She was bone weary, but repugnance at the mould on the wall inches from her back and the grime on the straw mattress kept her vigilantly upright. Ribald singing boomed up from the tavern downstairs. Her head ached from it. She rubbed her temple as her eyes wandered for the third time over the same passage in the book. She glanced at the rancid candle of tallow beside the bed. It had guttered down to a thin disk. In moments it would go out. She was too angry to concentrate on reading in any case. Cromwell’s agent had failed to make the rendezvous. Whoever he was, he was supposed to have met her here by noon. Her hand traveled up between her breasts. She felt through her chemise for the leather tube suspended from a thong around her neck. The precious paper, the papal brief, was rolled inside. She had hoped to have been free of its weight—and responsibility—long before this hour. She swatted a cockroach off the mattress. Curse this man of Cromwell’s. What had gone wrong? There was a drunken whoop of laughter from below, then a renewed roar of singing.
