The King's Hounds (The King's Hounds series Book 1)

by Martin Jensen

  “Ranulf would never kill someone in secret,” Tonild said in disgust, standing to lend more weight to her protest.

  “No,” Winston exhaled. “Not many would. And yet someone did.”

  “Not my brother,” Tonild said, sitting back down heavily.

  “You say you want to know the truth,” Winston said. “And yet you refuse to meet with me, one of the men tasked with finding out who did it.”

  Winston tugged on his nose, but Tonild said nothing as her eyes darted from Winston to me. I realized with some surprise that what I had interpreted as arrogance was, rather, fear. And I understood the reason for her fear even before Winston continued.

  “Because you’re afraid that Ranulf is the murderer,” Winston said gently, which may have explained why Tonild’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. “You fear the truth, Lady Tonild. You’re afraid to face it head-on.” Winston continued speaking as though to a child. “But no doubt Father Egbert will agree with me that the truth—however terrible it might turn out to be—is the only thing that can set you free.”

  Winston paused and gave me a look that essentially meant, Keep quiet, Halfdan.

  For a while, the only thing we could hear in the silence that settled over us was our breathing. Then a soft sobbing interrupted it. Father Egbert took a step toward his lady, but was stopped by Winston’s outstretched arm. We stood in silence, waiting for the sobbing to subside.

  “You see, my lady,” Winston said firmly now, but slowly, “the truth might have cause to upset you if your fear turns out to be justified. But if you never learn the truth, the doubt will be more unbearable. If I can show you that your husband’s murderer is someone other than your brother, you will be able to breathe more easily. If I do find that it was your brother, you will live in a seemingly unendurable hell—for a time. But if you never learn the truth, you will have to live with the uncertainty for the rest of your life, wondering, Did my brother kill my husband? So, worst-case scenario, what I am offering you is profound, but finite, despair instead of a lifetime of hell.”

  Silence descended over the group once again. Though I saw the priest’s lips moving, he remained silent. Winston’s eyes were attentively focused on Tonild, whose hands covered her eyes.

  Finally the nobleman’s widow straightened up, dried her eyes with the back of her hands, and looked Winston straight in the eye.

  “And you can give me the truth?” she asked.

  “I can find it out at least, if you are willing to help me,” he said, tugging on his nose again.

  Tonild looked at Father Egbert, who had not uttered a word up to this point, and then returned her gaze to Winston.

  “And you expect me to believe someone like you, who is being paid by the king?” she asked skeptically.

  “You have no choice but to believe me, because I am your only chance to learn the truth,” Winston said firmly and loudly.

  Tonild looked over at me, and I tried to look back at her boldly, like a man who was a part of that only chance.

  “Fine,” she said. “What do you want to know?”

  Chapter 30

  First I’d like to know why your husband and your brother had a falling out,” Winston asked.

  We were seated at a table at the very back of the tent. A runner had been sent to fetch ale for us and a flagon of wine for Tonild, who sat dry-eyed at the end of the table, the very picture of a gracious hostess.

  I’d had a little fun, too. Frida had been promoted and had started waiting tables for Tonild the day before. She obviously had no idea who her lady’s guests were, and since I was sitting with my face hidden in the shadows, she assumed I was just another unknown nobleman as she poured my ale. When I pinched her shapely buttocks, she blurted out an involuntary squeal, which resulted in an angry look from Tonild. When I followed the pinch by gently caressing her delightful rump, she stepped quickly away from me, but she stopped when she recognized my voice.

  “You could at least say hello to the man who saved your life, Frida,” I teased.

  Her eyes looked angry, but she was smiling and blew me a kiss just as the tent flap fell shut behind her.

  “My brother thinks Osfrid cheated to get his hands on the land and the estate that has been the seat of our family for as long as anyone can remember,” Tonild said, taking a small sip of wine and then setting down her goblet, which was inlaid with red and green stones.

  I looked at Winston and could tell that he too had noted her word choice.

  “And you don’t think so?” Winston asked, pushing his mug aside.

