Read Online Shadow on the Highway by Deborah Swift - Free Book Online

use?’
    Mistress Binch nodded, her desire to please Mr Grice over-riding her usual bad temper.
    ‘Tell her to fetch my saddlebags in from the stables and bring me some ale. My men will unload my other luggage.’
    I stared because I couldn’t help it. His eyes were slightly protruding, as was his lower lip, his skin was smooth as wax. His mouth opened and closed like a fish.
    Mistress Binch prompted me and I ran to fetch the bags from his horse which was a rangy black gelding with an ill-tempered expression. When I hauled the saddlebags over my arm, I almost fell over, they were so heavy. No wonder, one of them gaped open to reveal a travelling Bible and some other large leather-bound books.
    Mr Grice beckoned me forward and set off up the stairs expecting me to follow. He knew exactly where to go, so all I had to do was keep up with his limping gait, and he moved very quickly for a man with a wooden foot. Up the stairs he went, with a practised swing, with me panting behind him, out of breath from carrying his heavy panniers. On the landing he paused, put a forefinger to one of the empty patches where paintings had hung, shook his head, then led me to the west wing and into a guest chamber.
    The room was bare except for a bed but he appeared not to notice.
    ‘There ,’ he said, pointing to the floor. I let the bags fall where he pointed. Just beneath the bed I saw a mouse-trap with a half-decomposed mouse. He saw me look, wrinkled his nose at the odour. ‘You will empty all the traps.’ He went on with more instructions, which could have been, ‘bring fresh linen,’ and what looked like ‘juggle you.’
    I just stared. Something about him disconcerted me.
    ‘Do you understand? A jug and ewer.’
    Ah. Now I understood. He approached very near, and looked straight into my eyes. ‘If Lady Katherine gets letters from her husband or Sir Simon Fanshawe they are to come to me first.’
    I didn’t know what to say. It seemed dishonest somehow to Lady Katherine to interfere with her correspondence.
    He took a step even closer, frowning. His breath smelt faintly of scurf and decay. ‘Are you dumb? Did you understand? She demanded a maid, and I agreed to your employment...’ His mouth pronounced the words carefully, ‘… but it can be stopped just as easily.’
    I swallowed, struck dumb. Not because of his words, but because his eyes were cold as marble.
    ‘Come here each evening after prayers, to bring me her letters. Anything that goes in or out of the house.’
    Still I stood staring, until his hand grabbed my wrist, jerked it hard. I recoiled but he held it fast. A stinging slap on my cheek that made me gasp.
    ‘My leg needs dressing every day. You will bring water and brandy and linen bandages.’ He pointed to his foot.
    When I did not reply I saw him shake his head and spit out something insulting that looked like ‘imbecile girl’.
    ‘You are dismissed,’ he snapped at me.
    I fled out of the door, my cheek burning, and took in a great breath of air. He thought I was stupid, but I was just nervous. There was something ruthless as a hawk about him. Lady Katherine, well she was demanding enough, but I sensed Mr Grice was of another mould altogether.
    Terrified of bringing down more wrath from Mr Grice, I ran down to the kitchen for a shovel and a sack to empty the mouse traps then went into all the rooms on my grisly task. I could hardly bear it, seeing the small dismembered bodies. As I went, I wished I could hear, because the sound of Grice’s walking would tell me where he was and I was frightened he might suddenly loom up behind me.
    In the kitchen I asked Mrs Binch what to do with the sack.
    ‘Throw them out the back, near the midden. We need another cat. But Henshaw, the maid who was here before you, wouldn’t have one in the house. Said they made her sneeze.’
    ‘Where can I get one?’
    She raised her eyebrows to the ceiling. ‘They’re everywhere. Are you blind as well as deaf? In the