Blood Runs Thicker

by Sarah Hawkswood

  ‘I do not see why you want to hear his lies,’ he growled through gritted teeth.

  ‘Your trouble, de Lench, is that you make a decision based on thin air, and then hold to it as if a holy vow. You decided this man was guilty of your sire’s killing because he wore his hat and refused to believe what he told you about paying for it. Do you think only you are able to speak true? Are you so wondrous in your own eyes?’ Bradecote could not keep the sarcasm from his voice.

  ‘And are you?’ returned Baldwin de Lench, in no way abashed. ‘You want things to be some sort of tangle that you have to be so clever to work to its end, when plain truth stares you in the face.’

  ‘What’s staring my lord Bradecote in the face this moment is a man who does not know when to hold his tongue.’ Catchpoll felt the slur was upon the whole process of discovering truth, and it flicked him on the raw. Baldwin de Lench’s eyes turned to the serjeant, and his lip curled.

  ‘Are you his bark?’

  ‘No, but I can bite,’ snarled Catchpoll, stiffening, though Bradecote raised his hand slightly to keep him from any escalation in the antipathy. How well it might have succeeded was debatable, but at that moment Winflaed the Healer entered, with her youthful aide behind her.

  ‘Heaven be praised, my lord, if the man stirs, yes?’ She bustled forward without waiting for an answer, and almost barged past Baldwin de Lench to place her hand against the man’s cheek. She patted it gently, and he moaned. His eyes remained closed, but the undersheriff came close and spoke to him anyway.

  ‘Can you give us your name, friend? Your name?’

  There was silence, but just as Bradecote stepped back, thinking nothing would be said, the man’s lips parted, and he breathed a word. It was half groan, but discernible.

  ‘Edgar.’

  ‘And where do you live?’

  ‘F’avel.’ This came more upon a sigh. ‘Where … is … this?’

  ‘Lench.’ Bradecote wondered if the man might have no recall of the previous day’s events. It would be a blow if he had no memory of any of it at all.

  Edgar, the man from Flavel, ran his tongue slowly over his lips. Old Winflaed the Healer watched him closely.

  ‘Let be a while, my lord. You has his name and the poor soul will be better for a draught of warmed ale and herbs, and mayhap then can answer more to you. God be thanked he has his wits and breath in his body.’ She crossed herself, but Baldwin de Lench made a derisive snorting sound. She glanced sideways at him and shook her head. ‘There now, my lord, you’ll be getting yourself into a fever if you let that anger boil away inside of you. I dare swear you have not slept well these last nights. ’Twas ever thus, and no fault of yours, of course, with sire and dam both of so hot a temper, and neither ever happy to let a thought, once in the head, creep away if ’twas wrong, though it cost them dear. Let me brew you a calming draught and weave a cross of lavender you can take to your bed this night and thus sleep sound. It will soothe your mind.’

  ‘My mind does not need soothing, and I am not an infant to be dosed with whatever witches’ brew you stir up.’ He stared at her malevolently and turned on his heel, stamping his way to the door. ‘I will be atop the hill,’ he threw back over his shoulder, as if daring the undersheriff to forbid him. The woman stood very still, and then turned to Bradecote.

  ‘He speaks in heat, my lord, for he is a man of heat. He has never understood the laececraeft, though he has been grateful at times for the treatments. I learnt it from my mother, and she was the fifth generation in this place, healing the folk beneath the hill and in the manors about. Good Father Matthias would surely shun my salve that he rubs in to ease his hipbone ache if it came of evilness.’ The woman was clearly aggrieved. ‘God sees all, right enough, and is pleased that we who are able to ease the pains and ills of this life do so, and give Him thanks for the plants and our knowledge. Never have I harmed a soul, nor a beast neither, and if some has stepped beyond life then it was their time and the Will of God. I can but do my best.’

  ‘And it is appreciated.’ Bradecote let his face relax into the hint of a smile but paused before he spoke again. ‘Your salves for broken skin and bruises, have you often had cause to use them within this hall?’ He waited, for the old woman was staring at him intently, gauging what she might say and what he might do with the knowledge. Eventually she nodded.

