Blood Runs Thicker

by Sarah Hawkswood

‘It is said you told him that if he set foot upon your land you would strike him down.’ Bradecote kept his voice very even.

  ‘As good as, but words like that are as much warning to keep away as threat. He did not die on my land, did he? I have heard nothing.’

  ‘No, upon his own, on the path up the hill.’

  ‘Makes sense. He wore its track deep almost on his own.’

  ‘You knew he went up daily?’ Bradecote never doubted the affirmative.

  ‘Everyone for miles about knows that.’ Pipard’s lip curled.

  ‘So where were you yesterday noontide?’

  ‘In my hall. I had a clawing pain in my guts. I get it sometimes.’

  ‘Had you servants attending you?’ asked Catchpoll.

  ‘With the harvest coming in and the weather closing? No. Every hand that can work has been in the field.’

  ‘You are recovered today though.’ Bradecote looked at the man closely.

  ‘I am. I never know when it will come, nor go, but a day, at worst a couple, and it passes, though I will not eat today.’

  ‘So tell us why you and Osbern de Lench were in enmity.’

  There was a silence, a silence that was not a void, but something darker and more threatening than the approaching rain clouds. Eventually, Pipard shrugged.

  ‘God will judge him, so what I say matters not at all now.’

  ‘And what do you say?’

  ‘He killed her. I am sure of it. They said she fell from her horse when riding, and broke her neck, but he killed her.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘His wife. His first wife. Judith, sister to Geoffrey Corbizun of Exhall. Young Geoffrey has never had the fire in his belly of his sire, or his dam, but she did. By the Rood, she was magnificent.’ Pipard’s eyes lost focus as the image in his mind claimed him. ‘All raven hair and flashing eyes she was. She had a temper, but then so did Osbern. She rode as if the Devil were after her when she was not contained to play the dutiful lady, and I saw her once, her coif quite slipped back from her hair, and she cared not. Her eyes dared me to look.’ He sighed. ‘Submission was not even a good act with her, and he must have found her wilful once too often. I heard she threw a piss-pot at his head once, in her fury. Magnificent.’

  ‘But how do you know it was not the misfortune that was declared?’ Catchpoll did not assume every turbulent marriage ended in a killing. ‘And why did you not bring it to the lord Sheriff at the time?’

  ‘Why? Because her brother swallowed the lie, and declared it was her boldness killed her.’ He snorted. ‘Perhaps he had felt her tongue and her claws as a boy, before she wed. If he said nothing, how would I be believed?’

  ‘If you had proofs …’ Catchpoll persisted.

  ‘They would have been laughed at.’

  ‘Then tell us now, and we will not laugh.’ Bradecote looked squarely at Pipard, whose gaze then dropped.

  ‘I … she was not happy.’

  ‘You could read her mind?’ Catchpoll sounded sceptical, and Bradecote silenced him with a small movement of his hand.

  ‘Did not need to. She had a look about her, in the month before she died, a sort of fear. Her, afraid! It made no sense. She would defy, she would scream and scratch, I doubt not, but there was something …’

  Catchpoll ground his teeth, very audibly, but kept his mouth shut. Feelings were all very well when bolstered by good honest facts, but here was a man who had clearly been smitten by the lady’s fire and beauty, and he could not accept her death as a thing that happened without great cause. He was a fool then, because death needed no reason, no motive. It just took. Sometimes it dragged slowly from life, sometimes it snatched, and it did not need servants. It was when it had them that the sheriff’s men became involved, but by far the majority were just simple wyrd, what was fated to be, and that could not be avoided.

  ‘That is not a proof of itself, Pipard.’ Bradecote hoped against hope for something more.

  ‘A woman from this manor was returning from Evesham market. She saw the lady de Lench upon the road, and her horse on a slack rein. It had a loose shoe. The next day I heard she had broken her neck in a fall. Do you break your neck falling from a horse at walking pace?’

  ‘Mayhap the smith made good the shoe, and she rode later.’ Catchpoll sniffed, interested but not willing to show it.

  ‘If she did, then I wonder how it was that her lord was the one to find her. Did he ride out also, by chance?’

  ‘Likely he went out to find her if she had not returned home.’

  ‘He killed her.’ Pipard would not be dissuaded. ‘I would not share words with him thereafter.’

