Brother Guy came in. 'Old Brother August needs his pan, Alice.'

'At once.' She curtsied and went out. Outside, the bells began tolling loudly. They seemed to echo round my skull.

'Commissioner Singleton's funeral will be in half an hour.'

'Brother Guy,' I said, suddenly awkward, 'may I consult with you, professionally?'

'Of course. Any assistance I can give.'

'I am having trouble with my back. Since the long ride here it pains me where – where it protrudes.'

'Would you like me to look?'

I took a long, deep breath. I hated the thought of a stranger seeing my deformity, but I had been suffering ever since the journey from London and was starting to become anxious some lasting damage might have been done. 'Very well,' I said, and began to remove my doublet.

Brother Guy went behind me and I felt cool fingers on my back, probing the knotted muscles. He grunted.

'Well?' I asked anxiously.

'Your muscles have gone into a spasm. They are very knotted. But I can see no damage to your spine. With time and rest your back should ease.' He stepped round and studied my face with a cool professional gaze as I dressed again.

'Does your back often give you much pain?'

'Sometimes,' I said shortly. 'But there is little to be done about it.'

'You are under much strain. That never helps.'

I grunted. 'I have not slept well since coming here. But who is to wonder at that?'

His large brown eyes studied my face. 'Were you well before?'

'My dominant humour is melancholy. These last few months I have felt it growing, I fear the balance of my humours is becoming undermined.'

He nodded. 'I think you have an overheated mind, not surprising after what you have witnessed here.'

I was silent a moment. 'I cannot help feeling responsible for that boy's death.' I had not meant to confide in him so, but Brother Guy had a way of drawing one out despite oneself.

'If anyone is responsible it is I. He was poisoned while under my care.'

'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.'