Masques of Gold Read Free Page B

dark blue tunic and pale gray gown. When Binge brought up the water, she washed and then dressed, her ear cocked for any sound from the shop below, but there were only faint noises from the street, no knock on the door. Finally she opened her husband’s clothes chest and began to look through the garments. But when everything was done, his best gown shaken free of wrinkles and fresh underclothing chosen, she and Binge were still alone.
    â€œWhere are they?” she whispered, not knowing whether she meant Peter’s sons or the alderman and his officers.
    At last, able to delay no longer, Lissa gestured to Binge and went down. She bade the maid fetch two stools from the workroom, and she herself lit two candles, carried them in, and set them on the shop counter. Somehow it seemed wrong to open the windows, so she and Binge sat down in the dim candlelight a little distance from the corpse.
    Lissa’s mind was an utter blank by the time the door was flung open, letting in a flood of sunlight that blinded her. Startled, she jumped to her feet, flinging up a hand to shield her dazzled eyes.

Chapter 2
    â€œWhat the devil is going on here?”
    Sir Justin FitzAilwin’s voice was louder and harsher than he intended, but he had not expected to be confronted with a pitch-dark room in which a pale wraith, hiding its face, seemed to leap at him out of the dark into the swath of sunlight from the doorway. His temper, which was foul to begin with from having been wakened too early after a night of unwise revels with his cousins, was not improved by feeling a fool in the next moment. When his eyes adjusted to the relative dimness, the pale wraith resolved into a slender young woman, who dropped her arm and blinked in the sudden light.
    Nor did Justin feel any better when she held out her hand to him and exclaimed, “Oh, Sir Justin, I am so glad it is you.”
    Clearly she knew him, and now that he could see her face it had a vague familiarity, but her name would not pierce through the pounding in his head. To give himself another moment, he stepped forward and took her hand and then had to set his teeth against a groan as he bent to kiss it. He was ready to bite her fingers instead of kissing them, particularly when, after his eyes cleared of the mist raised by the pang that pierced him from temple to temple, he saw she was smiling, albeit only faintly.
    But she said, “You will not remember me. We met only once, and very briefly, right after the fire a year and a half ago. I was greatly impressed by your charity, Sir Justin.”
    Her voice was soft and musical and soothed the hammer strokes on the ringing anvil in Justin’s head. Her words were equally pleasing, relieving him of the need to pretend he knew her—and, he thought somewhat ruefully, pandering to his vanity by implying that he was memorable enough to be recalled for a year after one brief meeting. But then the sense of what she had said came through the dull throbbing. Remembered for his charity, was he? By a woman whose husband had been murdered? But she was quite young. Perhaps she was Flael’s daughter rather than his wife.
    â€œYou are Mistress de Flael?” Justin asked.
    She nodded, but he realized that did not answer the question. The title mistress would serve for wife or daughter. He wished they were speaking French, where demoiselle and madame made the difference clear, but Mistress de Flael had addressed him in English and he had, of course, answered in the same language. Here in London, where the hand of the conqueror had touched only lightly because the skill of the artisans and the wealth and trading connections of the merchants had been necessary to the new rulers, English was not only the language of the majority but of a rich and powerful majority. However, French was Justin’s native tongue, and it was not necessary to be polite to those involved in murder. Besides, if witnesses had to think carefully about