Roseblood Read Online Free PDF Page A

a huge blue-arsed fly feeding on a turd. Naturally they dared not say that to his face. Simon Roseblood was a London lord, one with fingers in many pies, a man who filled his goblet at numerous fountains. Now he stopped in front of the great sacristy table and stared at his own reflection in the highly polished piece of metal that served as a mirror.
    ‘Recognise yourself, Roseblood?’ he murmured.
    He stood for a while studying the lean lined face, the skin all shaven, the silver-threaded black hair combed back over his broad forehead, the slightly slanted green eyes, the stubborn mouth and chin. He patted the quilted russet jerkin and checked the points on his bottle-green hose. He fastened his sword belt and swung the pure dark blue woollen cloak about his shoulders. Then he eased off the soft buskins and, hopping from foot to foot, quietly cursing, put on his boots and straightened up.
    The rest of the parish council had left. The day was drawing on. Soon the Vespers bell would toll and the beacon fires proclaiming the curfew would flare into life at the top of the church tower, to be answered by other beacons in steeples throughout the city. Roseblood stared around the sacristy, checking that all was well. The massive aumbry for storing vestments in all the varieties of liturgical colours had been clasped shut. The solid carved parish chest was firmly locked; Roseblood, as church warden and wine bearer, carried one of only three keys to it. Everything was in order: the polished card table, the caskets and coffers, the brilliantly hued triptych on one wall, a huge replica of the San Damiano Cross on the other. Roseblood quietly translated the Latin inscription on the polished oak tablet beneath the crucifix. ‘Sacred to the memory of John Beaufort, first Duke of Somerset, Captain General of the King’s forces in France… All gone,’ he murmured to himself.
    He left the sacristy and wandered into the darkened sanctuary. He scrutinised the high altar with its heavy bejewelled velvet frontal; the polished oak chair and quilted stools for the celebrant and his assistants; the altar crucifix of gold and ivory flanked by two tall candlesticks of precious metal holding the purest beeswax candles. At each corner of the altar rose an oaken column, highly decorated, with a transverse beam above; along this stood silver-gilt statues of Christ, the Virgin Mary and Roseblood’s patron, Simon Peter. From the beam hung a rich tapestry, embroidered with gold and silver thread, portraying the Marriage at Cana. His gaze was caught by the dazzle of light from the stained-glass windows high in the sanctuary wall depicting scenes from the life of St Peter: fishing on the Sea of Galilee and confronting the warlock Simon Magus among them.
    Roseblood flinched at an unexpected sound further down the darkened nave. The doors, except for the corpse door, should be locked. Eleanor would be praying in her anchorhold, the Swan’s-Nest, a converted chapel in the northern transept. Of course Ignacio, Roseblood’s deaf-mute henchman, that subtle shadow of a man, would be watching from the darkness; these were dangerously fraught times. Roseblood tapped his dagger hilt. He had heard the rumours. How those two miscreants Candlemas and Cross-Biter had been taken and hidden away. How Malpas, that conniving sheriff, had promised them a pardon if they turned King’s Approver. Roseblood’s spy had given him dire warnings about what was being planned. How the sheriff had been joined by his kinsman Amadeus Sevigny, York’s man, a mailed clerk with a reputation for being a ruthless blood-seeker.
    Roseblood breathed in as he prayed for protection. He left the sanctuary, going under the exquisitely sculpted oaken rood screen. At the bottom of the sanctuary steps he genuflected towards the glowing red sanctuary light in its mother-of-pearl glass case hanging on the end of a silver chain next to the richly jewelled pyx under its silken canopy. He turned as