  “Cheated? No,” Tonild said with a sigh. “The king gave it to Osfrid before Ranulf pledged his allegiance to Cnut. Actually, Cnut gave it to us on our wedding day, in my honor as well as Osfrid’s.”

  I remembered that Osfrid and Tonild had gotten married the same day that Edmund and Cnut had made their big pact.

  “Which I suppose Ranulf understood?” Winston asked.

  Tonild shook her head, at which point Winston nodded.

  “My brother has been luckier than most. When our father was killed, he realized, like so many other noblemen’s sons who suddenly found themselves fatherless that year, that there was only one way out. He hurried to the king, swore his allegiance to him, and in return received a portion of the lands and estates our father had owned, as well as the promise of more if he served the king faithfully. Cnut had already demonstrated his iron fist and Ranulf understood the king’s message. Cnut has a very effective way of tying young, Saxon noblemen to himself—through expensive gifts.”

  I nodded at her approvingly. She was right, after all. She took another sip and then continued.

  “Ranulf is brave, loyal, and ambitious, and Cnut has deeded him more land since then for his loyalty. But Ranulf is also proud and views the fact that the family’s costliest and oldest property is not his as a defeat. So he got it into his head that Osfrid had improperly come to own what should rightfully have been his, and there were bitter words between them.”

  “Yeah, like when Osfrid offered to name his firstborn son with you Ranulf. Ouch!” I said.

  Winston gave me a look, but I didn’t care. A Saxon painter may not be able to appreciate what an insult that would be, but as an aristocrat by birth, I could feel in my bones how I would have reacted to such an affront.

  “Gossip!” Tonild gasped, opening her eyes wide.

  “Not according to your brother,” I said.

  “My brother hears what he wants to hear. I was there the last time he and Osfrid spoke to each other. Ranulf pointed out that the estate had always been owned by someone named Ranulf, but he ultimately accepted that Osfrid had more of a claim to it since it had been given to him by the king. Then Osfrid conceded that he might not have any children before he died, given his age. He concluded by saying that if that were the case, the estate would fall to me and I would be free to give it to my brother.”

  Winston and I looked at each other in surprise.

  “Do you mean to say that your brother is claiming the opposite of what was actually said?” Winston asked.

  Tonild nodded.

  “My brother’s eyes, ears, and heart are sealed with pitch on this matter. He sees, hears, and feels only what he wants,” she said.

  Winston and I exchanged looks again, and I could tell that he was thinking the same thing I was: Didn’t she just give her own brother a motive to kill Osfrid? Perhaps.

  “But Ranulf didn’t kill him!” Tonild added, her voice impassioned.

  Winston and I looked at her.

  “He didn’t?” I discerned a skeptical undertone in Winston’s voice.

  “No,” Tonild said, shaking her head. “Ranulf is everything I’ve said, but he’s also honest. The very idea of deceitfully murdering even an enemy is alien to him.”

  “I will do what I can, my lady, to prove that you are correct,” Winston said.

  Which, if you had asked me, was a somewhat hasty promise.

  I looked from Winston
, who sat lost in his own thoughts, to the priest, who hadn’t spoken since we’d entered the tent, to Tonild, who was sitting, proud and silent, with shiny, but dry eyes.

  Winston finally pulled his mug toward himself and drank. He exhaled slowly.

  “Now we’d like to know who Osfrid went to see the day he was killed,” Winston said.

  “That we don’t know,” Egbert said, speaking for the first time.

  “That,” Winston snapped, “is hard for me to believe.”

  “All the same, it’s the truth,” Tonild said, leaning forward with a sigh. “Don’t you think we appreciate the importance of that? If I knew, my soldiers would have paid the person in question a visit a long time ago.”

  I had to give Tonild credit. She was every bit as willing to defend her family’s honor as her brother was, or any other Saxon nobleman would be for that matter.

  “Osfrid must have dropped some kind of hint about where he was going, even if he wasn’t explicit,” I said, keeping an eye on Tonild as I raised my mug and drank, but she just shook her head sadly.

