Shades of Death: Murder at the Court of Elizabeth I by Angela Ranson

Author:Angela Ranson [Ranson, Angela]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sapere Books
Published: 2023-11-16T16:00:00+00:00

Vile work it was, too. Mistress Drury melted animal fat over the fire while Catrin cut reeds for wicks. Then Mistress Drury brought the smoking, stinking cauldron to the table and set it on a linen pad to save scorching the wood, and the two of them dipped reeds into the liquid fat over and over, trying not to burn their wrists on the hot steel or their fingers in the bubbling fat. Every now and then a scum formed around the edges, and Mistress Drury took the cauldron back to the fire to melt the fat again.

After several hours, Catrin was hot and sweaty and had developed a new fondness for the gentler tasks assigned to her by the queen. She would have given anything to be making possets or pomanders, with the scent of roses and cinnamon around her. “May I have a moment, Mistress Drury?”

Mistress Drury put the pot back on the fire. “Just as long as this needs.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Catrin went outside, checked that the pouch was still safe at her side, and took a deep breath of cool clean air with great relief. Then she stretched her aching legs with a stroll around the Drury farm. It was set up in a horseshoe, with the outbuildings nestled close together on one end and the open lane at the other. They had a buttery, a malthouse and a dairy, and both a barn and a stable. The stable sat opposite the house at the open end of the horseshoe, with hay stacked against one side of the door and a cart in need of repair on the other.

Master Drury was sitting in it, repairing a bridle, and Catrin slipped silently past him and into the stable. There were three horses in there, a beautiful bay mare and two geldings. Catrin found some apples in a corner and fed them, so they let her stroke their velvet-soft noses.

So absorbed was she in the glossy coat of the mare that she didn’t register the clattering of hooves outside until it was too late. “What-ho, goodman!”

Her stepfather’s voice. Catrin spun around and watched him walk up to Master Drury, who was just taking a sneaky drink from a leather bottle. He hid the bottle in the cart before he staggered to his feet. “Yesh, m’lord?”

“I’m looking for a young boy who has run from my estate,” Lord Ashbourne said, with all the glib ease of a habitual liar. “He is not right in the head and needs to be brought back to safety.”

“We got a boy,” Master Drury said, and waved vaguely toward the house. “He’s helpin’ the wife.”

Lord Ashbourne sat up straighter in his saddle, while his two henchmen jumped down from theirs. “Are you sure?”

“Aye,” Master Drury said.

The two men went into the house, and Master Drury smiled a bleary smile and held out his hand. Lord Ashbourne scowled, but he reached for his purse. And Catrin’s nerve broke. She swung open the stall door, leapt onto the mare’s back, and urged her out the stable door at top speed.

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