Free The Lascar's Dagger by Glenda Larke

oak shaded an area the size of a large farmyard, and the leaves – now turning yellow and orange – glistened wetly as wan sunlight poked through a gap in the clouds. The outer branches draped down to the ground, and the shrine, a circular building surrounding the trunk, nestled comfortably under the protection of the tree’s vast spread. Its outer stone walls, topped by a thatched roof, were pierced by a line of narrow, glassless windows. The trunk of the tree poking out of the centre of the roof was so huge it would have taken five or six men holding hands to surround the base.
    Mathilda stared sourly at the doorless archway that led into the shrine, and shivered. Ryce and their escort cheerfully delivered her into the charge of the shrine-keeper and disappeared into the tavern on the opposite side of the road, while the two coachmen saw to the repair of the shaft. The tavern was busy; the hunters and their hounds were there already. Idly she wondered if they’d caught their prey and wished she could talk to them herself to find out. Va pox on’t, why did women always have to be so proper, while men had all the fun?
    With a sigh she turned to the shrine-keeper, who’d given her name as Marsh Bedstraw. Tall and slim, narrow-hipped and broad-shouldered, she was dressed in a simple woollen gown. Her age was impossible to say. Forty? Fifty? But then, shrine-keepers aged slowly and lived, some said, for centuries. In Ardrone, they all had Shenat blood in their veins, without exception. It was said that the unseen guardians would not accept the non-Shenat. Not, Mathilda thought, that people from elsewhere complained. After all, what normal person would want to spend all their life under an oak tree?
    Her spirits sank when she realised there were no servants at the shrine; she and Marsh Bedstraw had the place to themselves – along with the unseen guardian of the shrine, or so she assumed. She huddled into her cloak and gave another shiver.
    Fortunately this was sufficient to goad Marsh into action, and in a short time Mathilda was seated on cushions piled on the shrine’s single bench, in front of a burning brazier of red-hot coals, with a feather-down quilt over her knees and a pewter mug of steaming fruit punch cupped in her hands. Ryce had said he’d ask the tavern to send over a hot meal, but Marsh had snorted at that, commenting that the tavern food was even worse than their rotgut.
    “I’ll fetch bread and cheese from my kitchen,” she said, and disappeared into the only private part of the shrine, a tiny partitioned area which was evidently where she lived.
    Mathilda glanced around. Although the shrine was built in a circle around the tree, the massive trunk in the centre was free-standing, towering through its central hole. Nowhere did the building come close to touching it. There was no inner wall to the shrine, just stone pillars holding up the beams of the roof, which meant that no matter where one stood, the trunk was always accessible and visible.
    She’d never been impressed by shrines. Cold, windy places, with beaten earth floors and no furnishings except stone seats for those coming to pay homage. They might each have had an unseen guardian, but who could tell? This one, she had to admit, had an exceptionally impressive oak.
    Just then she heard again the baying of excited fellhounds and turned to look out of the main entrance. It was no longer raining, and the dogs were pouring out of the tavern yard. A woman was clambering over the stone wall of the field adjacent to the shrine. Bedraggled and filthy with mud, with her hair loose, and not even wearing a cloak, she looked like a mad bawd, some poor village lackwit cast out into the streets. When she saw the stream of dogs bounding her way, she raced for the shrine, lifting her muddy skirts like a wanton.
    The murderess. This has to be her.
    Mathilda knew she ought to be frightened. She knew she should call Marsh Bedstraw. The fugitive was desperate;