Heartstone (Matthew Shardlake #5)(9)

‘Nothing, not really. Ellen, do you really want to stay here for the rest of your life?’ I hesitated, then asked, ‘What would happen if whoever pays your fees were to stop?’

She tensed. ‘I cannot speak of it. You know that. It upsets me beyond bearing.’

‘Do you think Shawms would then let you stay out of charity?’

She flinched a little, then said with spirit, looking me in the face, ‘You know I help him with the patients. I am good with them. He would keep me on. It is all I want from life, that and – ’ She turned away, and I saw tears in the corner of her eyes.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘All right.’ I stood up and forced a smile.

Ellen smiled too, brightly. ‘What news of Barak’s wife?’ she asked. ‘When is her baby due?’



I LEFT HER half an hour later, promising to be back within two weeks – within two weeks, not in two weeks, she had nudged our bargain in her favour again.

Hob Gebons was waiting for me in Shawms’s untidy little office, sitting on a stool behind the desk, hands folded over his greasy jerkin. ‘Had a good visit, sir?’ he asked.

I closed the door. ‘Ellen was as usual.’ I looked at him. ‘How long is it she’s been here now? Nineteen years? The rules say a patient can only stay in the Bedlam a year, and they’re supposed to be cured within that time.’

‘If they pay, they stay. Unless they make a lot of trouble. And Ellen Fettiplace don’t.’

I hesitated a moment. But I had made up my mind: I had to find out who her family were. I opened my purse, held up a gold half angel, one of the old coins. It was a large bribe. ‘Who pays Ellen’s fees, Hob? Who is it?’

He shook his head firmly. ‘You know I can’t tell you that.’

‘All the time I’ve been visiting her, all I’ve learned is that she was attacked and raped when she was in her teens, down in Sussex. I’ve learned where she lived too – a place called Rolfswood.’

Gebons stared at me through narrowed eyes. ‘How did you find that out?’ he asked quietly.

‘One day I was telling her about my father’s farm near Lichfield, and mentioned the great winter floods of 1524. She said, “I was a girl then. I remember at Rolfswood …” Then she clammed up and would say no more. But I asked around and discovered Rolfswood is a small town in the Sussex iron country, near the Hampshire border. Ellen won’t say anything else though, about her family or what happened to her.’ I stared at Gebons. ‘Was it someone from her family that attacked her? Is that why they never visit?’

Hob looked at the coin I still held up, then at me. ‘I can’t help you, sir,’ he said slowly and firmly. ‘Master Shawms is very particular about us not asking anything about Ellen’s background.’

‘He must have records.’ I nodded at the desk. ‘Maybe in there.’

‘It’s locked, and I’m not going to be the one to break it open.’

I had to get out of this tangle somehow. ‘How much is it worth, Hob?’ I asked. ‘Name your price.’

‘Can you pay me what it would cost to keep me the rest of my life?’ he said with sudden anger, his face growing red. ‘Because if I found out and told you, they’d trace it back to me. Shawms keeps that story close and that means he’s under instructions from above. From Warden Metwys. I’d be out. I’m not going to lose the roof over my head and a job that feeds me and gives me a bit of authority in a world which is not kind to poor men.’ Hob slapped the bunch of keys at his belt for emphasis, making them jingle. ‘All because you haven’t the heart to tell Ellen she’s foolish to think you’ll ever bed her in that room. Don’t you think everyone here knows of her mad fancy for you?’ he asked impatiently. ‘Don’t you realize it’s a joke up and down the Bedlam?’

I felt myself flush. ‘That’s not what she wants. How could she, after what happened to her?’

He shrugged again. ‘That only makes some women keener, from what I’m told. What else do you think she’s after?’

‘I don’t know. Some fantasy of courtly love perhaps.’

He laughed. ‘That’s an educated way of putting it. Tell her you’re not interested. Make life easier for yourself and everyone else.’

‘I can’t do that, it would be cruel. I need to find some way out of this, Hob. I need to know who her family are.’

‘I’m sure lawyers have ways of finding things out.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘She is mad, you know. It’s not just the refusing to go out. All these fake illnesses, and you can hear her crying and muttering to herself in that room at night. If you want my advice you should just walk away and not come back. Send that man of yours with a message that you’re married, or dead, or gone to fight the French.’

I realized that in his own way Gebons was trying to advise me for the best. My best, though, not Ellen’s. Ellen mattered nothing to him.

‘What would happen to her if I did that?’

He shrugged. ‘She’d get worse. But if you don’t tell her, she will anyway. Your way is just more drawn out.’ He looked at me shrewdly. ‘Perhaps you’re afraid of telling her.’

‘Mind your place, Gebons,’ I said sharply.