The Christmas Wassail Read Online Free PDF

and decided that if I continued to earn good money at my peddling, I might do so permanently. It was a happy thought and I smiled. Then I went back inside, shutting and bolting the door after me.
    I was still thirsty, so I fetched another cup of water and perched on the edge of the kitchen table, swinging one leg. It had not been the best possible start to Christmas, but that had been largely my own fault. I shouldn’t have stayed in the Green Lattis, drinking, and I shouldn’t have lost my temper when I discovered that Richard Manifold had usurped my right to tie the kissing bush to the ceiling hook. Or should I? I wasn’t quite sure.
    Thinking about the Green Lattis brought back the memory of the face I had seen across the ale-room. I was still unable to put a name to it, but I was possessed of the strong conviction that it had been in the wrong place. It hadn’t been in its familiar surroundings. Had it been, I felt certain I should have known who the man was.
    â€˜You’ll recollect, given time,’ I told myself. ‘Let it alone and it’ll come to you. It always does.’
    But I couldn’t stop worrying at the problem, like probing an aching tooth with one’s tongue, so I deliberately diverted my thoughts to a different worry, and one that I could do nothing about. It was a month or so now since rumours began circulating that King Richard – a man I loved and deeply admired and who had, on several occasions, claimed me as a friend – had had his two nephews murdered. These stories had started during the late rebellion, and I thought I knew who was their author: one of the king’s most implacable enemies, John Morton, Bishop of Ely. But once the rebellion had been put down, skilfully and with very little loss of life or retribution, I had confidently expected the king to deny the calumny publicly and to produce the two boys, alive and well, for all the world to see. It hadn’t happened, and although I kept telling myself that my belief in King Richard’s humanity and probity was as strong as ever, now and again I felt that belief to be a little shaken …
    It was useless to think like that. I stood up abruptly, swallowed the remaining water, replaced the cup on the shelf and went back to bed. In spite of my cluttered mind, within five minutes I was asleep and snoring. Or, at least, so Adela informed me in the morning.
    It was at breakfast that Adela, looking a little heavy-eyed as though she had slept badly, informed Nicholas and myself that our first task on this Eve of Christmas would be to go down to Redcliffe Wharf where, so she had been informed, the Yule logs were being distributed.
    â€˜Now you know what to look for, Roger,’ she instructed me. ‘A log that’s not too wet, so that it won’t burn at all, but not too dry, either. A bit green and damp so that it will burn throughout the whole twelve days until Twelfth Night. If it stops burning, that’s bad luck for the coming year.’
    â€˜I wanted to go and watch the mummers arrive,’ my stepson protested indignantly, but his mother was adamant.
    â€˜That’s not until this afternoon,’ she said. ‘There will be plenty of time for that afterwards.’
    â€˜How do you know it’s this afternoon?’ Nick, though normally a quiet and amenable child, could be awkward when he chose.
    â€˜Sergeant Manifold said so.’
    â€˜I didn’t hear him.’
    â€˜That’ll do, Nicholas!’ Adela so rarely called her son by his full name that he looked startled. ‘You’ll do as I tell you.’
    Not another Christmas disagreement, please Lord, I prayed silently. Out loud I said, ‘I should appreciate your company, Nick. Then, if I choose the wrong log, I’ll have someone to share the blame with.’
    That made him grin and restored his good humour. ‘Can we take Hercules?’
    â€˜Yes, if you like. Although I warn you,