I had to get out of this tangle somehow. ‘How much is it worth, Hob?’ I asked. ‘Name your price.’
‘Can you pay me what it would cost to keep me the rest of my life?’ he said with sudden anger, his face growing red. ‘Because if I found out and told you, they’d trace it back to me. Shawms keeps that story close and that means he’s under instructions from above. From Warden Metwys. I’d be out. I’m not going to lose the roof over my head and a job that feeds me and gives me a bit of authority in a world which is not kind to poor men.’ Hob slapped the bunch of keys at his belt for emphasis, making them jingle. ‘All because you haven’t the heart to tell Ellen she’s foolish to think you’ll ever bed her in that room. Don’t you think everyone here knows of her mad fancy for you?’ he asked impatiently. ‘Don’t you realize it’s a joke up and down the Bedlam?’
I felt myself flush. ‘That’s not what she wants. How could she, after what happened to her?’
He shrugged again. ‘That only makes some women keener, from what I’m told. What else do you think she’s after?’
‘I don’t know. Some fantasy of courtly love perhaps.’
He laughed. ‘That’s an educated way of putting it. Tell her you’re not interested. Make life easier for yourself and everyone else.’
‘I can’t do that, it would be cruel. I need to find some way out of this, Hob. I need to know who her family are.’
‘I’m sure lawyers have ways of finding things out.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘She is mad, you know. It’s not just the refusing to go out. All these fake illnesses, and you can hear her crying and muttering to herself in that room at night. If you want my advice you should just walk away and not come back. Send that man of yours with a message that you’re married, or dead, or gone to fight the French.’
I realized that in his own way Gebons was trying to advise me for the best. My best, though, not Ellen’s. Ellen mattered nothing to him.
‘What would happen to her if I did that?’
He shrugged. ‘She’d get worse. But if you don’t tell her, she will anyway. Your way is just more drawn out.’ He looked at me shrewdly. ‘Perhaps you’re afraid of telling her.’
‘Mind your place, Gebons,’ I said sharply.
He shrugged. ‘Well, I can tell you that once they get ideas fixed in their heads, it’s hard to get them out. Believe me, sir, I’ve been here ten years, I know what they’re like.’
I turned away. ‘I will be back the week after next.’
He shrugged again. ‘All right. Hopefully that will content her. For now.’
I left the office and went out through the main door, closing it firmly behind me. I was glad to be away from the fetid air of that place. I thought, I will find out the truth about Ellen, I will find some way.
Chapter Three
I RODE BACK to my house, quickly changed into my best clothes, and walked down to Temple Stairs to find a boat to take me the ten miles upriver to Hampton Court. The tide was with us, but even so it was a hard pull for the boatman that sultry morning. Beyond Westminster we passed numerous barges going downriver laden with supplies – bales of clothing, grain from the King’s stores, on one occasion hundreds of longbows. My sweating boatman was not inclined to talk, and I stared out at the fields. Normally by now the ears of corn would be turning golden, but after the bad weather of the last few weeks they were still green.
My visit to Ellen still lay heavy on my mind, especially Hob’s words about lawyers having their ways of finding things. I hated the thought of going behind her back, but the present situation could not continue.
AT LENGTH the soaring brick towers of Hampton Court came into view, the chimneys topped with gold-painted statues of lions and mythical beasts glinting in the sun. I disembarked at the wharf, where soldiers armed with halberds stood on duty. My heart beat hard with apprehension as I looked across the wide lawns to Wolsey’s palace. I showed my letter to one of the guards. He bowed deeply, called another guard across and told him to take me inside.