  ‘But you did not seek revenge. That showed wisdom, my lord.’ Walkelin had kept silent. He sounded deferential, and yet …

  ‘With the law as doubtful as you are now, I would have hanged. I had responsibilities, a wife, a small son. I owed my name more than I owed her memory, may God be merciful to her. And may Osbern de Lench burn in the eternal fires of Hell.’ He spat into the dusty earth.

  The cart that the sheriff’s men had seen being loaded lumbered into the courtyard, with those to unload it trailing behind. The oxen stood, chewing vacantly, and waited, whilst Walter Pipard encouraged and harangued those within to finish the emptying of the earlier cartload. He turned back to Bradecote.

  ‘I have another cartload to bring in, my lord, before the weather breaks. There is nothing more I can tell you. Find Osbern de Lench’s killer if you must, but it is not me, and they did the world a service.’

  ‘We will leave you to the harvest, and with luck you will have all safe before the rain, but if needs be, we will return and ask of you again.’ Bradecote nodded a dismissal, although it was he who turned his horse about and trotted from the manor, with Catchpoll at his knee and Walkelin urging his slug of a horse to keep up by means of heels and imprecations.

  ‘I do not think Walter Pipard killed the lord of Lench, hate him though he did, my lord,’ said Catchpoll.

  ‘No, nor do I, despite the depth of that loathing. If none saw him when he was sick in his hall then we cannot be beyond doubt, but no. Not least because there could be no sense in killing the man so many years after the cause.’ Bradecote paused. ‘What do you think about the accusation though? Might Osbern de Lench have killed his first wife?’

  ‘He might, my lord, but as the man said, that is down to the judgement of God, who knows all.’ Catchpoll crossed himself reverently.

  ‘But your gut instinct?’

  ‘It would help if I had ever met the man alive, but from report and from looking at the son,’ Catchpoll screwed up his face, ‘I think he probably could have done for her. I am not one to say couples that shout at each other, even throw things, end up one killing the other, not at all, but the word of the woman who saw the horse with the loose shoe means a lot.’

  ‘And mayhap that is why the lord Osbern built his new church, in penance.’ Walkelin spoke up, loudly. He felt left out as well as a bit left behind. ‘As he got older he might think upon what is to come and seek to make up for his sin.’ He paused. ‘And to save up the silver, of course.’

  ‘Personally, I cannot see building a church atones for killing one’s wife, but …’ Bradecote shrugged. ‘It is a cost in silver, just stone and mortar, not a living being. For killing in battle, as my sire said was imposed upon those before him who fought at the Battle when the Conqueror claimed the crown, yes, perhaps, but not a murder killing.’

  The other two men were silent at that, not because they disagreed, but because the mere thought of atoning for a sin in more than prayers and penitence was beyond the imagination of those who would never count their silver wealth in more than could be cupped in their two hands. The sky was growing dark, and Bradecote glanced towards the west. The cavalry of cloud was galloping towards them from the Malvern Hills, which were now lost in a blue-black greyness. A rumble of thunder made his horse twitch its ears.

  ‘The dead man’s distant past is not important now
.’ Catchpoll grimaced. He was going to get wet.

  ‘Unless it is like with poor Ricolde the Whore, and the killer has only recently returned and seen he still lived.’ Walkelin was thorough in thought and learnt from his experiences.

  ‘Not easy in the countryside where any newcomer is talked of for a week until all is mulled over like an ox chewing the cud.’ Bradecote understood village life as no town dweller could.

  ‘So the man is not of the countryside, my lord. He is, say, in Evesham. He heard that Osbern de Lench lived, and his old hate burned anew.’

  ‘And all these years later he recalls that the man rode up his hill every noontide?’ Catchpoll shook his head. ‘No, that has to be one leap too far. All we have is a reason to think better men than the lord Osbern de Lench have met a violent death, and that Raoul Parler might be responsible, but Walter Pipard is not.’ He urged his horse into a canter, following Bradecote’s example, and Walkelin gave up speech to kick his horse.

