[Roger the Chapman 06] - The Wicked Winter by Kate Sedley Read Free Book Online

the solar?'

Chapter Four

    Dame Judith drew herself up to her full height - not an easy thing to do whilst sitting down, but the old lady managed to give that impression - and said coldly, 'Bet brought this chapman to see me. She thought I might wish to purchase some of his goods.'
    'Bet has no right to think,' was the terse response as the mistress of the house advanced further into the room.
    The Widow Lynom was indeed, as the miller's wife had said, a fine woman with a high, broad forehead, slate-blue eyes, a long and impressively straight nose and a full, voluptuous mouth. In spite of this there was a hardness about the features which, to my mind at least, prevented her from being truly handsome. She wore a red woollen gown trimmed with squirrel fur at neck and wrists, and caught around her waist by a green leather belt studded with jewels. Her slender fingers were heavily beringed, but of the red hair, which might or might not be dyed with alkanet, there was no sign, all being concealed beneath a hood of fine, crisp lawn. Her skin was carefully whitened, her lips stained with a salve made from the distillation of strawberry juice - I was by now growing wise in the wiles and deceptions of women - and she carried herself well, as befitted someone born to command. Yet nothing could disguise the fact that she would never see forty again. Nevertheless, I could guess her attraction for any man tied to a sober and pious wife, however young. There was a raffish gleam in the blue eyes which suggested that she would not be niggardly with her sexual favours.
    'Oh, I'm fully aware that you'd deny me anything that gives me pleasure,' Dame Judith snapped, her bony cheeks growing pink with outrage. 'Fortunately I have a few friends left in the household.' She turned to me. 'You needn't think I was treated like this when my son was alive. Then I was accorded all the respect that is my due.'
    The widow sighed and tapped one leather-shod foot in exasperation.
    'Don't be mendacious, Mother! You know very well that no one denies you anything you wish. We wouldn't be so foolish, knowing the tantrums we'd be subjected to if you were thwarted.'
    'Tantrums is it?' Dame Judith was fairly spitting with annoyance. 'I'd have you know, Chapman, that I'm one of the most reasonable, sweet-tempered women living, but what I have to endure would try the patience of a saint!' The widow raised her eyes ceiling-wards and appeared to be praying for strength, but her mother-in-law ignored her. 'For one thing, why am I forced to remove up here every morning instead of being allowed to stay downstairs in the parlour, where I can at least look out of the window and watch who's passing on the road? Not,' she grumbled, 'that there's much traffic at this time of year. The only people I saw today were a holy man and a carter with a load of tree trunks bound for the sawmill. Oh yes, and the blacksmith, accompanied by a young girl muffled to the eyes and who looked to me as if she were keeping a tryst of some sort with him.' The old woman's sharp nose quivered. 'I must get Bet to discover if he's courting. But who could it be from hereabouts?' She tittered. 'Aren't I a nosy old woman?'
    'You're brought up here to the solar, Mother,' the Widow Lynom interrupted forcefully, 'for that very reason; to stop you sitting with the parlour shutters wide open and catching your death of cold. In the summer you may stop there as long as you wish, and well you know it, so don't pretend that I ill treat you.' For the first time since entering the room she turned to look at me properly, and her forbidding gaze softened slightly. 'Well, Chapman, as you're here, you can show us both what you have to sell. We don't often get pedlars around in the depth of winter. You must be a hardy young fellow to be on the road in January.'
    Dame Judith let out an unpleasant cackle. 'You've discovered he's both young and good-looking, have you, Ursula'? You want to be careful, my girl! What if Sir