"Miss Thorley," said the Duke, without turning his head.
Kezia came forward. She had the roll under her arm, wrapped in its sacking against the rain; she had not even thought to leave it behind. Her heart was going so hard she could feel it in her throat. She was aware of fifty pairs of eyes on her, and of Sir Lionel's look of incredulous distaste, and of Mr. Quarrendon's face, which for the first time since she had known it showed something: not alarm, exactly, but a sort of rapid calculation, like a man adding a column in his head.
She did not unroll it. She did not need to. She had read it so often she had it by heart.
"Item," said Kezia Thorley, in her clear rectory voice, "it is ordered and agreed by the homage, at the court baron held the Tuesday after Michaelmas in the year sixteen hundred and seventy-two, that every ancient cottage within this manor shall have common upon Coldwell for two beasts, one swine, and ten geese, and no more. Confirmed by the homage in seventeen hundred and nine. Confirmed again in seventeen hundred and fifty. Two beasts. Simeon Fairweather has been hayward forty years and has never heard of any other number, and neither has anyone here, and neither, I think, had Mr. Quarrendon, until he borrowed my uncle's key in July."
There was a sound from the crowd—not a cheer, something lower and more dangerous, like a wave drawing back off shingle. Joseph Lacey shifted the crowbar in his hands.
"Put that down, Mr. Lacey," said the Duke, still without turning. "I'll not need it, and you'll not want to have been holding it when I'm done."
And after a moment, to Kezia's enormous relief, she heard it clank on the cobbles.
"Ivatt," said the Duke. "Open the pound."
The pinder looked at Sir Lionel, and at Mr. Quarrendon, and at the Duke, in that order, and swallowed. "Your Grace—it's breach of pound, Your Grace, if they're took lawful. It's—there's poundage owing on every beast—"
"Then I'll pay it." The Duke put his hand into his coat and brought out a purse and held it out. "They were taken in my name, so I'm told. I didn't order it and I'll not own it. But if there's a fee, I'll pay the fee, so that nobody can say afterwards these people broke anything." He looked up at Sir Lionel. "That satisfy the law, Sir Lionel? You're the magistrate."
Sir Lionel's face had gone a curious mottled colour. "Your Grace is very free with the custom of a manor you have known for three days."
"I am. I'll own that too. I've known it three days, and Miss Thorley's known it all her life, and Mr. Quarrendon's known it since July and told the hayward otherwise." The Duke turned at last to face the crowd, and Kezia saw him draw a breath, as a man does before a jump he is not sure of. "I've something else to say, and you'll all hear it, so there's no telling it differently afterwards. In June I signed a paper in London for the enclosure of this common. I didn't read it. I thought it was for a survey. That's not Mr. Quarrendon's fault; that's mine. A man ought to read what he puts his name to. I've read it now. I'm withdrawing my consent, and I'll write to the parliamentary agents tonight."