Blood Runs Thicker

by Sarah Hawkswood

  ‘Where did you dismount, my lord?’ enquired Catchpoll.

  ‘Right by the body, but no doubt the hoof prints are mostly my father’s mare’s. Fulk and the two men arrived, out of breath and some time after me, of course. You may see where the hurdle was laid upon the ground to place the body upon it.’ Baldwin de Lench seemed suddenly to have sloughed off the anger that filled him in the hall, and it was noticeable. Well, thought Bradecote, the very first shock was ebbing, there were others to take up the burden of discovering the killer, and he might just have reached the strange numb stage of grief, if grief was strong in him. Most likely it was that he was away from the lady and the young half-brother whom he must loathe. Here, in the warm onset of a late summer night, the mantle of lordship had truly fallen upon him, and those two did not exist. There was only the hooting of an owl and the final rustlings in a rookery as the birds settled to rest – sounds which went beyond the generations of men, their births and deaths.

  ‘You say he was facing skywards, on his back. Was there anything about him, beyond the wounds, that you recall? Anything particular?’ Bradecote saw Baldwin de Lench’s frown, one more of irritation than perplexity.

  ‘I did not think beyond his death. He was my father, and he died by a man’s intent.’

  ‘Must have been bad, my lord, with all that blood.’ Walkelin did not look up, but shook his head, sadly. Catchpoll hid a smile. The lad really was learning the craft.

  ‘Blood is blood, and I have seen it, but the undershirt was very wet with it, and I do not know about his leather tunic, for it was one open down the front, and besides, it is gone.’

  ‘A good cloak for winter, a fine leather coat, such would I be glad to have if not too stained.’ Walkelin knew his path and kept to it, but Catchpoll, on his hands and knees, raised one finger in covert warning. Go no further.

  ‘Who is to say why they near stripped him?’ Baldwin de Lench sounded annoyed now. Men-at-arms were to be spoken to, not there to offer views. ‘Does he always bleat so much?’ He looked at Bradecote.

  ‘Not if he doesn’t want a boot up his arse.’ Bradecote kicked Walkelin, casually, though the blow was more a push to the buttock with the sole of his boot. Walkelin obligingly fell over, muttering. De Lench looked more approving. It was clearly the way he treated his inferiors if they displeased him. ‘Mind you, the question is valid.’

  ‘Robbery was just a way of covering up what happened, my lord Undersheriff. Mayhap they took more than what might be of use just to make it all the clearer. Had they but stolen his boots it would seem wrong.’

  It was not an unreasonable suggestion, and Bradecote nodded, as if he agreed. ‘It fits.’

  ‘Of course it does. That miserable stick of a youth that I am assured is my half-brother by blood is crafty, not bold of hand. He would watch, yes, but prefer that to striking the blow.’

  ‘Why do you say it was him?’ Bradecote sounded interested, not sceptical. It encouraged the giving of information.

  ‘Because he was not in the Great Field with the harvest, nor in the hall. He was out hawking, and alone. He came home after the body was brought in and was all agitation, but that was an act. He is sly, and he cares for nobody, not even his own mother much. I have seen him look at her, look as if she was some mystery he could not unravel. He watches always, speaks but little and is as poisonous as an adder. He killed my father, had him killed.’ The man sounded sure.

  ‘But why?’ Serjeant Catchpoll did not fear a boot, not only being patently more senior than a man-at-arms who might get his arse kicked, but also being further away, and looked up. ‘My lord, paying others to kill is not hot blood. It is a plan, with a reason. So why?’ He sounded respectful, which Bradecote knew was not something he did by nature. This was as much an act as the kicking of Walkelin.

  ‘I am not the lord Sheriff’s man. It is your task to discover that. I am just saying it was him. I know it.’

  The tetchiness, thought Bradecote, might actually be natural to the man.

  ‘Seen enough, Serjeant?’ He sounded commanding.

  ‘Yes, my lord.’

  ‘Then we return to the manor. The light is going anyway.’

  The quartet walked back in silence. In the hall the candles had been lit, and Fulk the Steward was talking to a maidservant bearing the clear remains of a meal. It reminded the sheriff’s men that they had empty stomachs. There was no sign of the lady de Lench.

