Free A Parliament of Spies by Cassandra Clark Page A

other business!’
    She saw him release his grip and ask, ‘What the hell is it about anyway?’
    There was a brief pause, then grudgingly, the reply, ‘A woman.’
    ‘You bloody fool!’ His companion gave a jeering laugh and began to stride back through the opening in the
wooden screen, snarling over his shoulder, ‘I’ve heard it all now!’
    ‘What are you going to do?’
    ‘Everything can be sorted. I know what I’m saying! Now do it!’
    The other man followed him out, leaving wet footprints down the centre of the tiles.
    The chantry was lit by a slant of light from one small window. Not enough to make out who they were. They could have been anyone. They could have been two men from the town. Anyone at all.
    She saw them mingle with the congregation in the nave.
    Even after they left the air seemed full of venom.
    She got up and went out. A group of York men were queuing outside the shrine waiting to pay their respects to the saint. It was only as she approached that she noticed that one of the men who had just been arguing in the chantry, the one in the soaking-wet fustian cloak, was pushing his way through the crowd towards them. She watched as he went over to join them, pushing back his hood as he did so. Then she stared. It was Jarrold of Kyme.
    She searched the crowds for his companion. He had gone to lean against a nearby pillar. He was difficult to pick out because he was still wearing the grey woollen hood half over his face with the waterproof draped across his shoulders.
    Jarrold went up to the line of men waiting to crawl inside the niche under the sarcophagus of St Hugh and flung an arm round one of them. She saw him say something and the man laughed and clapped him on the
back. The others shuffled up to make space and he fell into line with them. The man near the pillar turned and began to thread his way towards the exit.
    Hildegard decided it was time to leave too. The scene had been unpleasant and it was stifling here, now that the crowds had grown as more and more people came in to shelter from the rain. When she reached the west door she was temporarily stalled by the influx of a fresh batch pushing in. Jarrold’s companion was halted as well and she found herself standing close to him in the porch. He pulled the waterproof hood up. She was close enough to smell it. He had had it treated with a mixture of pig fat and rosemary oil. She had seen the mercenaries wear such garments in the Alps.
    With one hand holding the hood over his face he plunged out into the rain and she watched him splash across the garth towards the row of tenanted houses within the enclave.
    Reluctant to get wetter than she already was she hung about in the entrance for a moment or two, waiting for a lull in the storm, and was surprised to see Jarrold appear. She greeted him by name. ‘So you decided not to wait to enter the shrine?’
    He looked confused.
    ‘I had the same intention,’ she continued, ‘but the queue put me off as well.’
    He realised what she was saying and gave a brief nod. ‘That’s right, Domina. Yes, that’s it. Too many people. Better to come back later.’
    He was about to step outside when she said, ‘There seems to be some excitement in the close today. Is it just the storm or is there fresh news of the invasion?’

    ‘Nothing on that score as far as I’m aware.’
    ‘I saw a good number of your companions inside …’ she indicated the cathedral. ‘What’s bringing them out in such numbers?’
    ‘Confused by a more local kind of panic, maybe.’ He raised his eyebrows.
    ‘Are they?’
    He gave her a sardonic smile. ‘Fear over the manner of Martin’s death is sending them back to God. Don’t you find it’s always the way? Nothing like a good scare to fill the Church’s coffers. And they’re also in a ferment at the thought that one of their boon companions will shortly hang for murder.’
    ‘Shortly?’
    ‘With so many educated persons hot on his trail?’
    Without