Читать книгу Sacrilege - S. J. Parris - Страница 8

We walked side by side down Long Lane towards Smithfield Market. She said nothing, her boy’s cap pulled low over her eyes once more, and I did not press her. She seemed so dramatically altered since I had last seen her, waving goodbye to me from an upstairs window in her father’s lodgings, that I could only guess at the circumstances that might have brought her to London in such a state. But I knew that bombarding her with questions would be the surest way to make her retreat from me. I stole a sideways glance as we walked in search of a tavern; her beauty seemed undiminished, even enhanced by her gauntness, because it lent her an air of fragility. I had to remind myself that in Oxford Sophia had not shared my feelings; her heart had been entangled elsewhere. Yet she had come to London to seek me out, or so it appeared. I could only be patient and wait to hear her story, if she was inclined to tell it.

As we neared the marketplace, the bleating and bellowing of livestock rose into the air with the sharp tang of animal dung, fermenting in the heat. Fear of plague had not stopped the business of commerce here, and we made our way around the edge of the pens where cattle and sheep jostled in their confinement and pressed up to the fences, snuffling frantically, while farmers and butchers bartered and haggled over prices. Sophia covered her mouth and nose with her sleeve as we passed the animals; I was more intent on watching where I was putting my feet. At the entrance to St Sepulchre’s Lane, which the market traders called Pie Corner, gaudy painted tavern signs hung from the houses and a couple of girls waited listlessly in the shade, trays of sweating pies slung around their necks. I indicated the tavern on the corner, under the sign of the Cross Keys. On the threshold, Sophia hesitated and laid a hand on my arm.

‘My name is Kit,’ she whispered. ‘I am come to London to look for work, if anyone asks.’

I stopped, my hand on the door, and stared at her, searching her face. These were the first words she had spoken since announcing her own death in the churchyard. She looked back at me with earnest eyes and in that moment I recognised her haunted, fugitive look and cursed myself for being so stupid. She was on the run from something, or someone; this was why she was disguised as a boy. I knew that look only too well; once I had spent three years travelling through Italy under a different name. I understood what it meant to be a fugitive: always moving on, never trusting a soul, never knowing if the next town where you stopped for food or shelter might be the place they finally caught up with you. I nodded briefly, and held the door open for her.

‘Well, come on then, Kit. You look as if you need feeding up.’

The tavern was a functional place, catering for the needs of the market traders; the tap-room smelled as strongly of animals as the square outside, but I found the corner of a bench by a window and ordered some barley bread and a jug of ale. I leaned back against the wall and watched Sophia as she hunched into herself, tugging her dirty cap further down and glancing around nervously. When the bread arrived, she tore into it as if she had not eaten in some time. I sipped my ale slowly and waited for her to speak.

‘Forgive me,’ she said with her mouth full, wiping crumbs away with the back of her hand. ‘I have forgotten all my manners, as you see. Whatever would my father say?’

There was no mistaking the bitterness in her tone. Her father, the Rector of Lincoln College, had disowned her when he discovered she was with child, and sent her to live with an aunt in Kent; this was the last I had heard of her. When I left Oxford she had given me the aunt’s address and asked me to write, but I had never received any reply.

‘I wrote to you,’ I said, eventually. She looked up and met my gaze.

‘I wondered if you did. I had no letters. I expect she burned them all.’ Her voice was flat, as if this no longer mattered.

‘Your aunt?’

She nodded.

‘Do you hear from your parents?’

She stared at me for a moment, then gave a snort of laughter.

‘You are joking, I suppose?’

I both wanted and did not want to ask her about the child. She would have expected it in November, so it must be eight months old by now. If it had lived.

‘Why did you say you were dead?’ I asked, when it became apparent that she was not going to elaborate. She gestured to her clothes.

‘Look at me. This is who I am now. The girl you think of as Sophia Underhill no longer exists. She was a fool anyway,’ she added, with venom. ‘A naïve fool, who believed that books and love were all she needed in life. I am glad she is dead. Kit has no such illusions.’

I was shocked by the force of grief and anger in her words, but on reflection I should not have been. She was only twenty and already life had dealt her some cruel blows: her beloved brother had died young, the father of her child was also dead, and her family had abandoned her. A sudden image flashed into my mind, of Sophia running towards me across a garden in Oxford, her long chestnut hair flying out behind her, laughing, eyes bright, hitching up the skirts of her blue dress as she ran. She had been well educated, beyond what was expected of a young woman of her status; her father had planned a respectable marriage for her. But her independent spirit and determination to shape her own life had brought her, in the end, to this.

‘You didn’t need to skulk around in the shadows after me, you know,’ I said gently, as she ripped into another hunk of bread. ‘You could have just knocked on my door.’

‘On the door of the French embassy? You think they would have received me? Invited me to dinner, perhaps?’ She swallowed her mouthful and fixed her eyes on the table. ‘In any case, I didn’t know if you would want to see me. After everything that happened.’ She did not look at me, and her words were barely audible, the scorn melted away. ‘I told you, I never had any letters from you. I wanted to find out about your situation before I made myself known. I – I was afraid you might not want to know me.’

‘Sophia –’ It took a supreme effort of self-control not to reach across the table and take her hand in mine. The ferocity of her warning look confirmed that this would not have been welcome. I was finding it difficult to remember that she was supposed to be a boy. ‘Sorry – Kit. Of course I would not have turned you away. Whatever help you need – if it is in my power to give –’

‘You might feel differently when you know the truth,’ she mumbled, picking at a splinter of wood on the tabletop.

I leaned closer.

‘And what is the truth?’

She looked up and met my eye with a flash of her old defiance.

‘I am wanted for murder.’

A long silence followed, filled by the clatter and hubbub of the tap-room and the farmyard noises and shouts from beyond the window. Motes of dust rose and fell in the sunlight that slanted across our end of the table. I continued to stare at Sophia and she did not look away; indeed, I could swear there was a hint of a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. She seemed pleased with the effect of her announcement.