  ‘Where is she?’ growled the lord Baldwin.

  ‘My lady was tired and had the headache, my lord. She begs your forgiveness, my lord Undersheriff, and has retired for the night.’

  ‘The bitch! She just wanted to keep the lord’s bed. Serve her right if I pull back the curtain and—’

  ‘She is your mother, my lord.’ Fulk sounded horrified.

  ‘She did not bear me. There is no blood between us.’ Baldwin sneered.

  ‘Holy Church’s words,’ the steward chided.

  ‘Do you obey all of Holy Church’s words, Fulk?’ The sneer lengthened.

  Fulk blushed, and lowered his gaze.

  ‘Well, I will not make her share my bed, but nor will I share my solar with her and sleep in the other bed. Not tonight. My hall is at your disposal, my lord Bradecote. We sleep here when we have eaten.’

  Sleep did sound a good idea, and food even better. Bradecote doubted Catchpoll or Walkelin had taken more than the odd beaker of small beer and perhaps a crust since first light, and he had certainly not done so. He had no intention of waking the lady, but hearing about her son from her might give another view before they spoke with him. That would be for the morning.

  ‘Steward, you will see that messire Hamo comes to you and does not leave your dwelling. We will speak with him on the morrow.’ Bradecote thought he looked more able to restrain the youth than the mild priest.

  ‘As you wish, my lord.’

  ‘And Walkelin will be lodged with you also, lest your watch be less than needful.’ That made for added security.

  Walkelin was caught between relief that he would not have to share the same chamber as the lord Baldwin, who looked as if he might as easily kick other men’s subordinates as his own, and regret at being out of any muttered exchange of views between Serjeant Catchpoll and the lord Bradecote.

  ‘Shall I bring your roll, my lord?’ Catchpoll was so unlike a servant that Bradecote could have laughed out loud.

  ‘No, Serjeant, I want to see my horse is bedded well for myself.’

  It was the excuse they wanted. Having Baldwin de Lench in the chamber with them would prevent mulling over anything learnt thus far.

  ‘If we are going to spend much more time among the horse dung and hay munching, we might as well bed down here,’ grumbled Catchpoll, when they entered the stable. ‘Pox on the man for not taking to the bed he knew. It was good enough for him last night.’

  ‘But last night it was his and now it merely belongs to him. Sweet Virgin, how he hates the lady his sire wed.’ Bradecote shook his head.

  ‘Hates now, my lord, but was it hate born of something else?’ Walkelin, who had decided that his watch would commence after he had taken any private instructions from his superiors, looked thoughtful. Those superiors stared at him. This was deep thinking.

  ‘Go on, young Walkelin. Your loins are the youngest.’ Catchpoll, realising what he was saying, grinned his death’s head grin. ‘Tell us the lust of youth.’

  ‘Well,’ the flame hair met the rising blush to the brow, ‘a mere lad he was when his sire took a new wife, but when he left boyhood and became a man she was what, no more than twenty, beautiful and being used by his father in the same chamber. A curtain can hide sights, not sounds. An easy step it would be to hear, and dream, and if ever he overstepped the mark and she rejected him, or mocked his youth, well, love and hate, Serjeant, you have said, are close as lovers themselves. One became the other, and festered. If we had not been here tonight, would he have torn back the curtain from hate and sinned with her agains
t her will? Who would stop him?’

  Bradecote winced. It was not a nice thought, but likely enough.

  ‘You know what,’ remarked Catchpoll, looking at the still-blushing Walkelin, ‘I have often moaned at you for thinking with your beallucas but I think they give you wisdom in this. Makes good sense, I agree.’

  ‘But he cannot wed his father’s wife, nor whore her, openly. Even if he loved her, not hated her, there is no reason to kill his sire.’ Bradecote spoke as if to himself.

  ‘And it was the other son who was absent. The lord Baldwin was in the field with the harvesters, my lord. He could not have done so.’ Walkelin did not wish to dwell on carnal matters, at least not other men’s. Dwelling on what he had been doing with Eluned, the kitchen maid, just after sunset last eve, that was worth dwelling on, but in private, and with a grin on his face.

