Read Online The Butcher of St Peter's: (Knights Templar 19) by Michael Jecks - Free Book Online
Authors: Michael Jecks
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he’d last been with her. Over a week, certainly, nearer two. And he was so desperate
to have her. A God-damned miracle she had agreed to meet him again after the last time, the last fiasco. That was awful:realizing, just as he was getting to the short strokes, that there was someone in his boy’s chamber.
Christ Jesus, seeing that tall figure in the room had near-emasculated him. He’d stood there, staring at the man at the window,
and if he’d had a moment longer to think about it, he’d have shitted himself. The idea that a stranger could be in there with
his son was so terrifying, it near stopped his heart. He’d heard once of a man who was so petrified with terror on finding
felons attempting to rob his house that although he had hidden safely, he had discovered the next morning that his hair had
all turned white! White! As though he had aged forty years in an instant. Well, if that could happen to anyone, it was a miracle
it hadn’t happened to Reg that night, because he would have sworn on his mother’s grave that the presence of the man in there
meant his son was already dead.
Sweet Jesus, the sight of Michael breathing so easily had overwhelmed him. It felt as though God had forgiven him all his
sins in one burst, seeing his lad there safe and sound. He would rather have cut off his own arm than see his son harmed in
any way.
He assumed she would keep their assignation, but perhaps … He’d not been thinking, shouting – well, screaming, really
– for his servants to come and help, then roaring at them to go to the garden. It wasn’t the way to win her over, not when
he’d left her in a steam to go and check on his lad – bellowing for all his men to run through, when any one of them could
have seen her there, tits swinging, trying to pull a blanket over her gorgeous body. It didn’t please her, not at all.
She had her own children. She should have understood what it would feel like to find a man in the room with her son, if she
was in the same boat.
It was her husband he was most scared of, after all.
The weather was about to change. Est could smell it in the air. The unseasonable sunshine which had dried the earth and made
the city smell more of dust than of faeces and blood was going to give way soon to the sort of wind and rain that was more
to be expected. A chill was coming. He could feel it.
He was sitting in the parlour of his little house near the fleshfold, which he had kept more or less as a memorial to his
family. By the door was a hook on which Emma’s favourite apron still hung, as though she had set it there before putting on
her second best for sweeping the floor, and near the fire was the little rough stool he had bought for her from the market.
It had been old widow Marta’s, and he’d snapped it up from Marta’s son when she died. Emma had been pleased with it. Much
more comfortable than her old one.
Her face on the evening when he brought home his little gift was a pleasure to recall. She had always been so happy with so
little. That was fortunate, too, because the year after they were wedded there was not enough money to buy anything much.
It was the hard year when the King’s host was destroyed by the barbarians up north. All killed off in some place called Ballock-something,
or Bannock-whatever. It was no matter to the folk down here, many leagues away. It only meant that there were more taxes for
a while, and some vills were unlucky and had their grain confiscated by the damned Procurers of the King. They’d come round
with their lists of what they wanted, and grab wholesale all the stores which had been intended to keep the folk through the
winter.
Before the fight, he’d even considered leaving Exeter and joining the King’s host, because no one really believed that the
savages up there could do anything against their lawful sovereign. They didn’t call his father the Hammer of the Scotsfor nothing, and
to have her. A God-damned miracle she had agreed to meet him again after the last time, the last fiasco. That was awful:realizing, just as he was getting to the short strokes, that there was someone in his boy’s chamber.
Christ Jesus, seeing that tall figure in the room had near-emasculated him. He’d stood there, staring at the man at the window,
and if he’d had a moment longer to think about it, he’d have shitted himself. The idea that a stranger could be in there with
his son was so terrifying, it near stopped his heart. He’d heard once of a man who was so petrified with terror on finding
felons attempting to rob his house that although he had hidden safely, he had discovered the next morning that his hair had
all turned white! White! As though he had aged forty years in an instant. Well, if that could happen to anyone, it was a miracle
it hadn’t happened to Reg that night, because he would have sworn on his mother’s grave that the presence of the man in there
meant his son was already dead.
Sweet Jesus, the sight of Michael breathing so easily had overwhelmed him. It felt as though God had forgiven him all his
sins in one burst, seeing his lad there safe and sound. He would rather have cut off his own arm than see his son harmed in
any way.
He assumed she would keep their assignation, but perhaps … He’d not been thinking, shouting – well, screaming, really
– for his servants to come and help, then roaring at them to go to the garden. It wasn’t the way to win her over, not when
he’d left her in a steam to go and check on his lad – bellowing for all his men to run through, when any one of them could
have seen her there, tits swinging, trying to pull a blanket over her gorgeous body. It didn’t please her, not at all.
She had her own children. She should have understood what it would feel like to find a man in the room with her son, if she
was in the same boat.
It was her husband he was most scared of, after all.
The weather was about to change. Est could smell it in the air. The unseasonable sunshine which had dried the earth and made
the city smell more of dust than of faeces and blood was going to give way soon to the sort of wind and rain that was more
to be expected. A chill was coming. He could feel it.
He was sitting in the parlour of his little house near the fleshfold, which he had kept more or less as a memorial to his
family. By the door was a hook on which Emma’s favourite apron still hung, as though she had set it there before putting on
her second best for sweeping the floor, and near the fire was the little rough stool he had bought for her from the market.
It had been old widow Marta’s, and he’d snapped it up from Marta’s son when she died. Emma had been pleased with it. Much
more comfortable than her old one.
Her face on the evening when he brought home his little gift was a pleasure to recall. She had always been so happy with so
little. That was fortunate, too, because the year after they were wedded there was not enough money to buy anything much.
It was the hard year when the King’s host was destroyed by the barbarians up north. All killed off in some place called Ballock-something,
or Bannock-whatever. It was no matter to the folk down here, many leagues away. It only meant that there were more taxes for
a while, and some vills were unlucky and had their grain confiscated by the damned Procurers of the King. They’d come round
with their lists of what they wanted, and grab wholesale all the stores which had been intended to keep the folk through the
winter.
Before the fight, he’d even considered leaving Exeter and joining the King’s host, because no one really believed that the
savages up there could do anything against their lawful sovereign. They didn’t call his father the Hammer of the Scotsfor nothing, and
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