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Read Online [Roger the Chapman 05] - Eve of Saint Hyacinth by Kate Sedley - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Kate Sedley
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at a severe disadvantage in a dangerous situation.'
'Fine talking!' the other snarled angrily. 'Whom am I to trust? Tell me that! There's Timothy Plummet, but he's too valuable to imperil his hide.'
I heard the second man's impatient shifting of feet. 'You can't suspect every member of the duke's household, surely! It doesn't make sense!'
'Until I get a name I do, and so does Master Plummer.
All right. Perhaps there is just one other I'd trust, but he's too young and too green. No, no! You'll have to put up with me. I'll be with you again tomorrow evening. What o'clock?'
'Just after Compline. There's a warehouse lying empty near the right-hand corner of the quay as you face the river. Left if you're looking inland towards the Vintry. I'll force the side door and leave it unlatched. Now I must be off. It makes me nervous standing out in the open for too long.'
'You're sure you'll have the name for me tomorrow?'
'This should smooth out all difficulties.' Once more I heard the chink of coins. 'God be with you, Master Arrowsmith.'
'And with you, Thaddeus Morgan.'
The whispering stopped. A shadow detached itself from the deeper blackness by the Priory wall, crossed the grass with a light, cat-like tread and melted into one of the alleyways on the opposite side of the road. Moments later, a second shadow, moving with equal stealth, took the road to the Leadenhall granary and the heart of the city, presumably returning by devious ways to Baynard's Castle.
Although beginning to suffer cramp in legs and feet from crouching behind the brake of hawthorn for so long, I gritted my teeth and forced myself to wait for several minutes before making any attempt to rise. I wanted to give both conspirators time to get clear away.
I was just about to stretch my left leg, which had borne the brunt of my weight, when I was arrested in mid-movement by the cautious emergence of a third shadow from the shelter of a buttress supporting the orchard wall.
The figure advanced to the edge of the grass and glanced furtively in both directions, before also taking the Leadenhall road, in the wake of Master Arrowsmith. Who was this man? And what was he doing there? Was he an innocent eavesdropper like myself? Someone else who could not sleep and had braved the night air? Or had he followed Master Arrowsmith from Baynard's Castle with the fixed intention of spying on him and overhearing his conversation with the man named Thaddeus Morgan? If the latter, why had I not noticed his arrival? But on reflection, the answer to that question was simple. My whole attention had been focused upon the two central characters in the drama unfolding before me. If this third man had kept close in to the orchard wall, deep within its shadow, I would not have observed him. If the former, however, he might have witnessed my emergence from the Saracen's Head and have been aware of my presence. Yet, once Lionel Arrowsmith and Thaddeus Morgan had departed, he had given no indication of knowing that I was here, not by so much as a turn of the head in my direction.
Therefore I was more inclined to believe my second theory to be the correct one: that the unknown had tailed the Duke's man in order to discover where he was going and whom he was meeting.
Not that it was any of my business whatever the answer, I told myself severely. I struggled to my feet, flexed my limbs, picked up the courtyard key from the grass where I had dropped it and returned to the inn. Everything was more or less as I had left it half an hour earlier. The same horse stamped restlessly in his stall, the man on the other side of the kitchen still snored loudly and had now been joined in chorus by the pieman, while the rest of my fellow lodgers were sprawled in various attitudes of abandon on their pallets of flea-ridden straw.
I removed all my clothes except for my shirt and lay down again, but not to sleep. Oblivious now to the noises around me, I turned on my back and stared up at the
'Fine talking!' the other snarled angrily. 'Whom am I to trust? Tell me that! There's Timothy Plummet, but he's too valuable to imperil his hide.'
I heard the second man's impatient shifting of feet. 'You can't suspect every member of the duke's household, surely! It doesn't make sense!'
'Until I get a name I do, and so does Master Plummer.
All right. Perhaps there is just one other I'd trust, but he's too young and too green. No, no! You'll have to put up with me. I'll be with you again tomorrow evening. What o'clock?'
'Just after Compline. There's a warehouse lying empty near the right-hand corner of the quay as you face the river. Left if you're looking inland towards the Vintry. I'll force the side door and leave it unlatched. Now I must be off. It makes me nervous standing out in the open for too long.'
'You're sure you'll have the name for me tomorrow?'
'This should smooth out all difficulties.' Once more I heard the chink of coins. 'God be with you, Master Arrowsmith.'
'And with you, Thaddeus Morgan.'
The whispering stopped. A shadow detached itself from the deeper blackness by the Priory wall, crossed the grass with a light, cat-like tread and melted into one of the alleyways on the opposite side of the road. Moments later, a second shadow, moving with equal stealth, took the road to the Leadenhall granary and the heart of the city, presumably returning by devious ways to Baynard's Castle.
Although beginning to suffer cramp in legs and feet from crouching behind the brake of hawthorn for so long, I gritted my teeth and forced myself to wait for several minutes before making any attempt to rise. I wanted to give both conspirators time to get clear away.
I was just about to stretch my left leg, which had borne the brunt of my weight, when I was arrested in mid-movement by the cautious emergence of a third shadow from the shelter of a buttress supporting the orchard wall.
The figure advanced to the edge of the grass and glanced furtively in both directions, before also taking the Leadenhall road, in the wake of Master Arrowsmith. Who was this man? And what was he doing there? Was he an innocent eavesdropper like myself? Someone else who could not sleep and had braved the night air? Or had he followed Master Arrowsmith from Baynard's Castle with the fixed intention of spying on him and overhearing his conversation with the man named Thaddeus Morgan? If the latter, why had I not noticed his arrival? But on reflection, the answer to that question was simple. My whole attention had been focused upon the two central characters in the drama unfolding before me. If this third man had kept close in to the orchard wall, deep within its shadow, I would not have observed him. If the former, however, he might have witnessed my emergence from the Saracen's Head and have been aware of my presence. Yet, once Lionel Arrowsmith and Thaddeus Morgan had departed, he had given no indication of knowing that I was here, not by so much as a turn of the head in my direction.
Therefore I was more inclined to believe my second theory to be the correct one: that the unknown had tailed the Duke's man in order to discover where he was going and whom he was meeting.
Not that it was any of my business whatever the answer, I told myself severely. I struggled to my feet, flexed my limbs, picked up the courtyard key from the grass where I had dropped it and returned to the inn. Everything was more or less as I had left it half an hour earlier. The same horse stamped restlessly in his stall, the man on the other side of the kitchen still snored loudly and had now been joined in chorus by the pieman, while the rest of my fellow lodgers were sprawled in various attitudes of abandon on their pallets of flea-ridden straw.
I removed all my clothes except for my shirt and lay down again, but not to sleep. Oblivious now to the noises around me, I turned on my back and stared up at the
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