  They would have had to have galloped hard to reach Lench before the rain, and their horses were spooked by the storm breaking close enough for the thunder to have a crack in it that gave it more than just menace. Forked lightning streaked across the heavens, and as they approached the village, heavy gouts of rain pocked the dry earth at their feet. In the couple of minutes it took to reach the bailey their hair was plastered to their heads and rain was running down their necks. They had expected to find it empty, for sense said everyone would have sought cover, but a scene as violent as the weather met them. Half the village seemed gathered in a semicircle. In the middle of the bailey a man was cowering, trying to curl himself into a ball as he was whipped, his cotte already split and showing scarlet where the lash had slashed his skin like a bear’s claws. Baldwin de Lench, yelling as if vying with the thunderclaps, raised his arm and struck again, and then began kicking the prostrate form. A flash of lightning came to earth close enough for a woman to scream, and the thunder followed hard upon it. Baldwin looked up as Bradecote himself cried out for him to halt, raising a face white with anger and something strangely akin to fear.

  ‘Sweet Jesu, you’ll kill the man,’ cried Bradecote, leaping from the saddle to stand in front of the now-twitching heap of humanity.

  ‘He has his hat!’ screamed Baldwin. ‘And he gives me nought but lies as to how he got it. He killed my father.’

  Catchpoll dismounted also, a little more slowly than his superior. He doubted Baldwin de Lench was in any mood to listen to reason, so he did not bother. The man was focused on the undersheriff and the victim of his wrath, not the serjeant, who came close from one side and punched him very hard in the solar plexus. Baldwin doubled up.

  ‘He might listen now, my lord,’ suggested Catchpoll, calmly.

  ‘Get him into the hall, and the poor bastard he is trying to kill. Everyone else go home. Now!’ Bradecote had no doubt of being obeyed. They went. Walkelin and Bradecote lifted the injured man between them, as Catchpoll prodded the lord of Lench with his sword’s point to follow, still bent and gasping for breath.

  ‘Give us more light here!’ cried Bradecote, entering the gloom. The lady de Lench emerged with a branch of candles from the solar, her hand trembling, her face pale and her free hand rather pointlessly covering one ear.

  ‘What has happened?’ she stared at the wreck of a man laid now upon a trestle table. ‘Is he dead? Who is he?’

  Bradecote ignored her, reaching to feel if there was a heartbeat still in the chest, for there was little breath in the man.

  ‘There is life, but no senses. Does anyone in the village have a knowledge of physick? Not that it will do much good.’

  ‘Mother Winflaed is our herb woman, our healer.’

  ‘Then get her, and anything she has for bone and bruise, and bleeding flesh.’ Bradecote looked grim. ‘He is three parts dead.’

  ‘Why did you stop me?’ wheezed Baldwin, holding his midriff.

  ‘Because we gets answers to questions without killing a man, and we needs to know what he knows,’ Catchpoll growled, and got a look of loathing, but no more.

  ‘How came you by him?’ asked Bradecote, without taking his eyes from the broken body.

  ‘As we came from the field with the last wagon. He walked right past me and commended our luck. He had my sire’s hat upon his head, though it lacked the copper badge with the amber boss upon it. My father’s hat, taken from his corpse.’ There was outrage in the voice, and he pulled from within his belt a dark red cloth hat. ‘For one moment …’

  Yes, thought Bradecote, the hat must be so distinctive it was as though the real owner wore it. Baldwin de Lench had seen a ghost, in his own imagining, just for a moment, and that was enough. Anger and bowel-loosening fear had driven him to a fury of violence.

  ‘So you beat him nigh unto death.’ Bradecote had no sympathy.

  ‘I grabbed him, shook him, ordered him to tell me how he came by it, and he whimpered like a cur and said he got it from a beggar. How likely is that? Either he killed my father or he traded with the one that did.’

  ‘And you have nothing from him but denial and his blood upon your earth. Had you not wit enough to bind him and hold him for our return, de Lench?’ Bradecote snarled at the man, angry at his short-sightedness, and at the fact that he might have near killed a man guilty of nothing more than giving a silver penny or two to a man who needed bread in his belly not a hat on his head.

  A great flash illuminated the chamber even through the narrow horn-paned windows and was followed immediately by a crash that sounded as if an oak was falling. The combination made the lady de Lench scream, drop the candles and cover both her ears. Walkelin stamped out the lick of flames among the rushes with his foot and picked up the candles, though one was now rather flat. Catchpoll sighed and took a rush light to the one that would not collapse.