‘Who did you murder?’ I asked, when I could bear the silence no longer.

‘My husband,’ she replied, without hesitation.

‘Your husband?’

She smiled briefly. It did not touch her eyes.

‘Yes. You did not know I’d got myself a husband, did you?’

I could only go on staring in amazement.

‘You are thinking that I don’t waste any time, eh? Barely finished pushing out one man’s child before I’ve married another?’

‘I thought no such thing,’ I said, uncomfortably, because the idea had fleetingly crossed my mind.

‘My aunt sold me like a piece of livestock.’ She gestured towards the window. ‘Like one of those poor bleating beggars in the pens.’

‘So you murdered him?’ In my efforts to keep my voice down, it came out as a strangled squeak.

Sophia rolled her eyes.

‘No, Bruno. I did not. But someone did.’

‘Then who?’

This time she could not disguise the impatience in her voice.

‘I don’t know, do I? That’s what I want to find out.’

I shook my head, as if to clear it. ‘Perhaps you had better tell me this story from the beginning.’

She nodded, then drained her tankard and pushed it towards me. The ale was not strong, but drinking it fast had brought a flush of colour to her hollow cheeks.

‘I’ll need another drink first.’

‘There is no use in dwelling on all that happened before you left Oxford,’ she began, when a fresh jug of ale had been brought and she had finished a second piece of bread. I muttered agreement, avoiding her eye. I wondered if she remembered the night I had kissed her, or if that memory was buried in all that had happened after. I remembered it still, as sharply as if it had been a moment ago.

‘My father sent me away to my aunt in Kent, as you know. My mother cried when I left and promised it was only for a season, until my disgrace, as she put it, was past, but I could see by my father’s face that she was fooling herself. The stain to his reputation and his standing in the town was more than his pride could bear. I truly believe he would rather I had died than brought him a bastard grandchild.’

‘He as good as said so to me,’ I recalled.

‘Well, then. I was under no illusion when I set out to Kent in the company of one of my father’s servants. I had been cast off by my family for good and I had no idea what my future was to hold. It was several days hard riding and I was near four months with the child by then. I was ill the whole way and I feared …’ She looked down at the table, suddenly bashful. ‘I knew so little of such matters, I feared the rough journey would dislodge it before its time. Stupid.’ She shook her head, embarrassed.

‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘It would be an unnatural woman who did not worry about the safety of her unborn child.’

‘It turns out they are tougher than you think, these creatures,’ she said, allowing herself a soft smile. ‘In any event, I was safely delivered to my aunt – my father’s elder sister, so you may imagine she took the insult to his honour very much to heart. She was widowed, with modestly comfortable means, and she made sure that I was adequately fed and housed for the duration of my confinement. But it came at a price. The state of my immortal soul was her real project.’ She grimaced, and paused to take another gulp of ale. ‘I was allowed no books except the Bible and a book of prayer. Naturally, I was not permitted to step outside the house – she had told her neighbours that I was sickly and likely to die and that she was nursing me through my last months. Whether they believed her, I have no idea, but I was shut in my room whenever she had visitors.’

‘You were not moved to any religious feeling, despite your aunt’s efforts?’

She snorted and tossed her head in a way that reminded of how she was before, when she still had long hair to toss.

‘I told you, Bruno – I am done with religion, of any stripe. If there is a God, I am sure He must look with despair on His representatives, endlessly bickering over trifles. For myself, I would rather live without it.’

‘That makes you a heretic,’ I said, suppressing a smile.

She shrugged.

‘If you say so. It does not seem to have done you any harm.’

‘Oh, Sophia. Sorry – Kit. How can you say that? Do not take me as your model. I can never return to my home because I am called a heretic, you know this.’

‘Neither can I,’ she said, pointedly. ‘We are in the same boat, you and I, Bruno. We both live in exile now.’

I was tempted to detail for her all the ways in which our situations could not be compared, but I wanted to hear the rest of her story.

‘So your aunt was determined to make you repent …?’

‘I never knew how much my father had told her of the circumstances that brought me to her house. She was certainly of the belief that I had been wilful and disobedient and had made my long-suffering family pay the price for my dishonour. And she made it very clear that I would have no choice about the life I lived from then on, if I expected to be given food and shelter.’ She stopped abruptly, looked away to the window and swallowed hard. I sensed we were nearing the heart of her story; she had kept up the careless bravado convincingly so far, but I noticed she had barely mentioned the child. Perhaps she found it too painful to talk about.

‘Her plan was this,’ she continued, when she had taken another drink. ‘That I should wait out my confinement in her house, hidden away, stuffing my head with Bible verses day and night. Then, when the child was born, if it was healthy and a boy, it would be adopted by a couple of some standing in a neighbouring town who could not have a child of their own. She had it all worked out, it seems, and I am certain that money changed hands, though I never saw a penny of it. But she was very insistent that a boy would be the best outcome for all concerned – as if I could influence what was in my belly.’

‘And if it was a girl?’

‘I suppose they would have found a place for her, somewhere. There’d have been less reward, though.’

‘But it was a boy?’

Finally she looked up and met my eye.

‘Yes. I had a son. And he was healthy – so I was told. I only held him for a few minutes. They didn’t even let me nurse him. She said it was best that my body did not get used to him, nor him to me. Someone came at night to take him away, under cover of darkness. Those people – the people that bought him – they had a wet nurse ready, I’m told. So I’m sure he was well looked after.’

Here her voice cracked a little; I wanted desperately to reach out for her hand, but she held herself proud and upright, and simply clenched her jaw together until the danger of showing emotion had passed.

