The Eye of God by Paul Doherty (as C. L. Grace)

Author:Paul Doherty (as C. L. Grace) [Doherty, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Headline
Published: 2013-09-14T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

The next morning Kathryn went down to Saint Mildred’s Church, where she heard Mass in a chantry chapel. After the priest had sung the ‘Ite, Missa Est’, Kathryn lit candles in front of the statue of the Virgin and went to pray beside her father’s tomb. She looked down at the carved inscription she had composed for the repose of his soul. For a while Kathryn day-dreamed about her youth: trotting beside her father through the streets of Canterbury, she and Thomasina out in the fields looking for certain plants or herbs. Kathryn blinked back the tears, kissed the tips of her fingers and pressed them against the cold grey stone.

‘I miss you,’ she whispered.

Kathryn genuflected towards the high altar and left the church. She sat on a stone plinth outside the porch enjoying the sunshine and watching the carts and pack-horses make their way down to the Buttermarket. She thought about her visit to the castle and hoped she would be proved correct about the headless corpse fished from the Stour.

‘Kathryn, are you day-dreaming about me?’

She shaded her eyes with her hand and stared up at Colum. He pointed back to the church gate.

‘I have been out to Kingsmead and back to tease Thomasina. I have collected your horse from the stables.’ He leaned down and touched her gently on the cheek with his glove. ‘Were you really day-dreaming about me, Kathryn?’

Kathryn smiled back. ‘And if I was, Irishman?’

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Well, that would be reward enough for a hard day’s work.’

Kathryn narrowed her eyes. She was about to tease him further when Widow Gumple swept up the path, her face pursed tight as if she were sucking on a sour lemon. The widow’s voluminous billowing gown and her ridiculous headdress made her look like a fat-bellied cog in full sail.

‘Good morning, Mistress Swinbrooke.’ Gumple’s voice was honey-sweet.

‘Good morning, Widow Gumple. Are you well?’

Widow Gumple bowed her head patronisingly, looked nervously at Colum who glowered fiercely back, then swept on into the church to tend, as the good widow always declared, ‘to the Lord’s affairs.’

‘Just an excuse for malicious gossip,’ Thomasina had once observed. ‘That fat cow’s never said a proper prayer in her life!’

Colum watched the widow’s retreating back. ‘You were going to say, Mistress Swinbrooke, or daren’t you now?’ He helped her to her feet. ‘Are you,’ he continued, ‘frightened of such clacking tongues?’

Kathryn brushed the dust from her dress.

‘Frightened, Irishman?’ she replied with mock curiosity. ‘Frightened of what?’

‘Of clacking tongues?’

‘And what, pray,’ Kathryn asked sweetly, ‘could they clack about?’

Colum took a deep breath; he was being drawn into one of Kathryn’s clever traps.

‘About me,’ he stammered.

‘Irishman, what is your meaning?’

‘Well,’ he stammered, ‘I stay at your house.’

‘So does Wuf.’

‘I am a man,’ Colum said.

‘Are you?’ Kathryn asked innocently. ‘And why should tongues clack about you being a man?’

Colum could stand it no longer and gripped her by the elbow.

‘Now, now, my bonny, you know full well what I mean.’

Kathryn smiled at him. ‘You are a friend, Colum,’ she said.

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