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

lined, unhappy face. She frowned for a second, perhaps noticing I was a hunchback. Then she looked at the Queen, her expression softening at the sight of the dog.
    â€˜This is Rig, Bess,’ the Queen said. ‘Is he not a fine fellow? Come, stroke him.’
    Hesitantly, Bess leaned across and touched the animal. Its feathery tail wagged. ‘Bess always loved dogs,’ the Queen told me, and I realized she had kept Rig back to help relax her old servant. ‘Now, Bess,’ the Queen said, ‘tell Serjeant Shardlake everything. Do not be afraid. He will be your true friend in this. Tell him as you told me.’
    Bess leaned back, looked at me anxiously. ‘I am a widow, sir.’ She spoke softly. ‘I had a son, Michael, a goodly, gentle boy.’ Her eyes filled with tears, but she blinked them away resolutely. ‘He was clever, and thanks to Lady Latimer’s-I beg pardon, the Queen’s - kindness, he went to Cambridge.’ Pride came into her voice. ‘He graduated and came back to London. He had obtained a post as tutor to a family of merchants named Curteys. In a good house near the Moorgate.’
    â€˜You must have been proud,’ I said.
    â€˜So I was, sir.’
    â€˜When was this?’
    â€˜Seven years ago. Michael was happy in his position. Master Curteys and his wife were good people. Cloth merchants. As well as their house in London they had bought some woodland belonging to a little nunnery down in Hampshire, in the country north of Portsmouth. All the monasteries were going down then.’
    â€˜I remember very well.’
    â€˜Michael said the nuns had lived in luxury from the profits of selling the wood.’ She frowned, shaking her head. ‘Those monks and nuns were bad people, as the Queen knows.’ Bess Calfhill, clearly, was another reformer.
    â€˜Tell Master Shardlake about the children,’ the Queen prompted.
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜Your son was fond of them?’
    â€˜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.
    â€˜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.
    â€˜Who were they?’ I asked.
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜Yes.’ Not just plague, but all the diseases born of the foul humours of London. I thought of Joan.
    â€˜Michael and the children escaped. Hugh and Emma