  ‘My lady is one who bruises easy, mind. There’s some as does and some as has thick skin. The lord Baldwin, like his sire, has thick skin in so many ways, excepting where it comes to taking offence. The lady is the opposite. Long-suffering she is.’ There was something in the way she said it that intimated at more than just her character. ‘There now, my tongue outruns my wits.’ She turned to the girl, who was frowning, not quite understanding the undercurrents but aware they existed. ‘Be a good girl and go and set a pot of ale over the hearth to start warming, and bind me sage and yarrow, wrapped about with ash bark.’

  Dismissed, the girl went upon her errand, and Winflaed the Healer sighed. ‘Not for young ears. The lord Osbern had always a heavy hand. Now, as a husband he had his rights, and I deny them not, but from almost the dawn of the marriage he lashed her with his tongue, and with hand and rod also, like he felt he was breaking a horse. Or mayhap it was that he was used to shouting but that his first lady wife had given as good as she got. In my view he wanted obedience but despised those who gave it with a whimper. My lady has never made complaint against him, nor said anything but that she had been clumsy, but I can tell a knock bump from a hard blow or a tight grip. Course I can.’

  ‘You sees things. A trained eye.’ Catchpoll gave her her due. ‘Which makes me think you a good soul to ask if any who ought to have been labouring in the field were not there, at the hour the lord Osbern met his death?’

  ‘You think one of us could have killed our lord? Would have dared to try?’ She shook her head. ‘No, though I was with the older folk gathering the sheaves to be placed on the cart, and my back was bent and aching, I tell you that. It had been a long day already, for we was out at dawn and feeling the tiredness in our bodies by noon. However, ’tis that or risk knowing hunger next summer.’

  ‘The lord Baldwin, when did he come?’ Bradecote did not want her straying into the effects of famine.

  ‘Not so very long before young Gytha came, all breathless, with the news of the riderless horse. He was making sure everyone put their backs into the work. He tied his horse’s rein to a low bough so it could crop a little grass and then he strutted about.’ It was evident that the woman did not think that this meant son could have killed father, but Bradecote sensed more than heard the small grunt that Catchpoll gave.

  ‘Fulk the Steward was not there.’ The undersheriff did not make this a question.

  ‘No, he was not, my lord, not then.’ The healing woman’s lips compressed slightly, and Bradecote thought he detected a hint of disapproval.

  ‘Not a time to be idle,’ commented Catchpoll, innocently.

  ‘I doubt he was idle,’ responded Winflaed, cryptically, but then said that she ought to go and tell Hild, her apprentice, not to heat the ale too much and destroy the goodness of the herbs. She was eager to be gone, and the sheriff’s men did not press her. In the doorway, she nearly collided with Fulk, who looked agitated.

  ‘Messire Hamo, my lord Undersheriff, he has ridden off with his hawk, say what I would to stop him.’

  Catchpoll swore under his breath, but Bradecote remained impassive.

  ‘He rode out, though he knew he was meant to remain?’ The undersheriff was not going to show any emotion.

  ‘I told him again, my lord, but he said he was not leaving, just going hawking, and you had not said he might not do that.’ Fulk looked perplexed. ‘I suppose that might be so but … what could I do, short of pull him from his horse? And he is the lord’s brother.’ The steward ended on a pleading note.

  ‘Then we are going to have to wait for him to return. If he had meant to go to Evesham and remain with t
he monks, which is where he has declared he would like to be, he would not have taken his hawk.’

  Fulk heaved a sigh of what might have been relief, and the comatose Edgar stirred again, perhaps being aware of the raised and worried voice.

  ‘E’gar … F’avel,’ he mumbled, moving his head in agitation.

  ‘Why did you not come to us when he asked for his horse?’ grumbled Catchpoll. He did not think the youth had saddled the animal himself. He was too much aware of what was for him to do and what was ‘for others’, though the serjeant would be hard-pressed to call it arrogance.

  ‘I … I did not think to it. He just upped and said, “I shall go hawking now,” and it fair left me witless.’

  ‘Doesn’t take much then.’ Catchpoll was not in forgiving mood. Fulk looked both shamefaced and aggrieved at the same time.

