Blood Runs Thicker

by Sarah Hawkswood

  ‘With his father’s corpse laid before the altar?’ Bradecote raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Aye, my lord. No wonder you are surprised. So was Fulk. He said he could not sleep there with the body in the church. And then messire Hamo looked at him and said it was but a corpse and his father was on his path to God’s Heaven. He made it sound as though he was walking to Evesham … just ordinary.’ Walkelin shook his head. ‘When Fulk told him it was your command that he remain, he folded his arms and told Fulk to take his chickens to the hall so you could put up with them. Then, when Fulk shooed them out, he lay down, turned over and went to sleep. Er, the chickens were taken to Fulk’s neighbour.’

  ‘We can be grateful for that.’ Bradecote looked thoughtful. ‘It will be interesting to hear the picture of her son that the lady gives us. You stay to guard the lordling, Walkelin.’

  ‘As you wish, my lord.’

  The lady de Lench was at that moment in heated argument with her husband’s son, who had turned on her when she emerged from the solar and told her in no uncertain terms that she would not sleep another night in the lord’s bed. Once his father was in the earth she would be gone, and he cared not whether she went to her own father or the guest hall in Evesham Abbey.

  ‘But I do, and I say she stays.’ Hugh Bradecote stood in the doorway, Serjeant Catchpoll behind him. ‘Until this is ended and the killer of Osbern de Lench taken, she stays.’

  ‘Through what need? She could not have killed him. Look at her.’

  Bradecote looked. She still looked younger than her years, and there was a birdlike fragility to her. Without taking his eyes from her he spoke to Baldwin.

  ‘Yet you say, as if it were fact, that your brother,’ and he intentionally omitted the half-blood relationship, ‘paid men to kill your sire but discount the lady? Why?’

  ‘Me? Kill my lord?’ The lady de Lench actually jumped at the suggestion. ‘What good could come to me from his death? What he threatens,’ she pointed at Baldwin, ‘is no more than I have always known he would do. I lose all.’

  Catchpoll was looking at the pointing finger, or rather her wrist now showing from the sleeve of her gown. There was bruising upon it, the sort of bruising that would come from a very hard grip.

  ‘Where came you by the bruises, my lady?’ The serjeant had seen women over the years whose husbands treated them roughly, when in drink or from plain ill-temper, though of course in this case it might be they came from Baldwin the son, not Osbern the husband. What had passed before the sheriff’s men had arrived the day before was unknown, but unlikely to have been amicable, if Baldwin had been all too ready to hang the son of her body.

  ‘Oh, I am not sure. I am one who bruises at the slightest thing, and oft times forget whence they sprang.’ It was said airily.

  It was the husband then, thought Catchpoll, but wondered if she protected the dead from fear of the living, or as something she could barter for Baldwin pressing the case less harshly against the young Hamo.

  Bradecote’s thought was that she was not a good liar, which might assist them in other things.

  ‘What matter are her bruises when you are seeking my sire’s killer?’ Baldwin snarled. ‘I have given you all you need so why do you not—?’

  ‘You may leave the hall, and we will speak with the lady de Lench here or in her solar.’ Bradecote spoke with authority and made it hers still, at least until the body was buried. He also did not much like Baldwin de Lench, so annoying him was a pleasure. It certainly worked. The new lord of Lench grew very red in the face, opened his mouth as if to defy him, then saw the amusement on Catchpoll’s grizzled countenance. The man was clearly waiting for the entertainment. Well, he would not get it. Instead, Baldwin declared he would go to the Great Field and see how the harvesters progressed. If he was wanted then they must come to him there. It was the best he could do, and it was not much. He strode out, fuming.

  ‘You may be more comfortable in your solar, lady,’ said Bradecote, gently.

  ‘Yes, I … I thank you, my lord.’ She led the way into the solar and Bradecote followed, indicating that Catchpoll keep a little back by the open door between it and the hall. It felt less intimidating with the sheriff’s men apart, yet he would be able to hear all that was said and speak also. She sat upon a seat, with a low back and arms which she gripped as if they gave her strength.

  ‘I am not here to frighten you, my lady, but to find out truth.’ Bradecote looked squarely at her. ‘Your lord was killed by someone who knew his habits, and who had cause to wish him ill. It was someone he recognised.’

