Sackett's Land (1974) by Louis - Sackett's 0 L'amour Read Free Book Online Page A

loosened my sword in its scabbard.

    Chapter 6
    Approaching the Tabard I drew up and carefully observed for several minutes. There seemed no one about who should not be there, so I rode into the yard.
    Jublain came out from the taproom followed by Corvino. "Ah? You've the devil's own luck! You got clean away!"
    "Thanks to Corvino's tumble. Has there been anyone about?"
    "Had there been we would have been awaiting you down the street, one of us each way and ready with a warning." Jublain glanced at the horse. "Where did you steal it?"
    "It was borrowed from a gentleman whose man will pick it up later. Not only that," I said as I dismounted, "but I've passage for us, a trading venture to the Americas in a Tempany ship."
    "You're a lucky one," Jublain grumbled, "but I fear for you. It goes too well."
    That I felt the same I did not say. "Perhaps. But we will purchase our goods and be ready for the sailing."
    Lying abed that night and before sleep claimed me, I considered my situation. There was a book newly published by Richard Hakluyt, and in it he was said to tell of voyages to America. I would have that book, and what charts could be found, though realizing the charts might be of doubtful value.
    I also thought upon the tile floor I had come upon not too far from London. Several of my discoveries of such places had come while working, and few of us paid attention to what was found underground. My own curiosity and my father's comments had alerted me, however, but this particular find was not on a job.
    The day was late and I had walked far and was eagerly seeking shelter from the night--some hut, perhaps an inn, even a ruin, when I heard horses coming up behind me.
    Encountering other travelers on the road late at night was not always to be welcomed, so I stepped back into the trees and brush and made myself small behind the thick trunk of an oak.
    The two men who rode up the road were far from the sort I wished to encounter, but they rode past. When I started to come from behind my tree, something gave way under foot and I slid a few feet. Catching at a branch I managed to hold myself, and then to steady my feet.
    I listened, but the riders were gone. Turning, I peered into the dark, could see nothing. Taking a stone from the ground, I prepared to toss it into the blackness to see if there was indeed a pit or a hole there, when my fingers told me that what I held was not the texture of a stone but more in the nature of a piece of tile, a bit of mosaic, perhaps.
    Crouching down, I felt with my hands and found the place where my feet had slid. I tossed a bit of branch in that direction. It seemed to fall only a few feet. Feeling around, I found an edge of tile flooring projecting from the mud at least three feet below the surrounding level.
    My decision was instant. I would go no further that night. I could barely make out a small hollow below the projection of tile. Feeling my way into it I gathered fuel and built a small, carefully sheltered fire. There I waited until daybreak, making a small meal of cheese and bread.
    Fitfully, I slept. When day came at last I found myself in a small hollow. The tile flooring was above me, and the place where I had slept was open to the sky, except for a few branches spreading above it.
    Prodding around with my stick I came up with more broken tile, some odds and ends of pottery fragments, and a piece of broken statue: the severed part of a hand.
    It was to this place I wanted to return. There was every chance that I might find there some things of value.
    The next day I went early to the common room. With ale before me, I listened to the idle gossip. Luke Hutton, the highwayman, had been hung by his neck in York, some months past, but there was still talk as to who he actually was. He had been a scholar at Cambridge, and some even said he was a son of the Archbishop of York.
    There was talk of recruiting for the wars in Ireland, and of the fighting there. But Essex had not yet gone over,