The Serpents Tale by Ariana Franklin

Author:Ariana Franklin
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group (Canada)

Back in their room, Gyltha tore off her cloak. “Are they all gone daft, or is it me?”

“They have.” She put Allie onto the bed; the child had been bored by the proceedings and had fallen asleep.

“What’s to be gained by it?”

“Infighting,” Adelia said. “He’s making sure he’s queen’s champion before she can get another. Did you see Schwyz’s face? Oh, poor Emma.”

“‘Queen’s champion’?” scoffed Gyltha. “If Godstow wasn’t for Henry Plantagenet before, it bloody is now—that’s what the queen’s champion’s gone and done.”

There was a knock on the door.

It was the mercenary, Cross, truculent as ever.

He addressed Gyltha but pointed his chin at Adelia. “She’s got to come along of me.”

“And who are you? Here, you’re one of them.” Angrily, Gyltha pushed the man out onto the steps. “She ain’t going anywhere with you, you pirate, and you can tell that bloody Wolvercote I told you so.”

The mercenary staggered under the assault as he held it off. “I ain’t Wolvercote’s, I’m Schwyz’s.” He appealed to Adelia. “Tell her.”

Gyltha kept pushing. “You’re a bastard Fleming, whoever you be. Get away.”

“Sister Jennet sent me.” It was another appeal to Adelia; Sister Jennet was Godstow’s infirmarian. “The doctor wants you for summat. Urgent.”

Gyltha ceased her assault. “What doctor?”

“The darky. Thought he was a bargee, but turns out he’s a doctor.”

“A patient,” Adelia said, relieved. Here was something she could deal with. She bent down to kiss Allie and went to get her bag. “Who is it? What’s the trouble?”

Cross said, “It’s Poyns, ain’t it?” as if she should know. “His arm’s bad.”

“In what way bad?”

“Gone sort of green.”

“Hmmm.” Adelia added her bundle of knives to the bag’s equipment.

Even as they left, accompanied by Ward, Gyltha was giving the mercenary little shoves. “An’ you bring her back as good as she goes, you scavengin’ bugger, or it’s me you’ll answer to. And what about your bloody curfew?”

“Ain’t my curfew,” Cross shouted back. “’S Wolvercote’s.”

It was in operation already. Ward gave a grunt in reply to the bark of a fox somewhere out in the fields, but apart from that, the abbey was quiet. As they skirted the church and turned up by the barn, a sentry stepped out of the doorway of the little round pepper pot of a building that served as the convent’s lockup.

The flambeau above the doorway shone on his helmet. He had a pike in his hand. “Who goes there?”

“Infirmary, mate,” Cross told him. “This here’s a nurse. Pal of mine’s poorly.”

“Give the password.”

“What bloody password? I’m a queen’s soldier, same as you.”

“In the name of Lord Wolvercote, give us the password, see, or I’ll run you through.”

“Listen here, friend ...” Avoiding the pike, Cross shambled up to the sentry, apparently to explain, and hit him on the jaw.

He was a short man, Cross, but the taller sentry went down as if poleaxed.

Cross didn’t even look at him. He gestured to Adelia. “Come on, will you?”

Before obeying, she stooped to make sure the sentry was breathing. He was, and beginning to groan.

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