  ‘It was not my son. Hamo would not kill his father.’

  ‘I did not say that it was. But we have no idea of who liked or loathed the lord Osbern.’ It gave her the chance to advance alternatives to it being her child.

  ‘Osbern was not liked, my lord Bradecote, by anyone, when truth is spoken. He was a difficult man to like. He was respected, and by some he was feared, but he was not liked. Yet many people are not liked and still they are not cut down in blood. He was pious, for all his anger. The new church you see is proof of his generosity to the Church, and he prayed, every night he prayed, silently, before he retired, sometimes with tears upon his cheeks. I never saw him humble before any man, but I would give him his due and say he was humble before God.’

  ‘Was there any man whose dislike might have given rise to hate? One may spring from the other.’ Bradecote was watching her face and realised that she was already struggling to keep the image and impression of the man who had been her husband until yesterday. He was becoming some dream, lost upon waking.

  ‘Raoul Parler, who holds Flavel from William de Beauchamp, the lord Sheriff, has been in discord with him these three years over something that Osbern would never discuss, and Walter Pipard, who has the one half of Bishampton from Roger Pichard, long ago declared that he would not permit Osbern to set foot on his land upon pain of death. Mind you, those two are at odds themselves, neighbours but not neighbourly. There were bad words between Osbern and Corbin FitzPayne, over at Cookhill, but he is dead now, so …’

  ‘Do you know the cause?’ Bradecote felt a knot form in his stomach. He had not known Corbin FitzPayne, only of him, but it touched home, and Christina. He knew that Christina prayed for the soul of her late husband and had thought him a good man, but she had barely mentioned him since their marriage. Christina was a beautiful woman. Had Osbern de Lench given offence to her lord by word or deed concerning her?

  ‘A silly thing. Osbern bought a horse from him, and a week later it took and died of a colic in its belly. Such things happen, but Osbern kept saying he had been cheated and sold a sick horse.’ She shrugged. ‘It could be so with him. Anger need not have roots of truth.’

  Hugh Bradecote relaxed. Christina had said nothing when Osbern de Lench’s death had been mentioned, but her heart was in the present and her dreams of the future, and the past she had consigned to the past. She may indeed never have known of the horse or its demise.

  ‘I see what you mean about not liked, my lady.’ Bradecote paused for a moment. ‘How was he with his son, your son? Harsh? Cold?’

  ‘No.’ There was vehemence in her tone, too much.

  That was a lie, or at least half a lie, thought Bradecote, and he sensed Catchpoll on the alert.

  ‘My lady de Lench, your son Hamo was not here when your husband was killed, and none can vouch for where he was. The lord Baldwin seems very convinced it was, if not Hamo’s hand, then Hamo’s silver, that was responsible for the death.’

  ‘That is just jealousy, hatred. Baldwin was the one Osbern shouted at the most. Always yelling at each other they were, and it was Baldwin that Osbern had sent to his manor at Tredington, over by Shipston. He said it was to see that the steward did not panic and cut the harvest far too early, but I know it was to let his blood cool. He was refusing to accept the match that my lord thought fitting for him.’

  ‘But Baldwin was here, came from the harvest here, when t
he grey came home riderless.’ The undersheriff was patient.

  ‘I was nearly as surprised seeing him as I was the horse, my lord, for I had no warning he was returning.’

  ‘He did not sleep here the night before?’

  ‘Oh no. He was at Tredington, as I said, and had been for over a week.’

  Catchpoll was thinking, going over exactly what he had been told, and his face screwed up in concentration.

  ‘My lord, we was not told a lie over this, just nobody was asked. The lord Baldwin said he came from the harvesting, that is all.’

  ‘Yes.’ Bradecote did not want distracting from learning the relationship between Osbern and his younger son. He kept his eyes on the lady. ‘If father and elder son scrapped like dogs, how was it between Hamo and his sire? Did they argue also?’

  ‘Hamo does not argue with people. When he is angered it is frustration. He is a quiet boy, solitary. He has spoken of entering the church at Evesham, and I think it would suit him.’

  ‘He is pious, like his father, lady?’ enquired Catchpoll.

