customers the girl might well return to fetch more ale.
Elena made her way Softly up the steep wooden steps, trying not to let them creak. Her heart was drumming in her temples and her legs were trembling so much she had to cling to the rail to hold herself upright. She should have used the mandrake. If she had seen herself do it, then she would know that she could, but she'd been too afraid to use it. With Raoul and Hugh, she hadn't known that she would see herself killing them, but she couldn't bring herself to use the mandrake, knowing what she would see and then have to live through it all again. Besides, she'd tried to convince herself that this moment would never actually come. She was sure she would wake and once again find that this was only a dream.
Outside the low door of the chamber she paused, listening. Below and far away music and raucous laughter trickled out from the inn, but from behind this door was only a chilling silence. She felt for the dagger, grasping the hilt firmly. You've killed two men. You've killed Osborn's brother and that was easy. You can do this. You're already a murderer, so what does one more death matter? Think of your son. Think of Athan dangling from a rope. Think of what Osborn will do to you. She raised her left hand and knocked.
Raffe picked his way across the rickety wooden bridge, pausing for a moment to stare down at the dark water racing under the supports. Beyond the river was a little cluster of houses, and scattered between them the ruby glow of a dozen cooking fires. The tanners' homes and workshops were built well away from the castle so that the wealthier inhabitants of Norwich didn't have to endure the gut-heaving stench. Even a blind and deaf man would have no trouble at all finding the tanners' cottages; all he had to do was follow the stink of fermenting dog dung and rancid fat.
And it was for this very reason that Raffe had found lodgings in this quarter for Martin, or whatever his real name was, for few people, save the tanners themselves, ventured here unless they had pressing business. Any of John's men on the lookout for French spies would hang around the inns in the centre of the city, watching for those who were asking too many questions or seemed not to know the streets, but who would think of looking among the hovels of the tanners?
Around each of the tiny one-roomed cottages lay large open courtyards. The flames of the cooking fires in the pits guttered in the darkness. Women waved the stinging smoke from their eyes as they bent to stir their supper pots, while their half-naked children played perilous games of hide-and- seek between the great vats of lime and soaking hides.
Raffe counted the courtyards as he walked, one, two, three, then turn left, two more then. . . . He stopped so abruptly he almost lurched backwards into the wooden hut behind him. For a moment, he thought he must have taken a wrong turn, but then he recognized the solitary apple tree in the yard. A length of rope still girdled the trunk where the owner's great lolloping hound had been tethered.
But there was no fire glowing in this yard. No tallow rushes burning in the cottage window. The door swung open, leaning drunkenly sideways, one of the leather hinges torn away. The vats were overturned, their deadly soup of fat and lime leaving a huge glowing white stain on the mud of the yard. Skins had been chopped from their frames and trampled into the mud, and the stretching frames themselves had been hacked to kindling. Not a single pot or stick of furniture that was able to be smashed or broken had been left upright or intact.
Seeing the light of a fire in the nearby yard, Raffe hurried across. A woman was ladling a watery pottage into a wooden bowl. She caught sight of Raffe and, dropping the ladle, hurried inside yelling. At once two burly youths emerged, jamming themselves in the narrow doorway as they both struggled to get through it at the same time.
They advanced on Raffe, one holding a long iron rod, the other a hefty wooden paddle. Raffe raised his hands to show he was not reaching for any weapon, but he stood his ground.