Company of Liars Read Online Free PDF Page A

convinced themselves it would stop at the ports, provided the foreigners were also stopped there.
    The following morning the rain fell steadily as it had done the day before and the day before that. Rain drives men inside their own thoughts. No one looks at anyone else in the rain; they walk, heads bent, gaze fixed on the spinning puddles. I was out of the village, toiling along the track, before I noticed Rodrigo and Jofre; even then I probably would have walked right past them had the boy not been making a noise like a cow in labour as he retched repeatedly into a ditch.
    Rodrigo was muttering something to Jofre, which sounded as if he was scolding him, but at the same time was soothingly rubbing his back.
    I stayed on the other side of the road and drew my cloak across my nose and mouth. ‘Is he sick?’
    God's blood! I was the one who'd persuaded the innkeeper to let them stay. If he had the pestilence…
    Rodrigo glanced up sharply, then gave a tight-lipped smile. ‘No, Camelot, it is not the sickness. His stomach is not used to the wine. It was rougher in the inn than he is accustomed to.’
    The boy heaved again and groaned, holding his head, his eyes bloodshot and his face the colour of sour milk.
    ‘Perhaps it's not the quality, but the quantity he's not accustomed to.’
    Rodrigo grimaced, but didn't contradict. The boy continued to bend over the ditch, though his retching was dry now, unlike the rain.
    ‘You are abroad early, Camelot. You have a long journey ahead of you?’
    I hesitated. I don't like discussing my business with strangers. Start talking about where you are going and people start asking where you've come from. They want to know where you were born and where your home is, insisting you must have one somewhere. Some even think that if you have no roots you are to be pitied. That I chose to rip up those roots is something they could never understand.
    But it was impossible to be rude to a man as courteous as Rodrigo.
    ‘I'm making for St John Shorne's shrine at North Marston. There's money to be made there and it's well to the north of here and inland, far away from the ports.’
    I knew it of old. It was a good place to sit out the autumn rains, the whole winter if need be. I was not so foolish as to think the pestilence would not creep inland, but it couldn't reach as far as North Marston, not before the winter frosts came. And, like all summer fevers, it would surely die out then. If you could just survive until the weather changed, by Christmas it would all be over, that's what they said, and even I was foolish enough to comfort myself with that thought.
    ‘And you, where are you bound?’ I asked Rodrigo. Like me, he also hesitated, as if reluctant to reveal the whole truth.
    ‘We go to Maunsel Manor. It is only a few miles from here. We spent time there whenever our master visited the family. The mistress of the house always praised our playing. We will try for a place there.’
    ‘It'll be a fruitless journey. I heard the household's gone to their summer estates. They'll not be back for weeks.’
    Rodrigo looked beaten and helpless. I'd seen that expression before in those who've been in service all their lives and suddenly find themselves turned out. They've no more idea of how to survive than a lapdog abandoned in a forest.
    ‘You'd be best making for a fair or better still a shrine. Fairs only run for a few days, a week at most, but a shrine never closes. Find one that's popular with the pilgrims and make friends with one of the innkeepers. The pilgrims always need entertaining in the evenings. Play a rousing battle song for the men and a love song for the women and you'll easily earn enough for a dry bed and a hot meal.’
    There was a loud groan from Jofre.
    ‘You may not feel like food now, my lad, but wait till that hangover wears off. You'll be groaning even harder once you feel the bite of hunger.’
    Jofre glanced up long enough to glower at me before leaning against a tree,