  ‘If my son says that he will do something, it is pointless to gainsay him.’ The lady de Lench stood in the solar doorway, one hand upon the oak frame. She looked calm, in command of herself and the situation, and Bradecote had not seen that before. ‘He does not see reasoning, not our sort. You would only have kept him here by force.’

  ‘That could be achieved.’ Catchpoll folded his arms across his chest.

  ‘But you have not seen how he is when thwarted. He loses himself to the frustration, the anger. I have never seen anyone like that not even my hu—’ She halted. Was it because she would not speak ill of the dead, or feared incriminating the living? It might even be both.

  Footfalls sounded in the passage, and Walkelin, slightly pink of cheek where he had spurred his mount to a fair turn of speed for the last few miles, entered like a hound with two tails, as Catchpoll remarked afterwards.

  ‘My lord, I have news, news that aids us,’ he announced, with relish, and looked likely to launch into it forthwith, except that the serjeant interrupted him.

  ‘Oh good,’ said Catchpoll, but without any enthusiasm whatsoever. ‘You can tell us outside.’

  Chapter Nine

  Bradecote had the forethought to request that the lady remain in the hall to report if any words were spoken by the sick man, though he was aware that what he might say ought only to corroborate what Walkelin was about to tell them. He was also not quite easy about leaving lady and steward together, when they might formulate some plan, should Fulk prove to be the man they sought. There was little else that he could do, however, without directly accusing Fulk of the sin of adultery and the betrayal of his lord, which was as bad in its own way. All they had was a suspicion, and one which both parties might refute with ease. The trio went out into the bailey, serjeant and undersheriff blinking in the brightness. There was nobody in view.

  ‘So, you think you have discovered things that will aid us, Walkelin?’ Bradecote could have smiled at the puppyish eagerness of the serjeanting apprentice, but it might be seen as patronising, so he schooled his features into mere interest.

  ‘I think so, my lord. I spoke with Alnoth the Handless, and—’

  ‘Who?’ Catchpoll frowned. ‘Best you take this steady lad, and give us all, not skip about. From the start, now. You ought to know better after all this time.’

  ‘Yes, Serjeant. Sorry, Serjeant.’ A slightly chastened Walkelin began again, telling them how he had gained the lord abbot’s permission to speak with his monks, and had found out that the beggar with new clothes was one Alnoth the Handless, and that the man was considered of good word.

  ‘Fair enough,’ conceded Catchpoll. ‘And what did this Alnoth tell you?’

  ‘More than I hoped, Serjeant, for he actually heard the hat and cloak being thrown into bushes at the wayside.’

  ‘Too much to hope he saw also?’

  ‘Alas, yes, but it was definitely a man.’

  ‘There now, and I had the healing woman as our likely killer,’ sighed Catchpoll, but his eyes danced.

  ‘Do not put him off, Serjeant.’ Bradecote’s rebuke was delivered with a wry smile, and Walkelin, after a breath, continued.

  ‘The thing is, the hat and cloak were found to the north of Lench, but then Alnoth discovered the other clothes near the point where the hill track and road to Evesham meet.’

  ‘Now that, young Walkelin, is very interesting.’ Catchpoll pulled a thinking face.

  ‘He came through Lench then,’ mused Bradecote, fastening upon that fact first. ‘He saw nothing of use?’

  ‘He skirted by the village, my lord, lest he meet the messire Hamo, who he said was very strange and had asked him odd questions in the past. So he left the road and rejoined a little ways up the hill. He saw a boot on the track, and found its mate cast into a bush, then the clothes. He then heard a horse coming down the hill and made his best pace away, lest he be accused of thieving.’

  ‘That cannot have been the killer upon the horse if the clothes were already found, so it was most likely the grey coming home to its stable. I know you speak to the dead and get good information, Catchpoll, but pity it is you do not speak horse also. That grey could solve all our problems.’ Bradecote’s mild jest covered him thinking, processing the information into time and order.

  ‘True enough, my lord, but since I do not, we plough on. Did the beggar give an hour, Walkelin?’

