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through narrowed eyes. 'How did you find that out?' he asked quietly.
    'One day I was telling her about my father's farm near Lichfield, and mentioned the great winter floods of 1524. She said, "I was a girl then. I remember at Rolfswood . . ." Then she clammed up and would say no more. But I asked around and discovered Rolfswood is a small town in the Sussex iron country, near the Hampshire border. Ellen won't say anything else though, about her family or what happened to her.' I stared at Gebons. 'Was it someone from her family that attacked her? Is that why they never visit?'
    Hob looked at the coin I still held up, then at me. 'I can't help you, sir,' he said slowly and firmly. 'Master Shawms is very particular about us not asking anything about Ellen's background.'
    'He must have records.' I nodded at the desk. 'Maybe in there.'
    'It's locked, and I'm not going to be the one to break it open.'
    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