‘I don’t remember much about those days, to tell you the truth, Bruno. I was in a lot of pain while my body recovered from the birth, but that was nothing compared to the blackness that descended on me after they took him away. I had always believed I was someone who could bear grief with fortitude – I had done so in the past – but this was different. I could not eat or sleep nor even cry. All I was good for was lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling and wishing it would all come to an end somehow. At first my aunt was terrified I had taken an infection and would die – she had the physician out to me every day, at her own expense, and she had to pay extra for his discretion. I foolishly imagined she was doing this out of genuine concern and a sense of family duty.’

‘It must have been terrible.’

She shrugged again.

‘I suppose it was. But I had reached a point where I no longer cared what happened to me. I could feel nothing – not hope, nor fear, nor anger. Only blankness. I thought my life was over. I might as well have taken my chances being drowned on a boat to France.’

She held my gaze steadily as she said this, and although she had spoken the words gently, they cut to my heart. The previous spring, Sophia had been all set to flee Oxford for the Continent; it was my actions that had prevented her. I had intervened because I believed – with good reason, I still felt – that by stopping her flight I was saving her life, and that of her child. Over the months since then I had thought of her often and wondered how her life had unfolded as a result of my interference; I remained sure that I had done the right thing, but there was always room for a sliver of doubt. I feared, however, that even now she clung to her romantic hopes, and blamed me for stealing from her the future she had planned.

‘But then your child would not have lived,’ I said softly.

She lowered her eyes and picked another splinter from the tabletop.

‘True enough. And he is alive and well, somewhere, I trust. I hope they are kind people,’ she added, with sudden force. ‘I wish I could have seen them, to know what they are like.’ Her voice shook again, and she wiped her eye brusquely with her sleeve.

‘They must have wanted a child very badly, whoever they were. I’m sure they will treat him like a little prince.’

She looked up, her lashes bright with tears, and forced a smile.

‘Yes. I’m sure you are right. So I lay there in the dark, day after day, until eventually the bleeding stopped and the milk dried up, and my body was my own again. I’m sorry if this detail offends you, Bruno, but it is a messy and unpleasant business, being a woman.’

I spread my hands out, palms upward.

‘It is difficult to offend me. But I am sorry to hear you suffered.’

She watched me for a moment, her expression guarded. Did she blame me for her suffering?

‘The physician came and bled me daily, which only made me weaker, but he could find nothing wrong. Of course, once my aunt was satisfied that I had no bodily affliction, she concluded it was just monstrous idleness and warned me repeatedly that as soon as I was able I would be expected to take on some of the household chores. Hard work was the best cure for melancholy, in her view.’ The note of bitterness had crept back. She took a deep breath, steadied herself, and continued. ‘One morning I woke – I think it was around the feast of St Nicholas – with the sun streaming in through the shutters, and for the first time in weeks I felt like getting up. It was still early and the household was asleep, so I put on some clothes, wrapped myself in a woollen cloak and went outside. My aunt lived on the outskirts of a small town with rolling countryside all around, and in the early morning sun, all laced with frost, the view was so beautiful it took my breath away. I walked for an hour, got myself lost a couple of times, but although I almost wore out my poor exhausted body, I felt I was coming back to life.’ She smiled briefly at the recollection. ‘My aunt was furious when I returned – I think she feared I’d run away. She railed at me: what if the neighbours had seen me in that state, looking like some wild woman of the woods? She had a point; I had not washed in weeks and I was thin as a wraith. In any case, she made me undress and looked me over thoroughly, as you would with a horse, then she heated water to bathe me and spent a long time untangling my hair and washing it with camomile. I was surprised, as you might imagine – she was not usually given to such extravagance. She fed me well that evening and told me I was welcome to walk in the countryside if I chose, so long as I stayed away from the town and one of her housemaids accompanied me. So over the next few weeks, this is what happened. I recovered my strength, and something of the balance of my mind, or at least I learned to lock away my pain where it could not be seen and appear human again on the surface. But I was suspicious of my aunt’s changed attitude – she seemed almost indulgent towards me, and I knew enough of her to doubt that this was prompted by affection. She had also taken to locking me in my room at night.’

‘What happened to the household chores she had threatened?’

‘Naturally, I wondered. Until the child was born, I was protected, because they needed me. I had tried not to think too much about what my life would be once I’d served my purpose – I supposed that at best she would use me as some kind of cheap servant in return for a roof over my head. I expected her to hand me a broom the moment I was on my feet again, but instead, she started coming to my room in the evenings to comb out my hair – it was still long then,’ she said, rubbing self-consciously at the back of her neck – ‘and smooth scented oil into my hands. Not what you’d usually do for someone you mean to do laundry or wash floors.’

‘She had something else in mind.’

Sophia nodded, her mouth set in a grim line.

‘I found out a few days before Christmas. She came into my room one morning with a blue gown. It was beautiful – the sort of thing I used to wear …’ She broke off, turning away.

I remembered how she used to dress in Oxford; her clothes were not expensive or showy, but she wore them with a natural grace that cannot be purchased from a tailor, and always managed to look elegant. Very different from the dirty breeches, worn leather jerkin and riding boots she was dressed in now.

‘I hadn’t thought I cared about such trifles any more,’ she continued, ‘but when she laid it out on the bed, I couldn’t conceal my pleasure. She told me it was an early Christmas present, and for a moment I really thought I had misjudged her, that there was a buried vein of human kindness under that crusty surface. I was soon disabused of that, of course.’

I was about to reply when the serving girl appeared at our table to enquire whether we wanted any more of anything. I asked for cold meat, more bread and another jug of ale; Sophia’s tale clearly demanded some effort and I felt she should keep her strength up. When the food had been brought and she had helped herself to the cold beef, she wiped her mouth on her sleeve and resumed her story.

‘She made me put the dress on and turn around for her. She seemed satisfied with the result. When she had pinched my cheeks hard to put colour in them, she stood back, looked me up and down and said, “You shall do very well, as long as you keep your mouth shut. Only speak if he asks you a question, and then make sure it’s a ‘Yes, sir’ or a ‘No, sir’. Understood?” When I asked who she meant, she merely tutted and shoved her sour old face right up to mine. “Your husband,” she said.’

