Heartstone ms-5 Page 19

I stared at him. How could he believe that Vincent Dyrick, of all people, represented only the just? Yet he obviously did. I drew a deep breath. 'Well, Feaveryear, I must go back to my inn, get some food.'

  'And my master asked me to find a barber.'

  We went out into the street. Dusk was falling, candles lit in the windows. Some of the carters were bedding down in their wagons.

  'Probably all going to Portsmouth,' I said. 'Like our company of archers.'

  'Poor fellows,' Feaveryear said sadly. 'I have seen the soldiers look at me on the journey, I know they think me a weakling. Yet I think what they may be going to, and pray for them. It is wicked they have no preacher. Most of those men have not come to God. They do not realize that death in battle may be followed by a swift journey to Hell.'

  'Maybe there will be no battle. Maybe the French will not land.'

  'I pray not.'

  I felt a drop of rain on my hand. 'Here it comes.'

  'They will get wet in the camp.'

  'Yes. And I must get back to my inn. Goodnight, Feaveryear.'

  'Goodnight, Master Shardlake.'

  'Oh, and Feaveryear, there is a barber's in the next street. Tell your master.'

  * * *

  IT WAS POURING with rain by the time I reached my inn, another summer storm. Dressed as I was in only shirt and jerkin, I was soaked through. The man I had bribed to get us a place at the inn invited me to come through to the kitchen and sit by the fire, hoping no doubt for another coin. I was glad to take up the offer; I needed somewhere to think hard about what the man at the other inn had told me.

  I stared into the flames as they rose. A foundry had burned down in Rolfswood two decades before, and two men had died. From her words at the Bedlam Ellen had seen a fire, seen at least one man burn. Could this have been some accident she witnessed that had driven her out of her wits? But then where did the attack on her fit in? Despite the fire I felt chilled. What if the deaths of the foundrymaster and his assistant had not been accidental? What if Ellen had seen murder and that was why she was hidden away in the Bedlam? It began to seem that Barak had been right to warn me of danger.

  The thought crossed my mind of not journeying to Rolfswood after all. I could return to London and leave things as they had always been. Ellen had been safe, after all, for nineteen years; if I meddled with murder I could bring danger down on her again.

  The flames in the fireplace were growing higher. Suddenly they lit, from below, some words on the fireback that made me start back and almost fall from my stool.

  Grieve not, thy heart is mine.

  A middle-aged woman pouring ingredients for a pottage into a bowl at the kitchen table looked at me in surprise.

  'Are you all right, sir?' She hurried across. 'You have gone very pale.'

  'What is that?' I asked, pointing. 'Those words, there, do you see them?'

  She looked at me oddly. 'You often get words and phrases carved on firebacks in these parts.'

  'What does it mean? Whose heart?'

  She looked more worried than ever. 'I don't know, maybe the maker's wife had died or something. Sir, you look ill.'

  I was sweating now, I felt my face flush. 'I just had a—a strange turn. I will go upstairs.'

  She nodded at me sympathetically. ' 'Tis the thought of all those Frenchies sailing towards us, it makes me feel strange too. Such times, sir, such times.'

  Chapter Sixteen

  THE NEXT DAY, our fourth on the road, was uneventful. It was hot and sunny again, the air muggy. Fortunately the rain had not lasted long enough to damage the roads. We passed through more country of wood and pasture, reaching Petersfield towards midday and halting there to rest.

  We moved on through a countryside that was starting to change; the ground beneath us chalky, with more open fields, rising steadily as we climbed into the Hampshire Downs. There was ever more activity on the highway, many carts that stopped to let us pass at the sound of our drummer's trumpet. Once we saw a company of local militia training in a field; they waved at us and cheered. I began to notice tall structures on hilltops, thick posts supporting piles of wood soaked in tar, always with a man standing guard—the beacons that would be lit should the enemy fleet be sighted, which I knew ran in a chain across the coastal counties.

  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.'

  'I know what you think!' I burst out with sudden anger. 'I'll do what I think best!'

  There was another raucous laugh from Sulyard. 'Lovers' tiff !' he called out, staring at Barak and me. He was very drunk, gobbling and tumbling his words, his face alight with malice.

  'Shut your face, or I'll shut it for you.' Barak half-rose, his look threatening.

  Sulyard pointed at me. 'Hunchbacks bring bad luck, everyone knows that! Though we're probably fucked already, with a dozy old captain and a tippling whiffler to fight under.'

  I looked round the circle of faces; a swirl of smoke made my eyes sting. The men looked away uncomfortably. Sulyard rose unsteadily to his feet and pointed at me.

  'Don't you give me the evil eye! You—'

  'Stop it!' Everyone turned at the shout. Pygeon had followed me and stood some feet off. 'Stop it, you fool! We're all in this together! You're not in the village any more. You can't steal game and ducks from poor folk as you like, spend your days telling people to call you master!'

