The Archiepiscopal House had closed its gates before breakfast.
By the time Caleb and I reached it, the fog had settled into the ironwork and turned every spearpoint black with wet. Two constables stood beneath the stone arch, collars buttoned high, hands resting near the truncheons at their belts.
Neither looked pleased to see us.
That was ordinary enough.
The chain was not.
It hung across the entrance drive at knee height, bright brass against the grey morning. A lead seal had been pressed around one link. I had seen cordons around plague rooms, collapsed tenements, and houses where something had fed too long before anyone thought to send for us.
I had never seen one around a bishop’s residence.
The constable nearest the gate looked at the mud drying along my cassock, then at the bandage that showed beneath my collar.
“Father Greaves.”
“That is usually what people call me before making a mistake.”
“You are not on the entry list.”
“I find lists encourage a dangerous confidence.”
“You may leave a statement.”
“I would prefer to see Bishop Marlowe.”
The man’s mouth tightened.
“You are too late for that.”
“So I gathered.”
Behind me, Caleb adjusted his hold on the black case. Its brass latch was scraped from the coast. He had carried it from the Black Dog without once setting it down.
A case with the wrong kind of weight in it.
The front door opened.
A man came down the steps with a covered tray balanced in both hands.
He wore a plain dark coat and a black apron. The sort of man whose work began after people stopped looking at the dead as people. Silver hair brushed his collar, fine and a little too long. His face, when I saw it, was younger than the hair had promised.
He passed the constable.
“Mind the step,” he said.
His voice was low and rough.
Old.
I looked at him again.
The man glanced up.
For a moment, I thought I knew him.
The feeling passed before I could decide where it came from.
He went through the gate and down the drive. The fog took him.
“Do you know him?” Caleb asked.
“No.”
I watched the place where he had disappeared.
“I thought I did.”
“Father.”
Prudence Hale approached from the street, Zeke at her shoulder. Prudence wore a dark travelling coat buttoned to the throat. She looked as though she had not slept. Zeke looked as though he had slept badly and blamed someone else for it.
“I told them you would come,” Prudence said.
“Did you tell them why?”
“I told them enough.”
“That is rarely comforting.”
The constable looked at Prudence.
“Sister Hale. Canon Vale has given instructions.”
Of course he had.
The front door opened again.
Matthias Vale stood on the threshold.
He had always carried himself as though rooms were waiting for instruction. It had annoyed me twenty years ago. It had not improved with age.
His black coat was immaculate. His gloves were clean. A little silver showed at his temples. Folded against his forearm rested Exodus, blackened steel and brass joints closed tight around its pressure chamber.
The Church had taken him from the field years ago.
It had not taken the field out of him.
Two young people stood behind him.
The young man had a ledger under one arm. The girl carried a medic’s bag.
“Gideon Marr,” he said.
“Sabine Kestrel.”
Caleb nodded. “Caleb.”
Sabine’s eyes dropped to the way he stood.
“You’ve hurt your leg.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Then stop favouring it.”
Gideon glanced at the black case by Caleb’s boot.
“The latch is loose.”
“The spring beneath it,” Caleb said. “Not the latch.”
Gideon looked closer, then gave a small nod.
“Right.”
Sabine reached past him, took the gloves he had left on the windowsill, and pushed them into his coat pocket.
“You’ll need those.”
“I was coming back for them.”
“No, you weren’t.”
Caleb looked down to hide a smile.
Matthias watched the exchange without comment.
Then he looked at me.
“Edmund.”
“Matthias.”
His eyes travelled over the mud on my cassock, the torn cuff, the bandage at my throat.
“You came straight here.”
“I had breakfast.”
“Did you?”
“Tea.”
His gaze stayed on the bandage.
“You should be in bed.”
“And miss this?”
“A bishop is dead.”
“I noticed the chain.”
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then he stepped aside from the door.
“Not the study.”
“I was going to ask.”
“You were going to walk past me.”
“That too.”
I looked into the lower hall. Lamplight moved against the walls. Clerks crossed in and out of a side room carrying papers. Beneath the smell of oil and damp wool was the thin metal scent of blood.
“Who has been inside?” I asked.
“Those required.”
“Names.”
“Relevant names.”
“Matthias.”
“Edmund.”
There were men who hated you because they did not know you. You could work with those men.
Matthias knew me too well for that.
Prudence moved beside me.
“I need to see the study.”
“When the inventory is finished,” Matthias said.
“It is Honoria’s weapon.”
“Yes.”
“And she is missing.”
“Yes.”
Prudence’s jaw clenched.
“Then why are we standing outside?”
Matthias looked at her properly then.
“Because rushing into that room will not bring either of them back.”
