Vale of Tears

by Sarah Hawkswood

  ‘Let us sit, yes, Father, but oh, you must hear my confession, lest I die in such sin.’

  ‘You did not kill the poor souls who have passed from this life, Agatha. It is known how they died and by whose hands.’ He caught himself up upon the last point, since only the sheriff’s men had knowledge of who killed Aelfric. ‘At least the last might be guessed and it was certainly not yours.’

  ‘There is blood upon my hands and my soul.’ Agatha was becoming even more hysterical.

  Father Paulinus was tempted to find Nesta or another sensible village woman to aid her, but neither wished to leave her alone in such a state, nor have another present since she wished to ease her mind by confession, though it was but the confession of a nightmare. He took her hands.

  ‘Softly now. I will hear your confession, my daughter, but do not confess to things you cannot have done.’

  ‘And if I am cast into the Pit, if the Agent of Satan kills me, you must say, you must reveal it to all.’

  ‘Yes, yes, but your sins are—’

  ‘I have killed them with my tongue, like the Serpent.’

  Father Paulinus now thought her raving.

  ‘Agatha, Agatha, please, you—’

  ‘I know I did not wield the knife, but if I had but kept my tongue stilled, and not spoken, none of this would have happened.’

  The priest had been about to speak, but halted.

  ‘If you need to speak to the lord Undersheriff, I will come with you.’

  ‘No, for if I say … It will end me. I must make confession, Father. Please, hear it now and give me my penance.’

  Reluctantly, Father Paulinus nodded his acceptance.

  It was a troubled priest who returned to his home, though the sheriff’s men assumed his silence and demeanour were due to the likelihood of seeing another of his flock meet a bad end. His only consolation was that he had not only given penance, but a piece of advice, advice he hoped Agatha would follow.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Brian de Nouailles woke unrested, his head throbbing, his mouth foul, and his stomach rebelling. It was not therefore a lord in even the slightest of good humours who rose late, and pondered long whether to yell for a servant and risk his head exploding, or leave his solar very gingerly and seek someone in the buttery for himself. He opted for the latter, and growled in so low and sinister a fashion as he entered, that the maid filling a bowl for the cook dropped bowl and contents and screamed. The sound tore through his skull like an axe blade, and his growl became a roar of pain. He lashed out at the hapless girl, striking her about the ear, and her wails added to his misery. A lad carrying an armful of rushes up the hall steps promptly turned about and withdrew, but wisely thought to go and find Leofwine the Steward, who might face his lord with less likelihood of violence.

  Leofwine was not hungover, but he was even more morose than normal. He had cause, thought the lad, and went to warn his fellows that if they valued their skins they would keep out of the hall as long as possible during the morning.

  The steward entered the hall with a calm deliberation. De Nouailles demanded respect, but despised cringing. The servant girl was snivelling in the buttery, and the lord was sat in his chair in the hall, a heavy cloak about him, his arms folded upon the table and his head bowed to rest upon them. Leofwine drew close enough that he need not raise his voice.

  ‘You have need of me, my lord.’ It was more an assertion of fact than a question.

  Brian de Nouailles groaned, and lifted his face. He did not look good.

  ‘Yes,’ he grumbled, as if it was reluctantly that he admitted it. ‘I do. First, keep anything shrill and female from this hall until after noon.’

  ‘Of course, my lord.’

  ‘Then I have a problem I wish you to deal with for me.’

  ‘As you command, my lord.’

  ‘Agatha.’

  ‘Agatha?’

  ‘Yes. There is only one in Harvington, when last I knew.’

  ‘Mother of Hild.’

  ‘Yes. Do I have to repeat myself?’

  ‘No, my lord. What is the problem with Agatha?’

  ‘Her existence.’

  There was a short silence, which in normal circumstances de Nouailles would have found annoying, but this morning he actually welcomed. Leofwine the Steward felt a chill within him, and when he did speak it was very deliberate.

  ‘You wish me to … dispose of Agatha.’

  ‘Yes. Was I not clear?’

