I WAS LED DOWN a short, stone-flagged corridor. One of the guards opened the barred door of the cell, the other led me inside. The cell was as Myldmore had described it, with a table and two chairs, but this time there were three decent beds with woollen coverlets, not one – they must have put in the other two when they heard three were to be brought in. The chamber, though, held the clammy, damp stink of the dungeons, and was lit only by a high barred window. I looked at the bare flagstones and thought how Mistress Askew had lain there in agony after her torture.
Two men lay silent on the beds. Philip Coleswyn got up at once. He was in his robe; the shirt collar above his doublet untied, his normally neat brown hair and beard untidy. Edward Cotterstoke turned to look at me but did not rise. At the inspection of the painting I had marked his resemblance to his sister, not only physically but in his haughty, angry manner. Today, though, he looked frightened, and more than that, haunted. He was dressed only in his shirt and hose. From those protuberant blue eyes, so like Isabel’s, he regarded me with a lost, hopeless stare. Behind me the door slammed shut and a key turned.
Philip said, ‘Dear Heaven, Matthew! I heard you were being brought in. Isabel Slanning must have done this – ’
‘What have they told you?’
‘Only that we are to appear before the Privy Council tomorrow, on heresy charges. I was taken by the constable at dawn, as was Master Cotterstoke.’
‘So was I. It makes no sense. I am no heretic.’
Philip sat on the bed, wiping his brow. ‘I know. Yet I – ’ he lowered his voice – ‘I have had reason to fear. But I have been careful not to speak heresy in public. Edward, too.’
‘And your vicar? Has he spoken carelessly?’
‘Not to my knowledge. If he had, surely he would have been arrested, too.’
I nodded at the sense of this. ‘The only thing that connects the three of us is that wretched case.’
Edward, from his bed, spoke softly. ‘Isabel has undone us all.’ Then to my surprise he curled up his legs and lay hunched on the bed, like a child. It was a strange thing to see in a grown man.
Philip shook his head. ‘I fear you have been caught up in this because of suspicions against me and Edward.’
‘But Isabel’s conspiracy charge is ridiculous, easily disproved! Surely we would not be hauled before the council on Isabel’s word alone. Unless,’ I took a deep breath, ‘unless her complaint is being used by someone else, someone who wishes to see me undone.’
Philip frowned. ‘Who?’
‘I do not know. But Philip, I have been involved, perhaps against my better judgement, in matters of state. I could have enemies on the Privy Council. But friends, too, powerful friends. Why would I be attacked now?’ My mind was in a whirl. Could this be the moment after all when whoever was the holder of the Lamentation had decided to expose it? And question me about the hunt to find it? I had never spoken with the Queen or Lord Parr about what we would do with the Lamentation should we recover it; but I knew Lord Parr would almost certainly have the book destroyed. To ensure the King never saw it.
‘Listen.’ I grasped his arm. ‘Have you ever specifically denied the Real Presence of Christ’s body and blood in the Mass to someone who might have reported it?’ I spoke quietly, lest a guard be listening at the door.
Philip spread his arms wide. ‘Given what has happened this summer? Of course not.’
‘And you, sir – ’ I turned to Edward, still curled up on his bed – ‘have you said anything that could be dangerous? Have you kept forbidden books?’
He looked at me. ‘I have spoken no heresy, and I handed in my books last month.’ He spoke wearily, as though it did not matter.
I turned to Philip. ‘Then we must cleave to that, and tell the council the accusations against us are false. If someone is trying to use Isabel’s accusations to get at me, we must show them up as nonsense.’ I remembered, my heart sinking, how Treasurer Rowland had avoided making an early appointment with me to discuss Isabel’s accusations further. Had someone got to him?
Edward sat up, and with great weariness, as though his body were made of lead, leaned back against the stone-flagged wall. He said, ‘This is the vengeance of the Lord. Isabel is his instrument. It was all foreordained. Given what I have done, I cannot be saved. I am damned. All my life has been a fraud. I have lived in pride and ignorance – ’
I looked at Philip. ‘What does he mean?’
Philip spoke quietly, ‘Two days ago I confronted him with what the servant Vowell told us. He thinks this is a judgement on him. He told me that he did indeed kill his father.’
‘So it was true.’