C.J. Sansom - Heartstone

'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.'

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.'

'I understand some people from the village work as servants at the house.'

'Some. Most care not to.'

'The servants seem reluctant to speak to us,' I said. 'A pity. Exchanges of information can be useful. Master Hobbey's lawyer's name, by the way, is Vincent Dyrick.'

'Leonard Ettis. Yeoman of this village.'

'Be assured we mean you no harm. We will go back now. But perhaps we might walk this way again, and talk some more?'

'Maybe,' Ettis answered non-committally.

We turned back the way we had come. Barak glanced over his shoulder. 'They're still watching us.'

'They're frightened and angry. They need their commons for grazing and wood.' I smiled. 'But they have a leader, and they know about the Court of Requests. Hobbey and Dyrick will have a fight on their hands.'

'You could have told them that you work there. That would get them on our side.'

'I don't want to anger Hobbey and Dyrick unnecessarily. Not yet. Now come, Hugh should be back soon.'

WE WENT BACK to the house to find the boys had just returned. Two servants were leading their horses away. Hugh and David stood in front of the entrance, showing their hawks to Feaveryear. Each held one of the big greyhounds on a leash; as Barak and I approached, the dogs sniffed the air. David's dog growled and he jerked its leash. 'Quiet, Ajax.'

Feaveryear was looking with fascination at the speckled plumage of the bird Hugh held at the end of his extended arm. The hawk turned fierce eyes on us, the bells on the jesses securing it to Hugh's gloved hand jingling. Hugh laid his other hand lightly on its back. 'Tush, Jenny, tush.' David had a bag slung over his shoulder, from which a little blood dripped.

'Good catch?' I asked him.

'A brace of plump wood pigeons, and three pheasants. We caught the pigeons on the wing,' he added impressively, his heavy features lighting up. 'A goodly feast for dinner, eh, Hugh?' It struck me David Hobbey seemed very young for eighteen. I remembered the villagers talking of his childish airs and graces.

'It would have been four had your Ajax not half-eaten the one he fetched,' Hugh said.

Feaveryear held out his hand to Hugh's bird. He smiled, his thin face full of wonder. 'Not too close, Master Feaveryear,' Hugh warned. 'She will tolerate none but me.' The hawk flapped its wings and screeched, and Feaveryear jumped back hastily. He tripped and nearly fell, windmilling his thin arms to keep his balance.

David laughed uproariously. 'You look like a scarecrow caught in the wind, clerk.'

Hugh gently pushed the hawk's spread wings back into a folded position. With his free arm he drew a leather hood from his doublet and put it over the bird's head.

Feaveryear's interest was undiminished. 'Did you raise that bird, Master Hugh?'

'No.' Hugh fixed Feaveryear with those cool, unreadable eyes. 'The bird is raised by a falconer. As a chick it is blinded by having its eyelids sewn together, so it comes to depend on people for food. When it is a year old its eyelids are unsewn and it is trained to hunt.'

'But that is cruel.'

David slapped Feaveryear on the shoulder, nearly knocking him over again. 'You are new to the ways of the country.'

Hugh turned to me, the watchful look in his eyes again. 'You wished to take my deposition, I think, Master Shardlake?'

'Yes, please. Feaveryear, will you fetch your master? Then we can begin.'

'We will take the birds to their perches,' Hugh said, 'and get the greyhounds away. Mistress Abigail does not like them near the house.' Again, that coldly formal reference to Abigail. The boys headed for the outhouses, and Feaveryear went indoors.

'That David is a taunting little knave,' Barak said. 'Needs a good slap.'

'He is childish, with no great brains. Yet all his father's hopes must rest on him. As for Hugh—I think he left childhood behind long ago. Let us see if we can find out why.'

WHEN WE ARRIVED in Hobbey's study Dyrick and Feaveryear were already present. A few minutes later Hugh walked in, confidently, almost defiantly. The afternoon sunlight emphasized the marks on his face and neck. I looked away, remembering Bess's comment about his ruined handsomeness. It was not quite so bad as that, but bad enough.

'Pray sit down, Master Hugh,' Dyrick said. He reached across to the hourglass and turned it over. 'To record time spent, for my bill of costs,' he explained with a cold smile. Hugh sat and stared at me, slim, long-fingered hands at rest in his lap. I saw that Feaveryear looked embarrassed.