Sovay by Celia Rees Read Free Book Online Page A

to be a dangerous enemy who would find a way to use her secret against her.

    She judged it better to keep off the road until nightfall. Her ride across country took her out of the way, distant from any sign of habitation. The day was turning towards evening, with mist thickening from the valleys and the last light from the setting sun a gleam of yellow in the western sky, when she saw smoke rising in a drifting grey haze. The town was tucked in a fold in the hills, strung out along the ribbon of the road. She adjusted her hat, pulling the brim down to shade her face, and realised that she was still wearing the sprig of broom. She removed it quickly, casting it into the hedge, before riding into the town just as the first lights were showing in the windows of houses and cottages. She was tired, so was Brady. It was time to find somewhere to rest.
    She rode Brady through the gate of an inn and jumped down. Men emerged at the echoing sound of the horse’s hooves on the cobbled yard and Sovay threw the bridle to an eager young lad with curly brown hair.
    ‘Look after him well,’ she slipped the boy a couple of coins, ‘and there will be more in the morning.’
    The boy nodded, pocketing the money quickly before any of the others saw it. Sovay turned to go into the inn, pulling her scarf up and her hat down over her eyes. The low-ceilinged parlour was noisy and crowded, the stone-flagged floor slick with spilt beer, the air wreathed with curling pipe smoke and reeking of onions. She called the landlord away from his duties. At first, he said the inn was full. She drew out her purse and pulled out a handful of coins. When he said that she might have to share, she showed him more gold until she got what she desired. It was not as if she wanted for money.
    She had to wait while the present tenants were evicted, but the guineas bought her a room to herself at the front of the building where she could watch the street. The curtain round the bed was thick with dust, the sheets and bolster were none too clean, but there was a fire to cheer the room and take off any chill, and the food was quite edible. She was hungry, having eaten little all day, and soon finished the plate of roast beef, potatoes and cabbage, mopping up the gravy with a hunk of bread. When she had eaten, she ordered more candles and a jug of wine. After these were delivered, she gave orders not to be further disturbed. She drew the only comfortable chair up to the fire, poured wine, and settled down to examine the contents of the wallet that she had stolen from the tipstaff.
    She found a quantity of papers, letters and such. At the bottom of the wallet was a large leather purse containing gold. That would account for the unaccustomed weight. Money was not what Sovay had expected, and there was a great deal of it. More guineas than she had ever seen before. She reached in, the coins slippery as fish between her fingers, and tugged out a wad of folded paper. The thin white sheets were in denominations that made her feel lightheaded. She pushed them back into the purse and pulled the strings tight. When she had taken to highway robbery, it had been for her own particular purposes. She cared not a fig for the gold she took. It was a nuisance more than anything. What to do with it? Booty like this presented her with an altogether bigger problem.

    Meanwhile, downstairs in the inn parlour, her fame was growing. Cledbury was a small town where nothing ever happened. The locals took considerable interest in the travellers who came their way. They were puzzled by the horseman not wanting to join them and intrigued by the amount of money he was carrying.
    ‘Purse full of gold,’ the landlord reported, chuckling over the amount of money he had extracted for the room.
    ‘He’s that handsome,’ Emily, the inn servant who had served ‘him’, told Betty the barmaid. ‘Slender as a reed, with lovely, long hair, shiny as silk, like one of them cavaliers. He’s ordered extra