumped to his feet and I thought he would feign a punch in my direction, but instead he looked down at himself in alarm, both hands laid flat across his stomach.

‘Oh, God, you speak the truth, Bruno. I am grown soft.’ He appeared so stricken that I had to smile.

‘I was only baiting you. But you are happy?’

He glanced at the door, then gave a half-shrug. ‘I have an eighteen-year-old wife and my debts are settled. What man would not be happy?’ But there was an edge to his voice that I could not miss.

‘And yet you want to go to war?’

‘And yet, yes, it seems I have this inexplicable longing to torment the Spanish. I just want to be doing something, Bruno, you understand?’ He clenched and unclenched his fists and after a moment’s silence produced a tight laugh. ‘But I had better not go to war until I have got myself an heir, had I? Just in case. And there seems no sign of that, despite my best efforts. Anyway,’ he sat down again, patted his belly and forced a lightness into his tone, ‘we were not talking about me. You should get yourself a woman, Bruno, you spend too much time alone. I see how your face changes when you talk about the Rector’s daughter – no, don’t deny it. She matters to you. You’ve saved her life once already, at the risk of your own.’

‘Then I abandoned her to a fate she didn’t deserve.’

‘Well then, don’t make the same mistake twice,’ he said, matter-of-factly. ‘I will work on Walsingham. But be prepared to find yourself hunting for the corpse of a dead saint as well as a murderer.’

‘Since I seem to have a knack of stumbling over corpses wherever I turn, perhaps I am the man for the job,’ I said. But again the similarity between Sophia’s words and Sidney’s pricked at my thoughts, and I pictured the dead man’s brains spilling out of his shattered skull across the worn flagstones.

I hoped Sidney’s optimism was well founded. Their story about the secret cult of Saint Thomas had piqued my interest in the city of Canterbury yet further, but above all I wanted to visit Sophia at the tavern that evening with good news, to see the colour in her face and hope in her eyes. Two impossible tasks – to find a dead saint and a living murderer – but, as Sidney said, it was better than sitting idle, waiting for fate to unfold its design around you.

CANTERBURY

FOUR

The road out of London towards Kent, known as Watling Street, was still busy with traders and drovers, though the traffic of pilgrims had long since stopped. We set out early, but weeks without rain had baked the unpaved track hard as stone and before we had even reached Southwark my eyes and throat were stinging from the clouds of dust flung up by hooves and cartwheels. Every traveller we passed wore a cloth tied around his or her mouth and nose, and I resolved to buy something similar in whichever town we came to next.

Sophia rode beside me, the peak of her cap pulled low over her face. She had barely spoken since we set out and, though I could see little of her expression, the tense line of her jaw betrayed her anxiety at the journey we were now undertaking. Perhaps, after pinning so much hope on its outcome, she had finally begun to appreciate the grave danger she would face when she rode back through the gates of the city that wanted her arrested for murder. Now and again she would clear her throat and I would turn expectantly, waiting for her to speak, but she would only smile wearily and indicate the dust.

I had hired two strong horses at considerable expense, paid for partly out of the purse Walsingham had sent to cover my stay in Canterbury. Eventually he had relented, according to the messenger who had been waiting for me in the street outside the embassy with an encrypted letter two days after my visit to Barn Elms. In it Walsingham had included a fully stamped travel licence, without which I would risk arrest for vagrancy, and instructions that I was not to travel under my own name, nor was I to reveal it under any circumstances to anyone in Canterbury except Harry Robinson.

My host, the French Ambassador, had been reluctant to let me go, but he acknowledged that he had no power to forbid me from travelling, since I did so (he believed) at his sovereign’s expense. He bade me farewell with genuine affection and regret in the midst of his own arrangements for moving the embassy household to the countryside, and I felt a pang of sadness at leaving, though it was outweighed by the delight on Sophia’s face as she flung her arms around my neck when I told her the news.

Now she was riding at my side as the sun climbed higher into a sky of untouched blue and the road stretched out before us, and I could not suppress a swelling sense of anticipation. Sophia’s future depended on the outcome of this journey; if I could clear her of the charges of murder, I could also clear my own conscience of the guilt that had hung heavy on any thought of her since the events in Oxford. Freed of these burdens, might we not begin again, as if on a fresh page?

There was also the prospect, after almost a year spent at a desk buried in books and astronomical charts, of proving my worth again to Walsingham and the Queen. The goodwill of princes was fickle, as every courtier knew, and an ambassador could be recalled or expelled at a moment’s notice. I was certain that my own best prospects, if I wanted to go on writing my books without fear of the Inquisition, lay at the court of England, not France, but to ensure myself a future there I needed Walsingham to value me for my own skills and not merely for my useful connection to the French embassy.

