Mark of the Plague (Blackthorn Key Book 2) by Kevin Sands

Author:Kevin Sands [Sands, Kevin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aladdin
Published: 2016-09-06T06:00:00+00:00

Tom shook his head, muttering. I didn’t have to hear his words to know what he was thinking; I’d begun to think the same myself. But there was one more door behind us to try. Unlike the others, it was locked. Luckily, it opened with a key from the ring Sally had taken.

This had clearly been the sexton’s quarters. A simple bed with a straw mattress was in the corner, a trunk at the foot of the bed, next to a small cupboard. On the night table beside the palliasse was an unlit candle and three bottles of the same sacramental wine we’d seen in the pantry. Two were empty, the third nearly there, only a couple of mouthfuls left inside.

Crammed next to the bed was a rudimentary clothes cabinet, worn and beaten with age, tall enough to reach the ceiling. The only other furniture was a desk and a rickety chair, placed against the wall near the door. Papers were scattered across the desk, weighed down by an empty dinner plate, an oil lamp, and another unlit candle burned to a nub.

“Will you please explain what we’re looking for?” Tom said.

“Anything that could have been taken from my home,” I said.

“And that is?”

“I don’t know. Gold, maybe. Or any notes with my master’s handwriting.” I almost didn’t say it. “Maybe a recipe.”

“For what?”

I didn’t answer. I wasn’t willing to tell them what I thought Melchior’s men might have come for until I knew for sure that’s what it was. But as I stood there, looking around, something didn’t feel quite right. Melchior was so . . . well, grand, I guess. And this room was so plain. Even the walls were bare, just a single black spot among the water stains on the stone above the right edge of the desk.

“Why does Melchior live down here?” I said.

Tom looked around unhappily. “I think it rather suits him.”

“Where should he live?” Sally said.

“The rectory,” I said. “If Reverend Glennon fled, no one’s living there. It would be a lot bigger—and a lot nicer—than these quarters. And where do Melchior’s men sleep?”

“They don’t. Sleep here, I mean. They go home.”

“How do you know that?”

“We watched them,” Sally said. “Before Cripplegate shut down. You can see the front of the church from the library. Melchior’s men leave at night. Two of them stay to guard the main doors. The rest don’t come back until morning.”

“What about the side door, beside the stairs? You can’t see that from the library.”

“No, but the secret path in the garden goes right by it. There was never anyone there.”

That was odd. If Melchior lived down here, the side door would be the place he should most want to guard. After all, with the path through the garden, anyone with a key could sneak in and out of the church without being seen.

“Maybe he doesn’t live here after all,” Tom said. He stepped back to show us the cabinet, which he’d opened while Sally and I were talking.

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