Mistress of the Art of Death

Начало книги

Here they come. From down the road we can hear harnesses jingling and see dust rising into the warm spring sky.

Pilgrims returning after Easter in Canterbury. Tokens of the mitered, martyred Saint Thomas are pinned to cloaks and hats-the Canterbury monks must be raking it in.

They’re a pleasant interruption in the traffic of carts whose drivers and oxen are surly with fatigue from plowing and sowing. These people are well fed, noisy, exultant with the grace their journey has gained them.

But one of them, as exuberant as the rest, is a murderer of children. God’s grace will not extend to a child-killer.

The woman at the front of the procession-a big woman on a big roan mare-has a silver token pinned to her wimple. We know her. She’s the prioress of Saint Radegund’s nunnery in Cambridge. She’s talking. Loudly. Her accompanying nun, on a docile palfrey, is silent and has been able to afford only Thomas à Becket in pewter.

Читать дальше →