  ‘Upon such a matter, my lord, I felt I ought to check.’ There was nothing in his voice to suggest that inside he was recoiling.

  ‘Good. Well, I trust you to deal with it. Only you, faithful Leofwine, of all my servants, can be trusted to do as you are told. The others … they whine, or they pretend not to understand, or they try and think for themselves like Aelfric, and look what that led to.’ The lord of Harvington sounded as if he were beneficent but ill-served.

  Just for an instant, Leofwine felt the old pride. His lord trusted him and no other when it came to anything important.

  ‘How would you suggest I deal with her?’

  ‘I don’t care how you do it, but make sure it is out of the way so that those bastards of de Beauchamp’s do not smell blood and set up their howling. I want rid of them from my manor. And while I think of it, upon your return, go to the priest and tell him, if he values his roof above his head, he will cast the sheriff’s men from under it before sunset.’

  ‘My lord. Might I just ask why Agatha’s existence is a problem?’

  ‘You may ask, but you have no reason to know the answer. Suffice to say that her tongue has cost lives and I would not have her cost this manor any more. Now see it done, and tell the cook I will have meat and ale at mid morning.’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’ Leofwine, his face impassive, withdrew from de Nouailles’ presence, and fulfilled the last command straight away. He then went to his chamber, and clasped his dagger belt about his waist, but before departing knelt upon the floor and prayed. His orisons complete, he set off to the home of the Widow Agatha, close by the junction of trackways in the middle of the village. He looked to left and right, to see if anyone was about and likely to see him, and then opened the door, speaking her name.

  It was not only inside the manor that the night had not passed well. Within the priest’s house Father Paulinus rose to his early prayers heavy-eyed and heavy-hearted. If the priest looked as if he had slept badly, then by contrast, however, the sheriff’s men looked rejuvenated. Bradecote eyed the priest with some concern, but hoped that the day’s events would cheer him, since there was every reason to think that Evesham Abbey would see its mill returned to it. He also hoped beyond hope that the day would see Brian de Nouailles not only taken into custody for the fraud but facing a capital charge. That would not give the poor man ease, but there was nothing to be done about it.

  As soon as they had broken their fast, Bradecote sent Walkelin to Abbot Reginald, with an instruction that short of him being on his deathbed, Walkelin was to get him to Harvington well before noon. In the meantime, he and Serjeant Catchpoll would go through every permutation of events they could think of that de Nouailles might use to escape justice, and ensure every way was closed, and speak with the erstwhile tirewoman.

  Even as Walkelin rode off at speed, and on Catchpoll’s horse, which was better than his own, undersheriff and serjeant trod, in a more leisurely fashion, to the dwelling that was pointed out to them as that of Agatha, mother of the late Hild. They knocked upon her door, but there was no answer.

  ‘Must be out early in the fields, I suppose,’ muttered Catchpoll.

  ‘Yes, but … We check within, Catchpoll. In our delight at finding a connection between Hild and Agatha, we did not consider one worrying thought. What if Hild revealed to Aelfric that her source of information was her mother, or he guessed, and passed on that information to de Nouailles, by choice or under threat?’

  Catchpoll’s answer was to fling the door wide open,
and step smartly within. The room was as bare as any peasant’s abode, but with the marks of a housewife about it that a dwelling of men only would lack.

  ‘Well, she is not here, and if she left, it was willingly, for there is no sign of any struggle. Yet if she had not been here for the burying of her daughter, the good Father would have mentioned it, surely? If she was away, then she would have been called home, and in this cool weather there would be no harm in delaying the covering of a corpse.’

  ‘So she left after the funeral rites yesterday, or this morning. One wonders why?’ Bradecote frowned. ‘Possibly, remaining was too hard upon her with the death fresh, but then her friends and neighbours would be about her to give comfort. So perhaps she herself has realised she is in danger.’

  ‘Which means we are looking and not knowing where to start.’

  ‘Come on, Catchpoll, we do. If she was at the funeral, which person of all men would she entrust such knowledge to?’

  ‘Her priest!’

  ‘Exactly. Let us return to the good Father Paulinus.’

