Free 11 - The Lammas Feast by Kate Sedley Page A

– that the stranger is the murderer. Manifold has no grounds for accusing him.’
    ‘Maybe not. But I still say it has nothing to do with you.’
    I put my arm about her waist and squeezed it. ‘You don’t like injustice any more than I do, sweetheart. The real killer mustn’t be allowed to escape just because it would be more convenient if someone else had done it. Murder is a crime against God.’
    ‘And spying? If indeed that’s what your stranger is doing.’
    I shrugged. ‘A matter of personal conviction. But I don’t suppose God cares a tinker’s curse whether Edward of York or Henry Tudor sits on the English throne.’
    Adela anxiously advised me to lower my voice. ‘That remark could be construed either as heresy or treason. Possibly both,’ she hissed.
    I knew it. But ever since I was able to think for myself, I have always held the secret opinion that God has far too much to do, what with all the poverty and cruelty in the world, to concern Himself with politics. When the rich and the great claim so confidently to have God on their side, I want to ask them how and why they are so certain. Countries, too; for in my experience, if England wins a battle today, France or Scotland will win one tomorrow, like children on a see-saw.
Here we go up, Here we go down; Beggar or King, Rags or a crown
. I used to sing that when I was young, playing with my friends on a plank we had balanced on a felled tree trunk. All the same, Adela was right, and I have only ever shared such thoughts with people I can trust implicitly. (By the time anyone reads these memoirs, I shall, I hope, be in a position to be demanding some answers from God Himself, provided that Saint Peter has let me in through the Heavenly Gates.)
    I gave Adela a long, passionate kiss, which only left us both more frustrated than ever, picked up and shouldered my pack and set off, promising to earn some money before I returned. What I didn’t promise, as she was undoubtedly astute enough to observe, was
not
to visit Walter Godsmark.
    Walter Godsmark lived with his mother in a cottage somewhere between Saint Peter’s Church and the Mint.
    This part of the town, even more than the rest of it, was dominated by the castle, the great keep with its four mighty towers, one slightly taller than the others, peering sullenly over the walls of the Outer Ward. Many poor souls had suffered and perished there. Three centuries earlier, King Stephen had been held captive in its dungeons; the Water Gate had witnessed the tearful farewell of the tragic second Edward and his doomed lover, Piers Gaveston, when Gaveston was exiled to Ireland; and, at the beginning of my own century, when Henry of Bolingbroke had seized the crown and precipitated years of civil war, it had seen the brutal deaths of those loyal to King Richard. Close proximity to it always made me uneasy. Blood and sorrow are embedded in its stones.
    I shook off these depressing fancies, made some enquiries, then, having located the cottage, knocked on Goody Godsmark’s door. Walter opened it, his expression growing even more truculent than usual when he saw who it was.
    ‘What do you want?’ he demanded. He had been badly shaken by the events of the morning, but was beginning to get back some of his natural aggression.
    ‘I was hoping you might let me ask you a question or two about Master Fairbrother’s death.’ I smiled winningly, but not winningly enough, it seemed.
    ‘I’ve said all I’m going to say to Sergeant Manifold. So you can sod off!’ He prepared to shut the door.
    ‘Who’s that, Walter?’ came a quavering voice from inside the cottage. ‘Is it neighbour Purnell? Because, if so, I want a word with him about those pigs of his. He ain’t supposed to keep swine within city limits, and well he knows it.’
    Before Walter could reply, he was elbowed aside by a small, determined figure in a black homespun gown and a linen apron and cap. A little face, like a tightly furled bud that has