by C. J. Sansom
I went up to my room, stood looking out of the window at the butts. I had learned nothing from the Priddises. I felt helpless frustration and anger. There was a knock on the door, and Barak came in. He seemed anxious.
‘How are the family?’ I asked. ‘None of them was in the great hall.’
‘Fulstowe told me to get out of the house shortly after you left. But as I was leaving a rider arrived with a letter for you. I hoped it might be more news from London, but I don’t recognize the hand.’
He reached into his doublet and pulled out a piece of cheap paper, crudely sealed with wax. My name and ‘Hoyland Priory’ were scrawled on the front. I opened it.
‘Is it from home?’ Barak asked eagerly.
I shook my head. ‘No.’
The note was in a scrawled hand, it was dated 12 July, the day before, and signed John Seckford, Curate of Rolfswood.
Master Shardlake,
I am sorry to trouble you, but old Master Harrydance has been to see me. He has found something dreadful, that concerns the matter we talked of. We ask you please to come and help us. We are in sore fear about what to do.
Chapter Thirty-two
I PASSED BARAK the note. He read it, then handed it back, looking at me hard. ‘What the hell does he mean?’
‘I don’t know.’ I paced the room. ‘Something serious. I could ride there tomorrow and come back the next day – Wednesday – the coroner won’t be here before then.’
He said quietly, ‘You’re glad we can’t go home tomorrow, aren’t you?’
‘That’s not fair,’ I answered, all the more hotly because his words had struck home. ‘We would have gone but for Abigail’s death. How could I know this would happen? And you cannot think I am glad that poor woman was killed. Even though an inquest may reveal what has been going on here.’
‘All right. But part of you is still glad, isn’t it?’
‘Here is a chance to solve both matters.’
‘You forget there may be a battle eight miles south of here any day now. And, if we lose, French troops may be marching up that road and in here. It’s a fine property for soldiers to loot.’
‘That risk we are stuck with. But – ’ I looked at him – ‘I will go to Rolfswood alone tomorrow.’
‘Oh, I’m coming,’ Barak replied in definite tones. ‘I’m not staying by myself in this madhouse.’
I KNOCKED ON the door of Hobbey’s study. He said quietly, ‘Come in.’ He was sitting at his desk, watching the sand run through the hourglass. I realized it was the first time I had ever been alone with him. I felt a stab of sympathy. Within two days the secret of his son’s illness had been exposed and his wife murdered. He looked bereft.
‘Well, Master Shardlake,’ he asked with a sigh, ‘did you and Master Priddis ride the woods?’
‘We did.’
He waved a hand. ‘Perhaps you could discuss it with Vincent. I cannot concentrate just now.’
‘I understand. Sir, may I express my condolences for your poor wife’s death? God rest her soul.’
He lowered his eyes, then said, in a voice suddenly full of emotion, ‘Everyone disliked poor Abigail. I know they did. But you should have seen her when I married her, she was so pretty, so light-hearted. If she had not married me – ’ His voice trailed away.
‘How are the boys?’ I asked. I thought, in a normal family Hugh and David would have been with Hobbey, they would all have been comforting each other.
‘David is in great distress. Fulstowe is with him. And Hugh – ’ He sighed. ‘Hugh is about the house somewhere. Sir Luke is organizing a search of the woodlands, by the way. People from the village are helping, they are much disturbed at the prospect of some madman roaming the woods. Sir Luke suggests none of us leave the house and gardens for now.’
‘Has Ettis been taken in for questioning?’
‘Yes. He hated this family.’ Hobbey frowned. ‘Vincent says that if there is no trace of a stranger in the woods, he must be a suspect. Surely that must be right.’ He frowned. I thought, Dyrick will be running things here now, Dyrick and Fulstowe between them.
‘Well,’ I answered quietly, ‘it will be up to the coroner when he arrives. The reason I came, Master Hobbey, is to tell you a messenger has brought a letter from the Sussex village where I have another matter in hand. I plan to go there tomorrow, then return the following day to see the coroner. I know he will need to speak to me and Barak as first finders.’
‘Very well,’ he replied without interest.
