Episode VI

She was already awake.
He looked groggily up at her: combing her hair, already dressed, with grey morning light pouring through the opened shutter.
               “I thought you said you didn’t need to be up early?”
               “It isn’t early, Will!” She smiled. “Anyway, I ain’t surprised you slept longer than me. I ain’t gonna lie, it was you done all the heavy lifting!” She smiled again with that look of hers, arranging her hair into a bun. Trying to clear the sleep from his mind, he lay back, eyes shut, running over the events of last night, with his own little smile. He opened his eyes again and now she was sorting out her headscarf. Neither of them spoke for an awkward moment.
               “Will, I’m sorry, but you can’t come round no more.” She wasn’t smiling any more. “It’s my ’usband – he’s changed ’is mind, he don’t want me to see you no more.” He shut his eyes.
               “What – has he been speaking to that priest again?”
               “Yeah, ’ee ’as.”
               “So what, you’re dragged back into the sanctity of holy matrimony?”
               “Yeah, looks that way,” she shrugged. “Sorry.” She seemed genuinely fed up.
               “Bloody priests.”
               “Bloody priests.” They stared at each other; then William flipped his legs out of the bed and started to grab his clothes off the floor.
 
The weather wasn’t any brighter when he arrived at the rear yard behind Leonard’s bar. Climbing the rickety stairs up to his garret, William was surprised to see a familiar figured huddled in the shadows against his locked door.
               “Alright, Ricky, what are you doing here?”
               “Will, you gotta let me in, I need to lie low for a bit.” Unusually, Richard wore a worried expression on his handsome face. Nothing ever fazed him normally. William unlocked the door and Richard tumbled through, slumping down onto the single bed.
               “Come  on Rick, what’s eating you? Somebody on your tail?”
               “Bloody right they are, old boy. Here, have you got anything to drink?”
               “Afraid not, Rick. I’ll have to pop down to see Annie in a bit.”
               “Well don’t tell her it’s for me, or she’ll gob in it. In fact, don’t tell anyone I’m here.”
               “What have you done?” Richard looked at him. “Not that rich old biddy again?” Richard shook his head in reply. “What, have you swindled those two elderly gents you were talking about?”
               “Nah, it’s worse than that. I’ve really ballsed up, Will. I’m up to my ears with one of the guilds, and now they want their pound of flesh.” ...Poor old Richard; he was a good con-man, but sometimes even the best slip up. And as Richard often said, ‘there’s many a slip twixt cock and lip’.
               “How much do you owe?”
               “More than I can pay back and then some, I suspect!”
               “Sounds like you won’t have many pounds of flesh left over then!” William grinned at him; Richard failed to look any less glum. “Have they found out where you live, then?”
               “Oh yes, indeed they have dear boy, indeed they have!”
               “Right, Rich, you can stay his as long as you want. But you’ll have to pay your way by coming out for sword practice with me this morning.”
               “Sod off.”
               “Go on, Ricky. I could do with it, believe me. It’s been one of those mornings.” William started digging out his wooden practice swords.
               “But every time I ever spar with you, I get injured!”
               “Bollocks do you!”
               “It’s true! Remember that time in Florence?” Richard grumbled.   
               “There were a lot of times in Florence!”
               “The time you almost took my frigging hand off, you bastard!”
               “Alright, but if you were any good, these things wouldn’t happen, Richard, old chap! That’s why you need the practice”
               “I’m not bloody doing it.”
               “I’ll buy you a beer on the way out?” William grinned at him.
               “Three.”
               “Two.”
               “Done!”
William ferreted around in the folded clothes on top of his trunk and threw a small bundled at the sour-faced Richard.
               “Right, then put this hood on, so nobody recognises you!” He picked up a couple of wooden practice swords. “While we’re walking, we can figure out what to do with this guild trouble of yours.”