Holy Spy by Rory Clements

am that revealing this to anyone else could lead to a great amount of trouble, both for myself and for the executioner.’
    ‘Why? Why did you buy it?’
    ‘I wished to examine it.’
    ‘You will have to explain further. Surely, the cause of his death was self-evident – to wit, hanging by the neck until his breathing and heart stopped. I saw it myself. What could you have hoped to learn?’
    Peace pushed open the door to the adjoining room, where he kept the tools of his trade and corpses awaiting examination. ‘Come through.’
    Will Cane’s body was on a narrow wooden table. He had been sliced open from the throat, all down the chest and through his abdomen to his privy parts. His ribs had been pulled apart and fixed back with iron appliances, thus exposing his internal organs.
    Shakespeare held back, disinclined to look too closely. ‘What have you been doing to him? He reminds me of a beast after the butcher has been at work.’
    ‘I dissect the cadavers of hanged felons to further my knowledge of anatomy. It seems to me that they may as well serve some useful purpose in death, for few have done much for the world in their short and wretched lives. The great anatomists of Bologna and Padua believe that once the inner workings of the body are understood, we will know how to cure its defects. And I agree with them.’
    Shakespeare had no argument with Peace’s thinking, but he was concerned by the risk the searcher was taking. ‘Clearly, I will say nothing, Joshua. But you must be careful in this work. Have you thought of trying to join the Company of Barber-Surgeons? I do believe they have licence to dissect four criminals a year. Otherwise you are in peril, not least from the surgeons. There are already those who believe you to be a necromancer and there are many jealous of your position here. Be circumspect, I beg you. Like me, you have enemies to contend with in this town.’
    ‘Fear not, I take precautions.’
    ‘Then, Joshua, why are you showing me this body? What relevance can it have?’
    ‘Look more closely, John.’
    He moved forward and gazed into the cavity of the dead man. He was repulsed by what he saw, for it did not look at all natural. Nothing was as he had expected. Attached to the organs, there were shapes and growths that no body should contain. He turned back to Joshua with a questioning frown. ‘Explain. What am I looking at?’
    ‘A body riddled with impostumes and cankers. His bowels, his liver, his lungs. The tumours are everywhere and are malignant. He must have been exceedingly weak. And look at his face. The blood from his mouth has come straight from the lungs.’ Peace ran a hand across the thin rim of hair that circled his own pate. ‘Do you understand now?’
    Shakespeare nodded. He had seen the point Peace was making even as he spoke the words. ‘You are saying that he was dying anyway?’
    ‘There is no doubt about it. His appointment with the hangman merely hastened his death by a day or two – and saved him a great deal of pain.’
    ‘And he would have known that he was dying?’
    ‘He could not have thought otherwise. There was nothing any physician or apothecary could have done to save him. He would have been certain that his end was close and must have raised a great effort of will to carry out his mission to kill Mr Giltspur. To tell the truth, I am astonished he had the strength to make his way to Fishmongers’ Hall, let alone wield a knife. The trial itself, standing before the judge in Justice Hall, must have been torture. At the end, hanging would have been a blessing to him.’
    Shakespeare looked more closely at the body. Wretched and emaciated, it was more bone and skin than flesh.
    Peace stepped towards a shelf attached to the wall and picked up a weapon. Shakespeare took it from him and turned it over in his hands. It was an evil-looking thing that had done for Nicholas Giltspur. A narrow, slaughterman-sharp nine-inch blade protruded from a hilt-guard in