Read [Roger the Chapman 06] - The Wicked Winter for Free Online Page A

lady might be glad of his company.'
    I stepped forward with meekly lowered eyes for inspection by this she-dragon, who gave me a basilisk stare: But after a moment her expression softened somewhat and she nodded.
    'Very well.' Her blue eyes narrowed. 'Are you hungry, my lad?' And when I assured her that I was, she instructed a tow-headed girl to give me one of the apple pasties which were cooling on a marble slab close to the half-open door.
    'Best give him the large size with a frame like his.' The child shovelled a pasty on to a wooden platter and handed it to me with a self-conscious giggle. Hamon and Jasper immediately began to moan that good looks and a fine physique gave a man an unfair advantage over his fellows.
    'Oh... give them a pasty apiece, Bet,' the cook instructed at last, pursing her lips in exasperation. 'But you eat them outside, the pair of you. You reek of horses !'
    The two men seemed to take no offence at her tone but, grinning broadly, accepted their apple pasties from Bet's hands and vanished through the kitchen doorway. I was allowed to eat mine in peace, sitting beside the fire and warming my chilled bones by its leaping flames. When I had finished, not even a crumb of pastry remaining, Bet was told to conduct me to Dame Judith.
    'The late master's mother,' the cook explained, basting a couple of fat chickens which were roasting on the spit, 'complains of being neglected since her son died, three years since. And it's true that there's not much love lost between her and the mistress. But,' she added judiciously, 'old people do tend to exaggerate their hardships in my experience.'  
    'Is Dame Judith upstairs or down?' asked Bet, and was told that the old lady was in the solar.
    She led me out of the kitchen and into a narrow passageway where the draughts from open doors lifted the rushes on the flagstones; and the sudden chill, after the heat we had just left, made us both shiver. As I followed Bet, I could see into the various rooms on the opposite side of the corridor, the counting-house, justice room and parlour, all their windows facing frontwards to the track beyond the moat.
    The reason I was able to see this was because the shutters in the parlour had been set wide in spite of the inclement weather, and Lynom Hall had no surrounding walls for protection. In this remote comer of the world they plainly did not fear attacks from their neighbours.
    'Someone in this house is fond of fresh air,' I remarked to Bet as she preceded me up a twisting staircase.
    'Oh, that's the old mistress,' she said with another giggle. 'She don't seem to feel the cold, not even when it's bitter. Leastways, she says she don't, but it's my belief she's just nosy. She likes to sit by the window and look out to see what's going on. Makes the young mistress fair mad, I can tell you. I'd best close them shutters when I come down again, before she discovers they've been opened. Dame Judith was ill the parlour earlier,' she added by way of explanation.
    At the top of the stairs, I was conducted into the solar, as dank and chilly on this bleak winter's day as the rest of the house. But it was a comfortable room with many indications of wealth from the candelabra of latten tin, supporting a number of pure wax candles, to the tapestries which decorated the wails and the cushions strewn across the window seat.
    Two of the windows were glazed - a greater rarity then than nowadays, when you, my children, take so many of these modern luxuries for granted - and a third had panes of horn.
    A fourth window of stretched and oiled linen had been set wide to the elements. Bet at once hurried across and closed it.
    'You d' know what the mistress says about openin' windows this weather, Dame Judith,' she scolded. 'You'll catch yer death, you will surely.'
    The upright old woman, seated in a chair near the fire, sniffed scornfully.
    'And what if I do, pray'? That's what she hopes will happen. The lying jade just pretends to be concerned about