Free An Unholy Alliance by Susanna Gregory Page B

not answer my question.
    What are you doing here?’
    Bartholomew wondered what he could tell her. He
    thought of the terrified face of the lay-brother and was reluctant to mention him to this curious woman. He also wondered why he had been so foolish as to chase the man when he easily could have found out his address from Father Cuthbert.
    “I must have taken a wrong turning,’ he said. He looked around him and saw that his bag had gone, containing not only all his medical instruments and some medicines, but his best scholar’s tabard too.
    Janetta stared at him, her hands on her hips. ‘You are an ingrate,’ she said. “I stop them from killing you, and you repay me with rudeness and lies.’
    Bartholomew knew that she was right and was sorry.
    But, despite the sunshine filtering down into the alley from the cloudless sky, Bartholomew felt something menacing and dark in the alley and longed to be gone.
    He straightened from where he had been leaning against the wall and took a deep breath.
    “I saw a small path leading through the bushes in St Mary’s churchyard,’ he answered truthfully. “I followed it and it finished here.’
    She continued to stare at him for a few minutes. ‘You were following it at quite a pace,’ she said. “I thought you were being pursued by the Devil himself.’
    He grimaced and looked up and down the alley to
    see which way would be the best to leave. She followed his eyes.
    ‘You will only be safe while you are with me,’ she said.
    ‘Would you like me to walk with you?’
    Bartholomew ran a hand through his hair and gave her a crooked smile. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘How is it that you seem to have so much control over these people?’
    She gestured that he was to precede her down the alley.
    Although Bartholomew could see no one, he knew that they were being watched. The silence of the alley was a tangible thing. He glanced at Janetta walking behind him, striding purposefully.
    She smiled at him, showing small, white teeth. “I have taken it on myself to give them a community spirit, a sense of worth and belonging.’
    Bartholomew was not sure he knew what she meant, but kept his silence. All he wanted to do was leave the filthy alley and go back to the relative peace and sanity of Michaelhouse. For some reason he could not place, the woman made him uncomfortable. He glanced behind
    them, and was alarmed to see that a crowd of people had gathered, and was following them down the alley, its silence far more menacing than words could ever be.
    Janetta also glanced round, but seemed amused.
    ‘They wonder where you are taking me,’ she said.
    Then they were out of the alley and into the colour and cheerful cacophony of the market-place. Gaudy canopies sheltered the goods of the traders from the hot sun, and everywhere people were calling and shouting.
    Dogs barked and children howled with laughter at the antics of a juggler. Somewhere, a pig had escaped and was being chased by a number of people, its squeals and their yelling adding to the general chaos.
    He turned to Janetta, who still smiled at him.
    ‘Thank you,’ he said again. ‘And please tell whoever stole my bag that there are some medicines in it that might kill if given to the wrong person. If he or she does not want to give it back to me, the medicines would best be thrown into the river where they will do no harm.’
    She nodded slowly, appraising him frankly. ‘Do not come here uninvited again, Matthew Bartholomew,’
    she said.
    Without waiting for a response, she turned and strode jauntily back down the alley, leaving Bartholomew staring after her, wondering how she had known his name when he had not told her.
     
    ‘What happened to you?’ exclaimed Michael in horror, looking at Bartholomew’s torn and dirty clothes.
    Bartholomew took his arm and led him back through the churchyard to the bushes where he had followed the lay-brother. But however hard he looked, he could not find the path. It simply was