Crossed Bones Read Online Free PDF Page B

all.’
    ‘Information about what?’
    ‘Oh, shipping and the like.’
    ‘Shipping? What would Sir Arthur care about shipping? You forget: I saw you; and I saw you hide something.’
    But he was not to be drawn. ‘You can see Carn Galva from here,’ he said wonderingly, gazing at the menacing serrations on the distant skyline. ‘The Giant’s Chair. I never knew that.’ He turned, his blond hair blowing around his broad, open face. ‘And Trencrom and Tregoning and the Godolphin Hills. No wonder the chieftain who built his fortress here chose this spot.’ He shaded his eyes. ‘I can even see the Scillies. ’Twould be hard to take the folk here unawares, by land or sea. It’s said they lit beacons from the Mount to here and Trencrom, to Carn Brea, then St Agnes Beacon, and on to the Great Stone on St Bellarmine’s Tor; and from there Cadbarrow, Rough Tor and Brownwilly, all the way through to Tintagel, to warn the king that the raiders were coming. Arthur and the other nine kings reached Land’s End by forced march in two days and gave them battle near Vellan-Druchar. So many were slaughtered, ’tis said, the mill ran on blood rather than water that day, and not a single Dane escaped.’
    ‘Pity he wasn’t around to save Mousehole and Newlyn from the Spanish,’ Cat replied. Her uncle had been among the men who had followed Sir Francis Godolphin on that fateful day in July 1595 to stand against the Spaniards who had overrun the village of Mousehole and fired the church at Paul. Outnumbered and ill armed, the Cornish had been forced to retreat under the bombardment of the galleons’ guns and wait for reinforcements while the invaders burned the better part of four hundred houses in Newlyn and Penzance. Her parents’ generation still spoke of the attack in hushed voices: it was an outrage, an insult that foreign invaders should set foot on Cornish soil, after the glorious defeat of the Armada, a defeat dealt out largely by West Country men.
    ‘Anyway,’ she said, shooting him a sharp look, ‘you still haven’t answered my question.’
    Robert stared out across the sea, his jaw set. ‘Are you using the book I gave you?’
    ‘Yes. It was most kind of you to remember that I admired Lady Harris’s copy. It is most gratifying to have one of my own,’ she said stiffly. ‘Some of the slips are very useful, and I have devised a few variations which the Mistress says are exceeding pretty.’
    ‘Good. I am glad to hear that you are practising your craft.’
    ‘I mean to be a master embroiderer and join the Guild.’
    Rob grinned despite himself. ‘And how will you do that from the depths of darkest Cornwall, Catherine? I fear geography is against you. And will you change your sex? The Broderers’ Guild is for master embroiderers, not for little chits, be they ever so clever with a needle.’
    ‘So you gave me the book merely to humiliate me?’
    Rob took her fingers between his two huge hands. ‘Never, Cat, believe me. I am more than proud that you have your commission from the Countess of Salisbury.’
    She pulled her hand away as if burned. ‘How do you know about that? It is a secret. I have been told to say nothing of it.’
    ‘Lady Harris mentioned it; she could not contain her delight: to work the altar cloth for the Howard family’s own church is a great privilege, and that she played her part in the Countess’s decision to give a Cornishwoman such a prestigious task has given her no little satisfaction.’
    Cat bit her lip, colouring. ‘It is a great responsibility. I have never undertaken anything so large or so ambitious before – I have not even planned it out yet.’
    Rob’s eyebrows shot up. ‘You mean to design it yourself?’
    ‘Of course.’ She glared at him, daring him to question her right to do so.
    It was unheard of that a woman should take it upon herself to create her own grand design; in the natural order of things this was the place of a man. It was why he had bought her