The Weaver's Inheritance by Kate Sedley

Author:Kate Sedley [Sedley, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Historical, General, _MARKED
ISBN: 9781466870369
Google: glsZAwAAQBAJ
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2014-05-06T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Baldwin Lightfoot’s house was solidly built of local stone, too small to be a manor, but a substantial dwelling place, nonetheless. There was a capacious undercroft for storage, a paved courtyard in front and a garden behind. Alongside was the orchard, the tops of the trees just visible over the high wall that enclosed them.

I crossed the courtyard and knocked at the door. It was answered by an elderly woman in a gown of dark blue homespun and a bleached linen hood and apron, both of which were slightly soiled and crumpled. The bunch of keys jangling at her belt proclaimed her Baldwin’s housekeeper.

‘Is your master in?’ I asked.

She took one look at my pack and said, ‘Not to pedlars he isn’t. But the girl and I might be interested if you’ll come through to the kitchen.’

‘I’m not selling anything,’ I answered. ‘I’ve been sent with a letter to Master Lightfoot from his cousin, Mistress Burnett of Bristol.’

The housekeeper eyed me doubtfully, disinclined to believe my story, but at the same time recognizing a certain ring of truth about it. ‘Why would she send a chapman?’ she demanded.

Fortunately, before it became necessary for me to embark on any sort of explanation, I heard a door open somewhere, and the next moment a man strolled into view. ‘Who is it, Janet? Who is this person?’

He was tall, almost certainly over fifty, heavily built with what had once been a well-muscled frame now running to fat. In his younger days he had probably been very handsome, but his face had grown soft and flabby, melting into a travesty of its former good looks. The thinning brown hair, liberally streaked with grey, had receded far enough to reveal a high, domed forehead, and only the eyes, a clear, curiously light grey, retained any spark of youth. There were food stains on his clean-shaven chin, and an unpleasant, faintly sourish odour emanated from his clothes. Yet in spite of all this, he had a cocksure bearing and an air of self-satisfaction that instantly conveyed to the onlooker his pleasure in himself and in all his works.

‘This pedlar claims he’s been sent to you with a letter from Mistress Burnett, Master,’ the housekeeper said, confirming, if confirmation were necessary, that this was indeed Baldwin Lightfoot.

‘From my Cousin Alison?’ He frowned, unable, in common with Dame Janet, to understand his kinswoman’s choice of messenger. But the next moment, his attention, the attention of the three of us and indeed of the whole of Keyford, was distracted by what was taking place less than a hundred yards from his door.

While I had been standing there, the pounding hoofbeats had been growing ever louder, the jingle of harness more intrusive upon the ear, until now, suddenly, riders and mounts burst into view and were all about us in a flurry of plunging, rearing horses and shouted orders. Within moments of dismounting, armed men in the livery of the Duke of Clarence were smashing their way into a

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