The Winter King Read Free Page A

Lilas, however, one of those who heard her was no local man but a lord, and a member of the king’s court circle to boot. As he silently slipped away from the crowd encircling the prostrate figure on the grass, he was committing to memory every last one of her pronouncements. He had an idea that certain men of his acquaintance would be very interested to hear them.
    Nobody knew who he was. He had arrived by boat in Dover that afternoon, and was putting up overnight in the village inn, having made landfall too late in the day to complete his journey before dark. Even a wealthy, well-fed, strong lord carrying both a fine sword of Toledo steel, and a wickedly sharp dagger with which he was ruthlessly efficient, hesitated to travel by night nowadays. Especially when, for reasons best known to himself, he rode alone. Especially when, as now, he had gone to considerable effort to make himself look like any other impoverished traveller, the sword and the dagger carefully concealed from the eyes of the curious.
    He saw no reason to reveal to the sots and the slatternly serving women in the Hamhurst tavern where he had come from and where he was bound, and when a drunk in the taproom ventured to ask him, he said, with a ferocious scowl, ‘Mind your own business.’
    Retiring early to the dirty cot assigned to him in the far corner of the sleeping quarters (he kept all his clothes on, including his boots, in the hope that he would thus deter the other living things that dwelt in the bedding) he wondered if he would have done better to go on his way after all. But it had been a long day, and he was exhausted.
    His journey had begun before dawn, far away in northern France. He had been away for a long time – too long, he thought wearily – and the various tensions of the past few weeks had worn him out. He had travelled on the least-known lanes and tracks, sleeping under hedges or, at best, putting up at the sort of mean, rough, dirt-cheap tavern he was staying in that night. He had lost count of the number of days it was since he’d had access to hot water or changed his linen. He knew he stank, but comforted himself with the fact that to reek like a peasant was a good way of disguising his identity.
    His mission to France had been both dangerous and delicate, and, for both those reasons, absolutely secret. Only a handful of men knew where he had gone, and why. Those men would even now be anxiously waiting for him, desperate to know what news he brought, whether or not his mission had been a success.
    They will just have to wait another day
, the man thought sourly. He turned over on the hard, mean cot, trying to get comfortable. His stomach ached, and the throbbing inside his head did not abate even when he closed his eyes and tried to relax. He had spent too long eating bad food and, to cap it all, the violent swell in the Narrow Seas had turned his guts inside out. He had vomited almost all the way from northern France to the south of England, leaning over the rail of the small boat bobbing her way through the heavy seas and wishing, at times, that he could just die and bring the misery to an end. The inn at Hamhurst was no haven of comfort and warmth, but even such a filthy hole was better than nothing. And, if he hadn’t stopped when he did, he would not have been standing on the edge of that avid crowd of villagers when the old crone started her rant. He smiled grimly – a mere stretching of his thin lips. Perhaps some helpful deity was watching over him, keeping him from harm and ensuring that he’d been in exactly the right place at the right time …
    All things considered, he decided, yawning so hugely that he heard his jaw crack, it was far better to risk a few flea bites than sleep in some ditch. Who knew what starving wretch, driven to desperate measures by King John’s rule, might have seen his chance to kill off one more poor traveller, grabbing what he could from the corpse to sell for whatever he could