К Сэнсом - Heartstone

‘I know that tale,’ Seymour said. ‘He called Shardlake a bent bottled spider before half of York.’ He laughed again.

Rich bowed slightly, dismissing me. ‘Take care, Master Shardlake.’

I walked away, shaken, feeling their eyes on me. To meet those two together was a piece of ill luck. I had thought I was long since done with Rich. It frightened me to think his malicious eyes had been watching me all this time; but no doubt he watched all the little people, waiting to see whom he could entangle in his webs. Thank God I had the Queen’s patronage. I waited till I had passed under the arch, beyond their gaze, before I wiped my brow.

I WENT STRAIGHT HOME; I knew Tamasin was calling to see Guy and Barak would be with her. To my surprise when I entered the house the hallway was full of people. Tamasin sat at the bottom of the staircase, her swollen stomach prominent under her dress, her pretty pale face perspiring, blonde hair hanging limp around it. Coldiron’s daughter Josephine had removed Tamasin’s coif and was using it to fan her face with broad sweeps of her arm. Barak stood by, biting his lip anxiously. Coldiron stood looking on disapprovingly, while the two boys peered out from the kitchen doorway.

‘Tamasin,’ I said anxiously. ‘My dear? What has happened? Where is Guy?’

‘It’s all right, Master Shardlake.’ To my relief there was amusement in her voice. ‘He’s gone to wash his hands. I just felt strange when I came in out of the sun, I had to sit down.’

‘She walked all the way here by herself,’ Barak said indignantly. ‘I said I’d meet her here but I thought Jane Marris would be with her. Walking alone, in this heat, and at too fast a pace if I know her. What if you’d fallen down in the middle of Chancery Lane, Tammy? Why didn’t Jane come with you?’

‘I sent her to the shops. She hadn’t returned when I was due to leave. It’s chaos in the markets with all the uproar over the new coins.’

‘You should have told her to get back in time to fetch you here. Where are your wits, woman?’

‘I didn’t faint, Jack,’ Tamasin replied irritably. ‘I just had to sit down – ow!’ She broke off as Josephine, fanning a little too wildly, accidentally hit her on the cheek.

Coldiron stepped forward, grabbing the coif. ‘Watch what you’re doing, you clumsy mare. Get back to the kitchen! And try not to break any more pots!’ Josephine blushed and hastened away with her little scuttling steps, head bowed. Coldiron turned to me. ‘She broke the big butter pot this morning. I’ve told her it’ll come out of her wages.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘Tell her I’ll pay for a new one.’

Coldiron took a deep breath. ‘If I might suggest, sir, that’s not good for discipline. Women are like soldiers, they need to obey their superiors.’

‘Get out,’ I said irritably. ‘I’ve enough to attend to here.’

Coldiron’s single eye widened for a moment with anger, but he obeyed and followed his daughter back to the kitchen. The boys, who had been grinning, fled before him. I turned back to Tamasin. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Of course. There was no need for him to speak to her like that. Poor girl.’

Guy appeared, walking slowly down the stairs, drying his hands on a towel. ‘Are you feeling better, Tamasin?’ he asked.

‘All well now.’ Tamasin struggled to her feet, Barak hastening to help.

‘Tell her, Dr Malton,’ Barak appealed. ‘Tell her she was stupid to walk here unaccompanied.’

Guy leaned down and felt her brow. ‘You are very overheated, Tamasin. That is no good thing when you are with child.’

‘All right, I won’t walk out alone again.’ She looked at Barak. ‘I promise.’

‘May I examine Tamasin in your study, Matthew?’ Guy asked.

‘Of course. Jack, I would like a word with you,’ I added quickly as he made to follow Guy and his wife. Tamasin shot me a grateful smile over her shoulder. Reluctantly, he followed me into the parlour.

I shut the door, bade him sit, and took a stool facing him.

‘We’ve some urgent work,’ I said.

‘The Queen?’

‘Yes.’

His eyes lit up with interest as I told him of my meeting with the Queen and Bess. ‘The Lady Elizabeth was there when I arrived,’ I added.

‘What is she like?’

‘Astonishingly clever. The Queen and she are like mother and daughter.’ I smiled, then frowned. ‘Afterwards I met two old acquaintances. Rich and Thomas Seymour. I think they knew I was there,’ I concluded. ‘I think they were waiting for me to come out, to taunt me.’

‘It was just ill chance. They were probably talking about war business when you appeared. If you go to a cesspit, you’re bound to see some maggots.’

‘You’re right. But Rich has obviously been following my career.’

‘It’s no secret you’ve acted in cases for the Queen. He probably heard you were coming and decided to have a bit of sport with you.’

‘Yes. I’m not important enough for him to take any real interest.’

‘I’d heard Rich was a little out of favour.’

‘I heard that too. But he is still on the Privy Council. His talents are valued by the King,’ I added bitterly.

‘Politics is like dice: the better the player, the worse the man.’

‘Jack, we need to move fast. This hearing is on Monday.’

‘We’ve never dealt with the Court of Wards before.’

‘Many of its functions are not those of a court at all. You know the principle of wardship?’

He quoted slowly, a passage remembered from a law book. ‘If a man holds land under knight service, and dies leaving minor heirs, the property passes in trust to the King till the ward comes of age or marries.’

‘That’s right.’

‘And the King has the right to manage the lands, and arrange the marriage of the ward. But in fact he sells the wardships to the highest bidder. Through the Court of Wards.’

‘Well remembered. Knight service is an ancient form of tenure which was dying out before the present King’s reign. But then the Dissolution of the Monasteries came. And all the seized monastic lands that have been sold have been on terms of knight service. It generated so much wardship business they abolished the old Office of Wards and set up the court. Its main job is money. They check the value of lands subject to wardship through the feodaries, the local officials. Then they negotiate with applicants for the wardship of minor heirs.’

‘Some wardships are granted to the children’s families, are they not?’

‘Yes. But often they go to the highest bidder, especially where there is no immediate family. Like this man Nicholas Hobbey in the case of the Curteys children.’

‘I can see why he’d do it.’ Barak was interested. ‘If he could marry the girl to his son, he’d get her share of her father’s woodland. But the girl died.’

‘It is still worth his while to have Hugh. Emma’s share would have passed to her brother. Hobbey will have control of Hugh’s lands till he is twenty-one. There is a constant cry for wood in the south, for ships and for charcoal for the ironworks. Especially now with the war.’

‘How much woodland is there?’

‘I believe approaching twenty square miles in all. Hobbey owned about a third himself, but the rest will now belong to Hugh Curteys. And by law the value of his land should be preserved. But I believe those who have bought wardships often make illicit profits by cutting down woodland, usually hand in glove with the local feodary, who takes a share. The whole system is rotten from top to bottom.’

Barak frowned. ‘Is there nothing to protect children under wardship?’ A child of the streets himself, the plight of children in distress always moved him.