almost audible snap, and he lurched through the gate and into the grounds of the leper hospital. The girl gave a small cry, and sank to her knees, head bowed, face hidden in her hands. Ralph wanted to go to her and comfort her, but he thought better of it. There was nothing for him to say; no words of sympathy could compensate her. He shook his head, and was about to follow Quivil, when Rodde stepped forward.
“You are the master of the hospital?”
Ralph hesitated, then gave a nod. He already had one extra mouth to feed, and didn’t need another.
Thomas Rodde saw the wariness in his eyes and smiled. “I have need of a place to stay, Brother, and would be grateful if I could make use of your hospitality, but I won’t be a burden to you. I can pay for what I eat.”
“Where are you from?”
Rodde saw the doubt in the man’s face and grinned. “I used to live at a hospital in the north, but it was sacked by the Scots. I have a letter here, though.” He held out a note. The brother took it warily. It was rare for a leper to move far from his birthplace, and Ralph wasn’t sure about this confident man. The letter was from the brother of a small lazar house near Carlisle, and confirmed that his hospital had been destroyed by marauding Scots. It also mentioned Thomas Rodde by name and stated that he was not expelled.
Ralph handed the note back with relief. All too often wandering lepers were those who had been evicted from their old hospitals for disobedience. Their sins had to be extensive for them to suffer the punishment of homelessness and loneliness. “Of course you’re welcome. Christ Himself orders us to aid travellers.” It wasn’t the money that made Ralph make up his mind, it was the edge to the calm voice, as if the stranger was close to the end of his tether. Ralph motioned toward the hospital. Thomas picked up his bundle, swinging it over his shoulder in a practiced movement and walked slowly inside.
“Brother, may I speak with you?”
Ralph was surprised to see that the girl had recovered her composure. The tears still marked her cheeks, but she stood resolutely at his side. He managed to raise a wan smile. “Yes, my sister, of course.”
At his home, Matthew Coffyn grunted as he swung down from the saddle. It had been a long journey, and his back and legs ached as if he had walked the whole way. He led his horse to the thatched stables that leaned against the side of his hall, running from the door to the solar block. The window of his bedchamber gave out over the stable roof, and he glanced up hoping to see his wife, or at least the glow of a candle, but there was nothing visible. He watched while his grooms fetched the large trunk from the back of his cart. The light was fading, and he was glad to be back before it was fully dark.
His servants lifted the great box and staggered with it over the threshold and into the hall. They waited while he unlocked the door to his storeroom, then half-dragged, half-carried it inside. Coffyn relocked the door once they were out again, and sent his bottler for a pint of wine.
It had been a good trip. Coffyn disliked travelling, he was happier running his affairs here in Crediton, but for the last four months, through the summer, he had left his home and his wife to sell his cloth at fairs; it was a relief that this was the last of the year. There wouldn’t be any more during the winter months.
His business was profitable at long last, and he was determined to make as much gold as he could, and not only to repay his ruinous debts. Rumors were growing of the prospects of war both at home and abroad. Matthew needed the protection that money could provide; money was power, and power was safety. What with the French and the Scots, he found it hard to understand why people wanted to fight each other, but all he heard at the fairs and markets pointed to a battle between the King and Lancaster, and when the soldiers started marching, he wanted to have as large a fund as possible. Sometimes the only defense lay in buying off raiders.
Not that it should come so far south and west, he mused, swallowing a gulp of wine and sitting on the bench before the fire. The two English protagonists would probably slug it out round London and York. They were the wealthy areas, the places where the richest pickings could be had, and any captain of men knew that the best way to ensure loyalty among his army was to pick a field where the best profits were available.
Even if the English themselves didn’t go to war, there was always the risk of French pirates or an invasion. The thought was one he had considered several times recently, and once more he resolved to hire some men-at- arms. His eyes went to the locked door. There were dangers inherent in hiring itinerant soldiers, but the advantages outweighed them. He wouldn’t be happy until he had some better defense. There were always men at Exeter. He resolved to hire some at the first opportunity.
