Heartstone: A Shardlake Novel

  ‘Not marrying David, I would guess. Of course, she might have learned from Michael that David’s falling sickness meant she could go to the Court of Wards and say a marriage to him would be disparagement. But, with Michael gone and her fate in the hands of the Hobbeys, it would be a hard thing for a thirteen-year-old girl to do on her own. And the impersonation would have given her some power over the Hobbeys. She held their fate in her hands. I would guess Emma agreed to the substitution because it meant there could never be a marriage. That was probably all she thought of then,’ I added sadly. ‘But once it was done they were all trapped.’

  Barak shaded his eyes with his hand, looked again at Hugh. ‘That is no girl. It can’t be.’

  ‘Keep your voice down. No, you wouldn’t think so. But a girl may learn skill at the bow, may be educated as well as a man. I think that is why the time I met Lady Elizabeth kept coming back into my mind. She too is a good archer. And if a girl has learned to walk as a boy, dress as a boy, behave as a boy and shoot arrows like a boy, then among strangers the deception may be kept up for years. If she is tall, that helps too.’

  ‘But her breasts? And the stubble – Hugh gets shaved regularly.’

  ‘Breasts can be flattened with padding. And though they have taken trouble to tell us Hugh is shaved regularly I have never seen any stubble on his face. Have you?’

  ‘But he had shaving cuts – ’

  ‘He had cuts on his face. Or rather, hers. Those are easy enough to make.’

  ‘No Adam’s apple – ’

  ‘Some boys have a prominent one, like Feaveryear. Others have one that is barely noticeable. And her scars prevented anyone from looking too closely at her neck.’

  Barak stared harder. ‘But to keep it up for years – ’

  ‘Yes. It must have been a terrible strain on them all, one that unbalanced Abigail and David. They told Fulstowe, of course – his help was essential. And that gave him a hold over the family. The Hobbeys must soon have realized they were caught, trapped for ever. Because once it started there was no going back. If they were found out they could have ended in prison.’

  ‘But why would Emma keep up the pretence now? Jesu, he – or she – wants to go and be a soldier!’

  I said angrily, ‘Perhaps by now she scarcely knows who or what she is.’

  ‘Listen. I know it fits, but you’d better be sure – ’

  I said sadly, ‘I looked at Hugh properly for the first time, on the steps when we arrived. Full in his scarred face. Then I saw he could easily be a girl.’

  Barak turned to me. ‘Did Hugh – Emma – kill Abigail?’

  He spoke too loudly. The slim, lithe figure at the butts had just risen to fire another arrow. He – or rather she – lowered the bow and turned to face us. We stood quite still for a moment, all three of us, like some strange tableau. Then, in seconds, the person we had known as Hugh had strung an arrow to the bow, raised it and taken aim at my chest. I knew there was nothing Barak or I could do; before we could run a few paces Emma Curteys could loose the arrow, string another, and shoot us both dead.

  I raised my arms, as though I could ward off that steel-tipped shaft. ‘Don’t!’ I shouted. ‘You will gain nothing!’

  I could not see her face properly at that distance; it was shaded by the hat, which I realized now was one of the many ruses, like putting her hand to her scars, that Emma had developed over the years to prevent people looking her fully in the face. I saw the bow move slightly and stepped back with a cry, but then I realized it was trembling, shaking slightly from side to side in her hand though she still aimed at me.

  ‘Run!’ Barak cried.

  I seized his arm. ‘No! Don’t do anything sudden!’ I called out to Emma. ‘I’m your friend!’ I called steadily. ‘Haven’t you realized that? I will help you!’

  Still she stood, the bow trembling gently. The whole thing can only have lasted ten seconds but it seemed like an age. Then I saw a figure on the edge of my vision, a dark solid shape running towards the archer.

  ‘Hugh!’ David shouted out – he still called her Hugh – ‘stop! It can’t help you! They know, it’s over! Put the bow down!’

  Emma turned, pointing the bow at David as he ran towards her. The arrow hit him in the side, its force sending him staggering. He toppled over onto the lawn, moaned once, then was silent. Then, no doubt drawn by the shouting, Fulstowe appeared in the doorway. David had lied, he was in there after all. He stepped out. A gaggle of servants followed as Fulstowe began walking towards David. Emma reached back, flicked another arrow on to her bow, and aimed at the steward. Fulstowe stopped dead in his tracks. One of the women servants screamed. I thought Emma would shoot Fulstowe down but instead she retreated backwards, step by step, to the gate, still keeping him covered. Only once did she glance across to where David lay on the lawn, quite still now. All this time she had not uttered a single word.

