A Conspiracy of Violence by Susanna Gregory Page A

pretended to be inspecting a hare as he waited to see what would
     happen outside.
    Within moments, Leybourn appeared, looking this way and that in mounting annoyance when he realised he had lost his quarry.
     Chaloner was puzzled. Who was he? The man had certainly saved him: Bennet could not have missed at such close range, and it
     had only ever been a faint hope that he could have been out-rowed. But why had Leybourn risked himself ? Had Thurloe set a
     spy to watch a spy? But how could Thurloe have knownChaloner would end up near White Hall when he was dispatched to follow the two robbers?
    After a while, Leybourn gave up the chase and walked back the way he had come. Chaloner waited a moment, then made for the
     door. Escape, however, was not to be so easy. Blocking the exit was the largest bird he had ever seen and, unlike the other
     feathered occupants of the shop, this one was alive and looked dangerous. It fluffed up its green-brown feathers, and the
     bare skin on its neck flushed with bad temper.
    ‘Do not move,’ came a hoarse whisper from the back of the shop. ‘If you do, it will have you.’
    ‘Thomas!’ cried another voice, this one familiar. At first, Chaloner could see no one, but then he spotted his neighbour’s
     daughter, Temperance, crouching atop a cupboard and clutching her drab Puritan skirts decorously around her knees. He liked
     the nineteen-year-old, who was as tall and almost as bulky as he, but who had a kind face and gentle hazel eyes. He often
     thought that if her father had allowed her more social contact, then they might have been friends.
    ‘What are you doing there?’ he asked. It was unlike the demure Temperance to climb furniture.
    ‘I am trapped,’ she replied, although he could hear laughter in her voice. She thought her predicament amusing, unlike the
     raw terror of the first person who had spoken. ‘That bird snaps at me every time I try to reach the door. Be careful. It is
     very vicious.’
    ‘Is it a turkey?’ asked Chaloner. He had read about turkeys, and had even eaten some at a feast given by Downing in The Hague
     once, but he had never seen one alive.
    ‘It was supposed to have been delivered dead,’ camethe whisper. Chaloner looked around the shop, but still could not locate the speaker. ‘I am a
game
dealer.
Game
means someone is supposed to have shot it. How am I supposed to cope with living goods?’
    Chaloner jumped back as the bird lunged at him, beak open in an angry gape and wattles bobbling menacingly. ‘It will be dead
     soon enough if it does that again.’
    ‘Really?’ asked the voice eagerly. ‘You would be doing me a great service if you were to dispatch it. My regular patrons are
     too frightened to visit, and the damned thing is ruining me. It has been here almost a week now, and you and Miss North are
     the first customers I have seen since Tuesday. Look out! Here it comes again!’
    Chaloner took a piece of bread from his pocket – left from the meagre breakfast he had eaten while waiting to see Thurloe
     – and tossed it towards the bird, hoping to stall its relentless advance. The ugly head dropped towards the offering, then
     began to peck, flinging the bread this way and that as it broke it into manageable pieces.
    ‘It is just hungry,’ said Chaloner, watching it with pity. ‘Do you have any seed?’
    ‘I am not usually required to feed my merchandise, but I suppose I can make an exception,’ replied the voice. ‘Look in the
     cupboard behind you. There should be some barley.’
    Chaloner eased towards the chest while the bird was occupied, and found the sack of grain. He scrambled away in alarm when
     a thick neck suddenly thrust under his arm in an attempt to reach the food. The bird was a fast and silent mover. There followed
     a brief tussle, in which the turkey tried to grab the bag and Chaloner resisted. When the bird’s neck was stretched to full
     length,the snapping beak was uncomfortably close to his face, and