Roseblood by Paul Doherty Read Free Book Online

subtle trickery he had played.
    ‘Simon, I remember Candlemas: a defrocked priest, a roaring boy with flame-coloured hair and a raucous mouth. Would he have the wit to plan such a robbery? Surely someone else…’ Eleanor paused in a fit of coughing, then abruptly gripped her stomach.
    Simon walked over to her and stared down at the face he loved. The skin was taut, her eyes slightly starting; she was biting her lip as if in pain. He studied her carefully. Father Benedict had mentioned that she had asked for physic, medicines for her stomach. She glanced away, both hands nursing her belly.
    ‘Eleanor, are you well?’
    ‘I fast too much, too often.’ she confessed. ‘That is all.’ She rested a hand on his arm, ‘If you were not involved in this robbery, how do you know so much?’
    Simon just winked at her.
    ‘Simon!’ she added warningly.
    ‘Everything can be bought, Eleanor.’
    ‘No, Simon.’ She half smiled, relaxing as the pain in her belly faded. ‘Not everything. Now,’ she added briskly, ‘our good sheriff will use Candlemas to indict you. Why didn’t they offer the same pardon to those executed?’
    ‘Somebody had to die for that robbery. Four of the gang were caught. What could Malpas do? The city would expect it. More importantly, they wanted to terrorise Candlemas and his companions, which they certainly have.’
    Eleanor swiftly crossed herself. Roseblood wished he could stretch out his hand and cup her beautiful face, push back that hood and wimple to see her gorgeous black hair, though this would now be shorn and crimped. He also wondered, not for the first time, at this recluse’s absorption with the affairs of the city.
    ‘Eleanor?’ He touched her gently on her cheek. ‘Eleanor, why this? Why the flight from the world? Why not petition the bishop to be released from your vows? You know how I feel.’
    ‘Simon, how many years is it since your wife died?’
    ‘A good number of years.’
    ‘Do you still miss her?’
    ‘Of course,’ he lied. ‘Every day I speak her name and say the requiem.’ Eleanor’s grey eyes held his. You know I am lying, Simon thought. I did love Rohesia, but not as much, God forgive me, as I love you. ‘Why, Eleanor?’ he repeated. ‘This has nothing to do with Rohesia. Why have you locked yourself away?’
    ‘Atonement, reparation.’
    ‘For what? What did you do? You loved Edmund.’
    ‘Passionately. One heart, one soul, one mind, one body, breath for breath, life for life.’
    Roseblood kept his face impassive, yet the very essence of his being surged at those passionate words.
    ‘So why?’
    Eleanor glanced away. Simon turned, blinking furiously, staring at the two magnificent swans Eleanor had painted either side of the narrow door: beautiful, heavenly white, with their fluffed feathers and arching necks. Eleanor had always loved these birds. She used to beg Edmund to take her out on the great tavern barge,
The Glastonbury
, to feed them or just stare at their exquisite beauty. All around the chamber were other reminders of the anchorite’s fascination with swans, be it an incense holder or a hand-painted jug displaying the mythical Knights of the Swan. Little wonder parishioners referred to the anchorhold as the Swan’s-Nest.
    ‘Why did he leave?’ Roseblood asked, as he had so many times. ‘The night Cade’s men stormed through the city, Edmund left the tavern. We had it secure, fortified like any castle under siege. I’d summoned a legion of rifflers, yet Edmund slipped out. Why?’
    Eleanor just stared dully back, as if the very life had drained from her.
    ‘Why, Eleanor?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ she muttered. ‘He talked of men called LeCorbeil, Cade’s men…’ Her voice trailed away.
    ‘I know of LeCorbeil,’ Roseblood sighed. ‘God knows what Edmund had to do with them!’
    Eleanor simply sat threading beads through her fingers. Roseblood marvelled at the change in her. She had been Eleanor Philpot when he first met her ten