‘I imagine you took that well,’ I said, breaking off a piece of bread, a smile at the corner of my lips.

‘I screamed blue murder,’ Sophia said, a grin unexpectedly lighting her face. ‘I’d have bolted if she hadn’t locked the door. As it was, she had to slap me around the face twice before I would be quiet. Then she sat me down on the bed and made me listen. “Do you know what you are?” she asked me. “You’re a filthy whore, that’s what, with no respect for God nor your family. Plenty in your situation have no one to look out for them, and they end up making their living on the streets, which is no more than you deserve. But you can thank Providence that I have found a better arrangement for you. A decent man, respectable, with a good income, has agreed to take you to wife. You can change your name and leave your whole history behind you. You’re still young and can be made to look pretty. All you have to do is be obedient and dutiful, as a wife should be. If you’d learned those qualities as a daughter, your life might have been very different now,” she added, just to twist the knife. “What if I don’t like him?” I asked. She slapped me again. “It’s not for you to like or dislike, hussy,” she said. “You can marry Sir Edward Kingsley and live in comfort, with the good regard of society, or you can make your own way. Beg for bread or whore for it, I care not. Because if you mar this on purpose, girl, after everything I have done for you, don’t expect me to feed and clothe you for one day more.” So saying, she locked me in the room and told me I had until the afternoon to make my choice.’

‘Sir Edward Kingsley?’ I rubbed my chin. ‘A titled man. You’d think he’d have his pick of women – no offence, but why would he choose a wife whose history could bring him disgrace, if it were to become known? What did he get from the bargain?’

Sophia’s face set hard.

‘Control, I suppose. He got a wife who was young and pretty enough – though that’s all gone now,’ she added, passing a hand across her gaunt cheek.

‘Not at all,’ I said, hoping it did not sound insincere. A flicker of a smile crossed her lips.

‘The fact that I had a past to hide appealed to him,’ she continued. ‘He thought it would be a way of keeping me bound to his will. He imagined I would be so grateful to have been saved from a life on the streets that I would put up with anything, not daring to complain. Absolutely anything.’ She fairly spat these last words. ‘Of course, I didn’t learn any of this until after we were married. He could be very charming in company.’

‘So you agreed to marry him?’

There was a long pause.

‘Don’t look at me like that, Bruno. What choice did I have? I had nothing left – nothing. You of all people should understand that. The hot-headed part of me thought of running away, of course. But perhaps having the child had changed me.’ Her voice grew quieter. ‘I knew it would be hopeless – I had seen beggar women and whores in the street, I knew I would not survive long like that. Besides, I had formed an idea – you will think it foolish …’ She looked at me tentatively.

‘Try me.’

‘I thought that one day, when he was older, he might somehow be able to find out my name and come looking for me.’

‘Who?’

‘My son, of course. I had this idea that, when he grew, he would realise he did not look like the people he believed to be his parents, and then the truth would come out, and he might want to learn of his real mother. I didn’t want him to find me dead or living in a bawdy-house if that day came. And this Sir Edward seemed affable enough, when he came to visit. The way my aunt fawned on him, you’d have thought he was the Second Coming. So I made my choice. I would swallow my pride and marry a man I did not care for. I would not be the first woman to have done that, in exchange for security and a house to live in.’

She fell silent then, and picked at her bread.

‘Tell me about this Sir Edward Kingsley,’ I prompted, when it seemed she had become sunk in her own thoughts.

‘He was twenty-seven years older than me, for a start.’ She curled her lip in distaste. I tried to look as sympathetic as I could, bearing in mind that I was a good sixteen years her senior and had once desired her myself. And did still, if I was honest, despite the alteration in her. I could not help wondering how she would feel about that; would the idea prompt the same disgust that she expressed at the thought of this ageing husband?

‘He was a magistrate in Canterbury,’ she continued. ‘Do you know the city?’

‘I have never been, but of course I know it by reputation – it was one of the greatest centres of pilgrimage in Europe, until your King Henry VIII had the great shrine destroyed.’

‘The shrine of Saint Thomas Becket, yes. But the cathedral dominates the city even now – it is the oldest in England, you know. I suppose it would have been a pleasant enough place to live, in different circumstances.’

‘What was so wrong with your situation, then?’

She sighed, rearranging her long limbs on the bench in an effort to find a more comfortable position, and leaned forward with her elbows on the table.

‘Sir Edward was a widower. He had a son of twenty-three from his first marriage, Nicholas, who still lived at home. They didn’t get along, and he resented me from the outset, as you may imagine. But that was nothing compared to my husband. Sir Edward was of the view that behind closed doors a wife ought to combine the role of maid and whore, to save him paying for either, and do so meekly and gratefully. And if I was stubborn, which was his word for refusing his demands, he whipped me with a horsewhip. In his experience, he said, it worked just as well on women.’

She kept her voice steady as she said this, but I noticed how her jaw clenched tight and she sucked in her cheeks to keep the emotion in check. I shook my head.

‘Dio mio, Sophia – I can’t imagine what you have been through. Was he a drinker, then?’

‘Not at all. That made it worse, in a way. There are those who will lash out in a drunken rage – that is one kind of man, and they will often repent of it bitterly the next day. My husband was not like that – he always seemed master of his actions, and his violence was entirely calculated. He used it just as he said, in the same way that you would beat an animal to break it through fear.’

‘Did anyone know how he was treating you?’

‘His son knew, I am certain, but we detested one another. And there was a housekeeper, Meg, she’d been with Sir Edward for years – I’m sure she must have known, though she never spoke of it. She was afraid of him too. But she showed me small acts of kindness. Other than that, I only had one friend I could confide in.’

‘And I suppose she could do little to help you.’

