A Holy Vengeance Read Online Free PDF

family to be notified of her death and her body removed to their parish church. As for you, Mistress Turner, I have no more questions for you at this time, but will wish to speak to you again. You, too, may leave, and return to your home, but will hold yourself ready for my summons.”
    A chill of fear struck Constance at the castellan’s pronouncement. But hope resurged as she curtsied and turned away when Nicolaa give instructions to the serjeant, Ernulf, who had been standing nearby throughout the whole of the interview, to send one of his men into town to inform Roget, the captain of the town guard, to attend her immediately. Roget had once been a special friend to Constance and, if she had to withstand more interrogation from Lady Nicolaa about Emma’s death, his presence would greatly sustain her.

Chapter 3
    Less than an hour later, Roget entered the castle ward. A tall, rangily built man, with powerful shoulders and a confident stance, in his younger years he had been a mercenary in a band of routiers employed by the late King Richard when the monarch went on crusade to the Holy Land. One side of his face was marred by the scar of an old sword slash and his strong white teeth were gapped in places, both remnants of his soldiering, but, nonetheless, he was still possessed of a rough handsomeness. The miscreants of the town feared him, and with good cause; he had a softness for a woman’s pretty face, but none for those, male or female, who broke the law. The copper rings threaded in his tangled black beard jingled as he spotted Ernulf waiting for him and he gave the serjeant a welcoming grin which soon faded when he was told of the reason he had been summoned.
    “A young woman stabbed at a shrine?” he exclaimed. “What kind of
chien
would do this?”
    “There’s more,” Ernulf informed him reluctantly. “Constance Turner was with the girl when it happened. Was nearly murdered herself, according to the reeve from Burton, who brought her back with him to report the crime.”
    This news distressed Roget even more and he let out an oath. Ernulf was one of the few that knew the captain had once been an admirer of the perfumer, and had become so when he had met her while assisting in the investigation into the murder of a prostitute who had lived next door to Constance. The attraction had lasted for a few weeks, and then, for some reason that had never been explained to the serjeant, or anyone else who had been aware of their friendship, Roget had ceased to keep company with her.
    What the serjeant didn’t know was that although Roget had been enamoured of the winsome perfumer, and she with him, the captain had soon realised that Constance was a respectable woman who would never let a man bed her without marriage, and he had honoured her too much to make any attempt to try to persuade her. Ever since he had been a young boy, Roget had sworn he would never marry, but with Constance, and for the first time in his life, he had been tempted to ask a woman to become his wife. It had been with only the greatest reluctance that he had not done so, and that was not because of his desire to remain unwed, but because he felt unworthy of her. He knew only too well that he was only a rough soldier, one who drank hard and had slept with many women in Lincoln—not only harlots, but also those maids and wives, of which there were quite a few, who found his roguish charm attractive. What had he to offer Constance but a scurrilous reputation, a captain’s small stipend, and an uncertain future? He had never explained to her why he had ceased to visit her, but he still held a great affection for her and had, from a distance, tried to watch over her well-being. And now he had just been told that she had almost been killed. Even though he knew it would have been impossible for him to foresee that she would be attacked out in the greenwood, he cursed himself for his lack of vigilance.
    Crossing the bail with a heavy heart, he went