The Traitor's Daughter Read Online Free

and he was now a man of twenty! Curiosity burned in her to know about their mother, too. Where had the two of them lived all these years? How had they lived? She thanked God that Robert had broken away, had come home, and she was eager to assure him that he could rely on her for whatever help she could give. And yet, what help was that? She had no influence with their father. And a reunion with her might even worsen Robert’s position. Should she simply let him be? Leave him “in peace” as he’d asked Master Prowse, to make his way alone? That felt heartless—and not at all what she wanted. But which course was better for him?
    At St. Saviour’s church she turned south onto the main street. It was strewn with refuse. She sidestepped a scummy heap of cabbage leaves and bones. A skinny dog trotted past her toward the bones. Alehouses, dilapidated inns, and brothels lined both sides. Stewhouses, Londoners called the brothels. The Bishop of Winchester, whose riverside palace was the grandest structure in Southwark, was responsible for maintaining law and order in the area, and because he licensed the prostitutes they were known as Winchester Geese. Kate glanced up at a weathered balcony where a woman in flimsy dress was brushing her hair with tired strokes, her eyes closed to enjoy the sun’s warmth on her face. A weary goose, Kate thought with a twinge of sympathy as she walked on. A kite flapping its wings above the Tabard Inn descended into an elm tree and alighted on its nest of scavenged shreds of rags. A beast bellowed from the far eastern end of the street. The bear pits and bull pits there regularly drew afternoon crowds.
    Kate knew the area. As children she and Robert had come with their father to the yearly Southwark Fair. Again, Robert and memories of those carefree days filled her thoughts. The fair had been such fun, a boisterous event attended by large crowds, both lowborn and high, who came to marvel at the tightrope acrobats and dancing monkeys, to eat and drink too much and, if they were not careful, to have their pockets picked. Now, a bulbous-nosed man lounging in a doorway leered at Kate as she passed. She picked up her pace. Thieves abounded here. Many ended up in one of Southwark’s prisons: the Clink, King’s Bench, the Borough Compter, the Marshalsea. Conditions in all were appalling, even for the wealthy who paid to live in the Masters section separated from those in the Commons, but Kate feared that the Marshalsea was the worst. Its inmates were entirely at the mercy of the Knight Marshal’s deputy. While the master’s side had forty to fifty private rooms for rent, Owen had had to endure the common side, nine small rooms into which over three hundred people were locked up from dusk until dawn. It made her shudder.
    â€œPenny for the poor prisoners, my lady?” An earnestly smiling man in shabby clerical black held out his hand for an offering. All prisoners had to pay for their own food, so without charity the poorest often starved. Churchmen begged coins to buy them bread. This fellow, though, looked to Kate more pirate than prelate. The donations he weaseled would likely go to buy himself grog. She ignored him and carried on, but with a knot of dread tightening her stomach. She had paid the marshal’s deputy every month to supply her husband with food, but had that food reached him?
    She turned the corner at the Queen’s Head Inn and the Marshalsea rose before her. Two long mismatched buildings, the gray stone walls slimed with black, the brick ones crumbling in places after more than a century of neglect. The arched double gates of wood were closed, and a small crowd of twenty or so men and women stood waiting for them to open. Kate had made it—the bell of St. Saviour’s had not yet chimed eight. Though the gates were a solid barrier, a stench seeped out like swamp fog. A scabby-faced girl hawked rabbit pasties, to no takers. An