The Green Man by Kate Sedley

Author:Kate Sedley [Kate Sedley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House Publishers
Published: 2013-08-31T04:00:00+00:00

Eleven

I turned my head.

A shaft of pale sunlight – too pale for early August, though I guessed that to be normal this far north – inched its way across the threshold elongating Albany’s shadow and making him appear both taller than he was and somehow menacing. Motes danced along its length, whirling and spinning. Somewhere I could hear a cat mewling and a faint smell of cooking wafted from the castle kitchens, borne on a freshening breeze.

‘Do you want me, my lord?’ I asked, surprised. I moved towards him across the dusty floor. ‘I thought you would be closeted with the duke and your uncles, working out terms of the peace. I presume there is going to be peace?’

‘All that can wait,’ Albany answered tersely, adding on a bitter note, ‘Whatever they decide, I doubt it will concern me. At least, not yet.’ He grinned, baring his teeth like a hunting dog scenting his prey. Not for the first time I speculated about this plan of his that would secure him the throne of Scotland in the face of what was obviously turning into a combined opposition of friends – well, former friends – and foes alike. There was nothing to be gleaned from his expression as he moved out of the sunlight and glanced around him, a little contemptuously I thought, at the meagre proportions of the chapel. ‘You still haven’t said what you’re doing here. Is our sainted Queen Margaret of such interest to you?’

I explained her descent from the kings of Wessex, including Alfred, and her relationship of half-great-niece to the Confessor himself, and then told him bluntly that I had sought her protection to see me safely home again to the west country. I added that I had also offered up prayers to those other two sons of the Somerset soil, Saint Dunstan and Saint Patrick.

To my astonishment the information seemed to disturb him.

‘Nonsense!’ he exclaimed sharply. ‘What I mean is,’ he amended hurriedly, ‘that the saints have too much else to do, are far too busy, to attend to the likes of us.’

I knew he really meant ‘the likes of you’, but was too tender of my feelings to say so. (I’ve never yet encountered a high-born person of either sex who did not think him- or herself worthy of the special attention of every saint known to man.) But I let it go with a smile and a shrug.

‘Besides,’ Albany went on with a nervous laugh, ‘I don’t want the saints’ intervention on your behalf, at least not yet awhile. I’ve work for you to do. That’s why Murdo and Donald and I have been searching for you.’

‘Work, my lord?’

He snorted. ‘Oh, don’t put on that innocent, I-don’t-know-what-you-mean face with me, Roger. You were present when Donald brought me the news that my servant and friend, Rab Sinclair, has been arrested and is awaiting trial for the murder of his wife. I’ve already said that I want you to prove him innocent.’

I sighed. ‘My

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