Read Doctor Mirabilis for Free Online Page A

hastily done to fill’s purse quickly, and the wool thus not of the first quality.’
    Roger felt a brief flash of anger, but after a moment, he realized that it should not be Busshe at whom it was directed. He
     was doubtless telling the exact truth – after all, he had no part in this quarrel – nor could it matter in the least which
     price he had paid, since none of it could go to the family under the circumstances. If Busshe had cheated the justiciar’s
     equerry out of his very shirt (though nothing could be more unlike Busshe), Roger ought indeed to be pleased. But it was hard
     to think of a year’s flock spoiled and knocked down for the enrichment of some marauding noble in de Burgh’s service without
     feeling a general anger at everyone concerned, even the silent prentices who were watching him with evident sympathy.
    ‘Then are we much despoiled?’ Roger said after a while.
    ‘Nay, this knight, a highteth Will of Howlake, hath far too stern a hand; a bath kept the serfs hard at it and much increased
     the rents and the boon work. All thy kin are gone, but for thy sisters, no man knoweth where. How farest thou?’
    ‘To the manse, to retrieve what I may,’ Roger said, preoccupied. ‘And my sisters?’
    ‘In the women’s houses, where, by order of Franklin Harold’s steward, they be so craftily clothed, this Will of Howlake knoweth
     them not from villeins’ women.’
    ‘I thank God for’t.’ Indeed, the whole situation as Bussheoutlined it seemed far from the worst that Roger had imagined. Though he had had no experience of such an occupation as Yeo
     Manse was undergoing now, the pattern had been familiar for centuries, and Will of Howlake’s behaviour did not sound like
     that of a man who expected to remain lord of the property for long. He was wringing the good out of it with the stringency
     of a man who expects recall, and so was adding to his personal store, as well as to that, of Hubert de Burgh, by as many marks
     a day as the manse could possibly be made to yield. A brief cruel plundering of that kind had proven the ruination of many
     a holding – lords who expected to be awarded the property were kinder to it – but the orchards and fields and gardens of Yeo
     Manse were extensive, and Roger did not doubt that they would survive such treatment, were it only not much prolonged. It
     meant that the serfs and even the stewards would be despitefully used while it lasted – but their days were miserable enough
     even in normal times – their reward only in heaven, never in this world.
    ‘Thou’rt ill advised to go hither,’ Busshe said in a troubled voice. ‘Howlake is wroth at having missed taking every man in
     the family; an thou becomest known to him, wilt go ill with thee. And thy fat gelding there wheezeth like a monk with the
     asthmaticks –’tis plain to see a’s all out of the habit of work.’
    Madge stirred her wings under the cloak, and Busshe lifted his left arm to the sky again. Reluctantly the red peregrine climbed
     on the air; being recently fed from Busshe’s own hand, she wanted only to sleep, or at least to perch quietly and pursue some
     single savage thought, but hawks had to be exercised or they would not hunt – indeed, would forget even how to come home.
     Busshe put his hand back on his hip again, and Madge began to circle at her pitch, crying Kyaa! Kyaa!
    ‘Come thou with us till yon Howlake’s outworn his commission,’ Busshe said. ‘We’re to Northleach to cast a sort of fell and
     fifty tods of Cotswold wool, dear though it be at eleven shillings; thence to our offices in London forth’ assizesat the Leadenhall, and to pack sarplers for shipboard. Our quarters be in the Mart Lane, not over-far from where thy brother
     Robert doth deal in Egypt’s cotton and I wis not what else. An ‘tis money thou seekest, belike a will succour thee. Mene-whyles
     we’ll put thee on a proper horse, and give yon hay-bottle bales to carry; and thou’lt