[Roger the Chapman 03] - The Hanged Man Read Online Free

but then in the early hours of the morning you grew restless, moaning and tossing. Then you began to shiver violently. Your teeth were chattering and you couldn't seem to get warm. I slid out of bed to put another piece of turf on the fire, but then.., well... I thought it a better idea to get under the blankets with you and wrap you in my arms.' The smile deepened and the eyes became like a cat's: two gleaming slits. 'And it soothed you. After a while, you stopped shaking and fell asleep.
    So I stayed with you until the first crack of light showed through the shutters, when I crept back to bed. And not a moment too soon. Mother was stirring within minutes, but she suspected nothing, and there's no need that she should ever know.' "
    'I certainly shan't tell her,' I assured Lillis fervently.
    She gave a little crow of laughter. 'You're embarrassed! A great lad like you who's probably had a score of girls! I wonder why.'
    I would have been hard put to it myself to explain why the thought of her naked body curled close to mine, even though I knew nothing of it, made me so uncomfortable. She was right; there had been women in plenty these past two years since, an innocent escaping from the religious life, I had laid my first girl on the banks of the River Stour, in far-off Kent. Was it because I already suspected that she had marked me down as her own? The huntress and her quarry.
    It was late afternoon, some fortnight after I had entered Bristol through the Pithay Gate, and for the fourth or fifth day running I had been allowed to get up, wash and dress myself and take a few tentative steps up and down the room. Tomorrow I would definitely be rid of my beard, and as soon as possible after that I must start looking for other lodgings where I could stay until I was fit enough to take to the road once more with my pack. I had insisted on sleeping on the floor again at nights, thus enabling the women to return to their bed, but the confined space was becoming an embarrassment, as well as making me feel hemmed in.
    Margaret Walker, who had finished spinning for the day, had taken her yam to the weaving sheds, and would be back presently with her two willow panniers dangling from their shoulder-yoke and packed with new wool. Outside, the weather continued icy-cold and wet, the relentless spears of rain soaking the cobbles, making the stones treacherous to walk on and causing the pack-animals to slither miserably beneath their loads. So much I had been able to observe from the open doorway before Lillis had scolded me back to the warmth of the fire. And it was when I had settled myself on a stool at one end of the table, my feet extended towards the blaze on the hearth, that she had come to sit opposite me and asked if I remembered her getting in beside me that first night.
    Now, our conversation had petered out, and we sat in silence, Lillis continuing to watch me, more than ever like a cat with a mouse, while I resolutely avoided her gaze, staring into the burning heart of the fire. And it was thus that Margaret Walker found us when she at last returned, a gust of bitter wind almost lifting her off her feet as she came through the doorway, in spite of the heavy baskets hanging at her sides.
    'You're both very quiet,' she said, lowering her burdens to the floor and unhooking them from the wooden yoke.
    She shook the drops of water from her cloak and put back her hood, exclaiming sharply as she did so, 'Lillis! Why haven't you begun to get the meal? You haven't even put the water on to boil, let alone prepared the vegetables for the pot.'
    Lillis grimaced but, to her credit, she never took exception however harsh her mother's tone, and sometimes Margaret's admonitions were unmerited. She rose good-humouredly to her feet, reached down the iron pot from its place on the shelf beside the door, and filled it from the water barrel in one comer. When I would have helped her carry it to the fire, Margaret told me shortly to sit down.
    'You're