Free The Blood List by Sarah Naughton Page A

nearby two cats yowled like demons.
    Carefully he shifted his position, rolling onto his stomach, then up onto his other hip, shuffling round so that he could still see out of the window. The whole of his lower back, his buttocks
and the backs of his thighs throbbed. One or two of the lashes had broken the skin and the blood was now drying, so that every time he moved the scabs cracked and wept afresh.
    He hadn’t cried. For some reason, though no-one had passed by and the household had seen him cry often enough times, that fact was important. His father, however, had sniffed noisily
throughout. It actually made matters worse since the tears had blinded him, and instead of striking his son’s well-padded parts he had lashed the small of Barnaby’s back and the muscles
of his thighs, which hurt considerably more.
    During the assault, which had probably lasted no longer than a minute, Barnaby’s rage and humiliation and impotence had turned to a white-hot point of utter clarity. An idea had bloomed in
his brain like ink in water.
    He would get rid of Abel.
    He rolled over onto his stomach and breathed in the thyme-scented pillow. How much happier the household would be with his brother gone. His mother would be able to see Barnaby’s qualities
for what they were, without them being refracted through the twisted mirror of Abel’s jealousy. His father would not have to pretend impartiality any more, but could concentrate all his
affection on the son he had patently always preferred. Griff and his friends would feel comfortable visiting the house without that black crow looming over them, judging them for having a second
crumpet or laughing at a joke.
    Eventually the throbbing of his injuries settled to a dull ache and finally he went to sleep with a smile on his face.

4
A New Maid
    But the next day something happened that made Barnaby entirely forget his plan.
    His mother hired a new servant.
    This in itself was not anything unusual. They were a wealthy family with a reasonably large house and since their cook had died the previous spring it was high time Juliet had someone to share
the load. But it wasn’t a cook or laundrywoman who had been hired. It was another maid: a girl of fourteen with no particular skill and barely two years’ experience. Experience that had
been abruptly curtailed by her dismissal from her last position.
    This bombshell was announced over breakfast.
    ‘Dismissed for what?’ Juliet asked tightly, frozen in the act of ladling porridge into her mistress’s bowl.
    ‘For stealing,’ Henry said, looking meaningfully at his wife.
    ‘Is that true, Mother?’ Abel said sharply.
    ‘It’s true that this was the reason given by the Slabber family,’ Frances began. Already Abel was opening his mouth, no doubt to deliver a pertinent passage from Isaiah about
the evils of stealing, but Frances raised her voice to speak over him.
    ‘But it is not the real reason.’
    Abel frowned. ‘What are you saying, Mother?’
    ‘She is saying,’ Henry interrupted, ‘that our neighbours – highly respected upstanding members of our community who can trace their lineage back three hundred years
– are liars.’
    For a moment there was silence.
    ‘Are you?’ Barnaby said eventually.
    Frances hesitated, then nodded.
    ‘Mother!’ Abel gasped.
    ‘Well, they are,’ Frances said. ‘At least John Slabber himself is.’
    ‘Explain to the boys why you believe this to be the case, my dear,’ Henry said mildly.
    Juliet had not moved a muscle, but stood behind her mistress’s chair with a face of thunder.
    ‘I believe it, because she told me so.’
    ‘You believed a serving wench,’ Abel began, ‘over a respected—’
    ‘. . . arrogant, lecherous bully,’ Frances interrupted. ‘From a long line of arrogant lecherous bullies.’
    ‘Your mother doesn’t know about his lechery first-hand, of course . . .’ Henry murmured to Barnaby, who sniggered until his mother flashed them a withering