Free An Unholy Alliance by Susanna Gregory Page A

out the elements, but most only had a blanket or a piece of leather to serve as a door.
    But it was not the homes that caught Bartholomew’s eye. The lay-brother had disappeared, but others stood in the alley, a group of scruffy men who moved towards him with a menace that left Bartholomew in no doubt that he was not welcome there. He swallowed and began to back towards the pathway in the bushes, but two of the men moved quickly to block his way.
    The alley was silent except for the shuffling of the advancing men. There were at least eight of them, with more joining their ranks by the moment, rough men wearing jerkins of boiled leather and an odd assortment of leggings and shirts. Bartholomew wondered whether he would be able to force his way through them if he took off as fast as he could and made for the market square.
    A look at the naked hostility on the men’s faces told him he would not succeed. These men meant business.
    Fear mingled with confusion as he wondered why his blundering into the alley had resulted in such instant antagonism.
    They moved closer, hemming Bartholomew against
    one of the shacks. He clenched his fists so that they would not see his hands were shaking; he was nearly overwhelmed with the rank smell of unwashed bodies and breath laden with ale fumes. One of the men
    made a lunge for his arm and Bartholomew ducked
    and swung out with his fists blindly. In surrounding him so closely, the men had given themselves little room for movement. Blows were aimed, but lacked
    force, although judging from several grunts of pain, Bartholomew’s own kicks and punches, wildly thrown, were more effective.
    A leg hooked around the back of his knees and sent him sprawling backwards onto the ground, and he knew that it was all over. He twisted sideways to squirm out of the reach of a kick aimed at his head, but was unable to move fast enough to avoid the one to his stomach. The breath rushed out of him and his limbs turned to jelly so that he was unable to move.
    ‘Stop!’
    It was the deep voice of a woman that Bartholomew heard through a haze of dust and shuffling feet. The men moved back, and by the time Bartholomew had
    picked himself up and was steadying himself against a wall, the alleyway was deserted except for the woman.
    He looked at her closely. She was dressed in a good quality, but old, woollen dress of faded blue, and her hair, as black as Bartholomew’s own, fell in a luxurious shimmering sheet down her back and partly over her face.
    Her features were strong and bespoke of a formidable strength of character, and although she would not have been called pretty, there was a certain attraction in her clear eyes and steady gaze. As Bartholomew looked more closely, he saw two scars on each jaw, running parallel to each other. Not wishing to make her uncomfortable by staring, he looked away, wondering whether the scars marked her as a member of some religious sect. He had heard that self-mutilation had been common in Europe during the plague years, and it was possible that the scars had been made then.
    ‘Who are you?’ he asked.
    She looked at him in disbelief and let out a burst of laughter. “I save your life, and what do you say? “Thank you”? “I am grateful”? Oh, no! “Who are you?”!’ She laughed again, although Bartholomew was too shaken to find the situation amusing. That she obviously held some sway over the band of louts who had just tried to kill him he found of little comfort.
    “I am sorry,’ he said, contrite. ‘Thank you. May I know your name?’
    She raised black eyebrows, her blue eyes dancing in merriment. ‘All right, then,’ she said. ‘My name isjanetta of Lincoln. Who are you and what were you doing in our lane?’
    ‘Your lane?’ he asked, surprised. ‘Since when did the streets of Cambridge become private property?’
    The laughter went out of her face. ‘You have a careless tongue for a man who has just been delivered from an -unpleasant fate. And you did