Part 2      "Truth is, I thought it mattered,       I thought that music... mattered.       But does it bollocks,       Not compared to how people matter." - Danny (played by Pete Postlethwaite) in Brassed Off

Thomas More and Brother Felix made their way to the stables at the rear of Hampton Court. Felix, mangling Spanish and Latin alike, declared, "Los Luteranos delenda est!" "No," More replied, "they must be brought to trial to determine their guilt or innocence before we punish them." "Trial?" exclaimed the Dominican, "Save us from the time of trial! It is not for us mere mortals to judge others but only God Himself. No, when we find los hereticos we shall give them one last chance to abjure their apostasy. Those who do will be garroted as a misericord, a token of the infinite compassion of Christ. Then we burn them all." "How will we be sure that those who abjured have truly reconciled to the Church Universal and are not just spouting more lies?" "We cannot be sure. But the Lord will know His own." Thomas had doubts. Cardinal Wolsey had been quite specific about returning with a culprit. But the relationship with his new colleague seemed to be starting on the wrong foot. "We should not quarrel about this, Brother Felix. We are yet to capture those responsible. And if true Christian men should fight among ourselves then, in a very real sense, the terrorizers would have won." The friar agreed, in a collision of scripture with architecture, "Those who are not with us are against us.[1] A tower divided amongst itself cannot stand." The pair reached the stables. Tethered in the stall next to More's strawberry roan stallion was Felix's little gray donkey. "Where to now, amigo Thomas?" "Back to the scene of the crime, my brother. I have found one clue already," More patted his doublet, "but there may be more." "A clue? May I have it?" "It will make more sense seen at the twice-hallowed grounds of St Paul's. Let us ride!" With that the Sheriff of London mounted his magnificent horse and was gone, Felix and donkey in hot pursuit, eating More's dust.

"My God, the devastation is frightful. It feels like I am seeing something from the Last Judgment." More understood the monk's reaction but thought that even this sight was not as frightful as the night before, seeing the roof collapse and knowing what it meant. But he said nothing. He looked at the site. Debris was being cleared. The wounded had already been taken away. The bodies of the dead, where recognizable, were given to relatives who were maintaining a commendably composed queue in the circumstances. For the bodies that were crushed or burnt beyond recognition there was a team of priests saying a continuous series of requiem masses. Each corpse was buried in its own grave on the cathedral grounds. In the weeks to come each would be given its own marble headstone, "Sine Nomine. Known to God." Felix was by More's side, "Was it very sudden?" he said anxiously. More nodded. Felix became distraught, "Then they died unshriven, without extreme unction. They may not have been in a state of grace when this terrible thing happened." More put his arm around the monk's shoulder and spoke in Spanish, "They were at evensong, amigo Felix. For an Englishman there is hardly a more sacred occasion. With the last light of a summer's day shining through the stained glass windows and the sound of the choir singing the Nunc Dimittis; I'm sure all souls present were in a state of grace." Felix wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his cassock, "Thank you, amigo Thomas. I believe you are right." More deemed it time to show Felix the evidence he had found the night before. It was a charred piece of parchment was the top half was quite legible. The friar peered closely, "That script, it is Germanic is it not?" "Yes." More had studied Hebrew under Reuchlin in Germany and had become quite familiar with that country's language and its Gothic script. "It says 'Wagonen für Dumkopfen'. It's an instruction pamphlet for would be wain riders. "Pamphlets are used by those who are too poor to buy books?" "Or in too much of a hurry." Brother Felix cursed pamphlets and printing presses in general. "Those instruments make knowledge too widespread and put it into the wrong hands. Before you know it there will be pamphlets showing children how to make petards." More laughed, "You Inquisitors certainly fear the worst in people! I misdoubt any printer would do such a foolish thing." The Englishman sobered, "But what does this clue tell us?" "That whoever rode the wain into the cathedral and set it alight was not an experienced wain driver. That they were either poor or in a hurry." "Exactly! And to me, Felix, it seems that it was probably a stolen wain. And a most unusual one, too. For it is not in the nature of carts to burn so fiercely. It must have had a special cargo; brandy or lamp oil or the like." "Si. But if it were stolen then where is the true wainsman? "If he has not come forward by now, dead I guess." The monk's suspicious mind moved to a higher level, "Not necessarily. The wain driver could have been part of the conspiracy and simply passed on the wagon to a suicidal accomplice." "I think not," began More, "for three reasons..." But before More could stun Brother Felix with his deductive powers, a messenger from Cardinal Wolsey interrupted. "Good sirs, I was told I might find you here. I bear tidings. A body was found at Pultney this morning. He was not a local but an innkeeper recognised him as a carter who often did deliveries for a London gentleman." Both More's and Felix's eyes were on the messenger. "Did the innkeeper know the name?" asked More. "Not of the carter, sir. But the gentleman is a Master Thomas Cromwell. He is known to the Cardinal; here is his address." The messenger passed an envelope to More and departed. Felix glanced over More's shoulder at the message. The envelope was encribed, "To Mafter Thos. More - F.T.E.O" "What is this 'fteo'?" the Spaniard asked. "It's an abbreviation," More explained, "For Thine Eyes Only. It's just his grace reminding me to be discrete." He mimicked the cardinal's sing-song voice, "Do try not to blow everyone up this time." Cromwell's name had meant nothing to Felix. But Cromwell was well known to More. "Come, Brother Felix. We must pay Master Cromwell a little visit. Perhaps he knows the name of the late carter." "The false one or the true one?" By now More's mind was working like his colleague's. "The true one, certainly. The false one, who knows?"