  She backed out of the gateway, then turned and ran. Fulstowe and some of the other servants raced over to where David lay. Someone screamed, ‘Murder!’

  Chapter Forty-two

  DAVID, THOUGH, was not dead. From where he lay on the grass I heard a faint, desperate moan. Fulstowe turned from the gate and ran across to him, Barak and I following. Blood was pouring from the wound in David’s side, from which the arrow shaft protruded obscenely.

  ‘Help me,’ he whimpered.

  ‘Still, lad,’ Barak said gently.

  The steward shouted to the servants who had gathered at the side of the lawn. ‘Quick! Someone ride to fetch the Cosham barber-surgeon! And tear up some sheets!’

  I shouted, ‘My horse is ready saddled, tied up outside the back gate. Take it!’

  Fulstowe looked wildly at me. ‘What the hell happened? Why are you here?’

  ‘Hugh shot David. I think he might have killed us had David not intervened.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Leave me go!’ I heard a shrill, desperate voice from the doorway. Hobbey stood there, Dyrick holding his arm. He threw Dyrick off, ran across to David and knelt beside him. He began tenderly stroking his dark head, tears streaming down his cheeks. The boy lifted a hand with difficulty and his father clutched it.

  I felt a hand seize my own arm, nails digging into it, and looked up into Dyrick’s furious face. ‘God’s nails,’ he snarled. ‘What have you done?’

  ‘Found out the truth,’ I answered quietly. ‘That Emma Curteys has been impersonating her dead brother. It’s all over now, Dyrick.’

  ‘I didn’t know!’ he blustered. ‘All these years, they made a fool of me too. I knew nothing until—’

  ‘Until Lamkin died, and you demanded Hobbey tell you what it was Abigail said I could not see that was in front of me. Then Feaveryear guessed.’

  An angry spasm twisted Dyrick’s sharp features. ‘The stupid lad formed a passion for Hugh, that sent him wailing and praying to God for forgiveness. Then he realized the truth, he said he kept looking at Hugh closely and one day he understood.’

  ‘You should have withdrawn from acting for Hobbey then.’ I looked at him with scorn. ‘But you couldn’t bear to be made to look a fool, could you? Couldn’t bear the revelation of how you had been gulled?’

  ‘You sanctimonious bent churl!’ Dyrick launched himself at me, pummelling at me with hard bony fists, even as Hobbey wept over his son. Then he was sent sprawling down on the lawn. Barak stood over him.

  ‘You preening shit,’ he said. ‘You’re finished. Now shut your weasel mouth or I’ll give you the beating I’ve dreamed of for weeks!’

  Dyrick lay on his back, red and gasping, his robe spread out beneath him. I looked to where Hobbey still knelt over David; he had not even turned round. ‘My poor son,’ he said gently. ‘My poor son.’

  THE BARBER-SURGEON arrived shortly after. Helped by Fulstowe he took David inside, Hobbey and the servants following. Dyrick went with them. Barak and I stayed in the great hall. I asked a servant to tell Dyrick I wanted to talk to him as soon as possible.
We sat down at the table, silent, shocked, waiting.

  ‘Where do you think Emma will go?’ Barak asked.

  ‘My guess is Portsmouth, to try and enlist. I think, God help me, she may seek to end all this in a blaze of glory.’

  ‘Did she kill Abigail?’

  I shook my head. ‘I think today was the first time she lost control. No, that was someone else.’

  He said, ‘If I hadn’t raised my voice – ’

  We looked up at the sound of footsteps. Fulstowe approached us, pure hatred in his eyes. ‘Master Hobbey would speak with you.’

  I nodded assent. ‘Come, Barak.’ I wanted a witness to this.