  The priest, when asked about Agatha, coloured.

  ‘Ah.’ His expression was slightly guilty.

  ‘Father?’ Bradecote tried to imagine why.

  ‘She came to me yesterday evening, for confession.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I took it.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Then I suggested to her that it would be a good thing if she went away for a little while. She has a sister in Lench.’

  ‘Was this simply because of her grief, Father?’ Bradecote was watching him closely.

  ‘In part, for she was much inclined to bring down all blame for the misfortune on herself, and that was mistaken. However, I cannot deny that what she told me made me think, and my thoughts were that staying here might put her in the path of danger, and incline another to sin.’

  ‘You mean, Father, you thought de Nouailles would want to kill her.’ Catchpoll was not going to step gently about this.

  ‘The thought occurred to me. After what you had said, if it is true, then … Yes.’

  ‘But you cannot tell us what she revealed,’ continued Catchpoll, weary of the rules that governed priests.

  ‘I am sorry. I asked her to come to you, but she would have it as confession. Though she did say that if evil should take her, then I was to tell you everything.’

  ‘Small comfort, that, since it would mean another death.’

  ‘Where else would we find her?’

  ‘That I do not know, my lord, if she is not with the sister. She had a kinswoman in Fladbury, but she died two years back, and there’s a nephew of her husband’s in Cleeve, and another in Evesham.’

  ‘Which gives us more places to hunt than hunters.’

  ‘Let me ask her friends. They may know which is the most likely. If she had fallen out with one or other it means you can both visit the other two and be sure of her.’

  ‘Thank you, Father. We are hoping that Abbot Reginald will be here before noon, so it would assist us if we were not running about the manor when he arrives. Walkelin alone cannot deal with de Nouailles on the lease.’

  Fired by the urgency of his mission, Walkelin was soon clattering through the northern gate of Evesham as if the hounds of hell were on his heels, and with Catchpoll’s horse sweated up. The flow of people and animals in the street curtailed his pace to a trot, but he soon reached the abbey gate, and rang insistently for Brother Porter, into whose care he gave the horse, and from whom he discovered that Abbot Reginald had been seen entering his lodging only a few minutes previously after Chapter. Walkelin did not think running within the enclave looked seemly, but he walked fast, and only halted at the oaken door to the abbot’s lodgings. He paused then. He, as a mere man-at-arms, and latterly serjeant’s apprentice, had not spoken with many important people, and the Abbot of Evesham was certainly an important man in the shire. He had got used to the lord Bradecote, of course, and was now able to face being addressed by, and speaking to, the lord Sheriff, without his knees knocking, but this was different. He told himself he was upon the lord Undersheriff’s business, and that gave him the right to knock firmly upon the door and request speech with Abbot Reginald in a manner which was not supplicating, but assertive whilst still respectful. He had heard that in the lord Bradecote’s voice. He was given admittance, and ushered in to where Abbot Reginald sat with a document before him. Walkelin made his obeisance, but began to speak even as he straightened.

  ‘My lord Abbot, I have a request from the lord Bradecote, and it is urgent.’

  ‘I see from your demeanour this is so, my son.’ Abbot Reginald heard the mixture of excitement, nervousness and tinge of pride in Walkelin’s voice, and hid a smile; the enthusiasm of the young was a magical thing. ‘Yet unless you intend to run from me within moments, might I ask you to be seated. It is more restful.’ He indicated a short bench with his hand.

  Walkelin was not used to sitting in the presence of his betters, and blushed. He half-lowered himself, hovered, and finally sat, rather gingerly, upon the edge of the bench so as not to be too comfortable.

  ‘The lord of Harvington says he has a lease from this abbey that gives him tenure of the mill across from Offenham for a hundred years, my lord.’

  ‘He does, but it cannot be so.’

  ‘The lord Undersheriff is in no doubt about it, and believes he knows who falsified the writing. However, getting the lease from the lord de Nouailles might be …’

  ‘Nigh on impossible?’ The cleric did not laugh at Walkelin trying to be diplomatic.