‘He,’ she said, and took another long draught of her ale. Immediately something tensed inside me, a hard knot of jealousy I had no right to, and for which I despised myself. Of course it was absurd to think that Sophia could have lived for months in a new city without attracting the attention of some young man, but whoever this friend was, I resented his invisible presence, the fact that he had been there to comfort her. Had he been a lover? On the other hand, I tried to reason against that voice of jealousy, where was he now, this friend? Had she not found her way to London, in her hour of desperation, in search of me? I composed my face and attempted to look disinterested.

‘He, then. He could not help?’

She shook her head. ‘What could anyone have done? Olivier listened to me, that was all.’

Was it really, I thought, and bit the unspoken words down. I felt as if I had a piece of bread lodged in my throat.

‘Your husband did not mind you having friends who were …?’ I left the sentence hanging.

‘French?’

‘I was going to say, men.’

Sophia’s teasing smile turned to scorn.

‘Well, of course he would, if he’d known. He didn’t even like me to leave the house, but fortunately he was out so often at his business that I sometimes had a chance to slip away on the pretext of some chores. Olivier was the son of French weavers – his family came as refugees to Canterbury twelve years ago, after the massacre of Saint Bartholomew’s Day.’

I shivered, despite the stuffy air; the mention of that terrible event in 1572, when the forces of the French Catholic League rampaged through the streets of Paris, slaughtering Protestant Huguenot families by the thousand until the gutters ran scarlet with their blood, never failed to chill me to the bones. The memory of it was kept fresh in England, as a warning of what could be expected here if a Catholic force were ever to invade.

‘I had heard that many Huguenots came to England to escape the religious persecution,’ I said.

‘Canterbury is one of their largest communities. They are really the best of people,’ she added warmly, and instantly I disliked this Olivier all the more.

‘But tell me how your husband died, then,’ I said, wanting to change the subject.

Sophia passed a hand across her face and held it for a moment over her mouth, as if gathering up the strength for this part of the story. Eventually she laid her hands flat on the table and looked me directly in the eye.

‘For six months, I endured this marriage, if that is what you want to call it. I was known as Kate Kingsley, and my official history was that my father, a distant cousin of Sir Edward’s, had recently died, leaving me an orphan with a useful parcel of land in Rutland. I suppose he thought that was far enough away that no one would be likely to check. When I appeared with him in public, I was demure and well turned-out, which was all anyone seemed to expect of me. And at home, I was regularly beaten and forced to endure what he called my wifely duty, which he liked to perform with violence, though he was always careful never to leave marks on my skin where it might show.’ She flexed her hands, trying to keep her expression under control.

‘How did you bear it?’

She shrugged.

‘It is surprising how much you can bear, when you are obliged to – as you must know, Bruno. My greatest fear was that I would get another child, he forced himself on me so often, and I knew I could never love any child of his. With every month that passed, I worried my luck would not hold. Lately I had started to think about running away. Olivier was going to help me.’

I’m sure he was, I thought, uncharitably.

‘Did your husband suspect?’

‘I don’t think so. He was always preoccupied with his own business. In fact, from the first days in that house, I’d begun to notice odd things about my husband’s behaviour.’

‘Aside from his violent streak, you mean?’

‘Odder than that, even. He was often out of the house at strange hours, leaving in the dead of night and returning towards dawn. Once I asked him where he’d been when he got into bed with the cold air of night still on him, and he fetched me such a slap to my jaw that I feared I would lose a tooth.’ She rubbed the side of her face now at the memory of it. ‘After that, I always pretended to be asleep when he came in.’

‘So he was a man with secrets. Women, do you suppose?’

She shot me a scornful look.

‘When he had a whore ready at his disposal in the comfort of his own home, at no extra charge?’ She shook her head. ‘I told you, my husband didn’t like to part with money if it could be avoided. No, there was something else he was up to, but I never found out what. Underneath the house there was a cellar that he always kept locked, with the key on a chain at his belt. And sometimes his friends would come to the house late at night.’ Her face darkened. ‘By his friends, I mean some of the most eminent men of the city. My husband was a lay canon at the cathedral, as well as being magistrate, so he was a person of influence. They would shut themselves in his study and talk for hours. Once I tried to listen at the door, and it seemed they were arguing among themselves, but I could not stay long enough to hear anything useful – the old housekeeper found me there in the passageway and shooed me off to bed. She said Sir Edward would kill me if he caught me there, truly kill me, and she had such fear in her face that I believed it was a serious warning, honestly meant.’ She paused to take another bite of bread. ‘But two weeks ago he had been up to the cathedral, to a meeting of the Chapter, as he often did, and afterwards he was to take his supper with the Dean. He never came home.’

‘What happened?’

‘One of the canons appeared at my door, about nine o’clock at night, with two constables. He had found Edward’s body in the cathedral precincts. He must have been on his way home when he was attacked.’

‘How did he die?’

‘Struck down with a heavy weapon from behind, they said, and beaten repeatedly while he lay there until his skull smashed. They said his hands were all broken and bloodied, as if he’d been trying to cover his face.’ She pressed her lips together. ‘I wasn’t sorry – the man was a brute. But it must have been a dreadful way to die. His brains were all spilled over the flagstones, they told me.’

‘His brains …’ The detail sounded familiar, as if I had heard the description before, but I could not place it. ‘You did not have to see it, I hope?’

‘No, they took the body away. It was a vicious act. The killer must have been someone who violently hated him.’

‘Were there people who hated him that much?’

‘Apart from his wife, you mean?’ She gave me a wry glance.

I acknowledged the truth of this with a dip of my head. ‘But you said no one knew how he treated you in private. So how did they come to suspect you?’

She poked at a piece of bread and leaned in.

‘I had the wit to realise when the canon came that if I didn’t give him a good show of shock and grief he would find that curious, to say the least. He handed me the sword that my husband had been wearing, still sheathed, and his gold signet ring, all daubed in blood. I played the distraught widow, thinking that would make them go away.’

