The Alchemist's Daughter by Eileen Kernaghan Read Free Book Online

climbed between clean lavender-scented sheets. She heard a soft thump, and then another, as Kit, in the far corner of the room, drew off his boots. His straw mattress rustled faintly.
    For a while she lay in the darkness, listening to the slow, deep sound of Kit’s breathing, and taking comfort in his presence. Then she too drifted into sleep, and did not wake till dawn.

C HAPTER N INE
    O villany! Ho! let the door be lock’d
    â€” William Shakespeare, Hamlet
    Emma was scrubbing the hearthstone on her hands and knees. With both Dr. Quince and the young mistress out of the way, what better chance to give the cottage a good turn-out?
    Behind her, the front door opened and closed. She reached out for the poker, and scrambling to her feet she turned with it raised to strike. “Oh,” she said, letting the poker fall to her side. “It’s you. Have you not manners enough to knock?”
    â€œForgive me if I startled you. The door was unlatched.”
    â€œStill no reason to walk in as though you owned the place. And why are you here at all, and not in London?”
    â€œI’ll not be staying. There are some papers I’ve been sent to fetch.”
    Emma could tell that was all the answer she was likely to get.

C HAPTER T EN
    There is on the confines of Britain a certain royal island, called in the ancient speech Glastonia, marked out by broad boundaries, girt round with waters rich in fish, and with still-flowing rivers, fitted for many uses of human indigence, but dedicated to the most sacred of deities.
    â€” St. Augustine
    Late the next day they came to Salisbury. As they crossed the meadows the sun was just setting behind the slender spire of the cathedral, and the city was wrapped in a blue haze of woodsmoke. The cart rattled through quiet streets past the deserted marketplace and drew up in the courtyard of an inn.
    Settled at last in the inglenook in front of a blazing fire, Sidonie sipped a beaker of mulled ale and felt herself slipping into a comfortable half-doze. But just as sleep was about to overcome her, something — a prickling sense of unease, the faint weight of curious eyes upon her — brought her abruptly awake.
    â€œKit,” she whispered. “Pray don’t stare — but is someone watching us?”
    Kit turned to her with raised eyebrows, then glanced covertly round the low-ceilinged, smoky room. “None that I can see,” he said. “Wait now . . . that fellow on the bench beneath the window, with his nose thrust into his beaker. Methinks just now he was looking this way. What of it, Sidonie?”
    She followed Kit’s gaze to where a man in nondescript dark garments huddled over his ale, his face in shadow. All she could see was lank black hair falling over narrow black-clad shoulders, and, stretched out under the table, one of his legs in a dusty riding boot.
    She shrugged. “Perhaps it was only a fancy of mine. I am weary of travel, and my nerves are all a-jangle. I will be glad to go on foot tomorrow, and walk the aches out of my bones.”

    Come dawn they breakfasted on cold game pie and paid the reckoning. Crossing the innyard they came upon a carrier wagon laden with carpets, bolts of cloth and fine bed linens, bound for a gentleman’s country house near Wells. “Here’s a piece of good fortune,” said Kit, after conferring with the driver. “There’s space for us in the back of the wagon, and he’s travelling straight through till tomorrow morning. We’ll save the price of another night at an inn, and from Wells it’s an easy day’s walk to Glastonbury.”
    Sidonie looked into her purse and found it was emptying faster than she had hoped. “Then you’d best hire us two places,” she said resignedly, fishing out tuppence. She dreaded the thought of a sleepless night in a jolting wagon, wedged in among carpet rolls and packing chests. Still:
    â€™twas you who chose to