Mistress 01 - Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin

Author:Ariana Franklin [Franklin, Ariana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Fiction, Suspense, Adult, Historical, Crime, Thriller
ISBN: 9780399154140
Google: UN_dJJQu_dIC
Amazon: B000OCXG00
Goodreads: 86643
Publisher: Berkley
Published: 2007-02-05T23:00:00+00:00

THE NEXT MORNING, when a water bailiff came to tell Gyltha that Simon’s corpse was being delivered to the castle, Adelia knew she had been swearing as their punt passed his body where it had floated, face down, in the Trumpington reeds.

Ten

Is she hearing me?” Sir Rowley asked Gyltha.

“They’re hearing you in Peterborough,” Gyltha said. The tax collector had been shouting. “She just ain’t listening.”

She was listening, but not to Sir Rowley Picot. The voice she heard was that of Simon of Naples, clear as clear, and saying nothing significant, merely chatting as he’d used to chat in his light, busy tenor—actually, at the moment, about wool and its processes. “Can you conceive of the difficulty in achieving of the color black?”

She wanted to tell him that her difficulty now was of conceiving him to be dead, that she was delaying the moment because the loss was too great and must therefore be ignored, a life removed revealing a chasm that she had not seen because he’d filled it.

They were mistaken. Simon was not the sort of person to be dead.

Sir Rowley looked around Old Benjamin’s kitchen for help. Were all its women poleaxed? And the boy? Was she going to sit and stare into the fire forever?

He appealed to the eunuch, who stood with folded arms, staring out the doorway at the river.

“Mansur.” He had to go close so that their faces were level. “Mansur. The body is at the castle. Any minute the Jews are going to discover that it is there and bury it themselves. They know him to be one of their own. Listen to me.” He reached up to the man’s shoulders and shook him. “There’s no time for her to mourn. She must examine the corpse first. He was murdered, don’t you see?”

“You speak Arabic?”

“What do you think I’m speaking, you great camel? Wake her up, make her move.”

Adelia put her head on one side to consider the balance that had been maintained, the sexless affection and acceptance, respect with humor, a friendship so rare between a man and a woman that such a one was unlikely to be granted to her again. She knew now something of what it would be like to lose her foster father.

She grew angry, accusing Simon’s shade of culpability. How could you be so careless? You were of value to us all; it is a deprivation; dying in a muddy English river is so silly.

That poor woman he had loved so much. His children.

Mansur’s hand was on her shoulder. “This man is saying Simon was murdered.”

It took a minute, then she was on her feet. “No.” She was facing Picot. “It was an accident. That man, the waterman, told Gyltha it was an accident.”

“He’d found the tallies, woman, he knew who it was.” Sir Rowley clenched his teeth with exasperation, then began to speak slowly. “Listen to me. Are you listening?”

“Yes.”

“He came late to Joscelin’s feast. Are you hearing me?”

“Yes,” she said, “I saw him.”

“He came to the top table to make his apologies for being late.

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