Feaveryear stared at me. 'No, sir. You are wrong. Hugh has been brought up well. He is strong, skilled and learned. A true gentleman. It is as my master says; you have no cause against this family.' He spurred his horse and pulled ahead.
THE GUILDHALL was a large, brightly painted wooden building of three storeys. An ostler took our horses to some stables behind. Hobbey told David to wait outside with the servants until we returned, warning them sternly to stay out of the taverns.
'I suppose you want Barak with you,' Dyrick said.
'Yes, Brother, I do.'
Dyrick shrugged. 'Come then, Sam.'
We stepped into a large central hall. A wooden staircase rose to an upper floor. People passed busily to and fro, royal officials and townsmen in their guild uniforms. Hobbey accosted a harassed looking clerk and asked for Sir Quintin Priddis.
'He's upstairs, sir. In the room facing the staircase. Are you the gentlemen come to see him? I fear you are a little late.'
Hobbey rounded on Hugh. 'That business at the butts! Gentlemen do not keep each other waiting.' Hugh shrugged.
We walked upstairs. Barak looked round disparagingly. 'A wooden Guildhall?'
'There can't be more than a few hundred living here normally. The townsfolk must feel swamped.'
We knocked on the door the clerk had indicated. A cultivated voice bade us enter. Inside was a meeting room, sparsely decorated and dominated by a large oaken table at which two men sat, a neat stack of papers before them. The younger wore a lawyer's robe; he was a little over forty, his dark hair worn long, his square face coldly handsome. The elder was in his sixties; grey-haired, wearing a brown robe. He sat crouched, one shoulder much higher than the other, and for a moment I thought Sir Quintin Priddis was another hunchback. Then I saw that one side of his face was frozen and that his left hand, which lay on the table, was a desiccated claw, bone white. He must have had a paralytic seizure. As coroner of Sussex, this was the man who had ordered Ellen to be forced screaming into a coach. Reverend Seckford had described him as a busy, bustling little fellow. Not any more.
We bowed and raised our heads to find two identical pairs of sharp, bright blue eyes examining us across the table.
'Well, this is quite a deputation,' the older man said. His voice was slurred, lisping. 'I had not thought to see so many. And a serjeant, no less. You must be Master Shardlake?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Sir Quintin Priddis, feodary of Hampshire. This is my son Edward, my assistant.' He glanced at the younger man, without affection I thought. 'Now, Master Hobbey I know, and this well-set-up young fellow must be Hugh.' He studied the boy closely. Hugh put up a hand to cover his scars. 'You have grown much, lad, since last I saw you. But why do you keep your hair polled so close? A good head of hair suits a young gentleman.'
'I am an archer, sir,' Hugh answered unemotionally. 'It is the way among us.'
A sardonic smile briefly distorted the right half of Sir Quintin's face. Hobbey said, 'This is Master Vincent Dyrick, my legal representative. The other two are the lawyers' clerks.'
'I am afraid there is a shortage of chairs in this poor place,' Priddis said. 'I cannot ask you to sit. But we shall not be here long; I have a meeting at eleven that cannot wait. Well, Master Shardlake, what questions have you for me?' He gave me a cold smile.
'You will know this case well, sir—'
'Not as a legal dispute.' Edward Priddis spoke quietly and precisely. 'My father knows this as an ordinary wardship, in his capacity as feodary. He assessed the initial value of the lands and has dealt with routine queries from Master Hobbey since then.'
Sir Quintin gave his crooked, mirthless half-smile. 'You see, my son too is a lawyer. As I was at the start of my career. He is right, but you, Master Shardlake, you believe there is some reason for concern.' I looked into those bright blue eyes, but could read nothing of the man except that he still had force and power.
'Sir Quintin,' I asked, 'when you refer to routine queries do you mean the cutting of Master Hugh's woodlands?'
'Indeed. Master Hobbey has always thought these were good times to exploit the demand for wood. I advised him that would be legal if Hugh was credited with the profits. Exploiting a resource on those terms is not waste, rather a wise benefiting from market conditions.'
Edward laid his hands on the papers. 'There are notes here of my father's discussions with Master Hobbey. You are welcome to see them.'
'I am concerned that the amounts recorded in Master Hobbey's accounts may not reflect the amount of prime oak I have seen in the remaining woodlands.'
Hobbey looked at me sharply. Dyrick addressed Priddis. 'The woodland that has been cut had much less oak than that which remains.'
'You will have seen the lands before the woods were cut down, sir,' I said to Priddis.
