Tasters 20

'Well, boyo. You want to hang your fellow kind?'

'Er, no,' Simon stammered. 'To be precise, sir, I don't want to hang anyone but I am poor and starving.'

'Sixpence a week,' Shadbolt replied. 'A shilling on execution day. You also get, though not as fine as this, jerkins, leggings, boots and a war belt as well as a stipend at Christmas, Easter and midsummer. The council expect you to to be law-abiding, not to get drunk in office and carry out your duties faithfully. What do you say, Simon Cotterill, carpenter?'

Merry Face, Flyhead and Friar Martin were all looking at him curiously, as if assessing his true worth. Shadbolt drew a knife and, before Simon could flinch, cut him lightly on the little finger of his left hand. The blood trickled out on the table.

'Do you swear to be one of our company? Day and night, in fair weather and foul?'

'I swear!' Simon replied.

Was Christopher Columbus actually an agent for the Knights Templar? Had he been a pirate before working for the Spanish Crown? Had he assumed the identity of an Italian wool merchant to hide his real identity? Was he a red-haired Jewish sea captain who had been to Iceland? Had some of his Portuguese crew been across the Atlantic before? Is it possible that Columbus knew perfectly well that he would reach a New World by traversing the Atlantic, rather than negotiating a new route to China, which was the purpose he gave the Spanish royalty for his voyage?

The door stood ajar. Lascelles held the torch before him, illuminating the room. It was so small as to be crowded with two pallets, a table, two chairs and a chest. And someone lying in a heap beneath the high window, one hand stretched towards the wall.

Owen recognised the squirrel lining on the wool cloak. 'Father Edern.'

Lascelles glanced back at Owen. 'How do you know?'

'The cloak.'

'God is merciful,' Lascelles whispered.

'I see nothing for which to be grateful,' Owen muttered.

Lascelles stepped to one side of the doorway and nodded at Owen. 'You have spoken of working with th Duke's surgeons in the field, Captain. Perhaps you should examine the body.'

'You are certain he is dead?'

'That is what the servant reported.'

'Young fools often fright at a person in a faint.' Reluctantly, Owen knelt beside the body. The cloak had fallen over Edern's head. He might have fainted, passed out after a long day of drinking - all was yet possible. But the lack of a snore, a moan, a movement of any kind since they had shined the torch on him, and the stench of blood. Owen hesitated. Once the hood was drawn back, the worst would be known. He might be accustomed to death, but one death did not make the next encounter easier. Death dragged one's soul towards despair. Owen said a prayer for Edern, a man he had come to like, then drew back the hood.

'What is this?'

Lascelles came closer. 'What?'

'Perhaps you will not think God so merciful after all. This is Father Francis, not Edern.'

'In Edern's cloak?'

Which was one of those seeming coincidences that Owen ever distrusted.