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guttered when my uncle and aunt came out to greet us. Ned returned at once to Crooked Lane and the Baptist’s Head.‘ Her voice caught in her throat. ‘But he never found Clement. He wasn’t there. Thomas Prynne said he’d never arrived.’
     
     

Chapter 4
     
    Into the silence which followed her words came a second roll of thunder. I had not noticed the lightning flash which preceded it, so absorbed had I been by Alison Weaver’s story. In my mind’s eye I could envisage quite plainly the figure of her brother as she had last seen him, huddled in his cloak against the driving rain, illuminated by the flickering torchlight of the Crossed Hands inn, with so few steps between himself and safety. The Baptist’s Head was within sight, Thomas Prynne, his father’s old friend, waiting to welcome him, a posset of warm ale already brewing on the fire ... But Clement Weaver had never arrived.
    The noise of the thunder made us all jump. Marjorie, coming to her senses, realized that the rain was driving in through the open door and, with a cluck of annoyance, got up to shut it, stirring the pot of stew at the same time. ‘All this talk,’ she grumbled. ‘I’m forgetting my duties. A wonder the meat hasn’t stuck to the bottom and burned.’
    Neither Alison nor I paid her much attention. ‘Was it truly necessary,’ I asked, ‘for Ned to go with you? Even without him, there would still have been three grown men protecting you and your maid.’
    ‘You forget,’ Alison replied patiently, ‘that it was a very dangerous time just then. The Earl of Warwick had brought King Henry out of the Tower and proclaimed him rightful King again. The sanctuaries were overflowing with King Edward’s followers, and there were many not even in sanctuary, but hiding in the city. And it was only a matter of weeks since the execution of the Earl of Worcester. My uncle told me he had never seen the Londoners in such a restless, feverish state of excitement. He said the number of crimes was rising daily.’
    I remembered that even we, in our seclusion at Glastonbury, had heard some rumours of the terrible mob violence which had occurred in London at the execution of King Edward’s Constable. The Earl of Worcester had been nick-named the Butcher of England, after he had once had rebels’ bodies as well as their heads impaled on stakes, and had been hated by the people ever since. But even that, had said our informant, an itinerant friar, could not wholly explain the ferocity of the Londoners, who had all but succeeded in tearing the prisoner to pieces on his way to the scaffold. It was the only occasion the friar could recall when an execution had had to be postponed while captive and gaolers took refuge for a night in the Fleet prison. So I supposed there had been sufficient reason for John Weaver to be concerned about the safety of his niece, and to have alarmed his men enough for them to have talked Ned into going with them. That way, they were not solely responsible for the safety of their master’s guest. Rob, in any case, was to stay with Alison and her maid.
    The housekeeper busied herself with making a junket. ‘Your father will be home soon,’ she remarked, nodding at Alison. ‘It’s nearly supper-time.’
    I was surprised. The four hours since noon and my meeting with Marjorie Dyer at the High Cross had passed so swiftly that I might almost have thought her mistaken had I not been able to hear the Vespers bell ringing from one of the nearby churches. Three hours to Compline, I thought automatically.
    ‘He won’t be here yet awhile.’ Alison glanced at me. ‘Well, that’s the story.’
    I frowned. ‘You say that no one but your father and your brother himself knew how much money he was carrying. That may be true, but surely everyone concerned with the venture must have been aware that your brother had money on him, and a substantial sum at that, if it was known that you were going to London to buy your