‘I find it hard to imagine you in that role,’ I said, with a fond smile. She almost returned it.

‘Oh, you would be surprised, Bruno, how convincing I can be. He said the body had been taken to the coroner and asked if I wanted someone to sit with me that night, to save me being alone. I thanked him and said I had old Meg, the housekeeper, for company – that was stupid of me, because it was Meg’s day off and she had gone to visit a friend, but I just wanted him to go so I could stop pretending to cry and enjoy an untroubled night’s sleep. I could hardly explain to him that I wanted more than anything to be left on my own, for once.’

‘Did he know you were lying?’

‘Not at the time. He went away, and perhaps an hour later my husband’s son, Nicholas, came home, with the smell of the alehouse on him. The constables had found him in there with his friends and given him the news. He was cursing and shouting at me in his drunken rage that it was all my doing. He said nothing had gone right in that house since the day his father brought me into it.’ She paused, and I saw the anger flash across her face before she mastered it. ‘Then – well, I’ll spare you the details. Suffice to say, he thought he could take his father’s place in the marriage bed.’

‘Holy Mother!’ I drew a hand across my mouth and felt my other fist bunch under the table.

‘Don’t worry, I fought him off.’ She gave a brief, bitter laugh. ‘I was damned if I was taking that from the son as well. Fortunately, he was too drunk to put up much of a fight. But he was sober enough to be angered by the refusal. He told me I would get what was coming to me, gave me a slap for good measure, and stumbled and crashed his way to his own room.’

‘What did he mean by that threat?’

‘I hardly dared sleep that night – I thought he might come in and attack me while I lay in my bed. But I heard him leave the house early, at first light. I fell asleep again and the next I knew, old Meg the housekeeper was shaking me awake, whispering frantically that I had to run.’

‘Run? Why?’

‘She’d met the cathedral gatekeeper on her way back to the house. He’d come to find her, to say that the constables had discovered evidence at the scene to arrest me for the murder of my husband and were on their way round. I barely had time to get dressed. Fortunately I knew where my husband kept his strongbox.’

‘In his mysterious locked cellar?’

She shook her head.

‘No. Whatever was in there, it was not money. He kept that in various chests in the room he called his library, and the keys were hidden in a recess in the chimney breast. I took two pursefuls of gold angels, which was all I could carry, and fled through the kitchen yard.’

‘So …’ I sat back, feeling almost breathless at the pace of her tale. ‘Where did you go? What was this evidence – did you ever find out? Surely this Nicholas had something to do with it?’

‘One question at a time, Bruno. I ran through the back streets to Olivier’s house. His parents had already heard about Sir Edward’s murder – news spreads quickly in a cathedral city, where everyone knows everyone. But they didn’t know I was to be accused of it. They offered to hide me for a while, but I was afraid it would be too dangerous for them – the Huguenots are already treated with suspicion in the city, just because they are foreigners who keep close within their own community and try to preserve their own customs. We English are not terribly accommodating in that regard, I’m afraid.’

‘I have noticed.’

‘Later that same day, old Meg came by to tell us she had been questioned by the constables. They learned, of course, that I had lied about being at home with her the previous evening – poor thing, she had no idea I had told them that. But apparently early that morning someone had found a pair of women’s gloves, stained with blood, thrown on the ground in the cathedral precincts. Put that together with my lying about Meg, stealing my husband’s money and taking flight, they think they have all the answer they need.’

She folded her arms and dropped her head to stare at the table, as if the account had exhausted her.

‘Well, that is absurd,’ I said, indignant on her behalf. ‘Were they your gloves?’

She hesitated.

‘I don’t know – one pair of gloves looks much like any other, doesn’t it? I certainly wasn’t wearing them. But how am I to prove otherwise? When my husband was respected and influential, and I have no money of my own even to pay a lawyer? I’m sure it won’t take long for someone to uncover Mistress Kate’s real name and past, and that will be seen as proof of my degeneracy.’

‘Someone has tried to ensure you were blamed for this murder. Did this Nicholas, the son, know who you really were?’

She shook her head.

‘No. But it was plain he hated me.’

‘Hated you and desired you.’

‘Isn’t that often the case with men and women?’ She lifted her chin and fixed me with a twisted smile.

I was on the point of arguing when I recalled a woman I had known last year, and this memory gave me pause. I did not answer one way or the other.

‘What about the key?’ I asked.

‘What key?’

‘The one to his secret cellar, that you said he wore at his belt. If this canon gave you the valuables he took from the body, was the key not among them?’

She stared at me, her lips parted.

‘No! By God, with everything that happened after, I never once thought of that key. You mean the killer could have taken it?’

‘I don’t know. Only it seems that, if he was found with a gold ring and a sword still on him, the killer was not interested in robbery. Perhaps the key was not given to you because the person who found him didn’t regard it as valuable, that is all.’

‘Or because they knew precisely what it was and kept it.’ She frowned. ‘You think someone wanted to find out what was in that cellar?’

‘I don’t know. But surely any sane person would force the lock rather than hack a man to death for the key? I was only thinking aloud. So – then you came to London?’ I said.

‘As you see,’ she replied. ‘It took over a week.’

I shook my head, half in disbelief, half in admiration.

‘You are fortunate you were not robbed or killed on the road, or both. Did you travel alone?’

She smiled, and there was a hint of pride in it.

‘No. Some of the Huguenot weavers were coming to London, bringing samples of cloth to trade. It was safe enough to travel with them. Especially like this.’ She indicated her boy’s clothes. ‘These are Olivier’s. It was his idea to dress as a boy. Oh, I hated the thought of cutting off all my hair at first, but then his mother sensibly pointed out that they would cut it off for me on the gallows anyway.’ She gave a bitter laugh, but it didn’t mask the fear in her eyes. Although I couldn’t quite ignore my childish resentment of this Olivier for being the first man to her aid, I had to admit my admiration for this practical French family who had taken a considerable risk to help Sophia to safety. My eyes strayed inadvertently to her chest under the rough shirt as I wondered how she had managed to strap herself up. She noticed the direction of my gaze and smiled.

