Sword of Shadows by Jeri Westerson

Author:Jeri Westerson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781448303748
Publisher: Severn House Publishers
Published: 2019-10-21T16:00:00+00:00

SIXTEEN

Jack rode into Treknow, passed it, and headed up the curve of the road toward the Penhall farm. He tied the horse to a post near the front door and knocked. A servant answered and bid him wait. Jack looked around at the manor house. It was nothing special. Just a larger version of where he and Master Crispin lived, but with a bigger great room below, several doors that must have led off to a kitchen, buttery, and pantry, and a wider staircase leading to a gallery of doors. The place was dingy and unkempt. It was a small village and the Penhalls must have made more with their dairy sales but did not come from nobility.

The man himself, Jowan Penhall, came down the steps. He wore a working man’s clothes – a rough-spun tunic and simple chaperon hood. No necklaces, no rings, no ornaments at all, save for a simple dagger sheathed on his belt. Jack was certain that he worked right alongside what servants he had out with the cows, just as his daughter did. He admired that, for a man could become slothful and arrogant when he did not get his hands dirty in his own business.

‘Master Tucker? Why have you returned? We are a mournful household.’

‘Aye, sir, that I know. But … there were questions I was unable to ask last time. And now that the tidings are not so raw, I thought I could talk at length to you and your daughter.’

‘I don’t know that my daughter could be disposed …’

‘Oh, but sir, she may have information that she doesn’t know is useful. But we may speak first.’

‘Well, it shall have to be on the run, for I must get to the work.’

‘Of course, sir.’

Jack struggled, even with his long legs, to keep up with the man hastening through his house and out to a back entry. They came out to a wide yard with grass and large patches of mud and dung. Jack steered himself around those as best he could. Jowan Penhall didn’t seem bothered by plowing through with his boots.

‘Master Penhall, it’s been three days since Roger Bennet was killed. Do you recall the last time you saw him?’

‘I don’t know. I have been busy here.’

‘Then … when last was it that he came to the farm?’

‘I can’t be certain. He sometimes came and went before I ever heard he was here. He wanted to be alone with my daughter. Entirely inappropriate, but he was a knight, used to different ways.’

They came to a small storehouse where one woman was stirring a heavy iron kettle and another was pulling a wooden fork through the sluggish mixture in a big bowl. There were small wooden cylindrical forms – no bigger than two hands together – with an open-weave linen lying in them. Jack realized that they must be for cheese-making. Penhall inspected what the workers were doing.

‘What are we making today?’ he asked of the woman at the kettle.

‘Spermyse,’ said the woman. Her starched white veil was folded away from a face shiny from steam.

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