  Sulyard roared, 'I'll have your balls!' Pygeon stood uncertainly as Sulyard, shaking off the restraining hand of another soldier, reached for his knife.

  Then a tall, white-coated figure appeared and hit Sulyard a mighty smack across the face. He staggered, rallied, and reached for his knife again.

  Leacon faced him. 'Strike me, you foul-mouthed rogue, and it's mutiny!' he shouted, then added more softly, 'but I'll deal with you man to man if that's what you want.'

  Sulyard, a trickle of blood dripping from a cut, let his arms fall to his sides. He stood swaying, like a puppet with the strings cut. 'I meant no mutiny,' he said. He swayed again, then yelled out, 'I want only to live! To live!'

  'Then stay sober and work with your fellows. That's a soldier's best chance of surviving.'

  'Coward!' someone shouted from the dark. Sulyard turned to the voice, hesitated, then stumbled off into the dark. Leacon turned back to his men. 'He'll probably fall over soon. Someone go and find him in a while, dump him in his tent. He can apologize to Master Shardlake in front of you all tomorrow morning.' He turned away. I followed, catching him up.

  'Thank you for that, George. But no public apology, please. He would not mean it and I would not wish to leave the company on such a note.'

  Leacon nodded. 'Very well. But there should be some restitution.'

  'Such things have happened to me before. They will again.' I hesitated, then added, 'He is frightened of what may come.'

  Leacon looked at me. 'I know. As we near Portsmouth a lot of them are becoming apprehensive. But what I said was true: if it comes to battle, discipline and working together are everyone's best chance of survival. Though it is a matter of chance and chaos in the end.' He was silent a moment, then said, 'This afternoon, those drums made me want to scream.' He paused again. 'Master Shardlake, after what I said at Godalming, do you—do you truly think me fit to lead? I will have to, Sir Franklin will be no use. He is good for pulling the men into line—last night a bunch of them got to drinking and rowdiness, and a few words from him shut them up. But you have seen him—he is too old to lead men into battle.'

  'I told you last night, you are as fine a leader as any they could have.'

  'Thank you,' he answered quietly. 'I feared you thought otherwise.'

  'No. On my soul.'

  'Pray for us, after we part.'

  'Right readily. Though it is long since I felt God listens to my prayers.'

  * * *

  IT WAS STRANGE passing the night in a tent with Dyrick. He snored mightily, disturbing my sleep. Next morning we all rode out, saddle-sore, and I, painfully conscious of my aching back. It was our final day's journey. Sulyard's face was heavy as a bladder from his drinking the evening before. As he took his place in the ranks some of the soldiers gave him unpleasant looks—I guessed because he had shown his fear. Snodin, though, looked no worse than usual—the sign of a true drunkard.

  We set off again. The tramp of marching feet, the rumble of the carts behind us, the dust rising up and covering us, had become a familiar daily routine. But thi
s was the last day; the soldiers would go all the way to Portsmouth, but according to Dyrick we had only a few miles to travel before passing a village called Horndean and turning off to Hoyland.

  It was another hot, sultry day. The soldiers sang through most of the morning, more bawdy versions of courtly love songs, so inventive in their obscenity they made me smile. We passed into forested country again, interspersed with stretches of downland and meadow and the occasional village, where people were going to church for Sunday service. The soldiers ceased their bawdy songs out of respect.

  Then, two miles on, where the road narrowed and ran between high forested banks, we found an enormous cart that had lost a wheel and turned over, blocking the road from side to side. It had been carrying a huge iron cannon, fifteen feet long, which had slipped the thick ropes securing it and lay on the ground. The four great horses that had been pulling it stood grazing by the bank. The carter persuaded the soldiers to stop and help repair his vehicle; the cannon had come from Sussex and, he said, should have been taken to Portsmouth by sea.

  While some of the men lifted the empty cart and others put the spare wheel on the axle and tried to tighten it, the rest of the company fell out, finding places to sit on the banks of the narrow lane. Dyrick strolled up and down with Feaveryear, looking at the wood, then came over to where Barak and I sat.

  'May we join you?' They sat down. Dyrick waved a gloved hand at the trees. 'This land, like Master Hobbey's, is part of the ancient Forest of Bere. Do you know its history?'

  'Only that it is an ancient royal forest from Norman times.'

  'Well done, Brother. But little used: successive kings have preferred the New Forest. Bere Forest has been shrinking little by little for centuries, cottagers establishing the squatters' rights you are so keen on, hamlets growing into villages, land sold off by successive kings or granted to the Church like the Hoyland Priory estate. It comprises miles and miles of trees like this.'

  I looked up into the forest. The growth here seemed very old, huge oaks and elms, the green undergrowth below heavy and tangled. Despite the days of hot weather a damp earthy smell came from it.