Free The Traitor of St. Giles by Michael Jecks

almost old enough to marry, and the scowl on his face demonstrated his belief that inconsequential chats about flowers and blackbirds were demeaning.
    Trying not to grin to herself as she caught sight of his expression, Jeanne glanced at her husband.
    Baldwin had been dreadfully saddened by the death of his dog. Uther had been an uncomfortable companion, as much as Jeanne liked dogs, because his habits of slobbering over those whom he adored, of farting beneath the table at mealtimes, of resting his head in a lap and dribbling, tended to make some people fractious about him. And the more unpopular he felt, the more poor Uther tried to endear himself, usually with disastrous consequences, like the time he knocked Baldwin over in his enthusiasm to welcome the knight home after an extended absence of less than an hour.
    But there was no denying that the beast had adored Baldwin, nor that he had reciprocated Uther’s affection. Even when the dog died biting on Baldwin’s arm, Baldwin hadn’t complained. His forearm was a mass of scabs where Uther’s teeth had sunk in, and Jeanne had seen her man touch the scabs every so often, as if reminding himself of his hound’s death. Although Baldwin smiled as often as before, it was clear to Jeanne that he felt the hound’s death keenly. She had suggested another dog, but he had smiled sadly and shaken his head. No replacement would be able to fill the space left by Uther. Perhaps in a year or so.
    Jeanne sighed, but she was not used to inaction. She was sure that her husband needed another dog to bring him out of his odd, quiet mood, and she would find him one. Perhaps a pleasing little pet-dog, something small enough to sit on his lap? Some knights thought them the height of fashion, so she had heard. It made for a wonderful companion, something so small and cuddly.
    The word cuddly brought to her mind a vision of Uther’s head, massive, dark-jowled, sombre, panting, with a long dribble of slime forever dangling. Shuddering slightly, she decided to act. Maybe there would be something suitable in Tiverton.
    Tiverton. It was an odd-sounding place. Although Jeanne had lived in Furnshill for some months now, she had never made the journey north: there had never been the need. Crediton held all that they needed in terms of those foodstuffs they couldn’t grow themselves, and if there was anything else they required, they tended to send to Exeter. That great port could provide anything that was available in the world and there was little point in going elsewhere.
    Being a Devon-born woman, Jeanne had been raised in the county, but she had been adopted by her uncle and taken to live with him in Bordeaux when her parents were murdered by a gang of trail bastons. Many such outlaws had killed, raped and thieved their way through the country over the last twenty years and Jeanne had been lucky to escape with her life. The axe-blow intended to kill her had glanced off. She still had a dent in her skull where it struck.
    Jeanne had learned much about gracious living in Bordeaux, but her first husband, Sir Ralph de Liddinstone, was a rough, heavy-handed bully, who had lost all affection for her when she proved unable to conceive a child for him. He had beaten her whenever he was drunk, and when he died some three years before, his passing had been a source of real relief to Jeanne. And then she had met Sir Baldwin de Furnshill.
    Where her first husband had been hot-headed, untutored and ill-mannered, Baldwin was calm, educated and courteous to a fault. When it came to their bedchamber he had been almost embarrassingly respectful, a condition which Jeanne had not been prepared to allow to continue, for not only did she long for a child, she knew that Baldwin did as well. She had seen his tenderness towards Petronilla’s, even though the poor baby was illegitimate.
    It was as she was contemplating the possibility of a baby of her own that she realised that they had almost reached the town. It