11 - The Lammas Feast Read Online Free PDF Page A

smaller of the two on his arm.
    He stopped and swung back to face me. He had a pockmarked face beneath a thatch of spiky fair hair and cold, grey eyes that at first sight appeared almost colourless. I had not been mistaken in either his girth or his height, and, close to, he appeared even larger than he had done at a distance. He must have stood well over six feet in his good leather boots, because he topped me by a couple of inches. His mate, brown-haired and brown-eyed, was perhaps half an inch taller again. Except for me, they towered above everyone around them.
    ‘What do you want?’ the pockmarked one demanded, but looked a little wary when he realized that I was not the average dwarf he had been expecting.
    I told him. ‘You tried to knock me over back there.’
    The grey eyes raked me up and down. ‘So?’ he asked insolently. ‘You must have been blocking my path.’
    He was not local. His speech did not have the West Country burr – the hard ‘r’s and ugly diphthonged vowels that we in this part of the world inherited from our Saxon forebears – but he was not from up country, either. The way he spoke reminded me of my friend, Philip Lamprey, and his wife, Jean. A Londoner then, which explained the man’s cocksureness, and also that of his companion. Although neither was by any means a dandy, their clothes were good, a narrow trimming of budge decorating the hems of their tunics. (As always in this country, the latest clothing law, issued by the King only twelve months before, was being steadfastly ignored. If they could afford to, the English continued to wear whatever took their fancy.)
    ‘I was not blocking your path,’ I retorted, beginning to lose my temper. ‘Furthermore, I live in this city, and I take great exception to strangers pushing me aside in my own streets.’
    ‘Oh, you do, do you?’ snarled my opponent, his narrowed eyes showing an angry glint. One great hand shot out and gripped my throat. ‘Well, let me tell you, Chapman . . .’
    ‘Having problems, Roger?’ asked a voice behind me, and a moment later Burl Hodge, a tenter who lived and worked in Redcliffe, appeared at my side. He was accompanied by Jack, the elder of his sons, both their round, freckled faces puckered belligerently and two admirable pairs of fists bunched ready for a fight.
    The taller of the men tapped his friend on the shoulder.
    ‘Let it go, Robin,’ he urged. (The name Robin had surely never been more mistakenly bestowed on anyone than on this great oaf.) ‘We’re not here to cause trouble.’ He turned to me and smiled ingratiatingly, although I could tell that the effort was cracking his face. ‘We’re sorry if we jostled you, Chapman. It was an accident. No offence was intended.’
    There was nothing I could do but accept his apology. To do otherwise would have been churlish, even though I could see that the first man was hoping I would still give him an excuse for a brawl. But I stepped back, holding my hands palm upwards in a gesture of peace, and wished them both God speed.
    Burl and I stood watching as the two men disappeared between the houses on the bridge.
    ‘Not here to cause trouble, eh?’ Burl murmured. ‘Then what
are
they here for, I wonder. I don’t like strangers who are bigger than me. And I particularly don’t like strangers who are bigger than you, Roger. That really worries me.’
    ‘It’s the start of Saint James’s fair in a few days’ time,’ said Jack, who was an apprentice weaver with Master Thomas Adelard. ‘Maybe they’re here in connection with that. Securing the necessary licence for a stall.’
    His father cuffed him playfully around the ear. ‘I can’t see that pair doing a nice line in bric-a-brac,’ he laughed. ‘Murder and mayhem, perhaps. Pretty gewgaws for ladies, no.’
    ‘That’s silly,’ Jack objected. ‘They could be selling anything . . .’
    ‘I saw Dick this morning,’ I interrupted in order to prevent what I could see was going to be a