The Dance of Death Read Online Free PDF Page B

Timothy or, more particularly, the Duke of Gloucester would despatch me to France simply to bring back information that would probably soon be common knowledge. God forbid that I should be as cynical as that!
    I had been told that my role was passive, that I was being sent in order to afford Eloise protection and to add to her disguise as an ordinary traveller. A woman alone would be too conspicuous and open to all manner of unwelcome advances from predatory men. But I was beginning to wonder if the opposite were not really the truth: if she were not my protection and my disguise. But against what? Or whom? What was this secret mission that I was to undertake for Prince Richard? And it was to be kept secret even from my companion. Now why?
    My head was aching and I became conscious of a crick in the back of my neck. I was also aware of how rigid my shoulders had become, and I got to my feet, stretching my arms in order to ease the tension. I walked over to the window again, pushing the casement a little wider and breathing in the stale odours of London: fetid water, fish, seaweed, the smells of a hundred cook-shops, the blood and guts of the Shambles and the stink of the drains, full to overflowing by this time in the afternoon. The noise, too, the cacophony of a myriad voices and rumbling traffic, interlaced as it was with the constant chiming of bells, smote my ears, reminding me, in case I was in any danger of forgetting it, that this was a capital city, the hub of the country and one of the largest trading ports in the whole of Europe. But Paris, I had been reliably informed, was even bigger, noisier and of far greater importance. After the comparative quiet of Scotland that had embraced me for the past few months, I wasn’t looking forward to my enforced visit.
    Two people came out of the castle and stood at the top of the water-stairs just below me. I recognized them as the couple I had seen earlier: the young – at least I presumed she was young – woman, still cloaked from head to foot and with her back towards me, and her escort, as debonair and jaunty as ever. The blue feather in his hat positively quivered in the sunlight, the sun having recently deigned to show its face again.
    â€˜Wagge! Wagge! Go we hence!’ the man yelled at a passing boat, and the boatman, on the lookout for a new fare, immediately rowed to the foot of the steps. My smart young gent ran lightly down, blew a kiss to his lady with the tips of his fingers and was rowed away upstream. The woman watched for a moment or two, then turned with a swirl of her cloak and disappeared once more indoors.
    I turned from the window. Before I came back for my meeting with Timothy, and then with His Grace of Gloucester, I had visits of my own to make, old acquaintances to be looked up and friendships renewed.

Three
    I emerged into the hustle and bustle of Thames Street and, by way of Fish Hill, Trinity Street and the Walbrook, found myself at last in the Stock’s Market, from where it was only a few minutes’ walk to the Leadenhall and Cornhill. It being the middle of the week, I guessed that my old friend Philip Lamprey would be working, so I made first for the market, where the noise was a little less insistent than outside, but not by much. The stalls, each with its own haggling, shouting crowd surrounding it, were so close together that it was impossible to force a path between them and I had to use the main aisles, pushing and shoving aside the press of people, loudly cursing and being as enthusiastically sworn at in return.
    At the end of half an hour, tired, sweating profusely and with my temper in shreds, I had failed to locate Philip and his second-hand clothes stall. My attempts to question other stallholders as to his whereabouts had met either with blank stares or impatient waves of the hand, indicating that I should be off about my own business and not wasting honest men’s time with foolish questions.
    â€˜What?