Dancing by Malcolm Archibald

Author:Malcolm Archibald
Format: epub

Smith did not know who the Knight Templar had been who made his mark at the Templar’s Cross Inn, nor did he care. If pressed, Smith might have known that the Templars had been a military-minded religious order of the Middle Ages. However, history did not interest him unless he was directly involved. He dismounted from his hired horse and threw the reins to a stable boy, adding a shilling.

“Look after him,” Smith said.

“Yes, sir.” The boy knuckled his forehead, staring at the silver coin.

Smith circled the outside of the inn to look for a rear entrance, completed the circuit and pushed inside. The Templar’s Cross was quiet, with a jovial-faced, hard-eyed man behind the bar and a scattering of customers talking together. Few even bothered to look up when Smith entered. Smith ignored the courting couple engaged in an amorous embrace in the corner and allowed his gaze to pass over what was evidently a family group at a central table. He looked longer at three men who could have been cracksmen or lawyers, or perhaps both, and examined the four men who sat at the furthest corner beside the crackling fire.

“What will be your pleasure?” the barman asked.

“Rum,” Smith immediately stamped himself as a nautical man. He dropped a coin on the counter, let it spin for five seconds, and clapped a hand on top. “And an introduction.”

“Rum it is,” the landlord said. “Who do you wish to meet?”

“Nathaniel Hitchins,” Smith said. “Or William Holden, or both.”

The landlord looked confused. “I don’t believe I know either of these gentlemen,” he said.

Smith saw that the group of four beside the fire had reduced to three. He guessed that one had slipped away to warn Holden.

“I was certain this was the correct inn,” Smith said. He sipped his rum. “I’ll wait to see if he arrives.”

“You could be here a long time. Perhaps even days.” The landlord gave an insincere smile.

“All the more custom for you,” Smith said. He saluted the landlord with his rum glass and found a seat against the wall, from where he could watch the door and the trio around the table.

Within ten minutes, a smooth-faced man entered Templar’s Cross. He glanced around the room, murmured something to the landlord, and sat alone at a table near the door.

Nathaniel Hitchins, I wager, Smith thought, as he called for another rum. He felt Hitchin’s eyes watching him. The landlord busied himself behind the counter, evidently waiting for something to happen.

After another five minutes, a tall man wandered in, stumbled as if he were drunk, and reeled against the counter. The eye patch would have given him away, even without the respect with which the landlord treated him.

William Holden, pretending to be drunk. Let’s dance, gentlemen.

Holden slouched beside Hitchins, ordered a tankard of strong ale, and grinned across to Smith.

“Good evening,” Smith called out, rose from his seat, and walked across, fully aware that every person in the inn, except the amorous couple, was watching him.

“You must be William Peter Holden.

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