  “Who do you think he was going to see?” Winston asked, leaning forward in his chair.

  Tonild shrugged and glanced at Egbert, who replied that he had no idea and that they had already puzzled over this question quite a bit themselves.

  Winston made a sound that was like wind blowing through dry grass.

  “Who was Osfrid closest to?” Winston asked.

  “No one,” Tonild said. “Osfrid always maintained that a nobleman should be true to his word, stand by his agreements, and maintain good relations with other noblemen, but he never let anyone get close to him, as he believed that would expose him to treachery and betrayal.”

  A good rule to live by, I thought, and one that other noblemen would do well to follow. But Tonild was wrong about one thing: Osfrid had let at least one person get close to him.

  “Had anyone paid Osfrid a visit?” Winston asked, tugging at his nose so vigorously that it looked as though he were trying to pull it off.

  Tonild shook her head.

  “Had he left the camp before?” Winston asked.

  “We’d only just arrived that day,” Tonild said.

  “Osfrid’s son died as Cnut’s hostage?” Winston asked, now merely rubbing at his snout.

  Tonild nodded again.

  “So Osfrid viewed the king as his enemy?” Winston asked.

  “No,” Tonild said. “Osfrid realized that no one could really be blamed for what happened aside from not keeping a good eye on the boy. Osfrid did demand that the king pay wergeld, of course. Osfrid was a law-abiding man, and that’s what you do. The king wouldn’t pay and Osfrid was certainly angry about it. But the king’s enemy? No. Besides, Osfrid was smart enough to know that if he openly differed with the king, the king would emerge the winner.”

  “Openly, yes,” Winston said. “But what about in secret? Would Osfrid have willingly gone along with a plot if the plotters were strong enough collectively to bring down the king?”

  “My husband was an honest man. Didn’t I say he believed in keeping his oaths?” Tonild said fervently.

  That line of thinking is precisely why treachery always succeeds. It is committed by honest men who have taken oaths. I didn’t say any of that out loud, though.

  “Why did you warn Horik and send him away when I wanted to speak with him?” Winston asked.

  Egbert swallowed at the bluntness of Winston’s question, which was directed at him.

  “I never did such a thing,” Egbert said.

  “No?” Winston said, raising his eyebrows in suspicion.

  “No,” Egbert said, his voice suddenly high-pitched in his eagerness to convince us. “I went to get Horik and told him you wanted to speak with him. He rudely told me to go to hell. I implored him to come since it would reflect poorly on Tonild if we didn’t all cooperate, but he practically ran away from me and then disappeared.”

  “You didn’t tell us that when you came back,” Winston said, studying the priest carefully.

  Egbert blushed. “No,” he said.

  I scowled at Winston from across the table, but he didn’t appear to want to follow up on the fact that a man who had just emphasized the importance of cooperating had lied through omission. Instead, Winston eyed the priest attentively.

  “You said Horik was rude to you. So, he was angry?” Winston asked.

  “Ye …” Egbert began, but didn’t finish the word. Then he continued in a firm voice, “No, not angry. Scared.”

  Winston just nodded, as if that were the answer he’d been expecting. Then he lapsed into silence again.

  “This Horik, did he have a friend he was especially close to?” Winston inquired.

  Tonild and Egbert looked at each other and then both shook their heads no.

  “He wasn’t particularly well liked,” Tonild said. “He was in charge of all of Osfrid’s bodyguards. No one likes being scolded for neglecting their duties or wasting time.”

  “Was there maybe a woman Horik was close to?” Winston asked.

  Now they nodded.

  “Hmmm, yes, and a child,” Egbert said, obviously eager to demonstrate his good will. “Horik’s woman is in the tent they shared out back.”

  Winston glanced at me and then stood up.

  “Take us to her.”

  Chapter 31

  Horik’s wife’s was a woman named Rowena. The baby didn’t have a name yet. She simply called him “the boy.” A long gash in the tent flap, running from the top to six inches above the grass, had been mended with a patch made from a burlap sack. Luckily it wasn’t raining.

