The Blood Covenant by Chris Nickson

Author:Chris Nickson [Nickson, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House
Published: 2021-11-08T00:00:00+00:00

EIGHTEEN

Morning, and Jane sat across the kitchen table from Rosie and Simon at the house on Swinegate.

‘I waited in case Seaton sent anyone after you.’

‘Nothing?’

‘No one left the farm.’

She knew someone had spotted her near Seaton’s. A figure that moved silently through the autumn undergrowth and kept watch on her. But he never came close, didn’t threaten. After the chaise left, she glanced across and he’d vanished.

She listened as Simon told her everything he’d agreed with Arden and Seaton.

‘He confirmed that he turned out Perkins the bodyguard.’

Jane nodded. She’d wanted to cripple him, to make him pay for everything he’d done to soldiers over the years. This was payment of a sort.

‘I want you to find him,’ Simon told her.

‘Find him?’ she asked, scarcely able to believe what she’d heard. ‘Why?’

‘He might be able to answer some questions for me about Sebastian Ramsey, that body they pulled out of the river.’

‘All right,’ she agreed reluctantly.

‘Once you know where he is, then we’ll visit together. He’ll probably be terrified to see you again.’

‘He should be.’ She rose and put on her old green cloak, buttoning it at the neck before raising the shawl over her head. ‘Are we safe?’

‘Yes,’ Simon answered. As long as he did nothing more, Arden and Seaton had no reason to send anyone else after them. But how long would their promise last? ‘For now, at least.’

As she walked along the streets, she was grateful for the hobnails on the soles of her boots. The cold meant the pavements were icy, slick and dangerous. People tumbled. She heard the snap of a bone and the cry of pain as a man slipped. People rushed to help him.

Jane asked questions. In shops and taverns, at a couple of the inns and at the stables, where the warmth from the horses heated the buildings. She found children desperate for food, gave them a little money and told them to hunt for Perkins then tell her if they discovered him.

A morning of moving around Leeds drove the cold from her bones. No more feeling that anyone was following her. Still, nobody with a scrap of sense would wander around in this weather if they had a choice. Especially someone with a long wound to his face and a bandaged hand.

It took a little while to find Dodson the beggar, the man who’d lost a leg just before Waterloo. He smiled as she put coins in his tin cup.

‘I hear someone hurt Perkins,’ he said.

‘That’s what people say.’

‘Someone who knew about his weak right knee.’

‘So I heard.’

Dodson cocked his head. ‘Why didn’t you finish him?’

‘I did,’ she told him. ‘Everything he was is over now.’

Jane took out more coins and let them rattle into the metal.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

A little after noon she stood at the corner of Briggate and Boar Lane, buying hot food from Kate the pie-seller. The big woman was wrapped up warm, a long cloak and fingerless wool mittens, chattering nineteen to the dozen about nothing at all.

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