The Malice of Unnatural Death: Read Online Free PDF Page B

some well built with little garden plots before them where straggling plants
grew in the chill: spindly stems of rocket with the last few tiny leaves, and some harsh-looking cabbages. Not much still
grew at this time of year.
    From close to, the gates were enormous, and he stood before them with relief to know that here at last he would be able to
sleep indoors. He marched in, and soon found where he could take a drink or two. After asking advice, he chose a place called
the Suttonsysyn, which was only a very short distance from where he stood. And it was while he was there, looking about himself,
that he saw
him
again.
    It was a shock. He had been ready to relax, take a drink, and then retire to his cot, but now here was this fellow, one of
those guaranteed to remember him – the king’s messenger from Coventry. There was nothing for it: he must leave the city, escape,
run away again. Perhaps head straight for the coast, take a ship to Guyenne … Lord Mortimer had done just that, after
all: he’d fled the land, and was now living with the French king, so they said.
    But to run now might mean he could never achieve the destruction of the king and his favourites. The thought was unbearable. He had to stay.
    It had taken him four days to march here. Four days of walking without halt except at night, avoiding people as far as possible,
and now he had arrived here and already his safety was at risk. He sank onto a low wall, thinking desperately about his mission. It was enough to make a man weep, seeing an agent of his destruction so soon after arriving in a town where he had thought
himself secure. Perhaps there was nowhere which was entirely safe. This, maybe, was to be the tenor of his life from this
moment forth:to wander the lands, ever seeking safety, only to discover at every vill yet another familiar, and dangerous, face.
    But he was not the man to accept defeat. Other churls might whine and complain at the way that fate would play hazard with
their lives, but that was not for
him
! He was stronger than that: he made others change their situation to suit
him
! It was he who was in control. Events were so constructed by him that they guided others to obey his whims.
    He would not be thwarted. Standing, wincing, he watched the man disappear down the street ahead of him, and squaring his shoulders
he set off after him, his hand pulling at the little weighted cord under his tunic. With that, he could defend himself.
    And then, as he stepped out, he saw another man follow him, a short, dark man who watched him closely with wide-set, dark
and serious eyes.
    John took a closer grip on his cord.
    Tuesday, Feast Day of St Edmund
4

Exeter City
    It was Will Skinner, the watchman at the South Gate, who first noticed the body slumped just inside the alley on that Tuesday
morning.
    Will was one of the older night watchmen. When he first took over duties down here near the gate, he had been middle-aged,
but that was six years ago now. Felt like a lot longer. At the time he had only recently lost his house andeverything he loved.
    Poor Margie had never recovered from that fire. Badly burned, seeing their bodies drawn from the house, she’d lost her mind. They’d both doted on the little mites, all three of them. They’d had seven children born, but they’d had to bury the other
four only a short while after their births. Not many children lived to four years old.
    Bob had been twelve, Joan eight, and Peg six when they died. That damned fire had rushed through the house like … like
anything. Will had been speaking at a small meeting, telling his audience they should fight to reject the latest demands for
extra taxes, when the woman came to get him. She was herself distraught, and he gaped at her, not really comprehending what
she was saying. It was like a dreadful nightmare, hearing her talking about his children, his wife badly burned …
    He had run to the house, but by the time he got there there was nothing. Just a smoking