Pagan's Vows by Catherine Jinks Read Free Book Online Page A

gave it to her.’
    ‘ You did?’ (And how, may I ask, did you get hold of that stuff? Loaf sugar is worth a king’s ransom.) ‘Not that it’s any of my business, but where the hell did it come from?’
    ‘It’s mine. I didn’t steal it. It was given to me.’ Roquefire waves at the girl. ‘Go on. Get. Get out of here, quickly.’
    ‘But –’
    ‘ Get! ’
    She turns and flees across the kitchen gardens, heading for the eastern wall. Is there a gate in it, somewhere?
    ‘I found a hole,’ Roquefire mumbles. ‘She’s small enough to squeeze through, now that I’ve made it a bit bigger.’ He looks at me sideways, his eyes glittering in the lamplight. ‘She comes to visit me, when she can. When I leave the red stone on the right, instead of the left.’
    ‘I see.’
    ‘She’s a friendly girl. Why shouldn’t I give her a bit of sugar? Especially since it’s mine. It is mine, you know. The almoner gave it to me.’
    All right, all right, I believe you. Now let’s drop the subject, shall we? There are other things I want to talk about.
    ‘Truly, Roquefire, it’s none of my business. I don’t care what you do with your evenings. I came to get a lamp.’
    ‘A lamp?’
    ‘There’s something I have to read, tonight.’
    He seems a little confused. But he nods, and moves aside to let me pass. ‘Come in,’ he says softly. ‘Just keep it down, will you? There are cooks sleeping upstairs.’
    Oh, I’ll be quiet, you don’t have to worry about that. The kitchen smells of woodsmoke and baked fish: embers glow on the hearth, and dogs snore under the table. There’s a washing trough and a wicker fan, and a spice box with a lock on it. You could boil a Byzantine army in each of the cooking-pots. The room is filled with brooms, buckets, bellows, skimmers, saucepan boards, everything a well-stocked kitchen should have.
    Including a couple of oil-lamps, tucked onto a shelf between the tongs and the salt-cellar.
    ‘You won’t tell anyone, will you?’ says Roquefire, as he fetches one of the lamps. ‘About my friend? Or the sugar? That sugar’s a big secret.’
    ‘Oh really?’ How interesting. ‘Why?’
    ‘Well . . . it’s payment, you see. For a service.’
    He leans very close, and blows a cloud of garlic into my face. He doesn’t look very healthy from this distance: his skin is yellow, his eyes sticky and bloodshot. There’s already grey in his hair, even though he can’t be more than a few years older than I am.
    ‘But if I tell you about it, you’ve got to promise you won’t tell anyone else,’ he breathes.
    ‘That depends on what you’ve done.’ (Trying to pull away, without making it obvious.) ‘You didn’t kill anybody, did you?’
    He laughs through his nose.
    ‘Me?’ he says. ‘Of course not.’
    ‘Did the almoner?’
    ‘The almoner?’ His smile fades; he glares suspiciously. ‘Who said anything about the almoner?’
    ‘You did. You said that he gave it to you. The sugar, I mean.’
    ‘Oh.’ You can practically hear his brain grinding away as he thinks. ‘Well,’ he murmurs, ‘it’s true. The almoner gave it to me, so that I wouldn’t tell anyone about his visit.’
    ‘What visit?’
    He knits his brows; bites his lip; peers into my face. ‘Will you swear not to say anything about my friend?’ he whispers.
    ‘Only if you swear not to say anything about my lamp.’
    For some reason, this seems to reassure him. He snorts, straightens up, and thumps me on the shoulder.
    ‘I knew you were a good fellow,’ he says. ‘I knew you weren’t like those other monks. They’ve all got water in their veins, and feather pillows where their guts should be –’
    ‘Yes, but what about the almoner’s visit? Where did he go? You have to tell me now, you can’t leave me in suspense.’
    ‘Ah. Well.’ He rolls his eyes, and sticks his tongue in his cheek. The result is a kind of ferocious leer. ‘Old Father Aeldred has a lady friend. A widow.’
    ‘Really?’
    ‘Yes. You