The Black Book of Secrets Read Online Free Page B

cheated by Joe Zabbidou.’
    For a moment there was silence and then generous
applause. Joe took a bow and smiled at his audience. ‘Thank
you,’ he said as they came forward to shake his hand.
    ‘You’re very kind.’

    Inside Ludlow jerked awake from a dream in which he was
being pricked with a thousand tiny needles. He sat up to
find that the fire had been revived and one of the logs was
spitting, sending burning sparks on to his cheeks. Joe was
nowhere to be seen, but there was bread and milk on the
table, and a jug of beer, and Ludlow realized that he was
very hungry. He drank some frothy milk and ate a thick slice
of warm bread. He sat back, satisfied, but not for long.
Hearing the commotion outside he went to the door to have
a look.
    Joe was still shaking hands with the villagers. When he
saw Ludlow he nodded in the direction of the crowd, who
were milling around, loath to leave this object of curiosity.
Joe’s arrival was an exciting event for Pagus Parvians. Few
strangers ever came to their village.
    And a pity they don’t, thought Joe as he scanned the
eager faces in front of him. There was that hook nose again
and again, those close-set narrow eyes, the crooked
smiles, each in a different combination on a different
countenance.
    This place could do with some new blood, he thought.
Then out loud to Ludlow he said, ‘Quite a welcome, eh,
Ludlow?’
    He turned back to his audience and continued to greet
them while Ludlow wondered idly if any had a pocket
worth picking.

 
    Chapter Seven

The Morning After
    Halfway down the street, Jeremiah Ratchet was suffering
from his escapades of the night before. He had woken with
a pounding headache and a raw stomach.
    ‘Cheap ale,’ he grumbled. ‘I don’t know why I drink in
that foul stinking city.’
    But of course he did know. He went there because he
didn’t trust the tavern owners in Pagus Parvus to serve him
a decent quart. The one time he had gone into the Pickled
Trout at the bottom of the hill he couldn’t quite rid himself
of the suspicion that the landlord, Benjamin Tup, had spat
in his ale. But the accusation didn’t go down very well.
Besides, he despised the other drinkers, most of whom
were in his debt. Jeremiah was happy to take their moneybut he preferred not to drink with them. And the feeling
was mutual.
    So Jeremiah went instead to the City, where he sought
entertainment in the Nimble Finger Inn on the bridge over
the River Foedus. There he drank wine and beer, smoked
fat cigars and played cards until the early hours with a
motley bunch of fellows: thieves and gamblers, resurrectionists
and undoubtedly a murderer or two. Although he
would never admit it, he felt quite at home in the Nimble
Finger.
    Jeremiah groaned again when he remembered he had
lost a considerable sum of money at the card table.
    There’s nothing for it, he thought. The rents’ll have to
go up.
    Jeremiah liked simple solutions to problems, and rent
increases seemed to solve most of his. He did not care about
the trouble this caused his tenants. He turned over in bed,
but his attempts to sleep again were thwarted by the foul
air that wafted up from under the blankets.
    Too many onions, he thought as he flung back the curtain
and swung his legs over the side. He squinted in the
daylight and only then became aware of the noise out on
the street. He stumbled and belched his way over to thewindow to see crowds of people making their way up the
hill.
    ‘Polly!’ he shouted. ‘Polly!’
    ‘Yes, sir,’ she answered, jumping to her feet, for she was
only over by the hearth stoking the fire and thinking about
the boy with the green eyes she had seen the night before.
    ‘What’s all this noise? A man can’t sleep with the
racket.’
    ‘I believe that the hat shop has been occupied, sir.’
    ‘By a hatter?’ Jeremiah loved to wear a hat, the higher
the better. He felt it was a physical measure of his importance.
It also gave him the appearance of being taller, for
what he