Heartstone Read Free Page A

children.
    I nodded at the window. ‘I saw Bealknap turn to avoid you.’
    He laughed. ‘He’s started doing that lately. He fears I’m going to ask him for that three pounds he owes you. Stupid arsehole.’ His eyes glinted wickedly. ‘You should ask him for four, seeing how the value of money’s fallen.’
    â€˜You know, I sometimes wonder if friend Bealknap is quite sane. Two years now he has made a fool and mock of himself by avoiding me, and now you too.’
    â€˜And all the while he gets richer. They say he sold some of that gold he has to the Mint for the recoinage, and that he is lending more out to people looking for money to pay the taxes, now that lending at interest has been made legal.’
    â€˜There are some at Lincoln’s Inn who have needed to do that to pay the Benevolence. Thank God I had enough gold. Yet the way Bealknap behaves does not show a balanced mind.’
    Barak gave me a penetrating look. ‘You’ve become too ready to see madness in people. It’s because you give so much time to Ellen Fettiplace. Have you answered her latest message?’
    I made an impatient gesture. ‘Let’s not go over that again. I have, and I will go to the Bedlam tomorrow.’
    â€˜Bedlamite she may be, but she plays you like a fisherman pulling on a line.’ Barak looked at me seriously. ‘You know why.’
    I changed the subject. ‘I went for a walk earlier. There was a View of Arms in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The officer was threatening to make pikemen of those who hadn’t been practising their archery.’
    Barak answered contemptuously, ‘They know as well as anyone that only those who like archery practise it regularly, for all the laws the King makes. It’s hard work and you’ve got to keep at it to be any good.’ He gave me a serious look. ‘It’s no good making laws too unpopular to be enforced. Lord Cromwell knew that, he knew where to draw the line.’
    â€˜They’re enforcing this. I’ve never seen anything like it before. And yesterday I saw the constables sweeping the streets for the beggars and vagabonds the King’s ordered to be sent to row on the galleasses. Have you heard the latest word - that French troops have landed in Scotland and the Scots are ready to fall on us too?’
    â€˜The latest word,’ Barak repeated scoffingly. ‘Who sets these stories running about the French and Scots about to invade? The King’s officials, that’s who. Maybe to stop the people rebelling like they did in ’36. Against the taxes and the debasement of the currency. Here, look at this.’ His hand went to his purse. He took out a little silver coin and smacked it down on the desk. I picked it up. The King’s fat jowly face stared up at me.
    â€˜One of the new shilling coins,’ Barak said. ‘A testoon.’
    â€˜I haven’t seen one before.’
    â€˜Tamasin went shopping with Goodwife Marris yesterday in Cheapside. There’s plenty there. Look at its dull colour. The silver’s so adulterated with copper they’ll only give eightpence worth of goods for it. Prices for bread and meat are going through the roof. Not that there is much bread, with so much being requisitioned for the army.’ Barak’s brown eyes flashed angrily. ‘And where’s the extra silver gone? To repay those German bankers who lent the King money for the war.’
    â€˜You really think there may be no French invasion fleet at all?’
    â€˜Maybe. I don’t know.’ He hesitated, then said suddenly, ‘I think they’re trying to get me for the army.’
    â€˜What?’ I sat bolt upright.
    â€˜The constable was going round all the houses in the ward last Friday with some soldier, registering all men of military age. I told them I’d a wife and a child on the way. The soldier said I looked a fit man. I flipped my fingers at