Free Death and the Chapman by Kate Sedley Page A

met the girl again the following day.
    I had done well that morning, selling needles, thread, ribbons and a length of sarsanet, which I had picked up cheap in Southampton market, for nearly twice what I had paid for it. It was gone dinner-time and I was hungry, so I bought two meat pies from a cookshop and took them down to the banks of the Stour. I ate ravenously, wishing that I had treated myself to a third, then filled my leather bottle from the river, washing the food down with clear, cool water; Adam’s ale, and on some occasions nearly as satisfying as the proper thing.
    It was quieter outside the city walls, and I had chosen a secluded spot beneath some overhanging willows. Sunlight sparkled on the water and everywhere there was the sharp, dank smell of early autumn. A faint breeze rippled the grasses silver and green, and from where I sat, I could see the track leading to the West Gate. While I watched, two horsemen passed, their mounts blowing gustily through flaring nostrils, sweating hides glittering like polished metal, raking at the bits as they were reined in to a walk for their approach to the city. But that was the only sign of life that I saw for quite some time, and I began to nod. For the past few nights, since coming to Canterbury, I had slept in the dormitory of the Eastbridge Hospital, but my fellow guests had not made good bedmates. There was the inevitable snoring and wheezing one got in such places, but one man also suffered from a most distressing cough. No sooner, it seemed, had I dropped off to sleep, than he began hacking again, with a persistence that woke the rest of the room and sent one or two sleepless souls into a positive frenzy. Last night it had only been through my intervention that the poor man was saved from a beating. So, what with one thing and another, today I was tired, and before I knew what was happening, had begun to doze...
    I was awakened by a hand on my shoulder and started upright, feeling very foolish. I felt even more foolish when I saw who it was: the young girl I had seen in the cathedral. I had thought her pretty yesterday, but this afternoon, without her mourning and dressed in a gown of home-dyed blue bysine, she looked even prettier. The colour of the dress enhanced the blue of her eyes, and she had dragged off her hood to reveal a profusion of hair at once darker and curlier than I had imagined it.
    The hood lay in her basket, along with flowers she had been gathering. These included the feathery, flat-topped heads of fleabane, and a quantity of the plant known as Ladies’ Bedstraw, the bunched yellow heads clinging tightly to the long, pale stems. I remembered my mother collecting the self-same plants; the first, burnt, gave off an acrid smoke which was death to fleas; the second she would boil, using the flowers to make dye, and extracting a substance from the stalks and leaves which could be used as a substitute for rennet.
    The girl sat down beside me and took off her shoes and stockings, dipping her toes into the water. ‘Oh, that’s nice,’ she breathed after a moment, turning to smile provocatively in my direction. ‘My feet are so hot and tired.’
    ‘It’s a warm day,’ I said feebly, not knowing what other answer to make. I was not used to girls taking off their clothes in front of me, and found to my dismay that I was blushing.
    She saw it too, and gave a little crow of delight. ‘I do believe you’re embarrassed, a great, well-set-up lad like you! Haven’t you ever had a sweetheart?’ She put her head on one side, consideringly. ‘No, I don’t believe you have.’ She added, with a frankness which took my breath away: ‘You don’t like boys, do you? Instead of girls, I mean.’
    ‘N--no, of course not! ‘ I stammered hotly. I knew that such practices existed: they had existed among the monks, at Glastonbury, even though they were anathema to the Church and the punishment for sodomy was death. (A great deal was overlooked by the