The Traitor's Blade by Kevin Sands (fiction books to read .TXT) 📕

The long stretch of the nave, called Paul’s Walk, had become something of a market, too, with merchants of all kinds doing business between the giant pillars that rose to the arched roof high above us. Others hung about, trading in the latest gossip of the city.

I shook my head. The last time I’d been here, I’d thought Saint Paul’s something special. But after seeing Notre-Dame in Paris, I found myself ashamed of this place. Tom, devout and full of English pride, seemed particularly embarrassed, and even a little cross. He muttered under his breath at the merchants; the ones who caught the look in his eyes found somewhere else to be.

Well, we weren’t here for worship, anyway. I found a boy sweeping the mud tracked in by visitors and asked him for Saint Erkenwald’s tomb.

“Round the chancel, my lord,” he said. “Directly behind the altar.”

We went up one dais, then another, into the chancel. Here were the first people we saw actually praying, or visiting the shrines, monuments, and tombs of those interred in the church. Past the chancel, on the eastern side, were three chapels, dedicated to Mary, Saint George, and Saint Dunstan. Hallowed halls, indeed.

Tom pointed. “There it is.” Right up against the divider that separated the chapels from the chancel was Saint Erkenwald’s resting place.

His tomb was a long, flat-topped burial vault. Behind it, against the divider, was a carved stone image of the side of some cathedral, all pillars, arches, and windows. The area was fenced off by a wrought-iron rail, topped with iron fleurs-de-lis. The rail was low enough that pilgrims could place offerings on the tomb. There were a few already: a pouch, knotted with rope; a silver shilling; a seashell, polished to gleaming.

And there was something else, too.

“Look.”

Next to the shilling was a bunch of pale yellow, five-petaled flowers. Their long, slender stems were tied together with string.

“Those are primroses,” I said.

Tom was proud his guess had turned out to be correct. “What now?”

The riddle said pray upon his grave. Were we meant to take that literally?

There were several people praying there already. I moved closer, trying not to make it obvious I was looking them over. As far as I could tell, they seemed to be ordinary pilgrims. As for the primroses—

There.

I nudged Tom. Deep among the pale yellow flowers, someone had tucked a paper, folded tight. “That must be what we’re looking for,” I whispered, and I stepped toward the rail.

Tom yanked me back by my collar.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he said.

“Taking the primroses,” I said, puzzled.

“You can’t steal flowers from Saint Erkenwald.”

“I’m not. Those flowers were meant for us. Look, there’s a note and everything—”

He yanked me back again.

“I let you get away with a lot of things,” Tom said. “I even let you steal a painting from the Louvre—”

“We swapped a painting from the Louvre,” I protested.

“—but I am not letting you rob a saint!”

“I told you: It’s not robbing if it’s meant for us. Look, I’ll just grab the note—will you please let go?”

Tom kept his fingers wrapped firmly around my collar. “And what do you imagine will happen,” he said, “when everyone sees you take something from the grave?”

That was a fair point. There were plenty of faithful around. If they saw me reach over and grab the flowers, they might think I was a thief. I’d end up with a good thumping—if I was lucky.

“So what am I supposed to do?” I said.

Tom didn’t have an answer for that. “I suppose we could wait until no one’s watching.”

“With this crowd? We could be here till midnight. What we need is a distraction.”

“Oh no,” Tom said.

I snapped my fingers. “That’s it.”

“Oh no.”

“Fireworks!” I said. “I still have two of them in my sash.”

Tom stared at me. “You want to shoot fireworks… at Saint Erkenwald?”

“Not at—how little you think of me,” I said, genuinely offended.

“It’s not like I don’t have good reason.”

“Name one time I set fire to a saint.”

“You burned down the king’s carriage!”

“That’s not a saint! And it was an accident! Are you ever going to let that go?”

“Let it go? It happened yesterday!”

“Always stuck in the past, you are.”

“You’re the one talking about fireworks!”

“Outside,” I said. “I was going to say we shoot them outside.”

That mollified Tom a bit. Still, he said, “What would that do? No one will see them in the cathedral. Were you going to announce it? ‘Hey, everyone, stop praying and come see the show?’ ”

He was irritating me—even more so because he had a point. “Fine. Let me think of something else.”

“I’m just saying the answer doesn’t always have to be fire.”

I glared at him before turning back to the pilgrims. I couldn’t think of anything that would draw their attention away from the tomb—at least nothing Tom would let me do.

If I couldn’t distract them, then I’d need some way of getting to the vault without them noticing what I was doing. Some of the pilgrims had left offerings. Maybe if I did the same?

I stared at the primroses on the tomb. “That’s it,” I said.

“What is?”

“I have an idea.”

“Oh no,” Tom said.

I stormed out of the church.

CHAPTER

28

I STOPPED AT THE ENTRANCE, looking around.

“Where are you going?” Tom said.

“I’m looking for… there. Come on.”

We hurried past the preachers to the edge of the cathedral grounds, where booksellers touted their wares to passersby. Beside them, huddled in worn clothes, was a girl of about ten. A quartet of baskets lay at her feet, full of flowers.

“Cooee!” she called. “Flowers, o! Flowers, o! Flowers!” As she saw Tom and me approach, her face, thin and gaunt, turned hopeful. “Flowers, my lord? Handpicked.”

I scanned her baskets for pale yellow. Sure enough, she had a few primroses. “Did anyone buy some of those today?”

“No one, my lord.” She sounded resigned. “It’s hard going, even with the sickness gone. Haven’t sold anything for three days now.”

The girl’s hands were red from the chill,