[Roger the Chapman 04] - The Holy Innocents by Kate Sedley Page A

hung all around with blue silk draperies. A rich green damask coverlet was draped over what proved, on examination, to be a goose-feather mattress, and the walls were painted with an intricate pattern in red and white which could only have been done at considerable cost and by a skilled craftsman. There were two beautifully carved clothes chests, one supporting a six-branched pewter candelabra, bearing the stumps of pure wax candles, while the floor was still scattered with rushes and dried herbs, now brittle and brown with age. A curtain, drawn across one corner of the room, concealed two chamber-pots and a bathtub.
    This room opened on to a short, narrow passage, dark and airless, which offered me the choice of two doors. I opened the one leading to the front of the house, and found myself in the upstairs parlour from one corner of which the stairs twisted down to the lower floor. Three walls were hung with tapestries, now rubbed and faded with age, but once bright with brilliant, jewel-like colours. Their fabric, however, was still intact and I guessed, from knowledge gathered on my journeyings, that they came originally from France. One depicted Tobias being greeted by the angel, Azarias; another showed Judith holding up the bleeding, severed head of Holofernes; the third told the story of Gideon overcoming the Midianites. The roof beams were painted scarlet, blue and green, their ends fashioned into the figures of saints.
    The wide stone hearth and chimney stood directly above that of the lower parlour, and the overmantel was even more elaborately carved and coloured than the one downstairs, Indeed, table, chairs, stools and cupboards all displayed superior craftsmanship to the furnishings below. Two rugs on the floor, and glass in the upper half of the windows, were yet further intimations of wealth and luxury.
    Having looked my fill, I stepped back into the passage where, with a mere stretch of my arm, I was able to open the second door and enter the other bedchamber. This was furnished in similar fashion to its fellow, but the bed curtains and covering were of unbleached linen, and the mattress I found upon investigation to be stuffed with flock. A ewer and basin stood on top of a clothes chest, and the candleholder contained only a rushlight. A truckle-bed, supporting a palliasse, a rough linen sheet and a couple of coarse woollen blankets, stood alongside the four-poster, evidence that a second or third person had shared the room, most obviously a servant. The window panes were of oiled parchment nailed do the wooden frame, and one of the shutters, folded back against the wall, was in danger of coming loose from its hinges. Not a room on which care or time had been lavished.
    As I turned to go, a floorboard creaked beneath my feet and the noise made me jump. I realized for the fast time how deserted the house felt, how eerily silent. Fear pricked along my spine and I began to sweat, aware of the presence of evil.
    It was here, in this room, all around me. The hair rose on the nape of my neck and my skin took on the appearance of goose-flesh. I was icily cold and searingly hot at one and the same moment. My legs were giving way beneath me, I felt unable to breathe and I was perilously close to losing my senses ...
    The terror passed. Propped against the door, my hands clammy with sweat, I was nevertheless breathing naturally and my surroundings appeared perfectly normal. There was nothing and no one here, except myself; and I felt deeply ashamed of my sudden burst of panic. I needed food: it was some hours now since I had eaten my pies down by St Peter's Quay, and my stomach was crying out for more sustenance.
    Pulling myself together, I went back to the parlour and descended the stairs to the lower floor. I had seen everything there was to see of my temporary lodgings, and apart from the highly improbable threat of attack from the outlaws, there was nothing to be afraid of. I told myself firmly that what I had