Free Blood Moon by Stephen Wheeler Page B

each other in such esoteric terms.
    ‘Well, what I want you to do now is go over to the abbot’s lodge and make sure our guest got back safely.’
    ‘Yes master. Master?’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Who was our guest?’
    ‘ Don’t you know? The Bishop of Norwich’s nephew. And let that be a lesson to you to avoid having a bishop as a relative if you can possibly help it. Now off with you.’
    I pushed him out the door before the question I could see forming on his educated brow made it as far as his aristocratic tongue.
                 
    While Dominic was gone I cleaned the place up a bit – I didn’t want patients slipping on puddles of sick while I was trying to treat them. There was a particularly pungent smell to Raoul’s vomit I noticed as I scooped up the mess into a bucket and placed it outside the door for the servants to dispose of. I presumed it was the particular mix of drinks that he had consumed at The Hanged Man the previous night. It must have been quite a cocktail to have had such a potent effect.
    Damn the boy! Why was he still here? I thought he and his family would have gone by now. At least my mother would be pleased they were still here though not by my hand. And frankly I had enough to worry about now with Geoffrey de Saye looming over everything. Assuming Onethumb was right about him and it wasn’t to torment me, why was he here? There had to be a reason. And what was the significance of his meeting with the prior? His secret meeting with the prior. Was it connected at all with the one in Stamford that Onethumb mentioned? And then there was this letter my mother wanted me to deliver to Hugh Northwold. What was that about? My eye lighted upon where I’d hidden it on the shelf above the preparation bench. I’d almost forgotten it was there. What message did it contain, I wondered? Something important to be sure, something that couldn’t be entrusted to a regular messenger to deliver. Well, there was only one way to find out. I jumped up and went resolutely over to the shelf where I had hidden the letter, and pulled it out.
    T urning the letter over in my hands I had a terrible sense of déjà vu for it reminded me starkly of the last time I was entrusted with a sealed document like this. That time I had resisted the temptation to open it considering it a breach of trust to do so. Had I done so then and acted on what I found much of the subsequent tragedy might have been avoided – a man’s life saved, his home and family kept intact and a murderer apprehended sooner. The murderer then, as if I needed to remind myself, was none other than Geoffrey de Saye. My timidity that time had haunted me ever since and I didn’t want to repeat the same mistake again.
    S till I hesitated. I placed the neat little white oblong on my lectern and studied it carefully. It looked such an innocuous thing sitting there with its huge embossed imprint of the great seal of Ixworth in bright red wax obliterating half of one facet. My fingers itched to open it, but that red seal was daunting. Red for danger - isn’t that right? I’d seen it affixed to so many documents in my lifetime. It was as powerful an injunction not to violate its sanctity as would a decretal from the pope himself. Once broken it would be impossible to put back together again, and no-one would believe I’d done it accidentally. Summoning all my courage and with trembling fingers I gently eased the knife-blade under the seal.
    But before I could make the final irrevocable cut I was halted by a pounding on the door. God in heaven, were my mother’s spies even here in the privacy of my own laboratorium now? With a stifled yelp, I dropped both knife and note on the floor and swung round just as the door fell in and Dominic appeared in its frame, his eyes wild with unspoken horror.
    ‘What is it, child?’ I gasped. ‘What’s happened?’              
    ‘The Lady Adelle!’ he panted.
    ‘The Lady Adelle?’ I repeated