"Ah, Thomas. To what do I owe the pleasure? And a new friend, all in somber black!" A servant had brought More and Felix into a drawing room only slightly smaller than the audience room at Hampton Court. But while Wolsey's chamber screamed wealth and opulence, this room whispered discretion and taste. "Thomas, this is Brother Felix of Barcelena. Felix, this is Master Thomas Cromwell. We are here to ask some questions." "Ask away," Cromwell smiled, "my life is an open book." From More's perspective, that statement was a lie. Cromwell had made his fortune in the Netherlands, doing what, no-one quite knew. His wealth had become respectable on his return to London, where he dabbled in banking and haberdashery. And you didn't need to be a Brother Felix to suspect that in his time in Holland Cromwell might have become enmeshed in Devotio Moderna, the barely Catholic movement which for so many impressionable or desperate youngsters these days was the gateway into Lutheranism. "Do you take regular deliveries in your business?" "All the time, Thomas. I'm an industrious man, my business needs many materials." "Do you have delivered any inflammable liquids?" "Oh yes, some of the agents I use to prepare cloth are spiritous. But you don't think..." "I think your agents were involved in the destruction of St Paul's." Cromwell seemed genuinely shocked, "By all that is holy! That is terrible!" "You are worried about the loss of life and the physical and symbolic attack on a major Christian building?" "Yes, yes, all that. But my dyes! They weren't insured!" Cromwell slumped in his chair, "It's all helpless, helpless. I'm devastated. I'm sorry but I can't go on today." More held out a comforting hand. "That's understandable, Master Cromwell. One more question and we'll trouble you no more today. Who provided your dyes?" "Wishart's in Cambridge. They really are the only people who can make the stuff in England. Otherwise you have to import it from Flanders." "Thank you Master Cromwell. We may have to come back at a later date to ask one or two more questions but otherwise that is all." More said good-byes for him and Felix and the two departed.

Night was falling. Out on the street Felix exploded, "That man is surely guilty of something, More! All that art and sculpture in that room and not one depiction of the Holy Family!" "Yes, friend Felix. He wasn't telling us everything he knew, that much I'm sure. But consider what we now know. The wain came from Cambridge but was stolen at Pultney. Normally I'd go to Pultney first but there's this to consider," More fished out 'Wagonen für Dumkopfen', "There's no printing press in London that could produce this, they don't have the type. It must have been printed in Cambridge; they have the facilities for printing educational materials." "Might not the pamphlet have been printed in, well, Germany?" "No. Even in this short, legible passage it's riddled with spelling errors. The compositor who set this type was no German speaker!" "But an ally of los Luteranos?" "Perhaps. Or perhaps he was an honest Englishman with a knife held to his throat!" It was a horrible thought but More had to express it. "But if they are printing these things then there might be dozens, even hundreds of terrorizers learning to ride wains. St Paul's might just be the first such attack on Christendom. But England is a modern kingdom. We can't impound all wains nor can we arrest all Germans. We must get to the heart of this terrorizing and quickly. At first light tomorrow we ride to Cambridge."

More was impatiently having to restrain his stallion so Felix's little gray donkey could keep up. More had suggested Felix hire a horse and had offered to pay himself. But the friar was adamant. As a Dominican brother with a vow of poverty he had no possessions save his clothes and Basil, for whom he had a special indulgence. "Basil?" asked More, "Isn't that a rather, ahem, Eastern name for an Inquisitor's donkey?" "Our brothers in the Eastern church are not evil but simply stupid," said Brother Felix, "rather like this donkey. And St Basil the Great, while an Easterner, was well before the Great Schism. St Basil was very stubborn. Also like this donkey." Both men agreed that Martin[2] was a thoroughly sound name for More's stallion.

It was late in the afternoon when the pair reached Cambridge. The donkey was tethered outside while More gave a groom a few coins to minister to Martin in the stables. More and Felix stepped inside to negotiate rooms. Standing in an alleyway watching were two figures. The taller one pointed and told the other, "Get that ass!" More paid in advance for the night. He and Felix emerged to get their saddlebags. "Look amigo Thomas, someone has left a small barrel of beer beside Basil." More looked. Small barrels of beer did not normally have burning cords emerging from their tops. He threw himself on top of Felix and the two men sprawled to the ground. "Amigo Thomas, this is neither the time nor the..." There was a large explosion. Something hit Felix on the back of the head with all the force of a cast iron frying pan. It was Basil's lifeless head, a look of equine surprise frozen on his face. "Quite a head on that beer," quipped More sardonically. Brother Felix was still dazed and couldn't bring himself to stand up. The explosion, the loss of Basil and now this renaissance man, this Master Thomas More, behaving like some unfeeling throwback to the 11th century. Felix said three quick, quiet prayers in succession. Perhaps More lacked the inner resources of others. Maybe the only way he could cope with sudden, unexpected death was through wise-cracking. Brother Felix said a fourth prayer, that there would be no more sudden death until they had found the terrorizers. [To be continued]

[1] Mark 9:40 is more commonly read as, "For he who is not against us is on our side." But Brother Felix does not have the benefit of a bible in his mother tongue and so should be given an indulgence. [2]More's steed is named of course after St Martin of Tours (died 11 November 397) the one-time Roman legionnaire and not after any heresiarch who may have shared the name of the patron saint of France.