An Honourable Estate Read Online Free PDF

excitement.  They’ve become inured to death...”
    “And you William?  What about you?  Does a man’s
life mean nothing to you either?”
    “Of course it does!” he snapped back, angrily.  “It is
the loss of men’s lives that has driven me to this.  Of course I regret
this murder, but I wasn’t about to stand there and wait for the sheriff’s men
to come and find me with blood on my hands!”  He reached past her for a
cloth and dried his fingers carefully as she watched him.  The candle
flickered between them on the kitchen table in a sudden draught.
    “What will you do?” she asked.
    “Lay low for a while.  Keep quiet.”  He paused and
then looked at her steadily.  “You will say that I was here?”
    “You would have me lie for you?”
    “Would you prefer to see me hanged?” he demanded, bundling
the cloth into a ball and throwing it to the floor with force.
    “No,” she replied.  “I will say that you were here all
day and all night and I daresay the wives of the men who went with you will say
the same.”  She paused.  “You say it was Banastre’s men?”
    “Yes.  It was no one from Haigh,” he reassured her.
    Mabel shook her head.  “It is a mess.  I wish you
had not involved yourself with this, William.  Promise me that you will
keep away from Adam Banastre in the future.”  He stayed silent and she
followed his gaze to his hand and noticed the raw cut across his palm. 
    “I cannot promise that, Mab,” he said.  “I swore an
oath...” 
    Without answering she picked up the candle and went to the
bedchamber, leaving him alone in the dark.  A while later she heard him
come in but when he lay down beside her she kept still and didn’t speak. 
She was too angry to trust herself to say anything more to him.
     
    The
next day Mabel was still angry with William.  She thought that he should
have stayed at home and tried to help their own tenants, rather than encouraging
them to ride around the countryside committing murders and mayhem. 
    “It will soon be Michaelmas and the rents and taxes must be
paid,” she reminded him.  “No talk of rebellion will keep Holland’s
bailiff from our door.  I have made an inventory,” said Mabel, laying out
the parchment with her neat writing on the table in front of William. 
“There are some families who cannot pay their dues to us.  Mistress Webb
whose husband was killed fighting for you at Bannockburn has struggled. 
She barely has enough to sow seed never mind feed herself and her children over
the winter months.  And the Rolfes lost all their harvest when the land
they work was flooded.  Mistress Bennett used to make some money selling
her cheese at market, but since their cow drowned in the swollen river she has
been unable to do that – and the wool spun from the sheep is only half what it
was last year.”  Mabel paused with her finger still on the parchment where
she had been directing William’s attention to the hardships of their
villagers.  “We cannot demand the dues,” she said.  “People will die
if we take from them what little they have left.”
    She watched as William studied her list.  After a moment
he sighed and pushed it from him as if that would take away the stark
truth.  “But I doubt we will receive the same consideration from Holland,”
he remarked.
    “William...”
    “I know.” He held up a hand as if in defeat.  “I need no
more sermons from you Mab.  You are right, of course.  I have no
intention of demanding what the villagers cannot pay, but we will still have to
pay our taxes when Holland’s man comes.”
    “But we have the money?” she asked.
    “Yes, we have the money for this quarter.  But if things
do not improve I don’t know what will happen at the next quarterday or the one
after.  Once the money and what little grain we have is gone, there will
be no way to replace it, then we will be as destitute as the poorest vassal.”
    Mabel watched the steady rain that