A Mortal Bane Read Online Free PDF

all the time and the place was never before strewn with dead bodies.”
    Sabina, who had been crying quietly, sniffed and lifted her head. “No. But it was so horrible. I was laughing, you see. I had heard the sacristan cry out ‘Who is there?’ and then someone running and I thought it was a pair of lovers Brother Paulinus had frightened away. After I heard him close the door, I went to the porch, and…and….”
    She shuddered and began to cry again, and Magdalene patted her shoulder comfortingly. After a few moments she asked, “Are you sure he was dead?”
    Sabina sobbed harder. “There was a knife sticking out of his neck, and blood, so much blood, a whole pool….”
    She started to raise her hands to her face, but Letice seized them and pushed them into a basin she had set on the table. The bottom was black with wood ash, and Letice used one hand to rub that over Sabina’s and the other to prod Magdalene and point to the candles. Magdalene nodded but went to check the shutters before she lit the candles. She knew the Watch kept an eye on her house and did not want them to notice lights glinting from the windows on this night.
    When the candles were lit, Letice examined Magdalene carefully and helped her wash away any spot of blood that Sabina’s hands had transferred to her body. Magdalene then put on her bed gown, and she and Letice went over every inch of Sabina, her gown, her under-tunic, her cloak, her shoes, her staff, which Letice had found lying in the corridor, even the tips of her hair, cleaning all as well as they could.
    “There, love, there,” Magdalene soothed. “You are clean. Your clothes are clean. Forget this. Forget the man. No one will ever know he lay with you. We are not to blame if the person he met killed him, and we must not be called guilty so that the real killer can escape.”
    “But—”
    “No. Put it out of your mind. There is no way for anyone to connect him with this house at all, unless by misfortune he was seen leading his horse—oh, my God, his horse! It is still in our stable.”
    The three women froze. The horse. All realized that the horse could not simply be led out into the street and driven away. The clattering hooves would surely wake someone and attract the Watch.
    “The beast cannot be loose in the streets while the body is on the church porch,” Magdalene said slowly. “We will have to get it into the churchyard.”
    “How?” Sabina cried, shaking more than ever. “It is impossible! Oh, forget me. Let me confess that I found him and let them do what they will to me.”
    Magdalene slapped her gently and then shook her. ‘This is no time for hysterics, even though you have cause enough. First of all, we do not abandon our own. Not in this house! Secondly, no one will do anything to you if you obey me.”
    Letice sat down beside Sabina and put an arm around her, but with the other hand she pointed toward where the stable was, then cupped her hand and blew into it.
    “Yes,” Magdalene said. “As Letice points out, even if you sacrificed yourself, you silly girl, the horse would not disappear into thin air. It would still be in our stable.” She stared at the floor for a moment, then said, “Letice, go wake Dulcie. She will have to stay with Sabina while you and I move the horse.”
    Between signs and words repeated several times, though not so loudly as to wake Ella, the situation was explained to the maid. Dulcie did not seem surprised or frightened, and Magdalene suddenly wondered if the cookhouse she had come from was in a place where dead bodies were not uncommon. The question seemed answered as Dulcie calmly examined Sabina’s clothes and said they would need washing or the stains Letice’s wiping could not remove might set. Not to worry, she said to Magdalene, she would make sure no one knew she was washing clothes. The garments would soak well under pots and dishes, and dry hidden behind herbs near the fireplace. Then she gave the half-fainting