The Tainted Relic Read Online Free PDF Page B

at the gate of the churchyard a leper swung his rattle and hopefully held out his bowl for alms. Some more permanent shops were open behind the flimsy stalls, their shutters hinged down to form counters displaying their goods.
    But Robert Blundus was not looking to buy anything except a night’s lodging, and his gaze was turned upward to seek the icons of the local inns. Given that only one person in a hundred could read, the taverns advertised themselves by signs hung over their doors. Looking along the street, he picked out several familiar devices–there was a Bush, an Anchor and a Crown. He chose the latter as looking slightly less dilapidated than the others and, ducking his head under the low lintel, went inside.
    The large room that took up the whole of the ground floor was lit only by the flames from a large fire burning in a pit in the centre, a ring of large stones embedded in baked clay separating it from the rushes strewn over the floor. A bench ran all around the walls and a few stools and more benches were scattered around the hearth. The room was filled with men, though in one corner he heard raucous laughter coming from a pair of whores who were cavorting with some travellers. The air was thick with wood-smoke, sweat and spilt ale, the normal atmosphere of a busy tavern.
    Blundus made his way towards the back of the taproom, ignoring the blasphemous abuse of a young serving-maid who bumped into him with a tray of ale-pots. He found the innkeeper, a surly man with a face badly scarred by old cow-pox, and negotiated for accommodation and food. For a penny, he was promised supper, two quarts of ale and clean straw in the loft. The landlord pointed to a wide ladder in the corner and Blundus shrugged off his pack and manhandled it up the steps. Here he found a dozen hessian bags stuffed with bracken or straw, laid out in rows under the rafters of the thatched roof. He chose one nearest to a dim tallow-dip that flickered on a shelf and dumped his backpack alongside it. The loft was deserted at that time of day, but the pedlar was wary enough to remove a small package wrapped in kid leather and put it for safe-keeping in the scrip on his belt.
    Downstairs, he was served his promised meal on a rough table under the ladder, alongside a row of casks of ale and cider. An earthenware bowl of mutton stew was banged down in front of him by the foul-mouthed serving-maid, together with a thick trencher of stale bread on which was a slab of fat boiled pork. A spoon crudely carved from a cow’s horn was supplied for the stew, but he used his own dagger to attack the pig meat. A half-loaf of rye bread and a lump of hard cheese followed, and he considered that the food was adequate in quantity, if not quality–though after days of shipboard tack, he was in no mood to complain. After two large pots of passable ale, he felt ready to sleep, as it was now dark outside.
    Climbing back up the ladder, Blundus felt both his advancing age–he was almost fifty–and the effects of three days rolling across the Channel on a small boat, so he was glad to flop down on to his bag of straw. He opened his pack again to pull out a woollen cloak to serve as a blanket, then could not resist another look at his most prized acquisition. In the dim light, he groped in his belt pouch and unwrapped the soft leather bundle, revealing a small wooden box, small enough to lie across his hand, intricately carved and partly covered in gold leaf, though much had worn off to reveal the dark rosewood underneath. Blundus opened the hinged lid and looked again at the glass vial that lay inside. He took it out, pulled off the gilded stopper and tipped the contents into his palm. Though he had examined it several times before, the thing still intrigued him–a grey stick-like object, a few inches long, composed of dried wood, as hard as stone. The surface was dark brown in places, which he assumed was the alleged staining with the blood, though Blundus neither