Free 13 - The Midsummer Rose by Kate Sedley Page B

I’m in the right of it, after all.’ The children had finished eating and were beginning to get restless. It was time to be off before I was captured to be a horse or a donkey and give them rides around the kitchen, crawling on all fours. As well as being the man with the flattest chest in Bristol, I was also on the way to becoming the man with the knobbliest knees. ‘I must go if I’m to get to Rownham Passage and back before dark.’
    ‘Then do as I suggested the other day,’ Adela said. ‘Hire a nag from the livery stable in Bell Lane.’
    I’ve never been much good on horseback, although I have ridden, and for quite long journeys. I grew up in Wells and the surrounding countryside, but my chief pastime was playing football, trying to kick a blown swine’s bladder between two upright sticks. I was good at it, too. But with the time at my disposal I couldn’t afford to hire the slowest nag in the stables. The liveryman, therefore, apprised of my dilemma, recommended a solid brown cob; a good little mover, he assured me, but blessed with an even temper. I also paid for the hire of a saddle and duly mounted, feeling strangely unencumbered without either pack or cudgel, both of which I had left at home. I clutched the reins, urged the beast towards the Frome Gate and prayed that I wouldn’t make an idiot of myself by falling off.
    The gatekeeper let out a whoop of laughter when he saw me.
    ‘What you doing perched up there, Roger?’ He grinned. ‘You look pretty stupid. I’d stick to my own two legs if I were you.’
    ‘I’m going to Rownham Passage and I want to get back before curfew,’ I answered tartly, not sharing in his mirth.
    I knew all three of the Frome gatekeepers well, but this man, Edgar Capgrave, was the one I liked least. A little butterball of a man, almost as broad as he was long, with small, shrewd eyes set under beetling brows, he had an aggressive manner that many people besides myself found offensive. Nevertheless, he had an intelligence that his fellow gatekeepers lacked. He signalled me to pass through the arch with a dismissive jerk of his thumb, but instead, I reined in the cob and sat looking down at him.
    ‘Can you remember who was on duty here last Wednesday week?’
    ‘Last Wednesday week? That’s a bloody tall order, chapman.’ He puckered his fat little face in a travesty of concentration. ‘How’s anyone supposed to remember that far back?’
    ‘It was the day of the storm,’ I reminded him.
    ‘So it was.’ I could tell by the smirk on his face that he already knew that. ‘I might remember,’ he admitted. ‘Anything in it for me if I do?’
    ‘A groat?’ I suggested through gritted teeth.
    He leered up at me. ‘Make it two. A rich man like you, a house owner, should be willing to help out his poorer fellow citizens.’
    By this time, there were at least a couple of carts lined up behind me and the cob was growing restless. It moved suddenly, almost unseating me. The gatekeeper let out a guffaw, while one of the carters yelled, ‘Will you get a move on, please?’ Well, that was undoubtedly what he meant.
    I gave the horse the office to start. I couldn’t waste any more time: it would soon be midday judging by the position of the sun. But as the cob clattered on to the quayside and, guided by me, headed towards the Frome Bridge, Edgar Capgrave called out, ‘I was the one on duty that day. Wait a few moments until these fools have cleared the archway, and then you can ask me whatever it is you want to know.’
    He got a mouthful of well deserved abuse from the carters for his rudeness, but it didn’t seem to bother him. Indeed, the fouler the imprecations, the more they made him chuckle. He was a man who throve on confrontation.
    I dismounted and led the cob back towards the gate. Even after less than quarter of an hour in the saddle, it was a relief to have both feet on the ground again. The two carts rattled away and there was a sudden lull in the amount of