him. As soon as he lets me go I'll rip his face off.'
Ma nodded to Luce. You'd best go see if the gentleman is ready and then get back and mind the gate. Talbot's attending to some business and he'll not be back till late.'
As soon as Luce had closed the door behind her, Ma took a step forward, her hands on her hips, and looked up at Elena.
'Now you listen to me, my darling. I've seen it all; tears and pleas don't move me. If you don't please this gentleman, then you'll find yourself in the common hall pleasuring the sailors and the shit-shovellers, most of them drunk and stinking of the midden. Half a dozen of them a day, and you'll soon learn to swallow your pride and that won't be all you'll swallow. But you can beg and plead as much as you like; the gentlemen enjoy that. It quickens their blood. But I warn you, the more you beg, the more he'll be spurred on to do.'
Ma looked sharply at the door, hearing the sound of a man's footsteps striding towards the door. With a final warning gesture, she slipped through the connecting door that led to the dressing room. Even as that door closed, the main door to the chamber burst open. A tall cloaked figure stood squarely in the open doorway, framed by the darkness of the passage outside. Elena bit back a scream, for in the guttering candlelight his face was not the face of a man, but the mask of a demon.
'You want me to come with you?' the eel man asked Raffe. 'I can show you where the best fishing spots are. But I'll not be telling you where my eel traps are laid, that's a secret I'll share only on my deathbed.'
His face creased in a weather-beaten, toothless grin and he tapped the side of his nose, from which a large chunk was missing.
He loved to tell in gory detail, as old men do, how it was that one day, many years ago, a giant eel had fastened on the end of his nose and bitten it clean off. He was so old that no one could remember if that was the truth or not, but as the years went by the monstrous eel grew so long and fat in the telling that each new generation of children marvelled that the beast had only eaten his nose, and not devoured the whole man.
'I want to go off fishing by myself. Get away for the night from Osborn and the noise of the manor,' Raffe explained.
The old man nodded sympathetically. 'I can understand that. I couldn't be doing with people mithering me night and day. Peaceful it is on the river with only your own thoughts for company.'
Raffe slipped the coin into the tanned old hands. It was far more than the old man could earn from eeling in a night and they both knew it. He took the coin gratefully, thankful no doubt for an evening in by the fire, instead of shivering his ancient bones out on the river.
Raffe pushed the end of the long pole down into the mud to steady himself as he stepped into the flat-bottomed boat. It was long and narrow, too easy to overturn if you weren't careful, but better for a man of his size than trying to paddle a small, round coracle. The boat began to rock alarmingly as Raffe tried to balance himself. It had been a while since he had used such a boat and even then he had only ever taken it out with Gerard.
The eel man watched him shrewdly, then slid a short blunt paddle into the boat. 'This might serve you better. Easier to balance when you're sat down.'
As soon as he was out of sight of the old man's cottage, Raffe found a likely spot and lowered a couple of stout lines into the water with a hank of tangled sheep's wool on the end, baited with worms. He fastened the lines to the willows growing at the water's edge. He'd had all day to think about how he might manage this escapade without getting caught. The wars had taught him that rash courage was no substitute for a careful plan. But fate does not always cooperate with the plans of men.
The sun was already below the horizon when Raffe paddled around the back of the islet in the centre of the river. The bank next