After Flodden by Rosemary Goring Read Free Book Online Page B

where they had not been fully
closed. What she did not see was the figure that stood by the gap. He had watched her ride up the street and tether her horse, and he heard her knocking. When the housekeeper came to tell him there
was a girl asking to see him, he yelled so loud, Louise heard every word from the doorstep.
    ‘I won’t see anyone, I tell you. Send her away!’ And the doors were closed in her face.
    She came back later. ‘Please,’ she begged. ‘It’s about my brother, I only need to ask him about my brother.’
    ‘What about him?’ said Goodwife Black, although she could guess.
    ‘He’s never come home from the battle,’ said Louise, holding her voice steady by pressing her hands together like a nun. ‘The secretary knew him. He might be able to help
me.’
    ‘The name?’
    ‘Benoit Brenier.’
    ‘Wait here.’
    Goodwife Black climbed upstairs to her master’s room and once again Paniter roared.
    The following morning, Louise returned. Like Paniter, she had not slept, and like Paniter she was angry. Goodwife Black opened the doors no more than a crack. When, as expected, she saw Louise,
she would have closed them at once, except that something shot past her legs into the hallway, and she shrieked, letting go the bolt. Seeing her chance, Louise pushed her way past the door. She
whistled and the vixen skittered to her side across bees-waxed boards.
    ‘Get that filthy dog out of here, and you with him!’ shrieked the housekeeper, outraged at this breach of her domain.
    ‘I’m not leaving until I have spoken to Patrick Paniter,’ said Louise, surprising herself at how firm she sounded. ‘If I have to stay all day and night, I
will.’
    ‘Is that right?’ said Goodwife Black, advancing on her. She’d dealt with tradesfolk dunning for bills, and knew how to twist their arm to make them glad to escape back into the
street. It would not take much to encourage this thin lass to leave sharpish, once she’d got her hands on her.
    There was a growl, a streak of gold, and the vixen crouched before the housekeeper, hackles raised and teeth bared, ready to spring.
    ‘Jesus and Mary!’ gasped Goodwife Black, retreating to the far side of the hall. ‘This is outrageous. You force your way into this house, and now you set your dog on me.’
She began to back up the stairs, moving very slowly for fear of the vixen launching itself at her. ‘I promise you, you little slut,’ she said, reverting to her fisher-row roots,
‘if he dares so much as touch me, he’ll be strung up and hanged. He won’t be the first hound I’ve put a noose on and watched scrabble as the rope tightened.’
    Louise caught the vixen by the scruff. The dog continued to growl, her eyes never leaving Goodwife Black. Louise dragged her back to a bench, where she sat, keeping a hand on her. ‘I
won’t let her bite you,’ she said, ‘but I refuse to leave until I can see your master. I’m in no rush.’
    The housekeeper gave her a look that would turn fresh herring rancid, and ran up the stairs. Louise heard her disappear into the room overhead. The house went quiet. The vixen stopped growling,
and sank onto her belly, head on paws, eyes on the stairs. Beyond the oak doors, the day’s work was gathering pace, oxen drivers cracking their whips above the beasts’ heads as they
lugged drays of stone toward the infant Flodden wall. But in Paniter’s hall, nothing stirred. Nothing, but Louise’s skipping heart.
    *    *    *
    He plunged his face into the bowl, and held his breath. The water was cold as stone, but for the first time in a week he felt a flicker of life catch in his veins. In that deep
wooden dish he found something of his old self, as if he’d carelessly dropped it there before he rode off to battle and only now closed his fingers around it again.
    Shuddering at the medicinal cold, he raised his head, sending a spray of droplets across the room. Water ran down his neck and arms. He gripped the