Free Death and the Chapman by Kate Sedley

but somehow, although the capital still beckoned, and remained my goal, I had not yet reached there. However, it was my avowed intention to go when I left Canterbury; but whether, on arrival, I should keep my word and search for Clement Weaver was a different matter. It now seemed not only impossible, but fruitless; a waste of time which I could ill afford. It was ten months since his disappearance, and in any case, what was there to find out which had not been discovered already? The more I thought about it, the more foolish seemed my promise to his father. I was sure that after this lapse of time, the Alderman would absolve me.
    The woman beside me had risen from her knees and was making preparations to leave, motioning to her attendant as she did so. The girl caught my eye, pulling down the corners of her mouth in a comic grimace of resignation, indicating that her mistress was not the easiest of people to deal with. Indeed, the woman was fussing peevishly with the folds of her gown, smoothing and arranging them with uneasy, fluttering hands, before joining the throng of other pilgrims making their way out of the choir. The girl, following obediently, turned to smile at me across her shoulder, then was swallowed up by the press. She left me with the impression of a tip-tilted nose, bright blue eyes fringed with jet-black lashes, and dark, curling hair, judging by the tendrils which strayed from beneath her hood. Her skin was pale, made even more pallid by the black clothes she was wearing. Her demeanour suggested natural high spirits with difficulty suppressed, and there had been more than a hint of invitation in her manner. A pity, I reflected, that I would be unable to take advantage of it, as we were unlikely to meet again. I knew neither her name nor that of her mistress, nor where they lived. Besides, I had my living to make and I must start knocking on doors.
    There were rich pickings to be had in Canterbury, where the constant influx of pilgrims from all parts of the country meant an unceasing flow of money into the pockets of its citizens. It had more taverns and cookshops than any other town of its size that I had passed through. And more trouble, too: the streets were rarely quiet. There were frequent disputes between the clerical and secular interests of the town; between Mayor and Archbishop, layman and priest. They quarrelled over water rights, the fishmarket, and whose authority it was to arrest wrongdoers; over ecclesiastical immunities and restraints of trade. It was nothing to see several brawls a day in the Canterbury streets, and it was not always simply fists which were used. I had been there less than a week, and already I had seen daggers drawn on more than one occasion. But then, the English have always been anti-clerical in their attitudes. They have always resented the power of Rome.
    Before leaving the cathedral, I returned once again to St Thomas’s tomb, kneeling before it in prayer. I meant to seek his intercession with the Heavenly Father for abandoning my religious life, but somehow, the words would not come. I was not truly contrite. Instead, I found myself wondering what it was like to have been dead for hundreds of years, while the flesh, the only house my soul knew, rotted from my bones. I remember folding my arms around my body, seeking the solid reassurance of skin and bone. I thought of lying in the cold earth while the centuries spun by above my head, but my imagination was unable to encompass it; that drift of years, weaving its ever-changing patterns, while I, once so alive, crumbled into dust...
    Like a dog shaking water from its back, I shook off my gloomy thoughts and emerged some minutes later into the bustling streets and the fragile, crystalline beauty of the autumn day. The sky was a delicate blue, rinsed at the edges to a soft, pale green, and the September sunlight was warm on my back. I was alive and young. My life stretched before me. That was all that mattered.
     
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