The Christmas Wassail by Kate Sedley Page A

Adela and screamed with delight whenever they were captured) there was no prospect of the tug of war which should always succeed the game.
    We were, in any case, starting to flag and even I was beginning to look forward to my bed.
    â€˜It’s your age,’ my wife said unkindly as she began herding the three older children upstairs, leaving me with Luke to entertain until such time as she could attend to him.
    I quite properly ignored this remark and carried my foster son into the parlour, where I was able to rest my ancient bones in an armchair and rock him on my knee. Tomorrow, I reflected with relief, would be St John’s Day, and he being the patron saint of booksellers and writers – and now, presumably, of those who practised this new-fangled art of printing – it was likely to prove a quiet, uneventful day. At least, so I hoped.
    But the next day, pushing my way through the Saturday morning crowds milling around the Tolzey marketplace, I felt a tap on the shoulder. Turning with a smile, expecting to see someone I knew, I was confronted by the lugubrious, bearded features of Humility Dyson, landlord of the Wayfarers’ Return in ‘Little Ireland’. He was not himself Irish – a native of Bristol born and bred, so I had been given to understand – but he was trusted by all the slavers as one of them and treated as though he were in fact an Irishman. Indeed, I believe he thought of himself as one of them and would have no more considered betraying them to the authorities than he would of cutting his own throat.
    â€˜You’re wanted,’ he said tersely, jerking his head vaguely in the direction of Marsh Street.
    â€˜Who wants me?’ I stalled, though I could guess.
    â€˜Him.’
    â€˜Who’s him?’
    â€˜You know who.’
    I sighed. This conversation could continue all day. ‘If you mean Briant of Dungarvon, why don’t you say so?’ I snapped.
    The landlord gave a start and glanced nervously around him. ‘Lower your voice,’ he growled. ‘Yes, him.’
    â€˜And what does he want me for? To stick a knife in me like he tried to do to Sir George Marvell yesterday evening?’
    He shoved me – and I am not an easy man to shove – behind one of the booths with surprising ease. His hirsute face was pushed within an inch of mine. ‘He won’t harm you. I’ll vouch for that. And if you doubt my word,’ he added belligerently, ‘I’ll twist your head round so that it’s facing the other way.’
    â€˜Very well,’ I said, considering it politic to submit. ‘Where is he?’
    â€˜The Turk’s Head.’
    This I knew to be the other ale-house in Marsh Street, also nowadays owned and run by Humility Dyson. I nodded. ‘But I’ll walk two or three paces behind you. I don’t wish to be seen in your company.’
    He accepted this readily, knowing it to be a sensible measure and one which he would have suggested himself had I not done so.
    â€˜Except,’ he amended, ‘you’ll walk two or three paces ahead of me so that you don’t decide to disappear.’
    As it happened, I was too anxious to hear what Briant had to say for himself to do anything of the kind.
    The Turk’s Head was twenty or so yards nearer the gate which opened on to the path bordering the great marsh itself than the Wayfarers’ Return, and strange to me. On the two previous occasions when I had visited Marsh Street, the Irishman had been lodging at the last named ale-house, but this time he appeared to have altered his habits. It was difficult to see why as the interior of one was very similar to the interior of the other; if anything, slightly more cramped and fetid with the stink of unwashed bodies.
    There was the usual sudden silence as I walked in, followed by a resumption of conversation as it was seen that I was accompanied by the landlord. Briant had chosen his customary dark