Four people sat on cushioned chairs. All were dressed in black, to my surprise for it was nearly a fortnight since Ralph had died and few wear mourning so long. Sir Edwin Wentworth was the only man among them; seeing him close I saw the resemblance to Joseph not only in his plump red face but in something fussy about his manner. He fumbled with the hem of his robe as he stared at me, eyes hard with anger.
His two daughters sat together: they were as pretty as Joseph had described, both with fair hair falling over the shoulders of their black dresses, milk-white complexions and with startlingly large cornflower-blue eyes. They had been embroidering, but as I entered they laid their needles on their cushions and gave me quick, demure smiles before lowering their heads and sitting with a well-brought-up stillness that was decorous but also a little unnerving, their hands unmoving in their laps.
The third female in the room could not have been more different. Joseph's mother sat ramrod straight in her chair, snow-white hair gathered under a black cap, veiny hands folded over a stick. She was thin, the planes of her skull visible beneath pale skin that was a patchwork of lines and smallpox scars. Wrinkled eyelids were closed for ever over her decayed eyes. She should have been a pitiful figure, but somehow she dominated the room.
She was the first to speak, turning her head towards me and thrusting out a lantern jaw. 'Is that the lawyer come with Joseph?' she asked in a clear voice with a trace of a country accent, showing pearl-white teeth I knew must be false. I shuddered involuntarily, for having dead people's teeth fixed in your jaw by a wooden plate was a conceit I disliked.
'Yes, Mother.' Edwin cast me a look of distaste.
She smiled crookedly. 'The seeker after truth. Come here, master lawyer, I would know your face.' She raised a beringed claw and I realized she wanted to feel my features as blind people sometimes will with their social inferiors. I approached slowly, for this was presumption from a woman who had once been a mere farmer's wife, but bent down. I felt all the eyes in the room upon me as her hands flickered lightly over my head and face with surprising gentleness.
'A proud face,' she said. 'Angular, melancholic' She ran her hands lightly over my shoulders. 'Ah, a satchel of books and the slip and slide of a lawyer's robe.' She paused. 'They say you are a hunchback.'
I took a deep breath, wondering if she intended to humiliate me or just spoke as she liked out of age.
'Yes, madam,' I replied.
She smiled, giving me a glimpse of wooden gums. 'Well, you can take solace in having a distinguished face,' she said. 'Are you a Bible Christian! I hear you were once associated with the Earl of Essex himself, God protect him from his enemies.'
'When I was younger, I knew him.'
'Edwin will have no papist in this house. He even gives the girls religious books, encourages them to study the Bible. Such ideas are a little advanced for me.' She waved a hand at her son. 'Answer his questions, Edwin,' she said brusquely. 'Tell him everything. You too, girls.'
'Sabine and Avice have had enough, Mother, surely?' Edwin's voice was pleading.
'No. The girls, too.' Sir Edwin's daughters cast identical wide blue gazes at their grandmother, apparently as much under the old woman's spell as their father.
'We must have all this finished,' she continued. 'Perhaps you can imagine, Master Shardlake, the misery Ralph's death at Elizabeth's hands has brought our small family. Three weeks ago we were happy, with fine expectations. Look at us now. And Joseph taking Elizabeth's part makes matters worse. Perhaps you may imagine our feelings about him. We will not have Joseph in our house again after today.' She spoke calmly, evenly, without turning her head to her oldest son. Joseph lowered his head like a naughty child. I thought what inner courage it must have taken to defy this beldame.
'Am I right,' Sir Edwin asked, in a deep voice very like his brother's, 'that if you think Elizabeth is guilty you will cease to represent her? That those are the rules of your trade?'
'Not quite, sir,' I replied. 'If I
'Very well.'
I went over the circumstances as I knew them: the girls hearing the scream, looking from the window, then rushing into the garden; Needler coming out and finding Ralph's body in the well. I felt sorry for the two girls having to listen to the terrible story once more. They cast their heads down again, kept their faces expressionless.
'But you see,' I concluded, 'no one actually
'Then why does she not say so?' the old woman snapped.
