The Abbot's Gibbet
A Knights Templar Mystery
Chapter One
The sun was almost unbearably hot, the journey distinctly uncomfortable. Arthur Pole wiped his face with the hem of his cloak to clear the fine dust that rose from the road in thin clouds as hooves and cartwheels stirred it.
"Is it far now, Arthur?"
Marion, his wife, was a few yards behind him on her new mare. An amblere, it was trained to give a lady a smooth ride, swinging first the legs of one side of its body, then the other, always moving left together, then right. It had been ruinously expensive, for training a horse in such a gait was difficult, but the gift was necessary to compensate her for having to make this journey at the height of the humid summer heat.
"Not far, dear," he said. "Would you like to halt and refresh yourself? We have wine, if . . ."
"Father, if you give her any more of your wine, Mother won't be able to stay on her horse," his daughter called cheerfully.
Arthur stifled a smile as his wife snapped back waspishly. After two days travelling fro ... read full excerpt from Abbot's Gibbet, The ebook
