C.J. Sansom - Heartstone

At one point a post rider in royal colours passed us, and for once it was the soldiers' turn to pull aside. Barak's eyes followed the rider as he disappeared in a cloud of dust; I guessed he was wondering when a letter might come from Tamasin. He gave me a quizzical look. Last night he had noticed my agitated state on my return to our room, but had seemed to believe me when I said I was only chilled from my soaking. I remembered the fireback and suppressed a shiver. It had been an extraordinary thing to see just when I had been thinking of abandoning my investigations into Ellen's past. I did not believe in omens, but it had unsettled me deeply.

Towards six we halted again outside a field. As on previous evenings a local man had been posted to wait for us, a pile of brushwood beside him for the soldiers' bedding. The drummer had sounded a slow, steady beat for the last hour, for the men were tired. Looking ahead to the front of the column, I saw that Leacon's shoulders were held tight, his head hunched down. He spoke to the man by the field, ordered Snodin to lead the men in, then rode back to us.

'I am afraid, gentlemen, you must spend the evening in camp. We are outside Buriton: the man tells me it is full to bursting with travellers and carters. No chance of a place at the inn.'

'You mean we'll have to sleep in this field?' Dyrick asked in outraged tones.

'You can sleep in the roadway of you like, sir,' Leacon answered shortly, 'but I will offer you a place in our camp if you wish.'

'We should be grateful,' I said.

'I will see if I can find a tent for you.' Leacon nodded to me and rode off. Dyrick grunted. 'We should arrive at Hoyland tomorrow morning, with luck. I'll be glad to get away from these stinking soldiers.'

'And you were telling me how you sprang from common stock, Brother Dyrick. After this journey we all stink the same.'

AN HOUR LATER I sat on the tussocky grass outside our tent, massaging my tired legs. Blankets had been provided from the carts, but it would be a hard night lying on the earth. I was glad the journey was nearly over; I had found the fast, steady pace increasingly taxing.

I looked across the tented camp. The sun was setting, the men sitting in little groups around their tents, some of them mending their jacks. I was impressed anew by the skilled organization of the company. On the edge of the field I saw Dyrick walking slowly with Sir Franklin, the older man limping. I had noticed Dyrick took whatever chance arose to talk to him, though he ignored Leacon. No more determined social climber than a new man, I thought. Perhaps this characteristic had drawn him to Nicholas Hobbey; like attracting like.

Leacon was walking from group to group, stopping for a word with the men. Unlike Sir Franklin he made a point of being with the soldiers, listening to their complaints. Snodin, I saw, was sitting in front of a tent on his own, drinking slowly and steadily from a large flagon of beer, frowning at anyone who looked at him. On the edge of the field Barak sat round a campfire with a dozen soldiers from the rearward section. I envied his ease with the young men; since the encounter in the village most had been pleasant enough to me, but with the cautious reserve due to a gentleman. Carswell, the corporal, was there with the Welsh boy Llewellyn. I had noticed the two seemed to be friends, though they were quite unalike: young Llewellyn was a fine lad but with little humour, while Carswell was brimming with it. But every jester needs his foil. Sulyard, the troublemaker, was sitting there, wearing his brightly dyed brigandyne. He cuffed his neighbour on the head and spoke, in loud slurred tones I could hear across the field.

'You call me master.'

'Piss off, you lumpish puttock!'

I decided to go and join them; I still liked to keep an eye on Barak when there was drink around, for all he would call me an old hen, and I had a couple of questions for Llewellyn.

As I crossed the field, I noticed Feaveryear sitting with Pygeon outside a tent. That poor young fellow, how his ears stuck out. Feaveryear was talking animatedly, though Pygeon was carving something on his knife handle, peering at it closely in the fading light. As I watched, Feaveryear got up and walked away. Pygeon gave me a hostile look.

'Have you come to convert me too, sir?'

'I do not know what you mean, fellow.'

'Yonder clerk would have me deny the blood of Christ is in the Eucharist. He should be careful, men have been burned for less. We cleave to the old ways in Harefield.'

I sighed. If Feaveryear was starting to preach his radical views to the soldiers, it was as well we would part company with them on the morrow. 'No, Pygeon,' I said. 'I am no preacher of any doctrine.' He grunted and returned to his carving. The knife was one of the long ones carried by all the soldiers, serviceable equally as tool and weapon. I saw what he was carving, MARY SAVE OUR SOULS, in lettering of remarkable intricacy and skill.

'That is well done,' I said.

'I look to the Virgin to save us if we come to battle.'

'I am going to join the men by the fire,' I said. 'Will you come?'

Pygeon shook his head and bent again to his carving. I wondered if he feared more mockery from Sulyard. I went across to the fire, lowering myself gingerly to the earth next to Llewellyn and Carswell. I saw the men were slowly roasting a couple of rabbits and a chicken.

'A mug of beer, sir?' Carswell offered. I took it and glanced at Barak, but he was deep in conversation with some of the other men.

'Thank you. What are you cooking? If you've been poaching you had best make sure Captain Giffard does not see you.'

He laughed. 'The local man said we could hunt some rabbits. There's too many of them round here, they're eating the crops. Some of the men had a little practice with their bows in the woods.'

'That looks like a chicken. Not taken from some farm, I hope.'

'No, sir,' Carswell answered, his face suddenly solemn. His features, unremarkable enough, had the mobility of a comic. 'That's a type of rabbit they have down here.'

'It's got wings.'

'Strange place, Hampshire.'

I laughed, then turned to Llewellyn. 'There is something I would ask you,' I said, in a low voice so Barak would not hear.

'Yes, sir?'

'You spoke yesterday about the ironworks in the Weald. What is the difference between the new furnaces and the old ones—the bloomeries, I believe they are called.'

'The new blast furnaces are much bigger, sir, and the iron comes out molten, rather than in a soft lump. The blast furnaces cast it into prepared moulds. They have started to mould cannon.'

'Is it true the bloomeries do not operate in summer?'

'Yes. They mostly employ local people who work the fields in summer and the foundries in winter. While the new furnaces often have dozens of men who work all year round.'

'So a bloomery furnace is empty all summer?'

'Probably they would have a man there to keep an eye on things, taking supplies of charcoal and the like ready for the winter.'

I saw Barak looking across at me. 'Thank you, Llewellyn,' I said.

'Thinking of leaving the law for the iron trade, sir?' Carswell called after me as I went to sit next to Barak. The light was fading fast, and an extraordinary number of moths had appeared, grey-white shapes wheeling and circling in the dusk.

BARAK LOOKED AT me shrewdly. 'What were you muttering to Llewellyn about? Wouldn't be anything to do with Ellen, would it?'

'Let's concentrate on Hugh Curteys for now,' I answered snappishly.

'You've found where Rolfswood is, haven't you? You're going to go there and nose around if you get the chance.'

'I'll have to see.'

'I think you should leave well alone.'