Hugh was white with anger, two high spots of colour blazing on his pale cheeks. 'Have a care, gelding, I'll see you brought to the whip yet, by God I will.'
He stormed into the stable and, grabbing the reins of his horse from a boy, swung into the saddle and clattered across the yard and through the open gate, scattering terrified chickens and maids to the right and left of him.
Raffe, now that his temper had cooled slightly, cursed himself silently. Hugh would be watching him like a vulture from now on. How the Devil was he going to get the priest past him? He felt for Gerard's pearl ring which hung from a leather thong beneath his shirt. Whatever the danger he must do it. If there was the slightest chance that the priest's anointing would bring peace to Gerard's soul, then he must try even if it cost him his own life.
The serving maid waddled awkwardly across the courtyard at the back of the Adam and Eve Inn, trying not to let the contents of the slops bucket she was carrying splash on her skirts. She glanced up at the shuttered windows of the inn; the guests wouldn't stir for another hour or more, and even then they'd be lucky if they could crawl off their sleeping pallets, given the amount of ale and cider most had drunk last night. She thumbed her nose at the shutters behind which the innkeeper and his crabby wife still lay snoring. It was all very well for them, they could sleep on, but the old termagant would grumble all day if the chores weren't done by the time she deigned to wake.
The maid went round the back of the wooden shack where the meals were cooked over the great fire and flung the contents of the bucket towards the midden, without bothering to look. She didn't need to; she'd been emptying slops here at least twice a day for the past five years. There was a screech, and a cat with a wet tail raced past her ankles, spitting its indignation.
The sudden appearance of the cat made her glance down. For a moment she just stared at the ground without her mind being able to comprehend what her eyes saw. Then she began to scream and once she'd started, she couldn't stop. She carried on screaming until the innkeeper, naked save for a short shift which barely covered his scrawny thighs, came hurrying round the shack, closely followed by his wife who was armed with a heavy cudgel. Several of the guests trailed after them, grumbling at the disturbance.
The maid, her hand trembling violently, pointed at the earth next to the midden heap. A man lay on his belly in the filth, his head twisted to the side. Flies swarmed over the dark blood congealed in his hair and crawled over his purple, grotesquely swollen face, settling in the deep black bruise that encircled his neck. Only the buzzing of the flies broke the stunned silence in that courtyard.
Finally, the innkeeper shook himself, and seizing the maid by the shoulder, shouted at her to go and raise the hue and cry, and send someone to find the bailiff. She did not need any urging to run.
It took a while for the bailiff to appear and by that time half the street had crowded into the courtyard to see what was afoot.
The bailiff peered at the body from several angles, though he did not attempt to touch it.
'Plain as a pig's ear what's happened,' he announced to the crowd. 'Someone's whacked him across the back of the head with something heavy, maybe while he was drunk and taking a piss. That would have floored him. Then they throttled him to make sure he was good and dead. He wouldn't have put up much of a fight, not if he was already half-dead from the crack on the head, none at all if he was out cold from the blow. Wouldn't have taken much strength to kill him. A boy could have done it, just as easily as any full-grown man ... or woman, come to that.' The bailiff stared pointedly at the cudgel in the innkeeper's wife's hand.
'I'll have you know I'm not in the habit of murdering my customers,' she said indignantly. 'What profit would there be in that?'
'One of yours, was he?' the bailiff said, as if that explained everything. 'There'll be no shortage of suspects then. Every rogue between