‘To tell the truth, Bruno, there was not much left of them after I had the child and then grew so thin. I wear a linen binding, but I had hardly anything to bind in the first place.’

I felt my face grow hot, which only seemed to amuse her further.

‘You are too easy to embarrass, Bruno. I suppose that comes of being a monk for so long.’ Then her expression became serious. ‘I thought if I could just get to London and find you,’ she continued, turning those wide, golden-brown eyes on me once more, ‘then everything would be all right. All those miles with the weavers’ cart, it was my only thought.’

I wanted to speak, but the words wedged in my throat. Instead I reached out and laid my hand over hers. She did not snatch it away, and for a moment we stayed like that, in silence, looking at one another with everything still unspoken as the dust danced in the thick sunlight, until she nodded to her right with a mischievous grin, and I glanced across to see two men at the next table watching this display of affection with expressions of disgust.

‘They will take me for your catamite,’ Sophia whispered, giggling.

I withdrew my hand quickly. ‘Careful, then. They hang you for that here as well.’

We left the tavern and walked back in the shimmering heat along Gifford Street and on down Old Bailey, Sophia contained in her silence, as if all her words were spent. I glanced sidelong at her as we walked, but she appeared deep in concentration, biting at the knuckle of her thumb, her dirty cap pulled down low over her brow, eyes fixed straight ahead. I decided it was best not to press her any further for now. At the bottom of the lane I paused; my way lay to the right, up Fleet Hill, but I had no more idea of where she intended to go in London than I did of where she had sprung from.

‘I have taken a room at the sign of the Hanging Sword, off Fleet Street,’ she said, pointing ahead, as if she had read my thoughts. I laughed.

‘But that is almost opposite Salisbury Court, where I have my lodgings.’

She seemed pleased by my expression of incredulity and grinned from under the peak of her cap. The food and the ale had heartened her, or perhaps it was the relief of having unburdened herself, and not having been turned away.

‘Of course. Why do you think I took the room?’

‘So how long have you been spying on me?’

‘It’s five days since I arrived. But I lost my nerve a little once I saw what a grand house you lived in – I knew I couldn’t just bang on the door. So I thought I would watch you, see if I could judge from your routine when might be the best time to approach you, if at all.’

‘My routine has little of interest to offer at the moment, I’m afraid,’ I said, spreading my arms apologetically, though the idea that I could have been watched for five days from the tavern across the street made me uneasy. Sophia wished me no harm, but there were those who did, and if she could follow me around London so easily, then so might they. I must not imagine for a moment that I was safe anywhere, I silently reprimanded myself, and resolved to keep my wits sharper in future. ‘As for the embassy, its grandeur is sadly faded, I think, but it is comfortable enough. I am fortunate to have such a residence.’

We fell into step in the direction of the Fleet Bridge, silent again as I turned over in my mind what assistance I might be able to offer Sophia. Money I could just about manage, and perhaps in the longer term I might be able to use some of my contacts to help her into work, but for that she would have to remain in her boy’s disguise, and it seemed impractical to think of keeping that up. It was easy enough to hide in London, with its rabbit warren of old streets and the thousands of people coming and going daily in search of work or trade, but the world was always a smaller place than you imagined, as I had learned to my cost when I was living as a fugitive in my own country. For as long as Kate Kingsley was wanted for the murder of her husband, Sophia Underhill, or whoever she chose to become next, would never be able to live freely in England.

‘Listen, Sophia – Kit,’ I corrected myself hastily before she could. ‘You know I will give you whatever help I can while you are in London, and if you need money, well, my stipend from King Henri of France is sufficiently generous to allow me to support you for a while.’ This was untrue; my living allowance from the French King, in recognition of the fact that I had been his personal philosophy tutor, was barely enough to live on, and unreliable in its arrival. Such income as I had to allow me a reasonable standard of living in London came not from King Henri but from my work for the English government, though naturally no one at the French embassy knew this.

‘The Hanging Sword is expensive,’ I continued, ‘but I could help you look for cheaper lodgings elsewhere while you give some thought to what you are going to do. You might find it difficult to remain as a boy indefinitely, but perhaps …’

I stopped when I saw the look on her face. She had halted abruptly in the middle of the street and was staring at me, her brow knotted in confusion.

‘Bruno – have you not understood any of my story? Why do you think I came all this way to seek you out?’

‘Because …’ I faltered. Had I misunderstood? She was looking at me as a governess might look at a child who has failed to absorb anything of his lesson, despite hours at the same exercise. ‘I presumed because you had few people left whose friendship you could rely on, in the circumstances,’ I said, a little stiffly.

‘Well, that is true,’ she said, impatient. ‘But I remembered how you unravelled those murders in Oxford, when no one else seemed to have the slightest idea who was behind them. That’s why I wanted your help. I need you to find out who murdered my husband and clear my name. I don’t want to live the rest of my life looking over my shoulder, wondering when they will come for me.’

‘No, you don’t,’ I said, with feeling, though I could not believe she was seriously asking this of me. She clutched at my sleeve then, and made me look her in the eye, her face close to mine. I could hear the urgency in her voice.

‘If you don’t help me, Bruno, I shall live as a wanted murderess all my life, and if they find me I’ll be straight for the pyre. You know that’s the punishment for women who murder their husbands? Because the man is master of his wife, it’s regarded as an act of treason. So instead of hanging, they burn you.’

‘Like a heretic,’ I said, softly.

‘Like a heretic.’ She fixed me with a meaningful look.

I stepped back, rubbing my hand across the growth of stubble on my chin and shaking my head.

‘You want me to go to Canterbury and find the killer?’

‘If you could do it in Oxford, why not in Canterbury?’ She sounded petulant, and I was reminded, despite her weight of experience, how young she still was.

