A Parliament of Spies Read Online Free Page A

herself. What an unexpected commission. There was a lot more she needed to know before she would be content with the situation.
    They were in Lincolnshire now with many miles still to go.
     
    Thomas sounded as puzzled as everyone else. ‘They’re still wondering how Martin got himself into the vat of ale,’ he told her, having just come from a walk around the wagons when they stopped beside the road.
    Hildegard had heard them talk too. ‘He had had no reason to be there in the brewhouse. It wasn’t his job to interfere with the work of the brewers. That little pot boy shouldn’t have been there, either. What was he up to?’
    ‘Kicking a pig’s bladder around. Those lads are always
being chased out of there, I’m told. They say it’s the only level floor.’
    ‘Presumably he thought he’d have a scoop of ale while his elders were out of the way.’
    ‘He won’t be doing that again in a hurry.’
    ‘As for Martin,’ she continued, as he’d raised the subject, ‘what do they say he was up to?’
    ‘No ideas. They can’t make it out.’
    ‘He must have been leaning over the side of the vat and lost his balance. I still don’t understand what he would be doing in there. It makes no sense. Not when we were just about to set off.’
    There was a lot to see that was new on the journey down into the southern shires. It pushed to one side fruitless speculation about the activities of one unlucky kitchener.
     
    On the road. Evening. A woodland clearing.
    The wagons drew up in a circle away from overhanging branches and a cooking fire was built in the middle. Fulford had his chair brought out so he could preside over the preparations. Tonight they were roasting a hind. It was skewered on a spit. The flames sizzled over the dripping meat sending the smell of burning flesh into the air. Sparks flew up and fell back like dying stars. The sky darkened.
    The men, their faces glowing in the firelight, seemed to edge closer together as if threatened by something unknown beyond the perimeter of light.
    Usually when they stopped to rest and the men went off into the woods for a piss they would return with whatever they could forage. Some were coming back
now, breaking into the circle of light, throwing down their findings – toadstools, crisp and sweet, thrown into the pot; a rabbit, quickly gutted, thrown in after them. One man had an arm full of herbs and threw those down but Fulford stopped them from going in before he had had a proper look at them.
    ‘What’s that, rat fodder?’ somebody quipped.
    ‘Piss off,’ the man said good-humouredly to a few cackles from the rest of them. He walked with a kind of swagger to where the falconers were sitting. They made room for him without comment.
    Forty people fed. Forty-one including the archbishop, who sat alone on the running board of his char, deep in thought, wearing his black wool night-cloak. His page sat cross-legged on the ground in his own little cloak, a wooden bowl filled for a third time on his lap.
    The men. Eating like wolves. Made ravenous by the long miles.
    Everything soon done. Ale finished. A song or two bawled into the night.
    The others were getting up, like Hildegard, to make for their own private sleeping corners. Under a wagon. Inside a wagon if they were lucky. As they went, somebody happened to mention Martin again.
    It was almost too soon to reminisce. She guessed they were still coming to terms with his death and after the first bout of questions there was a strange kind of silence over the matter. They were too shocked, she supposed. Later they would start to question again the how and the why such an accident could occur.
    One of the falconers left the group and went over to
the caged hawks. She heard Fulford ask, ‘Is he all right?’
    ‘Leave him, master.’
    ‘It’s this talk about Martin that’s getting to him,’ somebody explained.
    ‘He’s hit hard.’
    ‘They were mates.’
    ‘Always ready for a laugh, was Martin.’
    ‘Not