Sophia’s horse gave an impatient little whinny and tossed its mane, making her start in the saddle. I turned, but she recovered her poise and purposefully ignored my expression of concern, her eyes fixed on the road. She rode competently enough, though she looked uncomfortable astride the horse, her long legs pressed tightly against its sides. I tried not to dwell on this thought. She was unused to riding like a man, I supposed, and the stiffness of her posture in the saddle could give her away. One more small trap to avoid, if her boy’s disguise were to hold up. I concentrated my gaze again on the tips of my horse’s ears. There would be danger in this for both of us; I was not so caught up in dreams of adventure as to pretend otherwise. If Sophia was recognised within the city walls of Canterbury, she would be arrested to await trial for her husband’s murder, and if my search for the evidence to vindicate her did not succeed before the assizes, she would face certain execution. There were other dangers too; if the real killer was still in the city and thought he had escaped blame, he would not thank a stranger for asking awkward questions. Anyone who could strike a man down with such force that his brains spilled over the ground would surely not hesitate to dispatch those who seemed overly curious. And as for the legend of Becket’s corpse, I could not help but remember that my last attempt to infiltrate the underground Catholic resistance had very nearly ended fatally.

The one consolation was that no one knew me in Canterbury; I was free to present myself in any guise I chose. At my belt I wore a purse of money, with another inside my riding boots and another wrapped in linen shirts in the panniers slung over my saddle. Across my back I carried a leather satchel containing my travel licence and a letter sealed in thick crimson wax with Sidney’s coat of arms, recommending me as a visiting scholar to his former tutor, the Reverend Doctor Harry Robinson, and requesting that he make me welcome during my stay in Canterbury. The letter was a cover, naturally, in case I needed to explain myself to any inquisitive authorities along the road. Robinson had never been Sidney’s tutor, though he was apparently acquainted with the family of Sidney’s mother, but the Sidney coat of arms ought to be sufficient protection against the bullying of petty officials. So that I might travel anonymously if I should be searched, Walsingham had sent a fast rider ahead to Harry Robinson two days earlier with an encrypted letter explaining who I was and the true nature of my business in Canterbury, and requesting Doctor Robinson to assist me for Walsingham’s sake as best he could.

What I was to do with Sophia was another matter, I thought, glancing over at her as she rode, head bowed, teeth gritted. I had omitted to mention to either Walsingham or Sidney that I was planning to take her to Canterbury with me – I already knew all the arguments they would make against such folly. My belt held a sheath for the bone-handled knife that had saved my life more than once, and which a more superstitious man might have been tempted to regard as a good-luck charm.

The low, whitewashed taverns and brothels of Southwark, London’s most lawless borough, ended abruptly and beyond them the horizon opened up into a wide vista of drained marshland converted to fields now parched yellow, the Kent road threading through the bleached landscape, lost in the shimmering distance. As soon as we left the narrow streets behind, the fetid smells of the city receded, to be replaced by the ripe scents of baking earth and warm grass. Despite the dust, I inhaled deeply, tasting for the first time in weeks air that was not thick with the stench of rot and sewage. Swallows looped patterns in the empty sky. Out here, the birdsong was loud and insistent, with a joyful lilt in its cadences, so different from the shrilling of gulls that I had grown used to, living so near the river. Along the way we passed travellers heading in the same direction, many with mules or carts piled with what looked like domestic possessions, and children precariously balanced on top – families fleeing the threat of plague.

‘Where will they go?’ Sophia wondered, as we passed one straggling group with a small donkey-cart and several barefoot children who stared up at us with watchful expressions. One of the older children held a baby in its lap, and I saw Sophia’s eyes latch on to it. She spoke so quietly she might almost have been talking to herself.

‘To relatives, I suppose.’

‘What if their relatives will not take them in? Coming from a plague city?’

I shrugged. ‘Then they will have no choice but to return to London, I imagine.’

‘To the plague,’ she whispered, barely audible. She appeared stricken; I watched her for a moment as she turned back to take a last look at the child and the baby. She has a new understanding of what it means to be a refugee, I thought, a raw sympathy with the desperate, those who must throw themselves on the mercy of others. I remembered my own early days as a fugitive on the road to Rome and then north through Italy; how quickly I was exposed to the best and worst of human nature at close quarters. I was taught to survive by bitter experience, but I learned more about compassion in those months than I ever did in thirteen years of prayer and study as a Dominican monk.

‘No one has yet seen any sign of plague,’ I reminded her.

Sophia turned to me with a distant smile, as if seeing me properly for the first time since we had set out.

‘So you would not believe there is plague in London until you see a man fall dead of it at your feet, is that it?’

‘I would ask for some proof beyond marketplace rumour, if that’s what you mean.’

‘And yet you will believe that the Earth goes around the Sun, and that the fixed stars are not fixed, and the universe is infinite, full of other worlds, all with their own suns? Where is your proof for that?’

‘There are calculations based on measurements of the stars –’ I began, until I noticed the smile of amusement playing at the corners of her lips. Her chin jutted defiantly. ‘Very well, you are right – I have no firm proof that there are other worlds. The question is, rather, why should we assume there are not? Is it not arrogance to think we are the only creatures in the cosmos who know how to look up at the night sky and consider our place in it?’

‘The holy scriptures say nothing about any distant worlds.’

‘The holy scriptures were written by men. If there are people who inhabit other worlds out there –’ I gestured with one hand – ‘it is reasonable to suppose they would have their own writings, no? Perhaps their books have no mention of us.’

She smiled, shading her eyes with one hand as she turned to look at me.

‘Have you put all this in your book for the Queen?’

‘Not all, no.’