The Traitor’s Mark Read Online Free

behaviour. Any sympathy I felt was – temporarily, at least – obliterated by the humiliation his suddendeparture had caused me. I ordered Walt to get the others back to my home as quickly as possible and show them where they could dry their clothes and await my arrival. I ran the few yards along Milk Street to the narrow house where Bart and Lizzie lived. It was a timber structure wedged in-between two substantial merchants’ residences.
    I hammered on the door and stood back to avoid the water gushing down from the eaves. There was no immediate answer. Though the rain had eased, I had no desire to be kept waiting in the street. I knocked again and began to wonder whether Bart had collected his family and taken them into hiding with him. Then the door opened and Lizzie stood there with little Annie, her two-year-old, in her arms.
    â€˜Jesu Mary! Thomas, you do look a sight! Come in the dry.’
    There was an intimacy between Bart’s wife and me that onlookers found strange. The adventures we had been through together six years before had removed any formalities that differences of social status would otherwise have demanded. Lizzie was handsome, rather than pretty. A stiffened band of white linen bordered in scarlet, covered the crown of her head and her dark hair was drawn back and hung down to her shoulders. Her figure was still slim, despite her two pregnancies. She stood aside for me to pass, a faintly mocking smile about her lips, her brown eyes smiling but appraising.
    â€˜Get that wet doublet off,’ she ordered. ‘I’ll put it by the fire.’
    As soon as she set Annie down, the child toddled straight to me, arms upraised. I took hold of her hand, smiling despite myself. ‘Not now, Annie. I’m all wet.’
    When Lizzie returned from the inner room, she handed me a cloth to dry my head and face. Then she scooped up her daughter. ‘Is she being a nuisance? You’ve only yourself to blame. You spoil her. Wait till you marry again and have little brothers and sisters for Raffy; you’ll soon realise ...’
    â€˜Still determined to find me a wife?’
    She laughed. ‘Oh, you don’t deserve a wife but Raffy needs a mother.’
    â€˜Lizzie, enough of this nonsense. I must see Bart. It’s serious.’ I stood in the middle of the small living room, feeling slightly less bedraggled. ‘Where is he?’ I demanded.
    â€˜Who?’
    â€˜Bart, of course. Is he here?’
    â€˜Well, I suppose he might be.’ She giggled. ‘We’d better look. You search downstairs and I’ll go through the upper chambers. Oh!’ She put a hand to her mouth as though she had been struck by a sudden thought. ‘Perhaps he’s hiding in the coffer over there by the stairs.’
    â€˜This is no laughing matter, Lizzie,’ I said sharply. ‘I must find him urgently.’
    She frowned, suddenly serious. ‘Isn’t he at the shop?’
    â€˜No, he’s—’
    â€˜Then, where in the name of all the saints is he? If you don’t know he must have had an accident.’
    â€˜Not exactly,’ I said. ‘I’m afraid he managed to get himself into a fight.’
    â€˜He’s hurt!’ she said quickly, sitting on a stool and setting Annie on the rushes beside her.
    â€˜Not badly.’ I tried to sound reassuring. ‘But I do need to speak with him.’
    â€˜I don’t understand. If you know he’s been in a fight, why don’t you know where he is?’
    I had long since learned that it was impossible to conceal anything from this clever young woman. I pulled another stool to the table and sat facing her. Then I gave her a brief account of the events at Aldgate, leaving out as many as possible of the more vivid details.
    Many young wives would have gone into tearful panic at the news. Not Lizzie. She had grown up in a hard school in which survival meant relying on her wits and not