  ‘He … he would like the order, the calm of each day following the same pattern, the absence of chatter and small things. He likes to know.’

  ‘Know? Know what?’

  ‘Everything.’ It was her turn to frown, her smooth white brow furrowing. ‘Our son … my son … is not interested in the flesh, or in friendships. Even from a babe his question was always “why?”. Most of the time he is very quiet, and calm. Osbern found that unsettling, I admit. He disliked his lack of interest in fighting, even wenching, but most of all his lack of interest in the land, this land. He felt that was a failing. He saw that the cloister might be best but was adamant that Hamo could not go to the Benedictines until Baldwin was wed, had an heir.’ She laughed, suddenly. ‘The next morning Hamo came before him and spouted a list of all the lords he could think of in the hundred with daughters unwed, with comments such as “she is fat” or “she has lank hair”. I thought Osbern would be angered, but he laughed and said that Hamo was like an arrow, his flight was straight. It was the laughing that upset Hamo, threw him into temper. He did not see it as funny, just sense.’ She paused, this time for so long the silence felt teased out. ‘Frustrated anger he has at times, but Hamo cannot hate. He does not feel enough to hate. It makes him hard to understand, but also for him to understand others. He did not love his sire but knew that the Commandment said he should honour him, so he did what he was expected to do. Father Matthias says he likes to write out the Commandments. They please him in their simplicity. He says they are not hard to follow. He would make a bad priest but a good monk, I am sure, though he would miss his hawks.’

  There was not much to say to that, and undersheriff and serjeant exchanged the briefest of glances. There were no more questions, or rather there was the feeling that there were no more answers to be had.

  ‘Thank you, my lady. The lord Osbern will be buried today, I take it.’ This was not really a question. The weather was warm, even though the church good and cool.

  ‘No.’ She sounded very displeased. ‘Baldwin has said the whole village must be present, and that he will lie where he is until the harvest is in. He said that Osbern would appreciate that. I think it wrong.’

  Bradecote, reluctantly, sided with the son over the widow. Baldwin had been quite passionate about his sire’s love of the land, the manor as a thing. Bradecote could see that in burying his father with honour at the point when the manor’s bounty was gathered in safely, there would be a finality but continuity to it the man would have liked. He therefore made a non-committal sound and said that they would now speak with Hamo, alone.

  ‘He is your child, lady, would be so were he thirty and with sons of his own, but he is not a child whose hand must be held, nor whose words interpreted. Were he a village lad he would be in a tithing by now, and his oath accountable. Green he may be, but no child. You remain here.’

  She nodded, accepting. She was used to being commanded. Bradecote turned on his heel, and Catchpoll followed. ‘I gets the feeling having words with the lordling Hamo will be like trapping moonbeams,’ muttered Catchpoll, as they crossed the hall.

  ‘And if the moonbeams fail us, we look closer at the lordly enemies,’ said Bradecote, ‘and why their enmity was above mere dislike. At least we have two names.’

  Chapter Five

  Hamo de Lench was pacing up and down in the confines of Fulk the Steward’s dark, low-eaved home, and looking stormy. For a youth who was not meant to have emotions, it was impressive. Walkelin looked as if he had been put in a pit with a bear, however skinny and undersized, and greeted his superiors’ arrival with a look of patent relief.

  ‘I am Hugh Bradecote, Undersheriff of Worcestershire,’ announced Bradecote. If the lad liked order and simplicity a plain start was best.

  ‘You wanted me to sleep with fowls.’ Hamo, who was nearly as fair as his mother but had the thick brows of Baldwin, clearly from his sire, glowered at the undersheriff. ‘I do not wish to be here, but your man,’ he pointed at Walkelin, ‘refuses to let me leave.’

  ‘At my command. I wish to speak to you about the death of your father.’

  ‘We could speak outside. It is dark in here, and I am bored.’ The words could have sounded petulant, but they were stated as facts.

  ‘We may speak outside then, if it will ease you, but you cannot try and leave.’

  ‘Run away? I would run away if I had killed my father, but I did not do that, so I have no need to run away.’ He looked at Bradecote as if he were an idiot not to have understood this.