I hesitated, aware that what I had to say next should really be said with Dyrick present. But it was eating away at me. ‘Last week, sir, I accidentally overheard you and your wife talking in her room. She said she did not want to have the hunt, she indicated she did not think it was safe.’
Hobbey was silent a moment. Then he spoke, without raising his head, but slowly and clearly. ‘My wife had become afraid of everyone and everything, Master Shardlake. I told you before, she was not well. She had come to feel that nothing and no one was safe.’ He picked up the hourglass, stared at the falling sand, then up at me, a strange expression on his thin face. ‘All my life,’ he said slowly, ‘everything I have striven to build, those I have loved, everything is running out, like the sand in this glass. Do you believe in fate, Master Shardlake, in nemesis?’
‘No, sir. I do not understand how God orders the world, but I do not think it is like that.’
‘It all began with you coming here.’ His voice was still quiet, his tone strange, one of mild curiosity. ‘This wretched case. I doubt David would have had his fit without it. You encourage my tenants to rebel; do not deny it, I have my informants in the village. And now my wife is dead. I wonder if perhaps you are my nemesis.’
‘I wish to be no one’s nemesis, Master Hobbey.’
‘Do you not? I wonder.’ Still he spoke quietly, but now he looked at me, his eyes suddenly as sharp and questing as they had ever been. ‘Well, perhaps I am wrong, perhaps it started with Michael Calfhill, with – ’ A spasm of pain crossed his face, and he seemed to come back to himself. ‘We should not really be discussing such things without Vincent here,’ he said, his tone formal again. ‘I will see you in two days, Master Shardlake.’ And he nodded dismissively.
BARAK AND I left for Rolfswood early the next morning. I could have done without another ride; my bandaged arm was sore and my back ached after the hunt. The weather was close again, the sky grey.
I said little as we rode; Hobbey’s words the previous day had unsettled me. I had told myself I had only encouraged Ettis against a bullying landlord, that David could have had a seizure at any time, and above all that nobody knew who had killed Abigail, or why. But I could understand why Hobbey might see me as his nemesis.
The evening before I had written to Warner, telling him what had happened. I told him too about Dyrick’s offer on costs. Then I wrote to Guy, saying we were not coming home just yet. Afterwards I walked round to the stables to fetch the letter Barak had written to Tamasin; we would leave them at Cosham for the post rider to collect. On my way out I passed David’s room, and heard deep, wrenching sobs, Fulstowe’s voice talking in low, reassuring tones.
On my way back to the house with the letters I saw Hugh in the distance, sitting on the half-tumbled wall of the old nuns’ cemetery. I went up to him. His long face was sad, his mouth pulled down. He looked up at me, a dreadful weariness in his eyes.
‘My condolences,’ I said quietly.
He bowed his head slightly. In the fading light his scars could not be clearly seen, he looked boyishly handsome but somehow all the more vulnerable. ‘Thank you,’ he said, ‘but you should know I felt nothing for Mistress Hobbey. I thought I might, now, but I do not.’
‘You put a flower in her lap this morning.’
‘Yes. I felt sorry for her then.’
I said quietly, ‘You were saying something when we came on you with the body.’ I looked him in the eye. ‘It sounded like, “You deserved this.” ’
He was silent a moment, then said, ‘God preserve me, I may have done.’ He stared ahead.
‘Why?’
He spoke very quietly. ‘When we first knew her, I think in her way she did want to mother me, and especially my sister. But for both her and Master Hobbey, that came second to – ’ his voice caught for a moment – ‘to money. They wanted the use of our lands, and they tried to make Emma marry David, as I told you. When I saw her I felt sorry for her but angry too. So, yes, I did say that.’
‘Have you ever seen a dead person before?’
‘Yes. My mother and father. They would not let me see my sister – her face was ravaged by smallpox. I wish they had.’ He looked at me. ‘Will you tell the coroner of my words?’
‘I think you should tell him yourself, Hugh. Tell him how you felt about Abigail.’
He looked at me hard. I wondered whether, like Hobbey, he was thinking of all the trouble that had come here since I arrived.
