[Roger the Chapman 06] - The Wicked Winter Read Online Free PDF Page A

plainly ran southwards through thick wood and scrubland, I decided to proceed straight ahead, but I wished that I could meet with some other foolhardy traveller, out and about his business on such an unpleasant afternoon.
    Almost immediately my wish was granted as the rattle of wheels and the clop of horse's hoofs sounded behind me. I turned my head to see a cart approaching, a solid brown cob harnessed between its shafts, carrying a load of firewood.
    The driver was bunched forward over the reins, his head well down and concealed beneath its hood, his hands mottled red and blue by the cold. I stepped out almost into the middle of the track and hailed him, hoping for a fide, but either he did not hear me or he was too intent on getting home to stop and help a stranger. Whichever it was, he chose that moment to flick the reins and increase his speed, forcing me to step back hurriedly. I trod on a loose stone at the side of the path and went down heavily, twisting my left foot beneath me as I did so.
    For several minutes I was unable to move, conscious of nothing but the pain in my ankle. When at last this was bearable enough for me to drag myself upright with the aid of my cudgel, which by the grace of God had fallen close to my hand, I let rip with all the blasphemies at my command, cursing the retreating form of the carter. Then having somewhat relieved my feelings, I gingerly put my left foot to the ground and tested my weight on the ankle. A searing pain shot up my leg, causing me to swear yet again with even greater fluency than before. I glanced wildly around me, wondering how far it was to the nearest habitation.
    And then I saw it, a boulder house built into the steep bank on the right of the track some yards ahead of me, a thin wisp of smoke spiralling through the hole in the heather thatched roof. I dragged myself the short distance and had to stoop almost double, such was my height, to get my head beneath the lintel-stone of the narrow doorway. Inside, the hovel was so dark that even the single rushlight was momentarily invisible to me and I failed to realise that the floor was several inches below the level of the road.
    Consequently I missed my footing and pitched forward on my face. As the bare, beaten earth came up to meet me, the red-hot pain once more shot up my leg and I lay there, writhing and groaning in agony.

Chapter Three

    I must have lost consciousness for a moment, because the next thing I knew I was lying on my back with a face swimming above me, illuminated by the pallid glow of a rushlight. It was a narrow, etiolated face, with very pale blue eyes and lashes so fair that they were almost white. The impression of the skull was very strong beneath the paperthin skin and a few tufts and strands of hair, as colourless as the eyelashes, grew from the balding pate. Yet those seemingly fleshless arms needed to have a greater strength than their appearance suggested in order to have shifted my bulk.
    I lifted myself on to my elbows and tried to get up, but immediately my left leg protested and I sank back with a groan.
    'Still! Still!' the man ordered in a hoarse voice which barely rose above a whisper. 'Wait.'
    He turned, setting down the rushlight and its holder on the ground. Then with a little help from me, he pulled off my left boot and began gently to prod the ankle, grunting softly to himself as he did so. At last he raised his head.
    'Swollen,' he said. 'Bone not broken. Rest two days. Maybe three. All right then.'
    He picked up the rushlight again, holding it above his head, and so perilously close to birch boughs which supported the heather thatching that I cried out in alarm. He seemed unperturbed however, pointing with his free hand to the farther wall. I twisted my body to look behind me and, my eyes now having grown accustomed to the darkness, I saw a bed of dried straw in one part of the semi-circular embrasure dug out from the bank.
    'You lie there,' my rescuer invited.
    And while I dragged