11 - The Lammas Feast Read Online Free PDF Page B

share in these reminiscences.) In return, he was equally polite to me and treated me, superficially at least, as a friend.
    The bright blue eyes were certainly friendly now, as they regarded me curiously from beneath a pair of jutting eyebrows, the same dark red as his hair. Behind him stood his two lieutenants, Jack Gload and Peter Littleman, both smallish, dark men, showing definite traces of the Welsh blood which, in most Bristolians, mingles with that of the English. Constant seaborne traffic, to and fro across the Bristol Channel, has resulted in a good deal of intermarriage between the two races.
    ‘What’s caught your attention, Chapman, that you’re blocking the path, oblivious to all the poor folk trying to get past you?’
    Richard Manifold, as he always did when speaking to me, drew himself up to his full height, even lifting his heels a little way off the ground. But he still only reached to an inch or so above my shoulders.
    ‘Ah! Sergeant!’ I nodded towards Saint Mary le Port Church. ‘There are a couple of bravos hiding in the porch who seem to be watching Master Overbecks’s bakery.’ And I gave him a brief account of my morning’s encounter with the pockmarked man and his companion. ‘I was wondering what they might be up to.’
    Richard Manifold smiled condescendingly and winked at his two henchmen, a wink that I was sure I was meant to see. This idiot, it said, thinks he can do our job for us.
    ‘Well, well! It doesn’t sound to me as though they’ve done anything very serious. Not yet, at any rate. But I tell you what, Roger. Just to set your mind at rest –’ another wink – ‘my men and I will go and have a word with them. Meantime, you can get on about your business. You need to, I daresay, now that you’ve yet another mouth to feed.’ He spoke with all the carefree nonchalance of the confirmed bachelor. ‘A boy, I hear. Give Adela my best wishes and congratulations. I’ll call on you both later today, at the cottage, and let you know what I discover. Jack! Peter! Follow me!’
    I silently cursed my own stupidity, although I could not really have foreseen that I was presenting Richard Manifold with an excuse to invade my home for the evening. He would be there until the curfew bell, which rang later in summer, monopolizing Adela’s attention, disturbing the children with his loud voice and unrestrained gusts of laughter, sitting in one of our two good chairs and leaving me the discomfort of our rickety stool.
    But there was nothing I could do to retrieve the situation, so I forced a smile and told him that he would be welcome, crossing my fingers, schoolboy fashion, as I did so. Then I went reluctantly on my way, dragging my feet and glancing back over my shoulder until the sergeant and his officers disappeared into the church porch to question the two strangers. I loitered on the corner of Saint Mary le Port Street for a while, expecting all five men to reappear very shortly; but when, after several minutes, there was no sign of them, I decided that I could hang around no longer. Richard Manifold was right: with a growing family to provide for, I needed to earn a crust or two in order to put food on the table, a roof over our heads and clothes on our backs – particularly if I were to keep my hidden hoard a secret.
    By four o’clock, I was on my way home to supper. The heavy July heat coupled with the noise and the crowds (two factors that normally did not worry me) were beginning to make me bad-tempered. My feet, sweltering inside my boots, were aching unbearably. I had removed my tunic and was wearing only my breeches and shirt, but the sweat still coursed down my back in rivulets. My fair hair had turned several shades darker and was plastered to my head. My shirt clung damply to my body.
    In the last few hours, I had tramped all over the city to very little purpose. With the start of Saint James’s Fair only days away, no one wanted to waste his or her money on purchases