‘Do? There’s nothing to do, John. You are ever welcome here, for the best food and ale in Exeter.’ Her eyes flicked to the wide steps that led to the upper floor as if to say, ‘But not up there.’
They talked a little longer, in lower tones as the inn began to fill with customers, many of whom grew flapping ears when they saw Nesta and de Wolfe together again. But their conversation seemed to grow more stilted, as if a barrier was slowly descending between them, like a portcullis over a gate.
When one of the maids called her away to attend to some urgent problem in the kitchen hut, John rose slowly and, with dragging feet, walked to the door. As he left he, too, looked at the ladder up to Nesta’s room and his French bed, wondering what had gone on up there during the past few weeks.
Sadly, he decided it was one of the things he was never destined to know, along with the true identity of Walter Knapman’s killer.
Footnotes
Chapter Four
1 now Preston Street.
Chapter Seven
1 now Gandy Lane.
Chapter Fifteen
1 This Commission materialised in 1198, when William de Wrotham became Sheriff and Lord Warden
The Tinner's Corpse Page 31
