The Fire in the Flint Read Online Free PDF Page B

the English have not noticed them.’
    ‘They came far?’
    Hal nodded.
    ‘What of the rider?’ Margaret asked.
    ‘Aylmer speaks with a fineness. His master must be very grand to have such a servant.’
    ‘Is he lying?’
    Hal shrugged. ‘I have not the gift to judge, Dame Margaret.’
    ‘Might he be English?’
    Hal met her eyes for a heartbeat. ‘I pray he is not.’
    ‘I pray so, too. I am grateful for your observations, Hal.’
    ‘Shall I stable these beasts?’
    ‘Of course. They need care.’ She left him, deep in thought about what might bring noblemen to Edinburgh, and to this inn. Such people usually sought the hospitality of Holyrood Abbey. What worried her was their timing, just after a murder and a search, or burglary. And the possibility that they were English, come to spy on the tavern.
    The rooms that shared the upper storey of theinn with her room were the most comfortable, but she would wait to meet the other man before committing to that. She might not turn them away – indeed, if they were from south of the Tweed she would not dare – but she did not need them near if she liked the master as little as she did the servant. She paused at the foot of the steps leading up to her chamber, deciding instead to check the rooms above the undercroft in case she chose to put the men there. She had one foot on the steps up to that when Celia came hurrying across the yard towards her.
    ‘Mistress, you have a visitor.’ Celia looked close to tears and her voice trembled.
    ‘What is wrong, Celia?’
    ‘He’s up above, Mistress. He insisted I let him wait for you in your chamber.’
    ‘God’s blood, who does he think he is.’ Margaret lifted her skirts and turned to follow Celia. ‘This is a customer I will turn away.’
    ‘You don’t understand, Mistress. It’s the master – your husband.’
    Margaret stopped in mid-stride. ‘Roger?’ She turned back. ‘Are you certain?’
    ‘I was his mother’s maid for many a year. It is he.’
    ‘Dear Heaven.’ Margaret pressed her arms to her stomach, feeling as if she had been hit squarely and lost all her breath.
    ‘What can I do?’ Celia asked.
    Margaret shook her head. ‘How goes he? Is he well?’
    ‘He looks weary, but much the same otherwise.’
    ‘Does he come in friendship?’ Margaret heard herself ask the question and wished she could suck it back inside.
    ‘He was sharp with me.’
    Hence the tearful face, the trembling voice.
    ‘I must attend him. He is my husband.’ With a deep breath to steady herself, Margaret headed towards the tavern. But seeing the man Aylmer, she returned to Celia. ‘We have guests tonight. The man by the tavern door is the servant, Aylmer, and I have yet to meet the master, but I think he must be a nobleman, perhaps English, for so fine a servant. With Roger here—’ Her mind went blank.
    ‘Were you seeing to a room for the strangers?’ Celia suggested.
    ‘Yes. Hal is stabling their horses.’ When Margaret turned again, Aylmer was gone. She was relieved. She needed no audience as she climbed to confront her long-absent husband.

3
     

A G OOD H USBAND
     
    Celia had noticed the stranger watching Margaret and her as they spoke and had felt an urge to shoo him away. He must have sensed that he was unwelcome for he was gone now, and Celia alone witnessed Margaret pausing at the foot of the steps, squaring her shoulders and continuing up.
    Often in the past months Celia had wondered how Margaret would behave when or if Roger returned. To have left his wife of only two years for such a long while during such frightening times had been reprehensible. But he’d compounded the offence as if he never considered Margaret’s feelings: in the sole letter he’d written to Margaret he’d promised to return at Yuletide but then did not appear, and sent neither an explanation nor an apology; when at last Margaret had caught sight of him in Edinburgh he had run from her; shortlythereafter he had sent word