Read Online The Dance of Death by Kate Sedley - Free Book Online

paper away for now, and later, I suggest you try to learn its contents off by heart and then destroy it. Do you have a good memory?’
    â€˜Good enough.’ I wasn’t going to relieve his mind by telling him that, from boyhood, my memory had always been excellent with almost total recall of people, incidents and places. (Even in old age, memory is my greatest gift or I wouldn’t be able to write these memoirs. My children would probably inform you that I make half of it up as I go along. But what do they know?) And in this case I felt that Timothy was right. Better by far to make an effort to commit my instructions to memory than to be caught with them in my possession. For the time being, I folded the paper into its creases and put it in the pouch at my belt with the rueful reflection that it was rather like pocketing a live coal.
    Duke Richard was alone when I was eventually ushered into his presence. There had been some delay, Timothy and I being forced to wait in an ante-room while His Grace, a loving parent, had said goodnight to his bastard children, my lord John and the lady Katherine. The boy accompanied his father everywhere, a handsome, bright, intelligent youth with a ready smile for everyone (very different, people whispered, from the delicate, legitimate son who stayed mostly in the North with his mother). Lady Katherine was slightly older, a beautiful girl of very nearly marriageable age, visiting the duke while he was in London. They had both wished Timothy and myself a charming ‘Goodnight and God be with you’ as they passed where we sat. Then a page appeared and called my name.
    I raised my eyebrows at Timothy, but he shook his head.
    â€˜No,’ he muttered. ‘I thought I told you. My lord wishes to see you alone.’
    The duke was seated beside a leaping fire, wearing a long chamber robe of amber velvet, his slippered feet stretched towards the flames. Candles had been lit, sending ripples of orange and gold licking across the walls, a draught making one of them splutter until it was suddenly extinguished in a puff of clouded blue smoke. A small table, close to the duke’s chair, supported a flask and two goblets of fine Venetian glass, glowing blood-red in the half-light.
    As soon as I entered, the duke rose from his seat, hand extended. I knelt and would have kissed it, but he withdrew it, smiling.
    â€˜No, no, Roger! Get up, man. I was going to shake your hand. I owe you a great deal, more than I can ever repay, from the time of our very first meeting. You have just endured a long and arduous trip to Scotland at my and the king’s behest – and not without its dangers, I’m given to understand – and here I am asking you to . . . to . . .’
    â€˜Commit treason, Your Highness?’ I thought it best to get things straight from the beginning.
    I must have spoken more sharply than I realized because his hand fell back to his side and he flinched. He sat down again in his chair and indicated that I should take the one opposite him, on the other side of the hearth. After a moment or two while he stared into the fire with its glowing caverns and ash-fringed logs, there was a silence so profound that I could hear the popping of resin in the wood. Suddenly panic-stricken, I wondered what was to be my fate, and whether my outspokenness had really landed me in serious trouble at last.
    Nothing happened, however, except that the duke finally raised his eyes, regarding me steadily, a half-smile curling the corners of his thin lips. ‘Some might see it as such, I suppose, but rest assured that my loyalty to my brother has never wavered, nor will it do so, as long as he lives. I love him too much.’ The smile deepened. ‘When I was a child, I thought him the most splendid being I had ever seen, over six feet tall and as fair as a Nordic god. I would have gone to the ends of the earth for him. I still would.