The Rose Rent: The Thirteenth Chronicle of Brother Cadfael by Ellis Peters

Author:Ellis Peters
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Detective, Brother (Fictitious c, Cadfael, Mystery & Detective, Fiction - Mystery, Monks, Fiction, Shrewsbury (England), 1135-1154, Mystery & Detective - Historical, Great Britain, Brother (Fictitious character), Historical, Traditional British, Stephen, Large type books, General, Herbalists, Mystery & Detective - Traditional British, History
ISBN: 9780786225699
Publisher: Chivers Press
Published: 2000-08-15T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

YOU BROUGHT ME here,” she said, “now get me hence as best you can.”

In the narrow, bare room which had once been Hynde’s counting-house, the small flame of the saucer lamp barely showed them to each other. He had flung away from her, and stood in the far corner, his back turned, his head bowed into the forearm he had braced against the wall, his other fist driving uselessly and painfully against the timber. His voice emerged muffled, its helpless rage degraded into a feeble wail: “How can I? How can I? There is no way out now!”

“You could unlock the door,” she said simply, “and let me go. Nothing could be easier.”

“For you!” he protested furiously, and swung about to glare at her with all the venom of which his nature was capable. It did not amount to much more than self-pity. He was not a venomous man, only a vain and foolish one. He wearied her, but he did not frighten her. “All very well for you! And I should be finished, damned… thrown into prison to rot. Once out, you’d denounce me and take your revenge.”

“You should have thought of that,” she said, “before you snatched me away, you and your rogue servant. You brought me here to this sordid hole, locked in behind your wool bales, without comfort, without decency, subject to your man’s rough handling and your insolent pestering, and do you expect gratitude? Or even mercy? Why should I not denounce you? You had best think hard and fast. You will have to release me or kill me at last, and the longer the delay, the worse will be your own plight. Mine,” she said bitterly, “is already bad enough. What has become by now of my good name? What will my situation be when I go back to my own house and family?”

Vivian came back to her with a rush, flinging himself on his knees beside the rough bench where she had taken what rest she could, and where she sat now erect and pale, her hands gripped together in her lap, her skirts drawn close about her as though to avoid not only his touch, but the very dust and desolation of her prison. There was nothing else in the room but the broken desk where once the clerk had worked over his figures, and a stone ewer with a chipped lip, and a pile of dust and debris in the corner. The lamp stood on the end of the bench beside her, its light now full on Vivian’s dishevelled hair and woeful face. He clutched at her hands imploringly, but she withdrew them so sharply that he sat back on his heels with a great gulp of despair.

“I never meant such mischief, I swear it! I thought you had a fondness for me, I thought I had only to get you to myself a while, and it would all be agreed between us… Oh, God, I wish I’d never begun

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