  We followed the steward to Hobbey’s study. Hobbey sat slumped at his desk, his thin face grey, staring unseeingly at the hourglass. Dyrick sat in a chair next to him. Fulstowe stood by the window, watching, as Dyrick said to me, ‘Master Hobbey wishes to talk to you. Know it is against my advice—’

  ‘Your advice,’ Hobbey said quietly. ‘Where has that brought me? Since that first day you told me the children’s wardship was worth paying for.’ He looked at me; his eyes were sunk deep in his skull. ‘David will live. The barber-surgeon has taken the arrow out. But he thinks David’s spine is injured. He cannot move his legs properly. We must get a physician.’ His voice broke for a moment. ‘My poor boy, what a hard path I gave him to tread in this world. Harder than he could bear.’ He looked at me. ‘You are not my nemesis, Master Shardlake. I have been my own. I caused the destruction of my family.’ He closed his eyes. ‘Vincent says you know what we did.’

  ‘Yes,’ I answered gently. ‘I realized only this morning.’

  ‘We have told everyone there was an accident at the butts, that Hugh was frightened by what happened and has run away. I think they believed us.’ He paused. ‘Unless you tell them something different.’

  I said, ‘It was David who shot at Barak and me that day, wasn’t it? I think he was even following me the night I arrived.’

  He answered quietly, ‘I think so.’

  ‘And who killed his mother?’

  Hobbey bowed his head. Dyrick raised a hand. ‘Nicholas – ’

  Hobbey looked up again. ‘I feared so from the start. David – he had come to see everyone as his enemy; except me, and Emma, whom he – whom he loved. He said to me more than once that if anyone tried to expose us he would shoot them dead.’ He added sombrely, ‘I think perhaps he did mean to shoot you in the woods that day, but missed. He was never as good a shot as Emma.’

  ‘Jesu,’ Barak said.

  ‘That was why I let Fulstowe and Vincent persuade me to try and get Ettis convicted. David’s mind – ’ He shook his head. ‘But now it is all over.’ He looked at the hourglass with a sad, broken smile. ‘The sand has run out, as I have feared it would for so long.’

  ‘Did you make Emma assume her brother’s identity because the law allows a girl to come into her lands much sooner than a boy?’

  ‘Six years ago, when I bought this house, I was a prosperous merchant, a risen man.’ He spoke the words bitterly. ‘But then the French and Spanish put their embargo on English trade. I invested too much at the wrong time, and faced ruin. When Hugh and Emma’s parents died, I saw the opportunity to make profit from Hugh’s woods. Eighty pounds a year’s profits for eight years, that was what I needed to repay the bond with my creditors. Getting Hugh and Emma’s wardship was the only way out I could see. I was advised by friends to see Vincent.’

  I turned to Dyrick. ‘So you were part of the plan to steal the children’s assets from the start.’

  ‘Many people do it,’ Dyrick said impatiently. ‘And it kept Master Hobbey and his family from penury. And gave the children, who had nobody else, a home.’

  ‘And David a potential wife. Whether Emma wanted him or not.’

  Hobbey said, ‘We hoped Emma would come to love David in time. Abigail said she would have made a steady, sober wife for him, which he needed. She was right.’

  ‘What of her needs?’ I asked in sudden anger. ‘That orphaned child?’

  ‘Listen,’ Dyrick said. ‘Never mind the moralizing, much as you love it. The point is, what is going to happen now?’

  Hobbey said, ‘Yes. To Emma? And David?’

  ‘First I need to know it all,’ I answered. ‘Everything. What happened, who was involved. So, Dyrick got you the children’s wardship and you tried to cajole Emma into marrying David. I imagine Hugh and Michael Calfhill both counselled her to resist.’

  ‘Yes, they did.’

  ‘But then something went badly wrong, didn’t it? Hugh died. His lands passed to Emma. Who, unless she married David, would inherit at fourteen, not twenty-one.’

  Hobbey said, ‘We were in a panic, we thought we would go bankrupt. After Hugh died we begged and pleaded with Emma to marry David, but she refused utterly. She said she would go to the Court of Wards and say David was not a suitable husband because of his falling sickness. Though we knew she could hardly do that alone.’ Hobbey bowed his head. ‘And then – then my wife had the idea of substituting Emma for Hugh.’

  ‘And Emma agreed?’

  ‘She agreed readily, perhaps too readily. I still do not understand why she disliked my son so much, but – she did. In fact it was David that Abigail and I needed to persuade to accept our plans.’

  ‘And then you got rid of Michael Calfhill and moved down here. Where no one had ever seen the children.’

