Heartstone

Dyrick added angrily, 'And any day she could be caught and exposed for who she really is.'

I said, 'Emma is intelligent. She will realize she cannot support herself, that she risks discovery. I think there is a chance at least that she may seek me out.'

'In London?' Hobbey asked.

'I told her I was taking her wardship, that I would leave her to decide what to make of her life.'

'Then pray God she does come to you.' Hobbey sighed, then added, 'I plan to go back to London myself, sell this wretched place and buy a small house, somewhere quiet. It will be easier for David, and I can find better help for his afflictions there.'

'Afflicted he is,' Dyrick said emphatically.

'Do you think I, of all people, do not know that?' Hobbey snapped. He turned back to me. 'I will get a good price for this house and all these woods. Sir Luke Corembeck has expressed an interest.' He turned to Dyrick, with another touch of his old sharpness. 'Make sure of the price, Vincent. I leave the negotiation to you. Whatever we make will be all David and I have to live on in the future, once—once my old debts are paid off. Master Shardlake, will you hold Emma's share if she has not returned by the time Hoyland is sold?'

'I will.'

'We'd get more if we had the village woodlands,' Dyrick grumbled.

'Well, we don't,' Hobbey said. 'Leave tomorrow, Vincent, get the negotiations moving from London. I am sick of the sight of you,' he added. Dyrick's face darkened. Hobbey turned to me. 'Master Shardlake, I want you, if you will, to see David. To reassure him you plan to say nothing of what happened to his mother.'

I nodded agreement. I still felt the responsibility of keeping that secret; I needed to see how David was.

* * *

HOBBEY AND I ascended the stairs. He walked slowly, clinging to the banister. 'Before we see David, Master Shardlake, there is something I wanted to ask you.'

'Yes?'

'I hope you are right and that Emma may come to you in London. But if she is exposed, do you think she will tell—' he winced, gripping the banister—'that David killed his mother? I believe she guessed it was him.' He stared at me intently. His first concern was still his son.

'I doubt it. From what she said in Portsmouth she feels a deep guilt for what she did to David.'

Hobbey took another step, then stopped again and looked me in the face. 'What was I doing?' he asked. 'What were we thinking of, all those years?'

'I do not believe any of you were thinking clearly, not for a long time. You were all too afraid. Except for Fulstowe, who was out to get what he could from the situation.'

Hobbey looked around the great hall, the culmination of all his ambition. 'And I was blind to how my son was becoming—deranged. I blame myself for what he did.' He sighed. 'Well, it is all over now. Dyrick tries to talk me out of leaving, but my mind is made up.'

He led me into David's room. It had a good four-poster bed, chairs and cushions, and an old tapestry on the wall showing a battle from Roman times. No books, unlike Hugh's room. David lay in the bed; he had been looking up at the ceiling, but when we came in he struggled to rise. Hobbey raised a hand.

'No, no. You will pull at your bandages.'

David fixed me with a frightened gaze. Lying there he looked like a trapped, terrified little boy, the stubble on his cheeks making him seem all the more pathetic.

'How do you fare, David?' I asked gently.

'It hurts,' he said. 'The doctor stitched me up.'

Hobbey said, 'David was brave. He did not cry out once, did you, my son?' He took a deep breath. 'Master Shardlake has come to tell you he will say nothing of what happened to your mother.'

Tears welled up in David's eyes. 'I think I was mad, sir. I shot at you and then I killed my poor mother. I seemed able to think of nothing else but shooting at people, all the time. I had to keep our secret, keep Emma with us. Even if I had to kill—' He had been talking fast, almost gabbling, but suddenly he paused, looked at me, and asked in a passionate voice, 'Sir, can God ever forgive such a sin as I have committed?'

I looked into his wild eyes. 'I am no cleric, David, but if someone truly repents, they say He will forgive even the greatest sin.'

'I pray ceaselessly, sir,' he said through his tears. 'For forgiveness and for my mother.'

'That is all you can do, David,' his father said, going forward and taking his hand. His words reminded me of what Catherine Parr had said to me a few hours ago. I looked down at the floor.

'What news of Emma?' David asked tremulously.

'Master Shardlake saw her in Portsmouth. She is truly sorry for what she did to you.'

'I deserved it,' David said. He looked at me, and I saw that even now he loved her. I shuddered to think of what had gone on in his mind these last six years, warping it utterly. 'Where is she now?' he asked.

Hobbey hesitated. 'We are not sure. But we believe her safe.'

'Will I see her again?'

'I do not think so, David. If she goes to anyone it will be Master Shardlake.'

David looked at me again. 'I loved her, you see, I loved Emma all these years.' I nodded. 'I never thought of her as Hugh. That was why, when I feared we might actually be exposed, I think—I think the devil took hold of me. But I loved her. I loved my poor mother too, I realized as soon as I had—I had killed her.' He burst out sobbing, tears streaming down his face.

Hobbey hung his head.

'I wonder—' I said. Hobbey looked at me. I hesitated, for I had brought enough nightmare cases to Guy. Yet he thrived on the most difficult patients, perhaps he even needed something like this now. And it would be a way for me to keep an eye on the Hobbeys. I said, 'If you come to London, I know a physician, a good man. He may be able to help David.'

Hobbey said eagerly, 'Might he help him walk again?'

'I cannot promise that.'

'I do not deserve to,' David burst out passionately.

I said, though again only to comfort the poor creature, 'Leave that to God.'

* * *

AN HOUR LATER Barak and I rode out of Hoyland Priory for the last time and turned on to the London road. Before I left I had done one more thing; I went into Emma's room and took the little cross from where it still lay in the drawer by the bed.

'Home,' Barak said. 'Home at last. To see my son born.' I looked at him, noticing the paunch he had begun to carry in London was gone. He followed my gaze. 'Soon have the weight back on,' he said cheerfully. 'Rest and some good beer, that'll do it.'

Yet there was a delay. We passed the turning for Rolfswood, and I had looked up the road to Sussex between the steep banks. Then a couple of miles further on we found three soldiers standing across the road, blocking it. They told us that up the road a bridge had collapsed and was being repaired. It was late in the afternoon, and the soldiers told us we would have to find somewhere to stay for the night.

Barak was angry. 'Isn't there any way we can get past? There's only two of us and my wife in London has a baby due soon.'

'Nobody goes across till the repair's completed. There are soldiers and supplies waiting to go to Portsmouth.'

Barak looked ready to argue, but I said, 'Let us make a virtue of necessity, Jack, and go to Rolfswood.'

He turned away from the soldier's stare. 'Come on, then,' he muttered, waiting till we were out of their hearing to follow the comment with a string of oaths.

* * *

ROLFSWOOD was quiet again, peaceful in the summer evening. We passed Buttress's house. 'What will you do about that rogue?' Barak asked.

'As with Priddis, I doubt there is anything I can do. If I try to raise the issue of whether he and Priddis got together to forge Ellen's signature, it just opens up the story of the rape. And I do not think that would be in anyone's interest now.'