Faithful Unto Death

by Sarah Hawkswood

  ‘I do not know what my lord might have said upon the second evening, after he had bid me retire, but Hywel was gone early in the morning, before the manor was even awake. My husband said that no doubt he ought not have remained the second day here, and was keen to make up time on the good Old Road from Worcester to Gloucester, for it runs true and can be travelled at some pace.’

  ‘I see. Thank you, my lady.’

  ‘If there is no more, my lord, shall I go to my lord’s mother, and ask …’

  ‘Please.’

  She stood up, smoothed her skirts in a way that he now thought looked habitual, and went to the solar door. As her hand touched it, she turned, and her voice lost the purr.

  ‘Whatever sins he committed, Hywel ap Rhodri did not deserve to die by violence.’

  Hugh Bradecote said nothing. The law was the law, and taking it into one’s own hand led down the road to no law at all, but Hywel ap Rhodri should have met death for his crimes in another way, and perhaps a stab in the back was too swift an end.

  He resumed his seat and awaited the older lady of the manor. He waited some time, and was wondering how much of the delay was caused by the sickness of the patient, and how much by a lady showing she had a will of her own and was subservient to none. Eventually, the solar door opened, and a woman emerged. Having seen the son, Bradecote had expected someone bird-like and frail, but the lady before him was inclined to the plump in face and form, and, had her expression been more accommodating, looked the motherly sort.

  ‘You are the undersheriff.’ The statement was bald.

  ‘I am, lady.’

  ‘I am Matilda FitzGilbert.’ She sat herself in the chair made vacant by her son, her hands upon the arms. She looked very at home in it. Bradecote wondered how much power she might yet wield in the manor. ‘You wished to speak with me concerning Hywel ap Rhodri, my nephew, who is dead.’

  ‘I do, and his death was murder.’ Bradecote could speak as plainly. ‘Your son tells me he arrived here about two weeks past. You had no previous contact with him?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘Yet he was your sister’s son.’

  ‘My sister and I took different paths. We did not meet after she wed and went into Wales.’

  ‘Was that because she married a Welshman? I know that on the border, in the past, marriage has been made the way it is permitted in Wales, by the abduction of a maid, and the paying of her price thereafter.’

  ‘No, not that. My father, Osbern, held Byton, which lies but a few miles from the Welsh border, as it stands now. Welsh or English, there was little made of the difference there. My father sought Rhodri ap Arwel as a son-in-law, for he was in rising favour in Powys, and a friend over the border is good protection.’

  ‘So he gave him your older sister.’

  ‘Younger.’ Matilda FitzGilbert’s face showed no emotion, but Bradecote thought there was the faintest trace of annoyance in her answer.

  ‘Your younger sister, then.’ She was not being very forthcoming thus far, and he was struck by what he later described to Catchpoll as ‘a gut feeling’. ‘Did this Rhodri come wooing, or was your sister sent to him?’

  ‘She was not a horse for trade, lord Undersheriff, not quite. He came, he wooed, he won, he took. From what I gather he did that a lot even after he married, so I doubt Emma had much happiness as a wife.’ There was no regret visible about this. ‘It transpired from his manner here that the son was in the mould of the father.’

  ‘He was undoubtedly that son, your sister’s son, lady? You had no doubts?’

  ‘None at all. He could name his lineage, upon the English side, back to the Conquest and before. He named the year and month of my elder son’s birth.’ This seemed to offend her, as though it had been a private thing.

  ‘If there was no contact, how did he know it?’ Bradecote seized upon the fact.

  ‘Because my father visited Rhodri and my sister several times in the first two years of their marriage, as he came here also.’

  ‘And not thereafter?’

  ‘No, for he died. I did not know of the son, Hywel, because he is some three years younger than my Thorold. There was a girl-child born first, but perhaps she died, or is wed long since in Wales, which is as good as dead to me.’

  ‘What did you make of your nephew?’ Bradecote persisted.