“She would not leave Yael.”
“That may be true.”
“May be?”
He held her gaze.
“A bishop was murdered behind a locked door. We do not improve matters by deciding what is true before the room is finished speaking.”
Zeke shifted beside Prudence.
“You heard the woman,” he said. “Let her look.”
Matthias did not look at him.
“No.”
Zeke’s expression darkened.
I said, “You have a talent for making simple answers sound personal.”
“And you have a talent for mistaking restraint for insult.”
“Sometimes it is.”
“Not this time.”
That was the problem with Matthias. He could say something cruel without sounding cruel at all. He believed the law was clean because it was written down. He believed a decision became merciful if it was made with a straight face.
“What do you know about the wound?” I asked.
“It is consistent with Yael.”
“Consistent is not conclusive.”
“No.”
He did not elaborate.
I waited.
So did he.
Prudence looked toward the hallway.
“You have the weapon?”
“It is secured.”
“Where?”
“Not here.”
“Matthias.”
“Prudence.”
The use of her name was almost gentle.
That made it worse.
He turned to one of the constables.
“Two men on the side passage. No one enters or leaves the grounds without being recorded.”
The constable nodded and went.
Prudence watched him leave.
“You think Honoria did this.”
“I think Bishop Marlowe is dead. I think Sister Mace is missing. I think her weapon was at the scene.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the answer I have.”
I looked at Caleb.
He had gone still beside the case. Gideon stood near him with the ledger under his arm. Sabine had shifted half a step toward Prudence, close enough to help if she stumbled, far enough not to insult her by assuming she would.
They had the look of people who had learned early how to be useful in rooms owned by older, more dangerous people.
Caleb fit beside them more easily than I expected.
I disliked how much that bothered me.
“Let us see the hall,” I said.
Matthias looked at me.
“You may enter the lower hall.”
“How generous.”
“You may look. You will not touch anything. You will not question staff. You will not enter the study.”
“And if I do?”
“Then I will remove you.”
I studied him.
He meant it.
Not because he wanted to embarrass me. Not because old disagreements needed a new stage.
Because he had decided that was the line. Once Matthias made a line, he became very difficult to persuade that anyone on the other side remained human enough to deserve exception.
“Fine,” I said.
It was not agreement.
He knew that.
He stepped aside.
Caleb picked up the case. Gideon moved first, holding the door open without being told. Sabine followed behind him, her eyes briefly returning to Caleb’s limp.
Inside, the lower hall was colder than the street.
The house had high ceilings and dark portraits that watched from the walls. A bishop from another age stared down at us with one pale hand raised in blessing. Someone had covered the carpets with strips of canvas. Footsteps passed quietly over them.
A clerk stood at a small writing table near the stairs, copying something from one sheet to another.
On the far wall, a door stood closed.
Two constables guarded it.
There was blood on the lower edge of the brass handle.
Not much.
Enough.
Prudence stopped.
Zeke’s hand closed around the strap of his axe.
Caleb looked at the door, then at me.
I did not tell him what to think.
The room was already doing enough of that.
Matthias remained behind us. I could feel him there without looking. It was an old field instinct. You learned the position of someone who had once watched your back.
Later, you learned the difference between being watched and being guarded.
Gideon stood near the writing table, waiting while Matthias spoke quietly to the clerk. Sabine checked the open case of medical supplies by the wall, careful not to touch it.
Caleb watched her for a moment.
Then his eyes went to the strips of canvas on the floor.
“They replaced these,” he said.
The clerk looked up.
“What?”
“The runner,” Caleb said. “It is too clean near the stairs.”
No one spoke.
Caleb pointed, not stepping closer.
“Someone walked there after the first canvas went down. Then they changed it.”
The clerk stared at the floor.
Matthias turned.
His gaze moved from Caleb to the canvas.
Then he looked at the clerk.
“Who replaced it?”
The clerk went pale.
“I do not know, Canon.”
“You copied the inventory?”
“Yes.”
“Then you will find out.”
The clerk swallowed.
“Yes, Canon.”
Matthias’s attention returned to Caleb.
“Good eye,” he said.
Caleb looked uncomfortable with the praise.
“It is only cloth.”
“No,” Matthias said. “It is a change.”
For the first time that morning, something almost like approval crossed his face.
I did not like that either.
The closed door at the end of the hall remained shut.
Behind it lay Bishop Marlowe.
Somewhere beyond London’s fog, Honoria was either running from the law or running toward something worse.
And in the drive outside, a silver-haired man with an old voice had passed through the gate with a covered tray.
I looked once toward the front windows.
The fog pressed against the glass.
Nothing moved in it.
Still, I found myself listening for footsteps.