He wondered where his wife was, and bellowed for his bottler. “Where is my lady?”
“Sir, she went to her bed this afternoon with an upset.”
He waved away his bottler impatiently. The bitch was always ill. He slurped wine and belched, and his glower left his face for a moment to be replaced by a hopeful smirk. What if she was pregnant?
Matthew Coffyn was not a particularly cruel or even unkind man. He had been brought up on a farm north and east of Exeter, and had been apprenticed to a cloth merchant at seven because his father was desperate that his son would be able to keep him when he became old. The scheme had failed, though, because his father had died before he completed his apprenticeship.
But Coffyn had thrived, and when he was almost in his twenty-ninth year, he had wooed and wed. Now he was almost thirty-four, and his wife, his beautiful Martha, was just twenty. Yet he had not managed to sire a son, and the lack of children was aggravating. It wasn’t right that he should be childless: it wasn’t good for a man to go through life without an heir to leave his work to.
He sighed and drained his cup again. It was hard to blame his wife, for as she always pointed out, he was away so much through the summer that it would be a miracle for her to conceive. The optimism that was never far from his cheerful nature rose to the surface: winter was here, and offered unrivalled opportunities for early nights in bed.
The house was silent, and the hiss and crackle of the fire sounded almost deafening in the absence of all other noise. As Coffyn smiled at his happy thought, he heard a door bang upstairs, and the unmistakable sound of Martha’s footsteps in the passage from the solar. He filled his mug quickly and stood, but as the door opened and his wife entered the hall, he was convinced for a second that he heard something else. It was a rustling and a thump, as if someone had cautiously made his way along the thatch of the roof of the stable and down into the yard.
Coffyn’s blood ran cold. The pin of jealousy pricked the balloon of his pleasure and suddenly all his trust in his wife exploded in his face.
His cuckold’s face.
“Jesus!” John muttered under his breath. He had gained the safety of the tree where his rope was stored, and paused only long enough to throw the coil over his neck before quietly making his way toward the wall and his home.
His ankle was throbbing slowly with a dull intensity. It augured badly for the morning. Nothing was broken, he reckoned, for he could put his weight on it, but he wouldn’t forget the sudden stab of pure agony as he climbed silently from the window into the cobbled yard behind. That must be what had done it, he thought, his jaw clenched against the pain. A loose cobble must have moved under his foot.
What a night! That shite Coffyn wasn’t supposed to be back yet; he’d told his wife he’d either be late tonight, or more likely wouldn’t be home until tomorrow. Why had the stupid sod turned up now? John had been forced to scramble ignominiously from the hall before he could be discovered. The Irishman rested a moment against an apple tree while he enjoyed his bitterness. Then his good temper got the better of him and he grinned to himself.
John wasn’t given to introspection: he knew his place in the world, knew what gave him pleasure, and didn’t reason or rationalize why things were as they were. But he also had the gift of seeing the ridiculous side of any situation, and at this moment it was tempting to give a guffaw at his own position. Here he was, after a summer of enjoying his woman, complaining because her master had come home early for once. And instead of lying with her in her bed, John was here, in the dark, with a sprained ankle and a damn great wall to surmount.
“Should’ve taken the knight’s advice,” he muttered.
Shaking his head at the capricious nature of fate, he haltingly made his way round the wall to his oak. Here he unwound his rope and drew back his arm to catch the broken limb. But as his arm went back, it was suddenly gripped. John stiffened in silent terror as the blade of a long knife shimmered in an arc before him, gleaming evilly in the light of the stars before coming to rest on his Adam’s apple.
He swallowed. Carefully. “Ah-it’s a fine night for a walk, isn’t it, sir?”
It was no surprise that the leper camp was so dark, for there was no need of lighting for the inmates. Their