  ‘Yes, my lord, and so the lord Bradecote asks that you yourself come to Harvington with all haste and demand to see it, since it would be hard to refuse you admittance, however little the lord of Harvington likes it, then you can tell if it has been altered, or is new or … whatever makes it not true.’ His rushed words, almost falling over each other, were in sharp contrast to the abbot’s measured tones.

  ‘I am glad he trusts in our veracity.’

  Walkelin did not know what veracity was, but he nodded anyway.

  ‘It is most urgent, my lord Abbot.’

  ‘Yes, so you have said. Forgive me, but why is that so? If the document is at risk, why, its loss would scarce be a problem.’

  ‘Ah no, it is not to prove your ownership of the mill alone. We—I mean my lord Bradecote, believes it may prove vital in the case against Brian de Nouailles.’

  ‘Against …’ The abbot frowned, and Walkelin wondered if he was wrong to have revealed this fact. ‘It is thought that he killed Walter Horsweard?’

  ‘Not by his own hand, but this may show why he directed the deed to be done, my lord.’

  ‘Ah, I see. Then we must see to it that justice is done both over life and land.’ He rang a small bell, and a desiccated-looking brother entered, and was sent to bring Brother Albanus from the scriptorium.

  Brother Albanus had a slight stoop, ink so deep ingrained into his fingers that it was stained into the flesh permanently, and etched creases at the corners of his eyes from squinting over his work.

  ‘You called for me, Father. I am here.’

  ‘We have need of your knowledge, Brother Albanus. There is a document at Harvington, and we would have it looked at by one expert in such things. You are relieved of duties in the scriptorium, Brother, and must accompany me as soon as we may to Harvington.’

  ‘Immediately, Father?’ The monk looked most surprised.

  ‘Yes. At the best pace we may make. You will go and inform Brother Columbanus that you will be absent until, perhaps, Vespers. Meet us at the stable.’

  Thus dismissed, Brother Albanus hurried away. Abbot Reginald requested his cloak to be brought, and in a noticeably more sedate manner. Walkelin controlled the urge to shout at the churchman to make haste.

  The abbot, Walkelin was glad to see, did not ride a mule but a horse that seemed alert. Brother Albanus, however, did not actually ride at all. He clambered onto a mule with every s
ign that only divine intervention would see him survive the few miles to Harvington. Any hopes that Walkelin had of returning at the pace at which he had arrived were dashed. Even at a sluggish trot, the poor scribe bounced in a most precarious fashion, his fingers trying to simultaneously wind into the beast’s mane and link together in prayer for safe deliverance. Walkelin prayed also, but his prayers were that he would not be blamed for their tardy arrival.

  The sun was not at its zenith, however, when they reached Harvington, and he bade the monks wait whilst he collected his superiors from the priest’s house. Father Paulinus was not yet returned from his mission, and they were alone.

  Hugh Bradecote was secure enough in his status that he did not feel that it demanded that he enter the manor mounted beside the Abbot of Evesham. He was content to walk beside Abbot Reginald’s horse, and his carefully chosen words showed that he did not want to prejudice the assessment of the document that was to be inspected.

  ‘It is hard to see how you could be forbidden to see a lease made by your own brothers, but that does not mean you can expect to receive a joyous welcome, Father.’

  ‘I am not going to quake at loud words, nor blanch at foul epithets, my lord Bradecote. We will do what must be done, and calmly.’ His eyes conveyed the message that he understood that the judgement of the vellum must be upon its own merits, or lack of them.

  At the manor gates, the gatekeeper, overawed by the arrival of an obviously senior cleric, made no demur at their entrance. Bradecote expected to be met by the steward, but he was not forthcoming, so as soon as the Evesham party had dismounted, he led them across the bailey, and up the steps into Brian de Nouailles’ hall.

  Brian de Nouailles had eaten. It did not make him feel much the better. He slouched over his table and gave in to the desire that he might shut his eyes and thereby shut out the world. The swift tread of his steward made him raise himself, reluctantly.

  ‘That was quickly done.’