I asked him, ‘Who do you think murdered Mistress Hobbey?’
‘I have no idea.’ He frowned. ‘Do you believe it was me?’
I shook my head. ‘Like you, Hugh, I have no idea.’ I looked across at the graveyard. Ursula had left some flowers at the nun’s grave again.
‘But you heard my words, and thought it might be me?’ Hugh’s face flushed with anger, highlighting his scars.
‘I only wondered, Hugh, what you meant.’
‘You said you would be my friend.’ He stood then, clenching his fists. I was aware that he was as tall as me, and stronger.
‘I accuse no one, Hugh. But from the beginning I have sensed this entire family has been hiding something. As well as David’s condition.’
‘You are wrong,’ he said.
‘I rode your lands with Edward Priddis today. I believe Master Hobbey has been falsifying his accounts. Probably in league with Sir Quintin. I think they may have robbed you of hundreds of pounds.’
An expression of contempt crossed his face. ‘When will you realize, sir, I care naught, one way or the other? And now, Master Shardlake, please leave me alone.’
ON THE RIDE we saw more supply carts heading south, carrying everything from carpenters’ equipment to pikes and helmets. We pulled in to allow another company of archers to pass. I wondered how Leacon’s company was faring, whether they had been on board the ships yet.
Around noon we turned into the road to Sussex. We stopped for some food at the inn I had visited on my previous journey. ‘You’ve been very quiet,’ Barak said to me over his beer. ‘You have that inward expression you wear when something bites at you.’
‘I am thinking I have done little but make enemies since I came to Hoyland.’ I told him of my talk with Hugh, and of Hobbey saying I was his nemesis. ‘Hobbey set me wondering whether, if I had never come, Abigail might still be alive.’
‘Something was likely to happen to that family sooner or later. They are all as mad as a box of frogs.’
‘Who killed Abigail, Jack? Hobbey was right – everyone disliked her – but to murder her?’
‘They’ll set Ettis up for it if they can.’
‘I think Dyrick is considering just that possibility. But there’s no evidence.’
‘Juries get rigged in these country places. If you want to do something useful, see the inquest is handled lawfully.’
‘Yes. And you are right about the family. Their relationships are so – distorted – I cannot help thinking someone in that house killed her.’
‘But who?’
‘Fulstowe has a lot of power there for a steward. When servants have power over an employer it is usually because they know a secret. One they would not wish to risk through an unstable woman blurting it out.’
‘But what secret?’
‘I don’t know.’ I looked at him. ‘Thank you again for coming with me.’
‘Truth to tell, if I was there I would only be pacing around waiting for another messenger. I’m famished for news of Tamasin.’
‘Maybe even the royal messengers are finding it hard to get through.’
‘If only I could get home,’ he said with sudden intensity.
I smiled sadly. ‘Is it not strange how even in death, poor Abigail seems to be a nuisance to everyone? She was killed by an archer of some skill. But that covers so many possibilities. The boys, Fulstowe, Ettis. Even Dyrick said he was once a skilled archer and is teaching his children.’
‘But not Hobbey?’
I shook my head. ‘He does not have the skill or the – the passion, that is the word. It was a passionate, angry act. Someone who knew he would be hanged if he were caught but, at the moment he saw her at least, did not care.’
‘Not old Ursula then. She hated Abigail all right, but I can’t see her pulling a bow.’
‘Now you are being foolish.’ I drained my mug of beer. ‘Come, we should be back on the road.’
‘Only trying to lighten your mood a little. God knows we could both do with it.’
Chapter Thirty-three
IT WAS MID-AFTERNOON when we reached Rolfswood. The clouds had thickened; it looked as though another summer rainstorm was on the way. The little town presented the same sleepy aspect it had before. I pointed out Buttress’s house. ‘That was once Ellen’s. He got it cheap. He’s a friend of Priddis, or was.’
‘Could he be paying Ellen’s fees at the Bedlam as part of some deal?’
I shook my head. ‘The house is not worth that much.’ I pointed over the fields to the church. ‘Seckford lives in the vicarage there.’
Barak squinted at the building. ‘Looks tumbledown.’
