Heartstone

A few hundred yards in I came to a glade where a large, beehive-shaped clay structure stood, taller than a man, smoke rising from an opening at the top. Piles of small branches were set around the clearing. Two young men sitting on a mound of earth rose as I appeared.

'Burning charcoal?' I asked.

'Ay, sir,' one answered. Both had black faces from their work. 'We don't usually work in summer, but they want as much charcoal as they can get for the foundries these days.'

'I understand they are casting cannon now.'

'That's over in the east, sir. But there is plenty of work for the small West Sussex foundries too.'

'The war brings good profits,' his friend added, 'though we see little of them.'

'I am heading for Rolfswood. I believe there used to be an ironworks there that burned down.'

'Must have been a while ago. There's no iron worked round here now.' The man paused. 'Would you take a drink of beer with us?'

'Thank you, but I must get on my way.' They seemed disappointed and I thought it must be lonely work out here, with only the charcoal pile for company.

* * *

IT WAS PAST THREE when I arrived at Rolfswood. It was a smaller place than I had expected, a main street with several good houses built of brick but not much behind except poor hovels. A straggling path led to a bridge across a little river, then across a field to an ancient-looking church. There was, I was pleased to see, a sizeable inn on the main street. Two carts passed me, full of small branches, new-cut and giving off a raw smell of sap.

I dismounted outside the inn. There I found a room for the night, which was comfortable enough. I went to the parlour to see what information I could raise; I had considered the story I would tell to explain my interest.

The parlour was empty save for an old man sitting alone at a bench. A big scent hound, a lymer, lay beside him. It raised its heavy, lugubrious face to look at me. I crossed to the serving hatch, and asked the elderly woman behind it for a beer. Her plump wrinkled face under its white coif looked friendly. I gulped down the beer, for I was sore thirsty.

'Have you travelled far, sir?' she asked.

'From near Portsmouth.'

'That's a good day's ride.' She leaned her elbows comfortably on the counter. 'What's the news from there? They say the King's coming.'

'So I hear. But I have not been to Portsmouth. I am a London lawyer; I have some business at a house north of Portsdown Hill.'

'What brings you to Rolfswood?'

'A friend in London believes he may have relatives here. I said I would come and enquire.'

She looked at me curiously. 'A good friend, to make such a long journey.'

'Their name is Fettiplace. He heard from an old aunt they once had an iron foundry here.'

'That's gone, sir,' she said gently. 'The foundry burned down near twenty years ago. Master Fettiplace and one of his workers were killed.'

I paused, as though taking in the news for the first time, then said, 'Had he any family?'

'He was a widower. He had a daughter, whose story is even sadder. She saw the fire and lost her reason because of it. They took her away, I heard to London.'

'If only my friend had known. He only recently learned he might have a Sussex connection.'

'Their house and the land the foundry stood on were sold to Master Buttress, our miller. You'll have passed the house in the main street, it's the one with the fine carvings of animals on the doorposts.'

Sold, I thought. By whom? Legally, surely, it would have gone to Ellen. 'No other Fettiplaces locally?'

'No, sir. Master Fettiplace was from somewhere in the north of the county. He came here to build the foundry.' She leaned out of the hatch, and called to the old man. 'Here, Wilf, this gentleman is enquiring after the Fettiplace foundry.' He looked up. The serving woman spoke to me quietly. 'Wilf Harrydance used to work there. He's a poor old fellow, buy him a drink and he'll tell you all he knows.'

I nodded and smiled. 'Thank you. Fetch us two more beers, will you?'

I took them over to the old man. He nodded thanks as I set a mug before him, and studied me with interest. He was well drawn in years, wearing an old smock and bald save for a few straggling grey hairs. His tanned face was wrinkled but his blue eyes were intelligent, eager with curiosity. The dog wagged its tail, no doubt looking for scraps.

'You want to hear the Fettiplace story, sir?' He waved a hand. 'I heard all you told Goodwife Bell. I may be old but my ears are good.'

'If you would. My name is Master Shardlake. You worked at the foundry?'

'I'd been with Master Fettiplace ten years when the fire happened. He wasn't a bad master.' He was silent a moment, remembering. 'It was hard work. Loading the ore and the charcoal into the furnace, checking the progress of the melt through the flue—by Mary, when you looked in there the heat near melted your eyeballs. Then scraping the bloom of melted iron out into the hearth—'

I heard Ellen's voice again. The poor man! He was all on fire! Wilf had paused and frowned, noting my inattention. 'I am sorry,' I said. 'Please go on. What sort of foundry was it? Was it what they call a bloomery?'

He nodded. 'A small one, though the bellows were water powered. Master Fettiplace came to Rolfswood as a young man, he had already made some money in the iron trade over in East Sussex. There's an outcrop of iron ore here, a small one, we're on the western fringes of the Weald. Master Fettiplace bought some woodland that he could use for making charcoal. The river goes through there too, so he put his money into damming the river to make the mill pond, and built the furnace. The flow of water turns the wheel that powers the bellows, you see?'

'Yes.'

'The iron ore gets brought in, in our case from a little further upriver where the ironstone outcrop lay, and you put it in the furnace with the charcoal. The iron melts out of the ore and falls to the bottom. You see?' he repeated, in a schoolmasterly manner.

'I think so. Another beer?'

He nodded gravely. 'Thank you.'

I fetched two more beers and set them on the table. 'What was Master Fettiplace like?'

Wilf shook his head sadly. 'William Fettiplace wasn't a lucky man. Rolfswood furnace never did very well, the quality of the ironstone was low, and with the competition from the new blast furnaces the price of charcoal kept going up. Then his wife that he was devoted to died young, leaving him with a young daughter. And he died in the fire, with my friend Peter Gratwyck. That mysterious fire.' Wilf was looking at me keenly now.

'Mysterious? I would have thought there was always a risk of fire in such places.'

He shook his head. 'It was summer, the furnace wasn't even working.' He leaned forward. 'This is how it was. The furnace was an enclosed area, a courtyard inside a wooden wall. The enclosure was mostly roofed over, except for the centre—it got very hot when the furnace was working. Inside the enclosure was the main building with the furnace at one end, and the big bellows connected to the water wheel. The rest of the enclosure was storage space—ore and coke and building materials. It was a small, old-fashioned foundry. Master Fettiplace hadn't the money to build a blast furnace. There were only a few workers. We worked our lands during the summer, and in the winter did the casting. See?'

'Yes.'

'Someone always had to be there during the summer, to take deliveries of coke and ore ready for the winter, and keep an eye on the mill pond and the wheel. Peter usually did that, he lived very close by. But that summer—it was 1526, the year before the great dearth when the crops failed through the rains. That August I remember was cold and windy, like October—'

'And the fire—' I prompted.