  ‘Yes. It was only then that we realized that we were all trapped. Me, David, Abigail and Emma. If the truth came out we could have been in deep trouble. The only other who knew was Fulstowe.’ Hobbey looked at his steward. ‘He was always so good at organizing things, anticipating difficulties. And Emma – she retreated into herself, into books and archery.’

  ‘Which she had already practised with Michael.’

  ‘Yes. And the other tutors. We never let one stay too long. It was easy enough to deceive them at first, but it grew harder as Emma grew older. We – we became frightened of her. She never let us know what was happening in her mind. She impersonated her brother so well – sometimes I found myself thinking of her as Hugh for days at a time, somehow it eased my mind. Abigail never did – if I accidentally referred to Emma as Hugh in her presence she would shout and rail at me. But she was utterly terrified of exposure. And at the time you came there were only three years left till Emma could go to court as Hugh and claim her lands. I do not know what would have happened then.’ Nor did I, I thought. Emma had truly made herself unreachable.

  Hobbey continued: ‘As the years passed the deception was a toll on us all. But especially on Abigail. She was the one who had to counsel Emma how to deal with the monthly woman’s curse, cut and sew padding for her breasts. That only seemed to make Emma hate her, and – and somehow we all came to blame Abigail because it had been her idea. Especially David. It was not fair, it had all been done to pay my debts. But even I came to blame her. My poor wife.’

  ‘And then Michael Calfhill returned.’

  Hobbey flinched. ‘He realized at once that Hugh was really Emma. The moles on her face were enough. He threatened to expose us. But Emma did not want him to.’ He looked at Dyrick. ‘And you had found out something about Michael, hadn’t you, when he was encouraging Emma to refuse to marry David.’

  ‘You suspected it yourself,’ Dyrick answered sharply. ‘You asked me to see what I could find.’

  Hobbey dropped his gaze. He said, ‘Someone in London told me Michael was said to have had an – improper – relationship with another student at Cambridge. And Vincent discovered there had been others.’

  ‘So after he came this year you threatened him with exposure?’

  ‘Yes. I got Vincent to visit him. God forgive me.’

  ‘Sodomy is a hanging offence,’ Dyrick snapped. ‘I told Calfhill I would tell the world what he was if he lodged a complaint at Wards. How was I to know he would kill himself?’

  ‘So it was suicide, after all,’ I said.

/>   ‘What the hell else did you think it was?’ Dyrick burst out.

  ‘You went and threatened him.’ I looked at Dyrick with disgust. ‘You drove that young man, who had only ever sought to help both children, to his grave.’

  ‘I did not know he was that weak,’ Dyrick said defiantly.

  ‘You dirty shit,’ Barak said.

  I stared at Dyrick. ‘Someone attacked me in London and warned me off the case. Was that you as well?’

  Dyrick and Hobbey stared at each other, then at me. Dyrick said, ‘That was nothing to do with us.’

  I frowned, thinking. ‘So Michael screwed up the courage to make the complaint at the Court of Wards. But then he became terrified of what you would say and killed himself. How he must have struggled with his conscience. Perhaps he hoped his mother would take up the case, maybe bring it to the Queen, who had been kind to him.’

  ‘Conscience,’ Hobbey said with infinite sadness. ‘I had one once. Ambition killed it. And afterwards – you know in your heart the wrong you have done, but – you stifle it. You have to. You continue to act your part. But Michael’s death has haunted me.’ Tears began coursing down his thin grey cheeks. ‘And poor Abigail. Oh, if only we could have seen where this imposture would lead. And it destroyed my poor son’s mind.’ He put his head in his hands and began weeping uncontrollably. Dyrick stirred restlessly. Fulstowe gave his employer a look of contempt.

  After a minute, Hobbey wiped his face then looked at me wearily. ‘What will you do now, sir, about David? Will you reveal he killed his mother?’

  ‘Shouldn’t he?’ Barak asked brutally.

  ‘My son’s mind was disturbed,’ Hobbey said desperately. ‘It was my fault.’ He looked at me, his face suddenly animated. ‘If I could, I would sell Hoyland, leave the villagers alone, and go somewhere where I could spend the rest of my life looking after my son, trying – trying to heal him. Though I think he would not be sorry to die now.’