Firedrake's Eye by Patricia Finney

Author:Patricia Finney
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Climbing Tree Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Simon looked long and hard at David. “Hm,” he said at last. “He has certainly rendered me a favour. You may tell him that I shall speak to my master of it, if I may know his name.”

“Laurence Pickering.”

Simon nodded, then sighed, pick up his cooled tankard and drained it. Becket elbowed him in the ribs again, nearly knocking him from the bench.

“Why so melancholy, Simon? Is this not in . . . in the way of a victory for you?” He had slurred the words, swayed a little as he spoke, too jovial.

“It saddens me when a friend will not tell me the truth.”

The Almighty help him, he had not meant to put it so baldly, the words had tumbled out of his mouth like naughty boys out of school. Becket froze, glaring at him.

“Do you give me the lie, sir?” he demanded.

“No, no, not exactly.” Ames strove to placate, “I am truly grateful for your work in this, but . . .”

“But?” Becket’s face had darkened with blood under the skin.

Ames swallowed hard. “But . . . I wish that you had told me of your own free will that you know both Anthony Fant and Adam Strangways.”

Becket said nothing.

“I am, as you know, of Sir Francis Walsingham’s household,” Ames struggled on. “He is a most worshipful man, but . . . Suspicious, else he could not do what he does. We all of us become as suspicious as he, we must, for there are indeed workers in strange corners, men to suspect. Treachery flowers easily among men who grasp after power and gold . . .”

“Are you saying I am a traitor?”

“No sir. It is only that . . . I have given you many chances to tell me that you know the master of this house and that you know the man I seek, and you have not done so and . . . it saddens me. You were at Gray’s Inn with them after all.”

Oh, how reedily his voice trailed off. This was not what he had planned at all.

“Will you . . . will you tell me anything about them that you know?”

“Should there not be a clerk here to note down what I say? And perhaps Mr Rackmaster Norton with his toy to teach me honesty?”

Ames met his eye, passed a hand across his face again. “You have not been arrested. You need say nothing to me if it please you not. I ask as a friend.”

“And if I say nothing? What then? The Tower? I see you have sufficient power to roust the Recorder of London out of his bed. No doubt you could find a warrant about you somewhere and have me into Little Ease before morning, eh?”

A cold thought entered Ames’s mind, that it was odd to see so big a man struggle so fiercely with fear, though he hid it well.

Suddenly there was a smell of violence in the air, that if Becket thought himself about to be taken, he would not go quietly, that he would rather gamble all, beat Ames down with a poker and run.

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