Free The King's Exile (Thomas Hill Trilogy 2) by Andrew Swanston Page B

anyone using the words just as an excuse for a good dinner. We meant to promote peace and prosperity on the island by banning them, not the wholesale slaughter of turkeys and pigs. Still, I thank you for inviting me. The favour shall be returned within the month.’
    ‘I thank you too, Samuel,’ added Carrington. ‘This much meat will keep me alive for a week.’
    ‘Assembly, my liver,’ muttered John gruffly, scratching at his scarred face, ‘damned fools know nothing. We don’t need laws to tell us what we can and can’t say, any more than we need them to tell us how to grow sugar. We’re the ones who’ve made Barbados rich and we’ll do as we choose. Bell and Walrond, Drax and Middleton, they’re interfering old women. To hell with the lot of them and their meddling laws.’ If this was meant to rile Adam Lyte, it failed. He tactfully said nothing. ‘Where’s that damned shoat, Hill? Bring it here, for the devil’s sake.’
    Only the name of Bell meant anything to Thomas, although if the brutes hated them all, they would have his support. As he came through with the pig, he managed to catch Carrington’s eye and shook his head just enough to signal a warning. Carrington raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
    ‘Now, gentlemen, some pork with your turkey?’ Holding hisknife like a dagger, Samuel thrust it into the pig. Juices spurted out on to his grubby fingers, which he licked with relish.
    ‘In truth, Samuel, pork has never really agreed with me. I think I’ll settle for this excellent turkey, thank you.’ Carrington had taken Thomas’s hint and with a gentle nudge had passed it on to his friend.
    ‘I fear I am much the same,’ said Lyte, ‘but if I may, I will take a drop more of your excellent wine with the fowl.’
    ‘Ah well, all the more for us, eh, John?’ Samuel, not a bit put out, shovelled a huge heap of pork on to his plate and another on to his brother’s.
    With the diners provided with more meat and wine than five times their number could possibly consume, Thomas slipped outside with a small plate of turkey and sat on a wooden box he had placed under the bearded fig tree. He called it his listening tree. From there he could not see the diners but he could hear them. It was cooler under the tree and he sipped a cup of plantain juice.
    Stretching his aching back, he looked again at the Gibbes’s house, shook his head sadly and thought yet again how utterly revolting it was. How anyone, even these brutes, could live in it was beyond understanding. Not a drop of paint had been employed on the rough timber, the roof leaked and armies of termites had been feasting on the corner posts. Revolting was the word for it. Ramshackle and revolting.
    ‘Hill, Hill, where are you, man?’ It was John this time, full of meat and claret, and rapidly reaching the point at which he might become dangerous. Thomas roused himself smartly and went back to the house. ‘Ah, there you are, queenie. You are a queenie, aren’t you? I hear all the king’s men are.’ Either he had forgotten that his guests were supporters of the king or he did not care. Probably thelatter. He was always more vicious to Thomas in company. It was his way of showing off.
    ‘I don’t think so, sir. But is there anything else I can do for you?’ The ‘sir’ stuck in his throat, as it always did, and it was a risky reply. For a horrid moment both Gibbes stared at him and he thought there was going to be trouble until Charles Carrington came to the rescue.
    ‘Excellent turkey, Thomas,’ he said, adding with a grin, ‘and I daresay the piglet was good too. Eh, Samuel?’
    ‘What? Yes, yes. A decent pig. Better than your last effort, Hill. More flavour. Now bring us the milk pudding. And we’ll need more wine.’
    He fetched the wine and then returned with a large pudding from the kitchen. He had made it with the milk bought at the market, the juice of ten limes and a good deal of stirring. ‘Will the pudding be good,