Heartstone

We entered Hobbey's study. Fulstowe's face showed relief as he saw Dyrick. Hobbey had left. 'Good morning, master steward,' Dyrick said cheerfully. 'Do not worry, I will make sure Brother Shardlake keeps to the point.' I saw the hourglass had been turned over again; the sand was just beginning to fall. Fulstowe sat, looking at me as steadily as his master had.

'Well, Fulstowe,' I began in a light tone, 'tell me how you became Master Hobbey's steward.'

'I was steward at his house in London. Before Master Hobbey came here.'

'To be a country gentleman.'

'There is no more honourable calling in England.' A touch of truculence entered Fulstowe's voice.

'You will remember when Hugh and his sister came to your master's London house six years ago. And Master Calfhill.'

'I do. My master and mistress treated those poor children as their own.'

Clearly there was no question of shaking Fulstowe's loyalty. I could not catch him out either. I questioned him for twenty minutes, and his recollections echoed those of his master. He repeated that Hugh and Emma were devoted to each other, excluding all others. He recollected little of Michael Calfhill, saying Michael held himself aloof from the rest of the household. Only once did his coolness slip, and that was when I asked about the smallpox. 'It took all three children at once,' he said. 'They must have been out together and caught it from the same person, there was much of it in London that year.' His voice wavered momentarily. 'I remember Mistress Abigail saying all the children had headaches, and felt so tired they could scarcely move. I knew what that meant.'

'Did you help care for them?'

'I carried water and clean bedclothes upstairs. The other servants were too frightened to help. The physician said they should be wrapped in red cloth to bring out the bad humours. I remember I had a job finding red cloth in London then, everyone was after it.'

'I understand Mistress Hobbey insisted on caring for David herself?'

'Yes, though she visited Hugh and Emma constantly. My mistress has never been the same since Emma died.'

'And afterwards Michael was dismissed from the household.'

'My master did not want him near Hugh any more,' Fulstowe answered. 'You must ask him why.' He inclined his head meaningfully.

'How much do you have to do with Hugh now?'

'Most of my dealings are with Master David. I am trying to teach him the running of the estate accounts.' His tone indicated he had a thankless task. 'But I look after both their wardrobes.'

'I see. What about Hugh's lands?'

'He shows little interest in them, says he will sell all when he reaches his majority. Just now he wants to join the army.'

'So you have relatively little to do with Hugh.'

'We all live in the same house. One thing I always do for both boys, since they were fourteen, is shave them. Every few days, and cut their hair too, for that is the fashion with archers. My father was a barber. Master Hugh will go to no barber for fear of being cut, given what his face and neck are like.'

'It must be a very different life for you here, Fulstowe. You are a Londoner, I think, by your voice.'

'It has taken time for us to be accepted down here. Most of the local people did not approve of the Dissolution. And the villagers suffer no master lightly.'

'Different work too. You are responsible for managing the whole estate?'

'I am. Under my master. But all trades are the same, blessed is the penny that gains two. That is my master's principle, and mine.'

'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 fucking hunchback too, to make sure we have ill luck.'