  ‘Then we speak in the open air. Come.’ Bradecote turned, and led the way out into the sunshine. He stood so that Hamo advanced no more than two paces from the doorway, and had the daub and wattle to his rear, and the sheriff’s men covering all other directions. ‘You were out hawking yesterday forenoon. Were you out long?’

  ‘I saddled my horse after the hour of Matins, as I would think. Father Matthias went to the field to labour and would have said the Office as he worked. There was no groom here then for he would only have returned from the harvest when the sun was high and the hour of my father’s trot up the hill was nigh. He liked to be there about noontide.’ There was no regret in the voice, no sense of something or someone now lost. ‘I took Superba, my best hawk, and we went out towards the northern boundary of the manor, and she took wood pigeon. Two I brought for the pot, and the third I let her devour as her due when I wanted to hunt no more.’

  ‘Did anyone see you when you were out?’

  ‘I do not think so, and I spoke to none but Superba.’

  ‘She listens?’ Bradecote gave a wry smile.

  ‘Not to the words. She is a bird.’ There was that tone of dealing with someone of slow wits again. ‘She listens to the voice, the way I speak. I could recite the Pater Noster or tell her she is the Holy Roman Emperor and it would not matter.’

  ‘Do you grieve, messire, for your father?’ It was a straight question.

  ‘He is out of this world now. He built the new church. God will like that, and smile upon him. Why should I grieve?’

  ‘Because your brother is now lord?’

  ‘Baldwin.’ He shrugged. ‘He is lord because he is the firstborn. He will let me go to Evesham. I think he will want me to go soon. I will be with the monks. I can write, and I will work in the scriptorium. I have wanted to go for a long time.’

  ‘And your sire forbad you?’ Catchpoll spoke up. Hamo gave him a quizzical frown but addressed his answer to Bradecote.

  ‘He wanted Baldwin to father a son first. I asked Baldwin to choose a maid and beget one soon, but he laughed. And my father laughed when I gave him the names of all the maids hereabouts. I did not like them laughing. They are the fools, not me.’

  ‘Messire, I do not want you to leave Lench.’

  ‘I must stay to see my father buried. It is my duty, I know. It is right.’

  ‘Even after. Until the killer is taken.’

&
nbsp; ‘Why? It is not me. I did not lay a hand upon him.’

  ‘But you could have paid others to do it, in your stead.’

  ‘Why? I must honour my father and my mother. It is the Commandment of God. Sending men to kill him would be no honour.’ He paused. ‘Baldwin will not have me in the hall. Must I stay in the steward’s hovel? I do not like it. I will sleep in God’s house. That does not smell of chickens.’

  ‘The burial is not today. It will be when the harvest is in.’

  ‘God is my father. I will sleep in my father’s house, since my other father’s house is closed to me. What law forbids it, my lord Undersheriff?’

  ‘It would be seen as strange. It would upset people.’

  ‘But not upset me. I do not care what people think. They sleep with the stench of chickens.’ He shrugged again. It sounded arrogant, and yet it was not that. Bradecote could not see any signs that Hamo lied, and his religious belief seemed very strong, stronger even than his dislike of chickens. That his manner would drive Baldwin to fury was pretty plain, and so Osbern must have found him as incomprehensible, but there was no anger lingering in the son towards the father. There was actually nothing at all. The void itself was peculiar. Undersheriff looked to serjeant, who raised his eyes Heavenward.

  ‘There is no law, messire. I tell you only how it will seem. Keep away from your brother if you value your skin.’ There was nothing more that Bradecote could think of to say. With a jerk of his head he drew Catchpoll and Walkelin to follow him. ‘We will walk to the hilltop and see the world as the lord Osbern saw it.’

  Ascending the hill, even on foot, did not take very long, although the heat made them sweat and Catchpoll grumble. At the top Bradecote gazed down, and understood Osbern de Lench, at least in this. Bradecote was not a man with habit ingrained, but he had sometimes ridden to the top of the little scarp that looked down upon Bradecote, manor and fields, and felt that mutual bond. The land was his, but he also belonged to the land, as his sire before him. Osbern had held other manors, as Bradecote did, but the caput of them, that was special, inviolable. It was, though he would not say such a thing out loud, a love.