Elin did not cross the scullery threshold immediately.
She set the willow basket containing Button onto the meat-block by the door, took Nell by the shoulders, and nudged her gently toward the covered delivery entryway where Master Dunstan’s apprentice was already stacking empty wooden flour trays.
“Wait there by the flour carts with young Parr, Nell,” Elin said, keeping her voice soft so the boy across the alley would not take alarm. “Keep the cloth over the basket so Button does not bite Parr’s fingers. I will be three breaths behind you.”
“Can I have a dried plum from the cart?” Nell asked, looking back over her shoulder with wide, questioning eyes.
“Two plums if you sit quietly on the wagon tongue,” Elin said. “Go now.”
The child skipped across the wet cobbles of the alley, her leather soles splashing through a shallow puddle of river gravel. Only when the girl was safely seated beside the baker’s boy did Elin turn back into the kitchen, shutting the heavy oak door until the iron latch clicked into its catch.
Jon stood by the trestle table, the small brass pocket-watch resting flat upon the grain of the wood. From beneath his collar, tucked securely into the interior lining of his wool vest where the fabric had been slit and resewn with waxed hemp thread, he withdrew a folded scrap of heavy rag vellum.