  ‘Yes. I ramble.’ Bradecote scratched his nose. ‘So, in the short time we have before the rumbling of my belly is louder than my voice, was there anything learnt from the place where Osbern de Lench died, and does it prove anything?’

  ‘There was the hoof prints from two horses, my lord. One set heading up the hill and the other down.’ Catchpoll was confident. Walkelin looked amazed. ‘The one coming down must have been the dead man, returning from his gazing upon his lands, and the one going up met him.’

  ‘But how do you know they was from today, Serjeant?’ Walkelin stared at him.

  ‘There was others, I grant, and the ground is quite hard, but there were signs that a horse coming down the hill stopped and stood square. Its toes dug in a little, and only the marks of a standing horse would be side by side. The traces of the horse heading up the hill were less certain, but there was fresh horse shit where it must have stood.’

  ‘But were not the second set of marks those of Baldwin de Lench’s horse when he came to find his father?’ Bradecote frowned.

  ‘Ah no, my lord. You see, I found the standing prints not where he said he stopped when he dismounted. There you could see the scuffs from the hurdle being dropped, and not footprints but disturbing of the ground, from feet, the dragging of the corpse, and no doubt the lord Baldwin kneeling by the body. Flower stems were broken off, and there was a trace of dark, dried blood. No doubt the body was rolled before it was stripped. The two horses I speak of met so the riders were close, knee to knee, you might say.’

  ‘So the killer was mounted, my lord. They had a horse, which discounts most of Lench,’ said Walkelin.

  ‘Or had access to a horse for at least as long as it took to trot up the track and do the deed,’ amended Catchpoll, looking about the stable. ‘We have the lord Osbern’s grey and the two horses of the sons, both of which were not here. The other horse is the one the lord Sheriff sent the steward back on, so the beast that came to Worcester was here.’

  ‘But if you aren’t used to riding a horse you fall off a lot. I know I did when I first had to ride,’ said Walkelin.

  ‘You still do.’ Catchpoll grinned.

  ‘But you were a town lad.’ Bradecote remembered riding bareback as a boy even before he had a lordling’s pony. ‘On a manor most lads have been up on a horse’s back, whether they risked a thrashing for it or not. They vie to bring in my horse from grazing, and would not lead it all the way. A few manors even have a horse for a cart, not the plough oxen. It may not be as likely but … and there is a groom who will be confident with the animals here. It is possible.’

  ‘And we have been happy to think the killer is here, my lord, but lords know their neighbours and their neighbours know them,’ declared Catchpoll, with a grimace. ‘The Lord of the Hill name must have been known for miles about, and his habit. If the father was like the short-tempered bastard that is the son, as the priest said, we may have to cast our net wider.’

  ‘I pray that is not so,’ Bradecote groaned. ‘Let us hope that our speech with the young Hamo in the morning makes all clear. The only trouble is, I think that Baldwin de Lench takes a path and cannot step from it. His very certainty makes me doubt he can be right, and if he is not, we are as in this stable, in the dark.’

  ‘You listen well, young Walkelin, if the steward’s wife is loose-tongued over the meal. We may learn more from others one step back from this family at each other’s throats.’

  ‘Er, he is wifeless, Serjeant. A serving wench told me.’ Walkelin looked pleased to reveal something that the serjeant did not know, but a bit sheepish.

  ‘Then you’ll be eating with the servants, and even better. More tongues to wag. Just make sure yours doesn’t …’ The lecherous look on Catchpoll’s face, even in the gloom, needed no more.

  ‘Upon which we part.’ Bradecote interrupted him. ‘You have a mind like a—’

  ‘—single man of twenty summers. Yes, my lord. It keeps me young.’ Catchpoll grabbed his bed roll. ‘Your belly is rumbling loud, my lord. We eats and sleeps, and God grant us wisdom on the morrow.’

  ‘Amen.’

