Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin Read Free Book Online Page A

All Souls' Night. He was a boy from my own school." Simon heard the break in the prior's voice. "Next, a little girl, a wildfowler's daughter. On Holy Innocents Day, God help us. Then, as recently as the Feast of Saint Edward, King and Martyr, another boy."
    "But, my lord, who can accuse the Jews of these disappearances? Are they not still locked in the castle?"
    "By now, Master Simon, Jews have been awarded the ability to fly over the castle crenels, snatching up the children and gnawing them before dropping their carcasses in the nearest mere. May I advise you not to reveal yourself. You see"--the prior paused--"there have been signs."
    "Signs?"
    "Found in the area where each child was last seen. Cabalistic weavings. The townsfolk say they resemble the Star of David. And now"--Prior Geoffrey was crossing his legs--"I have to piss. This is a matter of some moment."
    Simon watched him hobble to the trees. "Good fortune, my lord."
    I was right to tell him as much as I did, he thought. We have gained a valuable ally. For information, I traded information--though not all of it.
     
    T HE TRACK TOWARD the brow of Wandlebury Hill had been made by a landslip that breached part of the great ditches dug out by some ancient peoples to defend it. The passage of sheep had evened it out and Adelia, a basket on her arm, climbed to the summit in minutes without losing breath--to find herself alone on the hilltop, an immense circle of grass dotted currantlike with sheep droppings.
    From a distance, it had appeared bald. Certainly the only high trees were down its side, with a clump along one easterly edge, and the rest was covered with shrubby hawthorn and juniper bushes. The flattish surface was pitted here and there with curious depressions, some of them two or three feet deep and at least six feet across. A good place to wrench your ankle.
    To the east, where the sun was rising, the ground fell away gently; to the west, it dropped fast to the flat land.
    She opened her cloak, clasped her hands behind her neck, stretching, letting the breeze pierce the despised tunic of harsh wool bought in Dover that Simon of Naples had begged her to wear.
    "Our mission lies among the commoners of England, Doctor. If we are to mingle with them, learn what they know, we must appear as they do."
    "Mansur looks every inch a Saxon villein, naturally," she'd said. "And what of our accents?"
    But Simon had maintained it was a matter of degree that three foreign medicine peddlers, always popular with the herd, would hear more secrets than a thousand inquisitors. "We shall not be removed by class from those we question; it is the truth we want, not respect."
    "In this thing," she'd said of the tunic, "respect will not be forthcoming." However, Simon, more experienced in deception than she, was the leader of this mission. Adelia had put on what was basically a tube, fastened at the shoulders with pins but retaining her silk undershift--though never one to swim in the stream of fashion, she'd be damned if, even for the King of Sicily, she tolerated sackcloth next to the skin.
    She closed her eyes against the light, tired from a night spent watching her patient for signs of fever. At dawn the prior's skin had proved cool, his pulse steady; the procedure had been successful for the moment; it now remained to be seen whether he could urinate without help and without pain. So far so good, as Margaret used to say.
    She started walking, her eyes searching for useful plants, noticing that her cheap boots--another blasted disguise--sent up sweet, unfamiliar scents at each step. There were goodies here among the grass, the early leaves of vervains, ale-hoof, catmint, bugle, Clinopodium vulgare, which the English called wild basil, though it neither resembled nor smelled like true basil. Once she had bought an old English herbal that the monks of Saint Lucia had acquired but couldn't read. She'd given it to Margaret as a reminder of home, only to reappropriate it to study