Free The Manor of Death by Bernard Knight Page B

appeared alongside, before Mary went to the other end of the table and gave the same to her master. Then she returned with a large jug of ale and filled earthenware cups before vanishing to the back yard to get the next course.
    Matilda took her small eating knife from a pouch on her girdle and attacked the trout, muttering that it was fish again and not even a Friday!
    John tucked in, as he was hungry after a day in the saddle and Mary was a cook to be treasured. Most people ate the main meal of the day at around noon and had very little afterwards, but Matilda, always keen to adopt new fashions that she could brag about to her friends at St Olave's, insisted on eating in the early evening - though this did not stop her healthy appetite from also being exercised at midday.
    They ate in silence, which was the usual state of affairs in their household, as John was usually out of favour for one reason or another. A fresh loaf appeared, with yellow butter and a slab of cheese, and when Mary had cleared away the debris of the fish she brought two platters of dried fruit, imported from France.
    When they had finished and gone back to their chairs near the fire, John sensed that his wife was even more depressed than usual. He tried again to strike up a conversation, and because of the guilt that she was always able to engender in him tried to discover what was troubling her today. Since de Revelle had been exposed as an embezzler and a coward, her former adoration for her elder brother had turned into a disillusion that had soured her life, but today she seemed worse than usual.
    'I hear that Richard has visited you, Matilda?' he began, trying to keep his voice as neutral as possible and not to display the dislike and contempt he felt for his brother-in-law.
    'What do you care about that?' she whispered throatily, turning her square face towards him. 'Though I admit that he has gone from bad to worse, it was you who hounded him out of office and even out of the city!'
    As John had saved Richard's life twice - and probably bent the law sufficiently to save him from the hangman's noose - he felt aggrieved that Matilda should unfailingly put the blame on him for the retribution that was inevitably to fall upon the former sheriff. He tried to ignore it once again, though it was difficult, given de Wolfe's irascible nature.
    'Did he have any particular reason for calling today?'
    'Does a man need a reason to visit his sister?' she snapped. Then she turned her head away and John was surprised to glimpse tears forming in her eyes. Matilda was a hard, unforgiving woman, whose only emotion was usually anger. To see her on the verge of weeping over her wayward brother touched a nerve in his generally unsympathetic character, tapping the guilt that she never allowed him to forget. He got up and placed an arm around her shoulder, though she sat as rigid as a plank under his unfamiliar gesture.
    'Give it time, Matilda,' he muttered gruffly. 'It has been only a short while since that affair over the Arundells. If Richard lays low in his manor and keeps his nose out of public affairs, the matter will gradually be forgotten.'
    'But I won't forget, will I?' she snapped with a vehemence that surprised him. 'I will go through the rest of my life with the knowledge of his perfidy - and I will always be pointed out by others as the sister of that man Richard de Revelle!'
    There was no answer to that, and with a sigh John went to the side table and poured them each a cup of Anjou wine. Matilda accepted it wordlessly, never one to refuse a drink, whatever her mood. He sat down and, with the faithful Brutus dribbling on to his knee, quietly sipped his wine until the silence became too oppressive even for him to endure. Desperate to strike up some sort of dialogue, he searched his mind for some innocuous topic.
    'It seems that the vessel that this strangled youth sailed upon was owned by a rich merchant from this city,' he began, knowing of his wife's