A Parliament of Spies Read Online Free Page B

recently. He must have had a premonition. Remember that time he could only throw “ones” and somebody said “your luck’s gone, fella”, and he nearly throttled him?’
    Hildegard said her goodnights then went over to climb into her sleeping space in one of the small baggage wagons. She was just drifting off to sleep when she heard a group of men walking slowly past. Voices clear on the still night air. Conversation had turned to London. It was the first time down there for most of them. They had no idea what to expect.
    ‘They say the streets are paved with gold, don’t they? Do you believe it?’
    ‘Nah, paved might be true. With gold? Never.’
    ‘Maybe one or two, outside the palaces?’
    ‘Outside the Duke of Lancaster’s, maybe.’
    ‘I bet King Dickon walks on gold.’
    She heard a third voice. ‘Aye, at our expense.’
    ‘You don’t like Dickon, do you, Jarrold?’
    ‘Why should I? What’s he ever done for me?’
    ‘He’s well enough.’
    ‘God save him, say I.’
    Murmurs of agreement followed. Their voices faded.
    After that Hildegard drifted off to the sound of distant
snores, the clink of metal as the guard shifted at his post, and that strange wrenching sound as horses crop grass.
     
    By now they were travelling through a landscape that was flat and bleak, a no man’s land, with mile after mile of nothing but scrubland, the straight Roman road cutting through it, and a huge sky full of curlews.
    The huntsmen began to grumble. They wanted to bring down some game. The archers strung their bows. They wanted wolves.
    The skin of the one shot before they left Holderness was dry now. It hung from its pole and the head, boiled in cummin as a favour by Master Fulford, gazed sightlessly towards their destination. The drivers geed their horses and made the wagons bounce on the track in their eagerness to reach somewhere more interesting.
    ‘Woodland up ahead,’ somebody muttered at last, staring hard at the skyline to the south after a few more uneventful miles. ‘We’ll get sport there, enough at least to fill our bellies.’ There were grunts of agreement. Somebody peeled off to the wagon carrying the sheaves of arrows to prepare to bring them out.
    The dogs in their wicker cage whined with frustration.
    The woods were a dark blur from one side of the road to the other and there was a cheer when the chamberlain called a halt.
    Holding up his white stick so everybody could see he had something to say, he bellowed, ‘It’s not for your benefit. His Grace wishes to stretch his legs!’ He turned to the kennelman. ‘Might as well get a brace of those dogs out, see if you can raise a few rabbits?’

    ‘We flying the hawks, sire?’
    The chamberlain shook his head. ‘Not unless you want to follow on foot to Lincoln. This is a short stop. We aim to be there before nightfall.’
    The long line of wagons squeezed up one by one as the command to halt was passed down the line and eventually, with a creaking of harness, the whole convoy groaned to a stop. Several people jumped down at once, following the archbishop’s example, and walked about, stretching their legs and trying to ease the aches out of bruised joints, while others leant wearily against the wheels of the carts they had been forced to run alongside. Someone produced a reed pipe and struck up a tune, bringing several cheerful souls to stamp their feet in a rough-and-ready jig.
    A couple of huntsmen whistled up the dogs as they were released from their cage and led them purposefully towards the woods.
    The archbishop looked round for his master of horse. ‘Bring Pegasus up, will you? I’ll ride into Lincoln. It’s not far now.’
    While he waited he glanced up at the sky as if checking for rain. It was awash with flat grey cloud from one side of the horizon to the other, but with a fresh wind from the coast that had been blowing for several days now, keeping the rain off.
    Hildegard saw him scrutinise the convoy spread back along the