Wheel of Fate by Kate Sedley Read Free Book Online

to be full. Not only were the roads clogged with the customary itinerant friars, pedlars, farmers driving livestock, or smallholders carrying vegetables, to market in the nearest town, lawyers riding to the spring assizes, west country pilgrims on their way to Canterbury, but also with parties of minstrels and mummers leaving their winter quarters for the summer round of manor house and castle. And over and above all these, we met far more royal messengers than usual, either heading back to London after delivering their news, or outward bound for those distant parts of the kingdom that might not yet have received word of the late King Edward’s death.
    With so much traffic, our progress was necessarily slow, and it was not until the following Wednesday, a week and a day after leaving Bristol, that we finally reached the capital.
    We had spent the previous Monday night at Reading Abbey, in the common dormitory, where we had taken shelter from a nasty storm that had sprung up unexpectedly. This Benedictine monastery was a foundation of King Henry I and famous for the number and variety of its holy relics: two pieces of the True Cross, a bone of St Edmund the Martyr’s arm, St James’s hand, St Philip’s stole, another bone belonging to St Mary Magdalene and a host of smaller items such as laces, girdles, combs, hairpins and a sandal that was dubiously attributed to St Matthew. (It sometimes seemed to me that the saints had been extremely casual with their personal belongings.)
    The storm had abated somewhat by the time we had eaten our supper of soup and black bread in the lay refectory and then bedded down in the dormitory on two of the straw palliasses that were laid side by side along three of the four walls. The place was packed with other travellers as well as ourselves and Elizabeth was forced to share my mattress. She was so weary that she had nodded off over her supper, but nevertheless, she was restless, tossing and turning in her sleep and upsetting Hercules, who had curled up at my feet. In addition to this, the groaning, moaning and farting of thirty or so other souls, not to mention the smell, kept me awake for some considerable time, and when I finally did drop into an uneasy slumber, it was to dream that I was back in Margaret Walker’s cottage while she tried to explain to me the ramifications of the Godslove family.
    â€˜â€œEight children”,’ she was saying. ‘That’s what my father said, “Eight children! Thank the good lord I’ve only got one!”’
    â€˜How could there be eight children?’ I was objecting. ‘Four by the first wife and two by the second. That’s six.’
    â€˜There were two stepbrothers,’ was the answer. ‘Alicia’s sons. Her first husband’s children. That makes eight . . .’
    It was at this point that I awoke with a start, staring into the blackness of the dormitory, the words ‘that makes eight’ still ringing in my head.
    Elizabeth was lying on her back, one arm flung across my chest. As I have already intimated, she was a robust child – and has grown into an even more well-built woman – and her arm was heavy, restricting my breathing. Hercules, too, was like a dead weight on my feet, but I felt certain that my discomfort was not what had awakened me. For a moment or two, nothing was to be heard except the cacophony created by my fellow sleepers, but then, over and above this, I was able to make out the noise of raised voices and the jingle of horses’ harnesses. Someone – and someone of importance by the sound of it – had arrived at the abbey. Curious to discover who would be travelling so late at night, I gently rolled Elizabeth on to her side, eased my legs from beneath the rough woollen blanket that covered them, pulled on my boots and stood up, all as quietly as possible so as not to disturb my neighbours.
    â€˜Stay there!’ I whispered to