  Chapter Four

  Hugh Bradecote woke to the sound of Catchpoll coughing and hawking into the cold hearth and grumbling about his knees. The serjeant walked past him, a little stiffly, and headed out into the cool of early morning, if not to commune with nature then to answer its call. Bradecote stretched his long limbs, sniffed and sat up. Baldwin de Lench was lying on his stomach with his head pillowed on his arms, still oblivious to the world. At least the lady would have slept safely, thought the undersheriff, getting to his feet and rolling up his blanket. They had learnt nothing over the meal except that his cook made a good pottage with the added delight of a portion of spit roasted pigeon, not that a brace of pigeon went far between three. Catchpoll had not been offered any of it, for it was kept for the lord, the lady and the undersheriff, with none even for the lad whose hawk brought the birds to ground. The fact that the lordling had gone out hawking and returned with game did not mean much, since a good bird and good fortune might have brought down their dinner soon after he rode out.

  Bradecote went outside and found Catchpoll shaking water from his face and hair, having thrust both in a bucket of water. He reminded Bradecote of a grizzled old hound.

  ‘Better?’ enquired Bradecote.

  ‘Much.’

  ‘De Lench still sleeps.’

  ‘Good. Them as has real work is already about, so we should have time to speak with Walkelin and see if he learnt anything, nice and quiet like. Most everyone will be off to the field as soon as they may. There’s streaks of red in the dawn and a smell in the air makes me think they have today, if lucky, to get in their harvest.’ Catchpoll sounded less than hopeful.

  ‘I wish them luck then, for theirs is mine also. We were well over halfway when I left, but I could not say for sure we would end today. Mind you, Alcuin, if he feared rain, would have all to work before the sun was full risen over the horizon.’

  ‘But the steward here has more to worry him than the harvest. Ah, here is Walkelin.’

  Walkelin, his red hair looking tousled and his eyes bleary, emerged from the steward’s modest dwelling beyond the palisade without looking up, and relieved himself against a nearby tree as his superiors walked from the enclosure to join him. When he turned round, they were but a few paces from him, looking mildly amused.

  ‘Greetings to you also, Walkelin,’ murmured Bradecote. ‘Having got that off your mind, did you learn anything from the servants or Hamo de Lench himself?’

  ‘My lord,’ Walkelin ignored what he had just been doing, ‘I cannot say anything about whether he had his father killed, but he is an odd one and no mistake. And that is the view of everyone else, not just me.’

  ‘So, tell us.’ Bradecote led the trio away from the cluster of low cotts that made Lench and leant against the solid trunk of an ash tree, folding his arms before him.

  ‘The lord’s servants do not think their lot will be better under the lord Baldwin, because they say he is as like unto his father as one pea in a pod to another, with an added dash of his mother’s temper
thrown in. Moody was the father, and moody will be the son, and all had best watch out when he snarls. I asked, all innocent, if they would have preferred if the young lordling Hamo had the manor in his stead, and they laughed outright. Seems he has a mind that drifts, lives in a world all his own. He does not shout at them or act powerful, but never speaks to them unless he gives a command, and then assumes it will be done because servants … serve. He has never goosed a maid, takes no interest in the land and talks to his hawks rather than people.’

  ‘He sounds simple, but the lord Baldwin was all for him being clever and crafty.’ Catchpoll frowned.

  ‘Well, it depends on how you mean both, Serjeant. He can read, and he can write also, even chooses to do it, little notes on vellum he keeps in a box that nobody must touch. Not that anyone would know what they meant. One woman said he made her flesh creep, because he was watching everyone all the time, the way a cat watches a mouse. Sort of interested, and yet as though they were different animals.’ He dropped his voice. ‘She thinks there were elves at his birthing.’ Walkelin was not sure how seriously to take elves. His oldmother had told tales of them as if she had seen them herself, and they were not happy tales.

  Bradecote looked sceptical. ‘He was clever enough also to get what he wanted by choosing his time with his sire. He understood him well enough.’

  ‘But, my lord, that would not be difficult, just from watching and learning. He would not need to understand him. The lord Baldwin, for example, must have understood his father, a man formed like himself, but blundered into requests like a boar in the forest. He understood but did not think.’ Walkelin was not put off.

  ‘And was this thinking lad awake when you returned to the steward’s home?’ Catchpoll thought direct knowledge better than talk of elves and weirdness.

  ‘Yes, for a while. He said he did not like Fulk’s dwelling because it smelt of chickens, and he would rather sleep in the church.’