Heartstone (Matthew Shardlake #5)(78)

‘That I can believe.’ I smiled. ‘Well, that is all, I think. For now,’ I added once again.



ABIGAIL, Dyrick told me, was still ill with a sick headache; they came on her often and sometimes lasted all day. In my room I changed into lighter clothes, then wrote a reply to Warner, asking him to let me know as soon as he had news of Hobbey’s affairs. I also mentioned that I had seen Richard Rich on the journey south. Then I ate lunch with Dyrick, who spent the meal telling me how honest Hobbey and Fulstowe had shown themselves. The boys, he said, would not be back till late afternoon. I left the house, taking my copy of the estate plan which I had brought, and made my way round to Barak’s quarters. He gave me a letter he had just written to Tamasin.

‘What say you we take a look at Hoyland village?’ I asked.

‘Dyrick won’t like that. He’ll think you’re suborning the villagers against their master.’ His tone was curt; he was still annoyed with me for not taking him to Rolfswood.

‘To the devil with Dyrick. Come on.’

‘All right. Feaveryear has just left me. He was going over our notes of the depositions, trying to change things here and there. I wouldn’t be surprised if his master told him to make difficulties for the sake of it.’

‘Then you need some air.’

As we walked round to the gates I glanced over at Abigail’s garden, where a servant knelt weeding, noting how much effort she had made in choosing the pretty combinations of flowers. I also noticed the flower beds were designed to form a large H, for Hobbey.

We passed through the gates and followed a dusty path. To one side was a meadow where sheep and a few cattle grazed; I saw the familiar raised shape of a butts there, and wondered how Leacon and the soldiers were faring in Portsmouth. On the other side of the road dense woodland began.

‘Whose woods are those?’ Barak asked.

I consulted the plan. ‘Hobbey’s. And that meadow belongs to the village. What did you think of Fulstowe’s testimony, by the way?’

‘Rehearsed, like his master’s.’

‘I agree. I wonder if that was why they let us sleep in this morning, to give Dyrick more time to brief them. Well, I have left the door open, to come back with more questions. Ones they can’t rehearse.’

We had now passed into a cultivated area, fields divided into wide ploughed strips where men and women and children were busy working. I thought of my own ancestors, generation upon generation of men and women who had spent their lives in hard labour in the fields. Some of the villagers looked up at us. ‘Hard work this hot day,’ Barak called out cheerfully. They lowered their heads without replying.

We arrived at Hoyland village. Perhaps twenty-five thatched houses straggled along the street. Many were small, little more than one-storey wattle and daub cottages where both people and animals would sleep. A few, though, were larger, with a second storey, and there were a couple of good timber-framed dwellings. Old people and children were working in some of the vegetable patches out front. Again they gave us cold stares, and at one house three children ran inside at our approach.

We had reached the centre of the village. The door of a large building was open, revealing a smith working at his forge, hammering something on his anvil. Coals in the furnace glowed richly red, shimmering in a heat haze. I thought of young Tom Llewellyn.

‘The welcoming party’s coming,’ Barak said quietly.

Three men were walking up the street towards us, all powerfully built, their expressions hostile. Two wore coarse smocks, but the third had a leather jerkin and good woollen hose. He was in his thirties, with a hard, square face, brown hair and keen blue eyes. He stopped a few feet away.

‘What’s your business, strangers?’ he asked in a broad Hampshire burr.

‘We are guests at Hoyland Priory,’ I answered mildly. ‘Out for a walk.’

‘Listen to him, Master Ettis,’ another said. ‘I told you.’

Ettis stepped forward. ‘Not too close, fellow,’ Barak warned, placing a hand on his dagger.

‘Are you the lawyers?’ Ettis asked bluntly.

‘I am a lawyer,’ I answered. ‘Master Shardlake.’

‘See,’ the other said. ‘He’s come to do us out of the commons. A f*cking hunchback too, to make sure we have ill luck.’

Ettis stared at me. ‘Well? Is that why you’re here? You should know the men of Hoyland fear no lawyers. If you try to cheat us out of our land we’ll go to the Court of Requests. We have friends in other villages that have protected their rights. And if Master Hobbey’s tree-fellers come on our commons again we’ll stop them.’

‘That is not my business. I am sent by the Court of Wards to enquire into the welfare of Master Curteys.’

‘He means the pocky lad,’ Ettis’s confederate said.

Ettis continued studying us. ‘I heard there were two lawyers at the priory.’

‘Master Hobbey’s own lawyer is here too. On the same business as I.’ I paused and looked at him meaningfully. ‘That is not to say he does not have other business too, but I am no part of that.’

Ettis nodded slowly. ‘Your interest is only with Master Curteys?’

‘Yes. Do you know him?’

He shook his head. ‘He doesn’t come here. Master David comes sometimes, with his childish airs and graces that would make my old cow laugh.’