“When was that, my lord?” Hook asked with apparent innocence.

“Bastard,” Lord Slayton spat, and the steward struck Hook from behind with the bone handle of a horsewhip.

“Don’t know which day that was, my lord,” Hook said stubbornly.

“Two days ago,” Sir Martin said. He was Lord Slayton’s brother-in-law and priest to the manor and village. He was no more a knight than Hook was, but Lord Slayton insisted he was called “Sir” Martin in recognition of his high birth.

“Oh!” Hook pretended a sudden enlightenment. “I was coppicing the ash under Beggar’s Hill, my lord.”

“Liar,” Lord Slayton said flatly. William Snoball, steward and chief archer to his lordship, struck Hook again, slashing the whip’s butt hard across the back of the forester’s skull. Blood trickled down Hook’s scalp.

“On my honor, lord,” Hook lied earnestly.

“The honor of the Hook family,” Lord Slayton said drily before looking at Hook’s younger brother, Michael, who was seventeen. “Where were you?”

“I was thatching the church porch, my lord,” Michael said.

“He was,” Sir Martin confirmed. The priest, lanky and gangling in his stained black robe, bestowed a grimace that was supposed to be a smile on Nick Hook’s younger brother. Everyone liked Michael. Even the Perrills seemed to exempt him from the hatred they felt for the rest of the Hook tribe. Michael was fair while his brother was dark, and his disposition was sunny while Nick Hook was saturnine.

The Perrill brothers stood next to the Hook brothers. Thomas and Robert were tall, thin and loose-jointed with deep sunk eyes, long noses, and jutting chins. Their resemblance to Sir Martin the priest was unmistakable and the village, with the deference due to a gentry-born churchman, accepted the pretense that they were the miller’s sons while still treating them with respect. The Perrill family had unspoken privileges because everyone understood that the brothers could call on Sir Martin’s help whenever they felt threatened.