  A woman with a piece of sacking held over her head entered the hall, bobbing to lady and lords as one. She was followed by a girl of about thirteen bearing a plank with pots all covered with an oilcloth to keep out the rain. Without a word the woman, a round, comfortable-looking woman nearer her later years than youth, went to the body on the trestle table. She crossed herself, said a swift Ave Maria, touched the bruised and battered head and torso, and asked Walkelin, being the one male in the chamber she felt she could command, to turn the man onto his side. She went round the table to see his back and tutted, and then looked at the undersheriff as the one in control.

  ‘His ears do not bleed, nor can I see any place where his skull is caved in, my lord, but I have nothing to waken a man as is jangled of brain. If he wakes, he wakes, but he may not, may never. As for the rest, there is ribs broken, doubtless, but he breathes as one with lungs that work, and his belly is soft so nothing seems burst inside, which would surely mean he dies. I can clean and salve the wounds to his back, anoint his bruises and give a draught that if he does wake will ease his pains a little, but the rest is prayer, my lord, the rest is prayer.’

  ‘Thank you. Do what you can for him.’ He gave her a smile, and the elderly dame blushed in the candle glow. She bade the girl assist her, and worked with whispered instructions, except when she needed Walkelin’s strength. Bradecote and Catchpoll glared at Baldwin de Lench.

  ‘So, if he never wakens there is a death to be answered for,’ said Catchpoll, soberly.

  ‘But he—’ began Baldwin, before being interrupted by Bradecote.

  ‘He might have a connection, or he might not. What he said might be true. You never even considered that, did you.’ It was not a question. ‘We do not even know where he was going.’

  ‘Flavel. That is where he was going, my lord,’ piped up the healing woman’s youthful aide, and dipped in obeisance.

  ‘You heard him?’

  ‘Aye, my lord. He was in good humour and hoped all was safely got in back in Flavel, he said, so I am thinking that is where he was going, for the direction was right.’

  ‘He was not on a horse?’ For one terrible moment B
radecote feared this might be Raoul Parler. He had no recall of the look of the man although he and Parler both held of William de Beauchamp.

  ‘Oh no, my lord, but he was striding fast, knowing the storm was coming in swift.’

  ‘Did you ask him his name, de Lench?’ Bradecote looked back at the now-silent Baldwin.

  ‘No.’ He sounded sulky.

  ‘Well, at least if he dies we can take the corpse to Flavel and see who mourns him, and get his name,’ sighed Bradecote. ‘Tell me exactly what he told you.’

  ‘He just said he got the hat from a beggar upon the road, and commented upon it, for the hat was good and the beggar crippled and ragged. The beggar said he had found it, and so the man offered him a penny ha’penny for it, thinking a hat was less use to him than food. He handed it over and went on his way.’

  ‘Which way?’ growled Catchpoll, and the growl deepened when de Lench said he had not asked.

  ‘He can only have come from the south or east, since he was going through Lench and heading to Flavel,’ noted Walkelin, reasonably, ‘so chances are the beggar is heading in one of the two directions.’

  ‘And there would be alms at the abbey at Evesham. Walkelin, you are to ride there first thing to ask of the Guest Master and Almoner if any beggar arrived this night,’ ordered Bradecote. ‘If he is there, find out how and when he came by the hat, and any other belongings.’

  Walkelin looked pessimistic. ‘You think I will get there before noon, my lord, on the beast I ride?’

  ‘True. Take the horse the lord Sheriff sent back here. It is his animal, and we can have the groom come back with us on it to Worcester and collect the lord de Lench’s own beast then. Serjeant Catchpoll and I will speak to the Flavel man if he wakes, and,’ he was about to say exactly what they would do, but thought better of it, ‘look into other things.’ He heard Catchpoll’s exhalation of relief. ‘But now, and if this man can be lifted to a palliasse on the floor, I hope to eat. I am hungry.’

  Chapter Seven

  Hugh Bradecote did not know if it was down to his prayers or the good work of Winflaed the Healer, but the injured man was not cold and lifeless when dawn came, though he showed no sign of waking. His breathing seemed stronger, however, and the girl who had assisted the healer was set to watch him and report any sign of his regaining consciousness to the lord undersheriff. She clearly felt the importance of her task and watched the sleeping form with determination writ large upon her face. If he as much as moved a muscle, she would see it. Bradecote felt a little jaded, having not slept well and woken with a crick in his neck. He rubbed the back of his neck and winced, for the third time. Catchpoll grunted.