Free The Prodigal Son by Kate Sedley Page A

jumped to his feet, looking guilty. ‘Just answering a few questions of the chapman’s, my dear. He was enquiring about the Bellknapps and the murder.’
    The goodwife sniffed, but as it seemed her policy was not to upset a paying customer, she held her temper in check.
    â€˜Oh, that!’ she said. ‘Everyone remembers that.’ She nodded at her husband. ‘It was the year George Applegarth broke his arm when he fell down the undercroft stairs. It was why he and poor Jenny hadn’t accompanied Master and Mistress Bellknapp to Kewstoke Hall.’
    â€˜There you are!’ the landlord exclaimed. ‘That’s your answer, Chapman. That’s why they’d remained behind.’ He regarded his goodwife fondly. ‘My Janet has a better memory than I have.’
    â€˜Oh, get along with you,’ she answered, but her attitude softened towards him. Nevertheless, she glanced significantly at my pack and then at Hercules, indicating that it was high time we were on our way.
    I took the hint. It was, in any case, necessary to stir myself if I were to reach Croxcombe Manor at a reasonable hour. I checked with the landlord the directions I had been given yesterday by various people I had met along the road, and he was able to correct some of the misinformation and set my feet on the right track across the Mendips.
    â€˜If you follow the main path due south from here, it’ll bring you down east o’ Wells, which is where you want to be, but the foothills in those parts, around Dinder, are pretty thickly wooded. You might lose your way a bit, but there are plenty of charcoal burners who’ll direct you. Not a bad lot if you speak ’em fair, and their womenfolk may be glad of a trifle or two from your pack.’
    I paid him and thanked him for all the gossip.
    â€˜Well, you can repay me, lad,’ he said, ‘by calling in on your return journey and letting me know what’s happening at the manor, and how matters stand between Anthony and Simon. Will you do that?’
    I promised most willingly, but did not add that it might be a few days, perhaps even a week or more, before I came back, depending on how quickly I was able to make any progress in my quest for information concerning the real John Jericho.
    I stirred a somnolent Hercules with my toe. ‘Come on, boy! Time we were off.’
    He was on his feet immediately, shaking himself free of whatever doggy paradise he had been inhabiting in his dreams and barking excitedly. The landlord took my hand warmly in both of his and, to my astonishment, his goodwife kissed me soundly on both cheeks, then blushed a fiery red.
    â€˜We’ll look for you the day after tomorrow,’ she said, ‘or maybe the day after that.’
    â€˜Maybe.’ It
was
possible, if I could find no excuse to remain longer at Croxcombe Manor. ‘God be with you both.’
    Because of my late start and the fact that I had stopped at a charcoal burner’s cottage for food and drink when my stomach began to rumble, the sun, glimpsed now and then between the canopy of trees, was already westering as I plunged deeper into the woods cloaking the lower slopes of Mendip.
    I still had not solved the problem of how I could extend my visit to Croxcombe without arousing Dame Audrea’s suspicions concerning my true intentions. She was the sort who wouldn’t thank a common pedlar for interfering in her affairs, and if she were convinced that my half-brother was indeed this long lost page of hers, then any attempt on my part to persuade her otherwise would be likely to make her even more pig-headed on the subject. Any slight doubt she might entertain would be banished immediately. Therefore, I needed to find a reason to delay my departure until I had ‘poked around’, as my nearest and dearest would call it, and made some enquiries of my own.
    I stopped and looked cautiously all round me. There was no one about. The