  Rowena wasn’t even twenty yet. Although quite attractive, she looked somewhat careworn, which I assumed came from the uncertainty of being left alone in the world so suddenly. Her braids were coming undone, there was soot on her left cheek, and when she opened her mouth, I saw that she was missing her bottom middle teeth.

  Egbert mumbled soothingly that she needn’t be afraid, that we just had a few questions for her. “Which might help them find Horik’s killer,” he concluded.

  She stared at us wide-eyed, took the child off her breast, and set him beside her on a pile of old clothes.

  “Thank you, you can go,” Winston told the priest, who hesitated, perhaps wanting to object.

  Winston waited until the flap had fallen shut behind Egbert before squatting down and reaching a hand out to the boy, who grabbed his finger, babbling.

  “What a fine boy,” Winston said, sinking all the way down to his knees to tickle the baby’s belly.

  Rowena lit up and reached over. She put her hand on the little guy’s forehead and caressed it with two fingers.

  “I’m sorry you’ve been left on your own,” Winston said.

  I thought that was an odd thing to say. I would have expressed my condolences for her husband’s death, but I guess Winston saw it differently. I suppose he was thinking about all the difficulties that lay ahead of her.

  The corners of Rowena’s mouth curled up ever so slightly. It looked as though she were thinking, well, this is my life now.

  “The night Horik left with Osfrid, the night the thane went to his death,” Winston began, looking at the girl to make sure she knew which night he was talking about. “Do you know who they were supposed to meet?”

  She shook her head.

  “Horik didn’t say? Did he maybe mention that he was going to such and such a place, because the nobleman had to meet such and such a person?” Winston asked.

  Another shake of her head.

  “Maybe you didn’t speak to each other a great deal?” Winston pried.

  “Horik was a good man,” Rowena said, her voice pleasant. Her lilting accent reminded me of the countryside in the summer.

  “Of course he was. I didn’t say otherwise. But he wasn’t much of a talker?” Winston said, smiling fleetingly.

  She shrugged.

  “And after Osfrid died, did Horik say anything then?” Winston asked
.

  I noted Winston’s attentive eyes on the girl.

  “He said it wasn’t his fault,” Rowena said.

  Winston and I exchanged glances.

  “Of course not,” Winston said soothingly. “How could it be? He wasn’t with Osfrid when it happened, was he?”

  Now Rowena seemed wary.

  “There wasn’t anything Horik could do.”

  “No. If there was, I’m sure Osfrid would still be alive,” Winston said. “But where was Horik when your master was killed? They left here together, but then went their separate ways?”

  Rowena mumbled something inaudible. We waited a while, then Winston asked her to repeat herself a bit more loudly.

  “He was drinking ale with someone,” Rowena said. She sounded defiant when she continued: “But the master was the one who told him to do it.”

  Winston and I exchanged another glance.

  “So that was fine, then. He was just following orders,” Winston said with a reassuring smile. “But Osfrid wasn’t drinking?”

  “They met some people, some men,” Rowena said. “And then Master Osfrid told Horik that he should sit down and have an ale with the soldiers while he had a word with their master.”

  I opened my mouth, but closed it quickly. It was probably best to leave the questioning to Winston. Rowena seemed to trust him. And then he asked the question that had been on the tip of my tongue.

  “So it was a nobleman and some of his soldiers?”

  Rowena nodded.

  “And Horik drank with the soldiers while Osfrid left with the thane?” Winston continued.

  Another nod. The baby mewled in his heap of rags and she reached out to him. She stroked his round belly to comfort him.

  “This nobleman, was he Saxon?” Winston asked.

  Rowena made a few soothing sounds to the little boy, and only looked up once he seemed mollified.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Are you sure of that?” I asked, unable to bite my tongue any longer.

  “Horik would never have left the master alone with a Dane,” she scoffed.

  “But he told you it was a Saxon?” Winston asked, giving me a look meant to silence me.