“Yes, my lord.”

“And if a Hook dies,” his lordship turned his gaze on Tom Perrill, “then you and your brother will hang from the oak.”

“Yes, my lord,” Perrill said.

“Murder would need to be proven,” Sir Martin interjected. He spoke suddenly, his voice indignant. The gangling priest often seemed to be living in another world, his thoughts far away, then he would jerk his attention back to wherever he was and his words would blurt out as if catching up with lost time. “Proven,” he said again, “proven.”

“No!” Lord Slayton contradicted his brother-in-law, and to emphasize it he slapped the wooden arm of his chair. “If any one of you four dies I’ll hang the rest of you! I don’t care! If one of you slips into the mill’s leet and drowns I’ll call it murder. You understand me? I will not have this feud one moment longer!”

“There’ll be no murder, my lord,” Tom Perrill said humbly.

Lord Slayton looked back to Hook, waiting for the same assurance, but Nick Hook said nothing. “A whipping will teach him obedience, my lord,” Snoball suggested.

“He’s been whipped!” Lord Slayton said. “When was the last time, Hook?”

“Last Michaelmas, my lord.”

“And what did you learn from that?”

“That Master Snoball’s arm is weakening, lord,” Hook said.

A stifled snigger made Hook look upward to see her ladyship was watching from the shadows of the gallery. She was childless. Her brother, the priest, whelped one bastard after another, while Lady Slayton was bitter and barren. Hook knew she had secretly visited his grandmother in search of a remedy, but for once the old woman’s sorcery had failed to produce a baby.