New Blood From Old Bones (28 page)

‘Ah! As to that,' said Will recklessly, ‘I'll make you a promise. We'll go to Lynn horse fair, and I'll buy you whichever mount you choose, up to the quality of my own. But first—'

‘First? Ha! I might have known there'd be something in the way.'

‘First, you must ride to London and bring me back some of my law books. I'll give you a letter to take to Gray's Inn. And as an earnest of my pledge, you shall borrow my own horse for the journey. How say you?'

Ned looked at his master suspiciously. ‘How do I know you won't trick me over my new mount?'

‘How do I know you'll ever return from London?'

They were still arguing when the great bell of the priory began a solemn tolling, as preface to the Requiem Mass for Dom Arnold, sub-prior of Castleacre. The sub-prior – news of whose death had spread the previous evening from the priory to the precinct and from the precinct to the town – had died, it was said, by accident, as a result of a fall while going about his duties. And no-one who knew the truth would speak of it, for in 1530 the church was still the greatest power in the land, as King Henry and his mistress Anne Boleyn had cause to know.

First published in 1998 by Constable

This edition published 2012 by Bello an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR Basingstoke and Oxford Associated companies throughout the world

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ISBN 978-1-4472-2672-7 EPUB
ISBN 978-1-4472-2671-0 POD

Copyright © Sheila Radley, 1998

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