Read 31 - City of Fiends for Free Online Page B

lascivious teasing. Only two weeks ago, one outside the Cock Inn had bared her breasts at him, offering him a
tumble with a wink and a wriggle of her hips. He had flushed in an instant, and had gone back to the church as fast as he could, to pray for himself, and for the whore.
    They were all women who had fallen from the path of virtue – he must try to remember that. Kindness was more important than condemnation.
    He drank a cup of wine while he set his pottage over the little fire, and sat on his stool stirring; he was still there when the knock came at the door.
    Rising with an effort, he went to open it. Outside were two women from the stews. ‘What do you want?’ he asked.
    ‘It’s not what we want, my lover,’ slurred one. It was plain that she had been in an alehouse for hours. Sarra was typical of her kind, Father Paul thought – blowsy,
red-faced, and with a cap that had slipped sideways to show her thick, coarse hair.
    ‘No! We wanted to give you something,’ the other said. She was younger, with a slight cast in one eye and a lop-sided grin that exposed a pair of broken teeth. He didn’t know
her name. Both were as thin as rakes.
    Father Paul looked them up and down, and then sighed. ‘Come inside.’
    Friday after the Feast of the Nativity of St John the Baptist 3
    Combe Street
    Juliana Marsille, a slim woman of almost forty, with greying hair and flesh drawn tight over a heart-shaped face, was walking back from the baker’s, a tiny loaf held
carefully in her hands. It was all she could afford.
    She was unhappy. Two days ago she had lost Emma as a friend, and nothing she could do or say would repair the damage.
    It had been one of those days. Juliana had been trying to talk sense into Philip, her son, but he paid no attention. It was important ! She’d been talking about money, saying that he
needed to find work, and when she saw him ignoring her, she had been infuriated: she slapped him, just to make him listen.
    He had snapped. Catching her hands, he stared at her as though he didn’t know her. For a moment, she had seen utter wildness in his eyes and knew he could have broken her neck without
regret.
    It was a shocking revelation, but she was not stupid enough to deny it. Philip was a man, not her darling little boy any more, and if she were to push him, he might strike back.
    He was weak, that was the problem. He had no idea that for the family to survive, each must do their part. He was the head of the house now her poor, beloved Nicholas was dead.
    She missed him so.
    A pig’s bladder skittered by, and the figure of Thomas Paffard darted past in pursuit, a thick-set little boy of six with a thatch of tallow hair above a face moulded into a frown of
determination. With that fixed concentration on his features, he could be mistaken for a serious-minded child, but Juliana knew him better than that. His face was more usually broken almost in half
by his broad grin. His blue eyes were seemingly designed for joy and for inspiring it in others. He was the sort of boy who could make any mother wish for a child again, just to enjoy those years
of merriment and laughter.
    ‘Hello, Thomas,’ she called as he ran behind her to fetch his bladder.
    He looked and gave her a shy smile that quickly faded, before returning at full pelt to his companions.
    It was enough to make the breath catch in her throat, to make the sob begin deep in her breast, when she thought of her own older boy and what he had become.
    Cock Inn, South Gate
    The tavern was full of noxious fumes from the poor quality logs. The hearth was a small pit filled with ashes in the packed soil of the floor, and every now and again there was
a loud crack from a splitting log, and a spark would be hurled over onto the rushes that lay all about. No one bothered to stamp it out, for with the amount of spilled ale, spittle, and urine from
the host’s dogs, there was little likelihood that the sodden flooring could catch light.
    Philip