A Brood of Vipers Read Free

went up to stare at the two shields over the fireplace. One depicted the armorial bearings of the Daunbey family, the other those of Shallot.
'Are you sure, Roger?' he asked absentmindedly.
'About what, Master?'
'That the Shallot arms have a red stag rampant?' Benjamin grinned lopsidedly at me. 'This one's very rampant.'
    I shrugged. 'The Shallots are an ancient family,' I lied. 'They were once great and noble, until they fell on hard times. But, Master,' I insisted, 'what makes you think "dearest uncle" is sending for us?'
'Just a feeling, just a feeling.'
    I quietly groaned and closed my eyes. Last winter "dear uncle' had 'sent for us'. Benjamin and I were despatched to the icy wastes of Somerset to deal with witchcraft, decapitated heads, Hands of Glory and murder at every turn between skating on freezing lakes.
'Roger, why are your eyes closed?'
    I opened them and forced a smile. 'Just praying. Master, just praying that "dear uncle" is in the best of health.'
    'Well, we can't waste time,' Benjamin declared, 'Do you know that old hill?'
'The one that overlooks the mill?'
'Yes, Roger, I believe it's an ancient hill fort.'
    Once again I groaned quietly to myself. Master Benjamin, a true man of the new learning, had a kind heart and an enquiring mind. He had two great passions - alchemy and antiquities. (I should add a third - his mad, witless betrothed, Johanna. Seduced by a nobleman, she lost her mind and was sent to the nuns at Syon in London. Poor girl! She lived into her eighties. To the day she died she still thought the young nobleman was coming back. Of course he never could. Benjamin, a skilled swordsman, had killed him!)
    Now, as I said, my master was a great scholar, a true lover of all things classical. And why not? He had even travelled to Wales to attend the Eisteddfod held at Caurawys and became friends with its foremost poet Tudor Aled. He bought John Fitzherbert's book on husbandry and ordered a copy of Hans
    Sachs' work The Wittenberg Nightingale, a poem about Martin Luther. (The Wittenberg Nightingale! Luther was a constipated old fart! You know that, don't you? That's why many of his writings, including Table Talk, are full of references to bowels, stools and body fluids. There was nothing wrong with Luther a good purge wouldn't have cured. The same applies to his lover, the ex-nun {Catherine. I met both of them once; all I can say is that they were as ugly as sin and richly deserved each other.) Ah, the people I have met. I only wish Benjamin was here now. Will Shakespeare would have fascinated him. Last summer Will came to Burpham and staged his play Twelfth Night. I helped him with some of the lines, especially Malvolio's
Some men are born great,
Others achieve greatness,
And others have greatness thrust upon them.
    I composed those lines myself. Old Will cocked his cheerful face and stared at me.
    'And what about you, Roger Shallot?' he asked. 'Which one of these applies to you?'
'All three!' I retorted.
    Shakespeare laughed in that pleasant, delicate way he has. I could tell from his clever eyes that he knew the truth, so I laughed with him. And what is the truth? Old Shallot's a liar. (My clerk taps his quill and looks over his shoulder disapprovingly at me. Do you know, his face has more lines than a wrinkled prune. The little tickle-brain. My juicy little mannikin! 'You digress!' he wails. 'You digress!')
    Yes, I do, in a fashion. But everything I say has a bearing on my story. I am going to tell about murders to chill the marrow of your bones and send your heart thudding like a drum, about subtle, cruel men! However, we'll soon come to that. To cut a long story short, on that warm spring day my master had set his heart upon digging up the old hill that overlooked the mill. So the next morning, armed with a copy of Tacitus's Life of Agricola, as well as some picks, bows, hoes and shovels, we went out to dig.
    At first I really moaned. I wailed that my old wounds sheeted my back in throbbing pain.