Dissolution

'Does what has happened here frighten you?' I asked.

He shook his head. 'Who would harm me? I am only an old Moor.' He was silent a moment. 'Come to the infirmary. I have an infusion that may help you. Fennel, hops, one or two other ingredients.'

'Thank you.' I followed him down the hall, and sat on the table while he selected herbs and set water to heat on the fire. I eyed the Spanish cross on the opposite wall, and remembered the day before, seeing him lying prone before it.

'Did you bring that from your homeland?'

'Yes, it has followed me on all my travels.' He measured some herbs from his stock into the water. 'When this is ready take a little, not too much or you will want to sleep away the day.' He paused. 'I am grateful you trust me to prescribe for you.'

'I must trust you as a physician, Brother Guy.' I paused. 'I think you were unhappy with what I said yesterday, regarding the funeral prayers.'

He inclined his head. 'I follow your reasoning. You believe God is indifferent to forms of prayer.'

'I believe salvation comes through God's grace. You do not agree? Come, let us forget my position for a minute and talk freely, as Christian scholars.'

'Only as scholars? I have your word?'

'Yes, you do. God's bones, that mixture stinks.'

'It needs to stew a little.' He folded his arms. 'I understand why the new ways have come to England. There has been much corruption in the Church. But these matters could be dealt with by reform as has been done in Spain. Today thousands of Spanish friars are at work converting the heathens in the Americas, amidst terrible privations.'

'I cannot imagine English friars in that setting.'

'Nor can I. But Spain has shown reform is possible.'

'And has its own Inquisition as a reward from the pope.'

'My fear is the English Church will not be reformed, but destroyed.'

'What will be destroyed, though? What? The power of the papacy, the false doctrine of purgatory?'

'The king's Articles of Religion admit purgatory may exist.'

'That is one reading. I believe purgatory is false. When we die salvation is by God's grace alone. The prayers of those left on earth do not matter a rush.'

He shook his head. 'But then, sir, how should a man strive to be saved?'

'By faith.'

'And charity?'

'If one has faith, charity will follow.'

'Martin Luther holds that salvation is not really by faith at all, God predetermines before a soul is even born whether it will be saved or damned. That seems a cruel doctrine.'

'So Luther interpreted St Paul, yes. I, and many others, say he is wrong.'

'But if every man is allowed his own interpretation of the Bible, will not people bring forth such cruel philosophies everywhere? Shall we not have a Babel, chaos?'

'God will guide us.'

He stood and faced me, his eyes dark with – what? Sadness? Despair? Brother Guy was always a hard man to read.

'Then you would strip away all?'

I nodded. 'Yes, I would. Tell me, Brother, do you believe like old Brother Paul that the world is drifting towards its end, the Day of Judgment?'

'That has been the central doctrine of the Church since time immemorial.'

I leaned forward. 'But must that be? May not the world be transformed, made as God willed it?'

Brother Guy clasped his hands before him. 'The Catholic Church has often been the only light of civilization in this world. Its doctrines and rituals unite man in fellowship with suffering humanity and all the Christian dead. And they urge him to charity: Jesu knows he needs urging. But your doctrine tells each man to find his own individual salvation through prayer and the Bible. Charity and fellowship then are lost.'

I remembered my own childhood, the fat drunken priest telling me I could never take orders. 'The Church showed me little charity in my youth,' I said bitterly. 'I seek God in my heart.'

'Do you find him there?'

'Once he visited it, yes.'

The infirmarian smiled sadly. 'You know, until now a man from Granada, or anywhere in Europe, could go into a church in England and be immediately at home, hear the same Latin services, be comforted. With that international brotherhood taken away, who now will place a halter on the quarrels of princes? What will become of a man like me when he is stranded in a hostile land? Sometimes when I have gone into Scarnsea the children have thrown rubbish at me. What will they throw when the monastery is not there to protect me?'

'You have a poor view of England,' I said.

'A realistic view of fallen mankind. Oh, I see it from your perspective. You reformers are against purgatory, Masses for the dead, relics, exactly those things the monasteries epitomize. So they will go, I realize that.'

'And you would prevent it?' I looked at him keenly.

'How can I? It has been decided. But I fear without the universal church to bind us together, a day will come in this land when even belief in God will be gone. Money alone will be worshipped, and the nation, of course.'

'Should one not be loyal to one's nation, one's king?'

He picked up his potion, said a quick prayer over it, and poured the mixture into a glass bottle. He looked across at me sternly.

'In worshipping their nationhood men worship themselves and scorn others, and that is no healthy thing.'

'You are sore mistaken as to what we want. We seek the Christian commonwealth.'

'I believe you, but I fear I see things falling into a different path.' He handed me the bottle and a spoon. 'That is my opinion as a scholar. There, you should take a measure now.'

I swallowed it with a grimace; it tasted as bitter as it smelt. The slow peal of bells, which had formed the background to our talk, grew louder. The church clock struck eight.

'We should go,' Brother Guy said. 'The service is about to start.'

I put the bottle in my robe and followed him down the corridor. Looking at the fringe of black, woolly hair round the dark crown of his head, I reflected he was right in one respect: if the monasteries were dissolved he would have no safe haven in England any more; even his spicy odour was different from the common stink. He would have to beg a licence to go abroad, to a Spanish or French monastery. And he might not be given one, those countries were our enemies now. If the monastery went down, Brother Guy had more to lose than any of them.

CHAPTER 18

The monks were processing into the church, led by the abbot. Brother Guy left me to join his brethren. Among a couple of other latecomers I saw Prior Mortimus and Brother Edwig hurrying across the cloister yard from the counting house. I remembered what Goodhaps had said about the two of them running the place. And yet I had seen no signs of friendship between them. The prior moved along at a fast walk, kicking up the snow, the little bursar half-running to keep up. Mark joined me. Old Goodhaps was by his side, casting glances at the sky, which was grey again.

'Good morning, Master Shardlake. Do you think it will snow?' he asked anxiously. 'I want to be on the road once the service is over.'

The road to Scarnsea is passable. Now come, we shall be late.'

I led the way into the church. The monks had filed past the rood screen into the choir stalls, I could hear them coughing and shuffling. On our side of the screen Singleton's coffin, still open, had been set on some chairs. Some way off another coffin stood surrounded by candles: Simon Whelplay's. The abbot stood by Singleton's coffin; not too near, for as we approached we caught again the smell of decay.

'If you lay mourners would sit with the coffin while the Dirige is offered up,' he said solemnly, 'and afterwards bear the coffin to the churchyard. Prior Mortimus has offered to be the fourth bearer. If, er –' he glanced at my hump '– you are able to take the weight.'