Snoball had growled angrily at Hook’s impudence, but Lord Slayton had betrayed his amusement with a sudden grin. ‘Out!’ he commanded now, ‘all of you! Get out, except for you, Hook. You stay.’
Lady Slayton watched as the men left the hall, then turned and vanished into whatever chamber lay beyond the gallery. Her husband stared at Nick Hook without speaking until, at last, he gestured at the grey-feathered arrow on the oak table. ‘Where did you get it, Hook?’
‘Never seen it before, my lord.’
‘You’re a liar, Hook. You’re a liar, a thief, a rogue and a bastard, and I’ve no doubt you’re a murderer too. Snoball’s right. I should whip you till your bones are bare. Or maybe I should just hang you. That would make the world a better place, a Hookless world.’
Hook said nothing. He just looked at Lord Slayton. A log cracked in the fire, showering sparks.
‘But you’re also the best goddamned archer I’ve ever seen,’ Lord Slayton went on grudgingly. ‘Give me the arrow.’
Hook fetched the grey-fledged arrow and gave it to his lordship. ‘The fledging came loose in flight?’ Lord Slayton asked.
‘Looks like it, my lord.’
‘You’re not an arrow-maker, are you, Hook?’
‘Well I make them, lord, but not as well as I should. I can’t get the shafts to taper properly.’
‘You need a good drawknife for that,’ Lord Slayton said, tugging at the fledging. ‘So where did you get the arrow,’ he asked, ‘from a poacher?’
‘I killed one last week, lord,’ Hook said carefully.
‘You’re not supposed to kill them, Hook, you’re supposed to bring them to the manor court so I can kill them.’
‘Bastard had shot a hind in the Thrush Wood,’ Hook explained, ‘and he ran away so I put a broadhead in his back and buried him up beyond Cassell’s Hill.’
‘Who was he?’
‘A vagabond, my lord. I reckon he was just wandering through, and he didn’t have anything on him except his bow.’
‘A bow and a bag filled with grey-fledged arrows,’ his lordship said. ‘You’re lucky the horse didn’t die. I’d have hung you for that.’
‘Caesar was barely scratched, my lord,’ Hook said dismissively, ‘nothing but a tear in his hide.’
‘And how would you know if you weren’t there?’
‘I hear things in the village, my lord,’ Hook said.
‘I hear things too, Hook,’ Lord Slayton said, ‘and you’re to leave the Perrills alone! You hear me? Leave them alone!’
Hook did not believe in much, but he had somehow persuaded himself that the curse that lay on his life would be lifted if only he could kill the Perrills. He was not quite sure what the curse was, unless it was the uncomfortable suspicion that life must hold more than the manor offered. Yet when he thought of escaping Lord Slayton’s service he was assailed by a gloomy foreboding that some unseen and incomprehensible disaster awaited him. That was the tenuous shape of the curse and he did not know how to lift it other than by murder, but nevertheless he nodded obediently. ‘I hear you, my lord.’
‘You hear and you obey,’ his lordship said. He tossed the arrow onto the fire where it lay for a moment, then burst into bright flame. A waste of a good broadhead, Hook thought. ‘Sir Martin doesn’t like you, Hook,’ Lord Slayton said in a lower voice. He rolled his eyes upward and Hook understood that his lordship was asking whether his wife was still in the gallery. Hook gave a barely perceptible shake of his head. ‘You know why he hates you?’ his lordship asked.
‘Not sure he likes many people, lord,’ Hook answered evasively.
Lord Slayton stared at Hook broodingly. ‘And you’re right about Will Snoball,’ he finally said, ‘he’s weakening. We all get old, Hook, and I’ll be needing a new centenar. You understand me?’
A centenar was the man who commanded a company of archers and William Snoball had held the job for as long as Hook remembered. Snoball was also the manor’s steward, and the two offices had made him the richest of all Lord Slayton’s men. Hook nodded. ‘I understand, lord,’ he muttered.
‘Sir Martin believes Tom Perrill should be my next centenar. And he fears I’ll appoint you, Hook. I can’t imagine why he would think that, can you?’
Hook looked into his lordship’s face. He was tempted to ask about his mother and how well his lordship had known her, but he resisted. ‘No, lord,’ he said humbly instead.
‘So when you go to London, Hook, tread carefully. Sir Martin will accompany you.’
‘London!’
‘I have a summons,’ Lord Slayton explained. ‘I’m required to send my archers to London. Ever been to London?’
‘No, my lord.’
‘Well, you’re going. I don’t know why, the summons doesn’t say. But my archers are going because the king commands it. And maybe it’s war? I don’t know. But if it is war, Hook, then I don’t want my men killing each other. For God’s sake, Hook, don’t make me hang you.’
‘I’ll try not, my lord.’
‘Now go. Tell Snoball to come in. Go.’
Hook went.
It was a January day. It was still cold. The sky was low and twilight dark, though it was only mid-morning. At dawn there had been flurries of snow, but it had not settled. There was frost on the thatched roofs and skins of cat ice on the few puddles that had not been trampled into mud. Nick Hook, long-legged and broad-chested and dark-haired and scowling, sat outside the tavern with seven companions, including his brother and the two Perrill brothers. Hook wore knee-high boots with spurs, two pairs of breeches to keep out the cold, a woollen shirt, a padded leather jerkin and a short linen tunic, which was blazoned with Lord Slayton’s golden crescent moon and three golden stars. All eight men wore leather belts with pouches, long daggers and swords, and all wore the same livery, though a stranger would need to look hard to discern the moon and stars because the colours had faded and the tunics were dirty.
No one did look hard, because armed men in livery meant trouble. And these eight men were archers. They carried neither bows nor arrow bags, but the breadth of their chests showed these were men who could draw the cord of a war bow a full yard back and make it look easy. They were bowmen, and they were one cause of the fear that pervaded London’s streets. The fear was as pungent as the stench of sewage, as prevalent as the smell of woodsmoke. House doors were closed. Even the beggars had vanished, and the few folk who walked the city were among those who had provoked the fear, yet even they chose to pass on the farther side of the street from the eight archers.
‘Sweet Jesus Christ,’ Nick Hook broke the silence.
‘Go to church if you want to say prayers, you bastard,’ Tom Perrill said.
‘I’ll shit in your mother’s face first,’ Hook snarled.
‘Quiet, you two,’ William Snoball intervened.
‘We shouldn’t be here,’ Hook growled. ‘London’s not our place!’
‘Well, you are here,’ Snoball said, ‘so stop bleating.’
The tavern stood on a corner where a narrow street led into a wide market square. The inn’s sign, a carved and painted model