  ‘About the noontide, Serjeant. He met the man who was beaten upon the way next day and sold the hat for a penny ha’penny. He kept the cloak, boots, though they needed padding, a shirt and sleeveless tunic, but gave the shirt to Brother Almoner in the abbey, since its sleeves were far too long and the tunic ideal. I told him he might keep them, as I did the good brother, who used to know Lench well, he said, and was very upset to think of the killing and hoped the lord Osbern had died shriven. I did right, leaving them all?’ Walkelin looked to the undersheriff.

  ‘You did right, Walkelin. Osbern de Lench has no need of them, and I hardly think Baldwin would wish to wear his father’s garb, bloodstains and all. This means the killer was heading northwards and makes me wonder even more if that points to Raoul Parler.’

  ‘But why did he keep hat and cloak until after Lench and then discard them, my lord? He could not have been mistaken for the lord Osbern in them, not to the man’s own folk, and indeed might have had the hue and cry raised after him if any had been in the village and seen him.’ Catchpoll shook his head. ‘That makes no sense.’

  ‘Does it have to? Sometimes men do things that show no sense. He thought to keep them and then realised they linked him to the crime and so hid them.’ Bradecote shrugged, though he was not convinced by his own argument.

  ‘And if it was the lord Parler, why would he want a hat and cloak?’ Walkelin was a practical young man. ‘Though I already have a possible answer as to where he—’ What the red-haired serjeanting apprentice was going to say next was not voiced, for sounds of an altercation came from outside the bailey.

  ‘Sweet Jesu, has Baldwin de Lench found another man to harangue and assault?’ Bradecote strode towards the gateway, followed closely by his companions. Out among the scattering of dwellings a man with high cheekbones and an aquiline nose was sat upon a nervous chestnut, trying to look haughty whilst controlling his jittery horse and being threatened by Baldwin de Lench, who was waving his arms about.

  ‘What is going on?’ yelled Bradecote, over the sound of de Lench’s ire.

  ‘He dare come here, now my sire is dead, when he knows that he swore he would strike him dead if he as much as set foot upon our land.’ Baldwin was incensed. It was not that hard to work out which ‘he’ was which in the complaint.

  ‘I am here at the lord Undersheriff’s command, or else I would not sully my horse’s shoes with this earth,’ declared the rider, whom Bradecote realised must be Raoul Parler. He therefore addressed him by name and thanked him courteously enough for coming.

  ‘It was not, as I heard it, a request.’ The lord of Flavel still sounded aloof, even slightly bored, but his eyes were watchful. ‘If you need speech with me, let us have it, but not with him close by.’ He pointed at Baldwin
, now grinding his teeth.

  ‘This is my manor, my hall and—’

  ‘For the love of Heaven, be silent.’ Bradecote had had enough. ‘Come to the church, my lord Parler, and we will speak there. You,’ he addressed Baldwin de Lench, ‘will not follow.’

  Baldwin de Lench opened his mouth, and then shut it again. The undersheriff led the way towards the little church, and all he could do was clench his fists and feel the nails dig into his flesh.

  Bradecote strode purposefully towards the church, consciously controlling the irritation that had built in him. It would not help matters. In its cool silence he turned to face Raoul Parler.

  ‘So, you have returned to lady and manor, and can now give an account of yourself.’

  ‘You demanded that I come, so I have done so, but I am wasting both your time and mine own.’ Parler sounded bored.

  ‘I am the undersheriff of the shire with a killer to discover. I have the right.’ Bradecote remained assertive. ‘Tell me why, despite the pleading of your lady, and without telling her where you were going in haste, you abandoned Flavel in the forenoon three days past.’

  ‘I have a woman in Worcester.’ Raoul shrugged. He sounded sullen.

  Bradecote raised an eyebrow.

  ‘I keep her. Is it so uncommon a thing to have a leman? Besides, my wife seems always to be with child, and a man has needs.’ He sounded as if he blamed her for being so fecund and frequently pregnant. Bradecote, who had accepted prolonged abstinence as the duty of the husband when his first wife was increasing, gave up a silent thanksgiving that his union with Christina was one of love not duty, and also that other than during the weeks of sickness she still, to his surprise, seemed to welcome his attentions. It was an added blessing in the marriage.

  ‘And you went off, suddenly, at harvest time, to visit her, leaving your wife in worry? Are your loins so very insistent, Parler?’ Bradecote did not conceal his disgust.