‘It is. So is he, I’m afraid.’
He said quietly, ‘There’s a woman looking at us from the doorway of that inn.’
I glanced across. The old woman who had introduced me to Wilf was standing in the doorway, arms folded, looking at us coldly.
‘That’s the woman who introduced me to Wilf Harrydance. I don’t think I’m popular here either. I doubt we’ll get rooms there tonight.’
‘Then where will we sleep? It’s been a long ride.’
‘Maybe Seckford can help us. Come, we follow that path to the church.’
We rode up to the vicarage and tied the horses up outside. They were tired and dusty, as were we. As we walked up the path, I looked at the cherry tree and wondered if Seckford still kept to his resolution not to drink before the shadows reached a certain length. I knocked on the door and heard the old man’s shuffling steps. He opened it, and his plump face broke into a look of relief. ‘You came, sir,’ he said. ‘Thank God.’ He saw Barak and asked sharply, ‘Who is this?’
‘My assistant.’
The curate nodded. ‘I am sorry, only we have been worried. Come in. Wilf has been here most of the morning, hoping you would come – ’ I caught a whiff of Seckford’s breath, and guessed the two old men had already been sharing a drink. He led us into the shabby parlour. Wilf Harrydance rose from a stool. His big dog, which had been lying at his side, got up and wagged its tail. The bright eyes in Wilf’s thin, weathered face were anxious. ‘I didn’t think you’d come, sir,’ he said, ‘not after my sons … I am sorry for that, they were only trying to protect me – ’
‘I understand, Wilf.’
‘What news of the French?’ Seckford asked.
‘They are said to be sailing up the Channel towards Portsmouth.’
‘God help us all. Please, sit down.’
We sat gratefully on the settle, raising little clouds of dust. ‘A drink, sirs?’ Seckford asked, reaching for the jug on the buffet.
‘Yes, please,’ Barak answered. ‘We’re parched.’
Seckford poured two beers, his hands shaking even more than I remembered. He brought them over, then sat in his chair. Wilf glanced at the curate, who leaned forward. Mildly drunk as he was, there was a new keenness and authority in Seckford’s voice.
‘After your visit, Master Shardlake, Master Buttress was going all over the town, trying to
find out who had been telling you about the fire. He knew you had spoken to me, and came here in a great rage, saying you seemed to be querying his ownership of his house.’
‘I did no such thing. I only told him you had told me the old story. I am sorry, I should have let you know before I left.’ I looked at Wilf. ‘I did not say I had spoken to you.’
‘He came to the inn and asked me, though. He knows I’ve always thought Priddis covered something up at that inquest. I said I had not spoken with you. It made me uneasy, sir.’
Seckford added, ‘Master Buttress is a hard man, with much power in this town. Forgive me, sir, but I must ask. Were you really enquiring about the Fettiplace family on behalf of a client looking for relatives?’
I took a deep breath. ‘No. Forgive me for misleading you, but I am trying to find out what happened to Ellen Fettiplace, for – personal reasons.’
‘You told an untruth, sir.’
‘I did. I am sorry.’
‘You are not acting for anyone else? Priddis, for example?’
‘No, I promise. No one else at all. I can say no more, but I will happily swear on the Bible that I am acting only from personal interest and concern, because of some information that came my way in London indicating that something was indeed covered up at that inquest. But I do not know what, and it may be unsafe to say more. Please, sir, fetch your bible and I will swear.’
‘I told you there was more to it,’ Wilf said.
‘And I told you Master Shardlake was a good man. I believe you, sir, there is no need to swear.’ Seckford looked at Wilf, then clasped his hands together. ‘You are a lawyer, sir. Am I right, then, that you could take Wilf on as a client, advise him about a certain problem he has, and would then be bound by an oath of confidentiality, as I am in confession?’
‘Yes, that is true.’ I looked at Wilf. ‘But this matter – if is it anything to do with who started the fire at the foundry, I could not keep it secret.’
‘It isn’t.’ Wilf shook his head vigorously. ‘It’s about something I found.’
Seckford said, ‘It concerns the circumstances in which Wilf found it.’
