A Spy for the Redeemer Read Online Free PDF Page B

would do, Lucie thought. He had grown quite like his father, Adam, Sir Robert’s former sergeant and late in life the steward of the manor. Trouble had usually backed away from Adam.
    ‘You are fortunate to have such alert men watching out for you, Mistress Wilton,’ Harold said.
    Daimon glanced at Harold, nodded curtly.
    ‘They do say there have been more outlaw bands since the pestilence,’ Tildy said.
    Daimon gave Tildy a little bow. ‘It was not wise, riding out with such trouble about. But you are welcome to Freythorpe, Mistress Matilda.’ He smiled up at her.
    ‘So,’ Brother Michaelo muttered, seeing how it stood between Tildy and Daimon.
    Lucie might have echoed him, but she held her tongue as the young steward turned to her. ‘Mistress Wilton, please come within and give your aunt good cheer.’
    When Tildy dismounted in the yard before the house, Daimon motioned her to step aside. His eyes on the ground, his voice too soft to overhear, he spoke urgently to the young woman. Tildy, also keeping her head down, shook it once. Lucie watched with interest, wondering what precisely had transpired between them the previous summer when Tildy had been sent to the manor with Gwenllian and Hugh for safety during the pestilence. As Tildy moved away from Daimon, Lucie noticed that another pair of eyes followed her. Well, and why should Harold not find her pleasing to look at? Tildy had huge brown eyes, a high forehead, rosebud lips and skin the colour of the ivory rose in Lucie’s garden. For a young woman of twenty years who had been born in poverty, she was remarkable in having all her teeth and, but for a wine-red birthmark that spread across her left cheek, a perfect complexion. But Daimon need not glower at Harold as he did when he saw the direction of the stranger’s gaze – Tildy had not blushed so prettily when Harold leaned towards her as she did when Daimon was near.
    Lucie took herself over to the young steward. ‘I bring sad tidings, Daimon. Is my aunt well enough to hear them?’
    Daimon coloured. ‘Dame Phillippa is well enough to keep the servants busy,’ he said. He lowered his voice. ‘I would speak with you later, Mistress Wilton. At your pleasure.’
    ‘I thought you might wish a word,’ Lucie said, and headed for the house, taking Tildy by the elbow and propelling her forward.
    By the time Lucie’s party entered the hall, the servants had set up a trestle table near the fire. Flagons of ale and wine, and a cold repast were brought in for the travellers. Lucie looked round for her aunt.
    ‘I shall fetch the mistress,’ a maid said, bobbing a curtsy.
    ‘No,’ said Lucie, ‘it is best that I speak with her alone.’ The maid directed her to a screened area in the far corner of the hall.
    ‘She no longer sleeps up in the solar?’
    ‘No, Mistress,’ the young woman said.
    Lucie paused halfway across the hall, noticing a rent in the tapestry on the far wall, repaired with the open, ineffectual stitches of a child just learning to sew. The tear extended an arm’s length from the side of the tapestry inward. ‘What has happened here?’ she said to herself.
    At her elbow, Daimon said quietly, ‘I should warn you, Mistress, Dame Phillippa has not been herself of late.’
    ‘She tore it? Or repaired it?’
    ‘Both, I think.’
    Such clumsy stitches? And on Phillippa’s favourite tapestry, one of the few items left from her dowry.
    The alcove had once held her parents’ bed, before the hearth had replaced the fire circle and a fireplace was possible up in the solar. It was a large space, enclosed by carved wood screens. Lucie tapped on the screen nearest the heavy curtain that served as a door. ‘Aunt? It is Lucie.’
    A little cry, then a shuffling. Lucie pushed back the curtain. Phillippa was already there, one arm stretched out to embrace her niece. ‘My dearest child!’
    ‘Aunt Phillippa.’ Lucie was startled by her aunt’s bony shoulders. She stepped back, saw how her