Free The Butcher of St Peter's: (Knights Templar 19) by Michael Jecks

to be out
     for the night, so when she didn’t turn up Reg had assumed she was still angry with him because of the other evening. Well,
     he should have realized that the woman had too much of a tickle in her tail not to want him to scratch it!
    His bottler had been sent away, and the other servants were in the main hall. Only a very few people knew of this other door
     at the back of the house, and he hurried to it before the quiet knock should disturb his son. The last thing he needed was
     for the lad to overhear them together, and then ask his mother what Father was doing … If Sabina ever got to hear of his
     nocturnal activities when she was away, all hell would break loose, and if it did, Reg didn’t want to be in the same city,
     let alone the same house.
    It was with a feeling of satisfaction that he reached for the latch and opened the door, only to find that it was not his
     lover outside.
    Instead her husband stood there smiling at him.

Chapter Four
    Henry winced as he shifted in his seat. The great gouge in his breast and shoulder where Daniel’s pickaxe had torn through
     him was always painful. Whether it was a sharp, stabbing sensation as when the wound had been inflicted, or had sunk to a
     dull throbbing, it was always there, and always in his mind.
    Before that day, he’d been a fit, healthy man. Given a little money, he could have found a woman and married, maybe. No chance
     of that now, though. Daniel had robbed him of his future. All he was was a carter. A lonely, bitter carter.
    The strange thing was, he hadn’t really known Estmund that well beforehand. Est had been one of the men Henry had known about
     the city, but they weren’t close friends or anything. Yet Henry was a generous-hearted man, and when Estmund had been so distraught
     he had wanted to help him.
    It was that awful day when the cathedral decided that Emma had committed a mortal sin by killing herself after their child
     had died. Poor little Cissy. She had been so tiny when they buried her in her pit. Unbaptized, she was not eligible for a
     place in the graveyard, and Henry still thought it was that, more than her death alone, which had made Emma so disturbed and
     grief-stricken. To think that even when she died she would not be with her child in Heaven had been the final blow. If Godwouldn’t have her Cissy, she wanted no part of His Heaven.
    God! But when Est found her, that was a terrible day. For all that he was still suffering, Henry couldn’t feel regret for
     helping him. The man had lost daughter and wife, and then to learn that he was not permitted to bury Emma in the cemetery
     was enough to unhinge his mind.
    It was good that Est seemed to trust him. Est was not the kind of man to get close to anyone, but he accepted Henry’s companionship.
     Before that dreadful day, when Henry won his wound trying to help Est, they would rarely speak. Few people did during the
     famine. After that day they sat together in companionable silence, Est staring into the distance while Henry lay on his bed,
     Est occasionally wiping his brow with a cool cloth. Some women from the street had come to help, and Henry was gradually nursed
     back from the brink of death.
    The silence was good for a while, but both needed to talk. Est started to tell Henry of his life, of his past and his shattered
     hopes. To Henry, that meant they were both recovering. When Est was silent, Henry would talk until he grew too tired, and
     then Est would wipe his sweating face again, speaking of his love for his dead Emma and Cissy. There were few enough men who
     would bother to try to share their feelings, Henry thought later, but when the whole city was starving, when the likelihood
     of their dying in a short while was so high, there was little to stop them unburdening themselves.
    No, Henry had hardly known Est before Emma’s death, but there was something in Estmund that had appealed to him: a kindliness
     and generosity of spirit. That was why he