‘It’s not quite as simple as that. I can’t just take off across the country – I would need permission …’ But as I considered the possibility, I felt my blood quicken with the prospect of it: a change of scene, a new challenge, and the ultimate prize of freeing Sophia from a sentence of death.

‘Permission?’ She looked scornful.

‘From the Ambassador. As a member of his household, out of courtesy I must consult with him before I go anywhere. And with the diplomatic situation so fraught at the moment, he may be reluctant to let me leave.’ But it was not the Ambassador’s permission I was concerned about. I sincerely doubted whether my real employer would want me away from the embassy at such a time.

‘You are not the Ambassador’s ward, Bruno. You are a grown man, or so I thought. Well, it doesn’t matter, then.’ She wrapped her arms tightly around her chest and started walking briskly away towards the narrow bridge; I watched her for a moment, before hurrying to catch her up.

‘Wait!’ I had to work hard to match her determined stride, but on the bridge I caught her by the sleeve. ‘I have said I will help you, and I meant it. I will see if this can be arranged. But it will be difficult – I would have no authority to undertake an investigation of any kind in Canterbury, and you said yourself how they are suspicious of foreigners there.’

‘You could pretend to be a visiting scholar,’ she said brightly. ‘They have a fine library in the cathedral precincts, I am told. Please, Bruno? You are all the hope I have now.’ Her eyes widened, and the pleading in them was in earnest. ‘If you don’t help me, no one will.’

She looked down at her boots, shamed by her own helplessness; Sophia, whose independent spirit chafed at being beholden to a man, any man. She kicked at a small stone, her arms wrapped again around her chest, as if to protect herself from further hurt. It was a gesture that clutched at my heart, and I knew that, whatever the obstacles, I must find a way to help her. If nothing else, it would assuage the lingering sense of guilt that still needled me over my actions in Oxford, and the fear that I had somehow been the indirect cause of everything that had happened to her since. I owed her a debt, I believed, and she had counted on my conscience.

‘Very well then. Santa Maria!’ I grabbed at my hair with both hands in a gesture of mock exasperation that made her laugh. ‘You would wear down a stone, Sophia. But what will you do, if I get myself to Canterbury?’

‘I will come with you, of course.’ She looked nonplussed.

‘What? And how are you going to do that? You are wanted for murder.’

‘I wouldn’t venture into the city, obviously. I will stay as a boy, and you can say I am your apprentice.’

‘Travelling scholars don’t have apprentices.’

‘Your scribe, then. Or servant, it doesn’t matter. But you will need me there, Bruno, to point you in the right direction – I know the city and I can direct you to Sir Edward’s associates. We could find lodgings somewhere on the edge of town. I could keep out of sight.’

Her face was animated now, her eyes bright and eager. We could find lodgings? Was she proposing that we share rooms together? I looked at her doubtfully, but I could find no trace of teasing in her eyes, only earnest hope. Perhaps she believed her disguise was good enough to convince both of us that she really was a boy. Was that the kind of friendship she envisaged between us, despite the fact that in Oxford I had once been so bold as to kiss her, and she had responded? I wished I had a better sense of how she regarded me.

It would be an enormous risk for her, returning to the city where, even with her cropped hair and dirty clothes, there was every chance of being recognised as the murdered magistrate’s wife. On the other hand, she was right: I would fare better with someone to guide me around the city of Canterbury, and what would she do otherwise in London, alone and friendless as her money rapidly ran out? At least if she came with me I could do my best to take care of her – and the thought of spending days in her company, reviving the conversations we had enjoyed in Oxford, was more than I had dared to hope for, even if, for now, she saw me only as a trusted friend. Until that morning, I had thought she was dead to me, and I knew that I could not abandon her to circumstance again.

‘Let me see if I can make arrangements,’ I said.

‘Good. But we must leave soon. Because of the assizes.’

‘The assizes?’

‘Yes. Once a quarter a judge comes from London to try all the criminals taken since the last session, the cases too serious for the local Justice. The next one is due in early August. If you were to find the real killer by then, he could be tried at the assizes and I would be free.’

‘You don’t ask much, do you?’

Outside the Hanging Sword, we parted company, I assuring her that I would secure permission from the Ambassador as soon as possible, and warning her in the meantime to keep her money close about her person and not to walk around the streets of London after dark.

‘But I have this,’ she said, pulling aside the front of her jerkin to reveal a small knife buckled to her belt.

‘That will come in very handy if you should need to peel an apple. But I don’t suggest you try your hand at any tavern brawls with it,’ I said.

She smiled, and her face seemed more relaxed.

‘I’d prefer not to.’

We stood awkwardly for a moment, uncertain of how to say goodbye. Sophia seemed less stooped, less diminished, as if a weight had lifted from her. ‘Thank you, Bruno,’ she said, checking in both directions to see that the street was empty before leaning in and giving me an impulsive hug. ‘You are a true friend. One day I will find a way to repay you.’

I could only blink and smile stupidly as she stepped back and turned away towards the tavern. I moved to cross the street towards Salisbury Court, wondering what on earth I had undertaken.

‘Ciao, Kit,’ I called, glancing over my shoulder to see her pause at the tavern door. She lifted a hand in farewell, then executed a mock bow.

She moves too much like a woman, I thought, watching the way she snaked her narrow hips to one side to avoid a man coming out as she slipped through the doorway. This Kit will need some lessons on being a man, if we’re not to be arrested. Before that, though, I needed to find a way to make this madcap plan palatable to the two men whose authority I must respect while I live in London: Michel de Castelnau, the French Ambassador, and Sir Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth’s Principal Secretary. Both were certain to be opposed. I sighed. Sophia might imagine that a man enjoys the freedoms she lacks, but we are all beholden to somebody, in the great chain of patronage and favour that stretches right the way up to the Queen herself; and even she is not truly free, as long as she lives in fear of the assassin on the stairs, like the poor Prince of Orange.