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sleeping like hogs in the taproom below, farting and belching fit to burst!'
    'Then let's hasten, sweet Lucy,' I said. 'Tom, a bowl of water and a towel.'
    I took Lucy back to the chamber, where the spear still lay on the sweat-soaked bed. I was elated. My mind was full of dreams of riches pouring in. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I stripped Lucy off and washed her myself. She said she felt well and energetic so we had a romp upon the bed, bouncing and kissing. She kept murmuring how her cup truly overflowed. Afterwards I combed her hair, she painted her face and put her best gown on. When she had finished she looked as pretty as any queen, the picture of health. She kissed the spear. I tightened the buckle of my purse, lest anyone glimpsed the phial. Thankfully Lucy could remember nothing except the spear and me kneeling beside her. (Oh, she was a grand lass, such a pity she died such a terrible death!) She claimed to have had visions of a spear burning brightly before her and a power emanating from it which enveloped her body. I couldn't have asked for better. I heard horses' hooves on the cobbles below and, like a king and his queen, we swept down to the taproom. I held up the spear like some silly Lancelot of the Lake escorting his Guinevere. The Poppleton brothers, Edmund and Robert, just stared open-mouthed, and the rest of the taproom broke into loud cheers and clapping. I was hailed as Lucy's great saviour with many an envious glance at the spear. I didn't want some accident happening to me as I travelled home half-drunk so I left immediately. Naturally, I threw triumphant glances at the Great Mouth's sons who stood, cups in hand, muttering and glowering back.
    Once I was back in the manor it was days of wine and roses. The news spread and soon I had a constant stream of visitors to the hall: some came just to touch the spear, others to receive a cure. Now, as any doctor will tell you, believe that you are going to be cured and you are well over halfway to good health. I did a roaring trade! (Oh yes, Goliath's foreskin, hairs from Balaam's ass and a cracked mirror once used by Delilah.) My little chest of coins grew. I basked in the approval of my neighbours. But ah, foolish man, Just when my greatness was ripening it was nipped in the bud by a savage cold frost Late one afternoon the Poppleton brothers arrived at my door, with a group of their henchmen, servile as worms, bowing and scraping, friendly eyed, their mouths stuffed with flattery. We took sweetmeats and white wine in the parlour. They complimented me on my growing fame and then Edmund, the elder weasel, leaned forward, a bag of silver clinking in his hand.
    'Dearest Roger.' Tears brimmed in his eyes. 'Mother is unwell, a fever; would you, for love of us, bring the spear to cure her?'
    I should have sensed a trap but the clinking of silver was music to my ears. Moreover, you can fake a relic but very rarely a real fever so I agreed. We journeyed back across the valley to the house of the Great Mouth. For once she was silent, lying like some great bloated toad against the bolsters, her black hair damp with sweat, her fat, pasty face shimmering like a lump of lard under the sun. She had a fever. Now I had brought the phial with me and asked the Poppletons for a cup of watered white wine. Edmund and Robert hurried off together and they brought it back in a heavily embossed pewter cup with a broad bowl, thick-stemmed on a heavily bejewelled base. I sought a diversion asking for a napkin and poured the powder in. Edmund then took the cup and gave it to his mother. At my insistence she sipped and sipped, then I laid the spear by her side.
    Now, I certainly didn't want to shelter in the house of my enemies all night. I declared I would stay until dusk when they would see a change in their mother's complexion. The brothers left and I wandered round the chamber. There were a few little gee-gaws, a ring, a cross, which all disappeared into my sack. I had sensed a