Revelation

Hertford nodded in agreement. 'We are hanging on by our fingertips.'

'Can you imagine what a gift to Bonner and Gardiner this would be, someone murdering radicals who have backslid in London? This horrid blasphemy would be meat and drink for his cause.'

'I found one clue at the scene of Tupholme's murder,' I said. I produced the badge from my pocket and laid it on Cranmer's table.

Lord Hertford bent to study it closely. 'A pilgrim badge. The wearer went to St Edward the Confessor's shrine in Westminster Abbey. I saw enough of these badges on people's coats before the shrines were done away with.'

'It can't have come from Tupholme, if he was a reformer,' Harsnet said.

'Nor from his woman,' Thomas Seymour added. 'I never heard of a Southwark whore that wore one of those.'

Cranmer took the badge, turned it between his thick fingers. 'So the killer dropped it. Perhaps it was torn from his coat as he struggled to tie that poor wretched cottar—'

'Hold fast,' Harsnet said. 'People don't wear pilgrim badges now. It marks you out as a Papist sympathizer.'

'Yes, it would be a defiant gesture,' I said.

'It could have been dropped deliberately,' Lord Hertford said.

'Yes, my lord,' I agreed. 'That is possible. But there may be another connection to the old religion.' I took a deep breath. 'Dwale was used to subdue at least two victims. And according to my friend Dr Malton, the only certain place dwale has been used in recent years is in the infirmaries of Benedictine monasteries. I wanted to ask you, my lord, whether I might make search among the Court of Augmentations records, to see what became of London's Benedictine infirmarians.'

Cranmer leaned forward. 'Could that be the explanation?' he asked eagerly. 'An ex-monk? A crazed, embittered papist making an example of men who were radicals once—'

'But is it not the radical godly men, not papists, who claim they understand the secrets of Revelation?' Again Sir Thomas surprised me with his perceptiveness.

'And perhaps these killings are to make an evil mockery of those very views,' Cranmer said. 'The papist church had its own students of Revelation, like Jonathan of Fiore.' His face lightened at the thought that the killer's religious motives might be conservative, not radical. He sat up, looked at us in turn. 'Master Harsnet, I want you to investigate whether the cottar had any links with the first two victims, especially through their religious affiliations. Matthew, look into the Court of Augmentations records. Edward.' He turned to Hertford. 'You are close to the King these days, I leave it to you to ensure no word of this comes near him.'

Hertford nodded. 'So long as no one here talks, I can do that.'

'And me?' Thomas Seymour asked.

'You, Thomas, keep your mouth shut,' his brother said.

Seymour reddened. Hertford turned to Cranmer. 'Well, so we investigate what has been done. But what of the future? If the lawyer here is right, and I believe he may well be, there will soon be a fourth killing.' He opened his Testament and read aloud: 'And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to burn men with heat of fire. And the men raged in great heat, and spoke evil of the name of God, which hath power over these plagues, and repented not.'

'What will he do?' Cranmer said quietly. 'Where, and when?'

'Anyone could be the victim,' I said. 'Anywhere in London, a pious man like Roger or a man relapsed into sin like the cottar. We cannot know when he will strike, or where.'

'Then we cannot stop him?'

'Only if we catch him first,' I answered. 'And I think he will strike again before long.'

'Why so?' Harsnet asked.

'It seems Tupholme was found in January. Dr Gurney died in February, a month later. Roger died three weeks after that. A week ago. It would seem sensible to expect the fourth killing within the next fortnight.'

'What of the final three vials of wrath?' Thomas Seymour asked. 'What happens?'

Cranmer took a deep breath. 'The pouring of the fifth vial brings death to the sinful by darkness and great pain. That could mean death by any one of a hundred means. The sixth vial dries up the waters of the Euphrates, and I do not know what someone could do to simulate that. And when the seventh angel pours out his vial there are thunders and lightnings and a great earthquake.'

'My lord,' I said. 'There is one more thing I would ask, if I may. It could assist us.'

'Yes?'

'Dr Malton. He told me some of the old monastic infirmarians used dwale. He may know of them, even if he did not know them himself. I would like to take him into my confidence. He helped us over the dwale.'

'He's an ex-monk, isn't he?' Hertford asked sharply.