Heartstone by C. J. Sansom Read Free Book Online Page A

wood.' She frowned, shaking her head. 'Those monks and nuns were bad people, as the Queen knows.' Bess Calfhill, clearly, was another reformer.
    'Tell Master Shardlake about the children,' the Queen prompted.
    'The Curteyses had two children, Hugh and Emma. I think Emma was twelve then, Hugh a year younger. Michael brought them to see me once and I would see them when I visited him.' She smiled fondly. 'Such a pretty boy and girl. Both tall, with light brown hair, sweet-natured quiet children. Their father was a good reformer, a man of new thinking. He had Emma as well as Hugh taught Latin and Greek, as well as sportly pastimes. My son enjoyed archery and taught the children.'
    'Your son was fond of them?'
    'As if they were his own. You know how in rich households spoiled children can make tutors' lives a misery, but Hugh and Emma enjoyed their learning. If anything, Michael thought they were too serious, but their parents encouraged that: they wanted them to grow up godly folk. Michael thought Master Curteys and his wife kept the children too close to them. But they loved them dearly. Then, then - ' Bess stopped suddenly and looked down at her lap.
    'What happened?' I asked gently.
    When she looked up again her eyes were blank with grief. 'There was plague in London the second summer Michael was with them. The family decided to go down to Hampshire to visit their lands. They were going with friends, another family who had bought the old nunnery buildings and the rest of the lands. The Hobbeys.' She almost spat out the name.
    'Who were they?' I asked.
    'Nicholas Hobbey was another cloth merchant. He was having the nunnery converted to a house and Master Curteys' family was to stay with them. Michael was going down to Hampshire too. They were packing to leave when Master Curteys felt the boils under his arm. He had barely been put to bed when his wife collapsed. They were both dead in a day. Along with their steward, a good man.' She sighed heavily. 'You know how it comes.'
    'Yes.' Not just plague, but all the diseases born of the foul humours of London. I thought of Joan.
    'Michael and the children escaped. Hugh and Emma were devastated, clinging to each other for comfort, crying. Michael did not know what would become of them. There were no close relatives.' She set her jaw. 'And then Nicholas Hobbey came. But for that family my son would still be alive.' She stared at me, her eyes suddenly full of rage.
    'Did you ever meet Master Hobbey?'
    'No. I know only what Michael told me. He said originally Master Curteys had been thinking of buying the nunnery and all the land that went with it, as an investment, but decided he could not afford it. He knew Master Hobbey through the Mercer's Hall. Master Hobbey came to dinner several times to discuss splitting the woodland between the two of them, which was what happened in the end, with Master Hobbey buying the smaller share of the woodland and the nunnery buildings, which he was going to convert to a country residence. Master Curteys took the larger part of the woodland. Master Hobbey became friendly with Master and Mistress Curteys over the sale. He struck Michael as one who adopts reformist positions when he is with godly people, but if he were negotiating the purchase of lands with a papist he would take some beads to click. As for his wife, Mistress Abigail, Michael said he thought she was mad.'
    Madness again. 'In what way?'
    She shook her head. 'I don't know. Michael did not like to talk to me of such things.' She paused, then went on. 'Master and Mistress Curteys died too quick to make wills. That was why everything was uncertain. But shortly afterwards Master Hobbey appeared with a lawyer, and told him the children's future was being arranged.'
    'Do you know the lawyer's name?'
    'Dyrick. Vincent Dyrick.'
    'Do you know him?' the Queen asked.
    'Slightly. He is an Inner Temple barrister. He has represented landlords against me in the Court of Requests occasionally over the