  ‘What should I have made of him? He was like his father in looks, as I recall the man, and as sweet-tongued. Could not keep that tongue, or his hands, to himself, as we found within the day.’ The lady looked him straight in the eye, and Bradecote wondered if she meant to shock.

  ‘So if he had come upon his return from Gloucester …?’

  ‘He would not have tried to get within the gates,’ snorted the lady, and Bradecote gave an inner cheer of delight. It was something. ‘If you have no more to ask, my son Durand is mightily sick of a fever, and must be attended at all times.’ She rose from the seat.

  ‘I would not keep you from your charge, my lady, though the patient is not left alone, with the lady Avelina to tend him.’

  The look he got suggested that the lady Matilda did not think so much to her daughter-in-law’s care.

  ‘She lacks experience by a sickbed.’

  ‘Then thank you for coming to me, but if there should be questions that arise, be sure I shall request speech with you again.’ He went to the solar door, and began to open it for her. She moved, for a woman in her fifties, and with a slightly rolling gait, remarkably swiftly, and passed him before the door was even fully open, with a grudging acknowledgement.

  Hugh Bradecote rubbed his chin, stood pondering for a moment, and went to find Catchpoll.

  Chapter Six

  Serjeant Catchpoll had everything under control. Their presence in the manor had caused flutterings as soon as the reason was made known, and Catchpoll liked ‘flutterings’, for they made for things being said that might otherwise have lain concealed. His first instruction to Walkelin was to play his role as ‘innocent man-at-arms dragged along by his superiors’ and work his ‘red-haired magic’ upon the maidservants.

  ‘For if Hywel ap Rhodri acted true to character, they will have things to say about the man, and forthright ones at that.’

  ‘Or be too silent, Serjeant, if he took advantage to their shame.’

  ‘True enough, but then you have to judge whether the “maid” would have told anyone else, and women are bad at secrets, or whether the wench might wield a knife herself, in revenge, though if she did so, then someone else had to have helped move the body.’

  ‘And we still have no news of Rhydian.’ Walkelin chewed his lip. ‘And there is the matter of two horses and their harness. I do not like those missing things.’ He spoke almost to himself.

  ‘Well, then, best you find out about them. I am sure the lord Bradecote would hate to think of you a-worrying over them,’ replied Catchpoll, sarcastically. ‘I am first for the steward.’

  Brictmer the Steward was a man in late middle age, a little stooped of shoulder, and thoughtful of demeanour. He shook his head over the ‘bad thing’ that had happened.

  ‘A quiet manor is this, with everyone about their own tasks, at least these last dozen years since the lordling Durand took himself off to the great lord he serves now. In his youth he was,’ Brictmer gave a wry smile, ‘difficult to have about the place.’

  ‘Tempersome, was he? Young lords without responsibilities …’ Catchpoll sounded as if he knew all about such.

  ‘Not tempersome, particularly, but idleness breeds foolishness, I say. He was inclined to do things upon the spur of the moment, upon a whim, regardless of what would follow. His sire could not control him, and he enjoyed annoying his brother, who does not do things without careful thought, and is thus a good lord to serve. Only person Durand FitzRoger ever attended was his dam, and the lady Matilda could bring him to heel like a dog when she chose. Once he went upon his way, we settled good and peaceful, even when the lord Roger died and the lord Thorold took his
place.’

  ‘And now you have a new lady too. Pretty piece, though it is not for the likes of me to say it.’ Catchpoll winked at the steward.

  ‘Aye, she is, poor lady.’

  ‘Poor? How so?’

  ‘What woman would want to be lady of a manor where there is a lady still in authority? The lady Matilda is not one to cross, nor has she wanted to step back.’ His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘And she has been wed these three years with no sign of a child. I know as it is the woman who is blamed but … I think both parents wished the lord Thorold had been more like his younger brother. He is a good master, a good lord, but not … strong in body, alas.’ He shook his head. ‘My woman, God have mercy upon her, gave me three sons and two daughters, though two of the boys was taken from us by a spotted fever when small. Children are a blessing.’

  ‘That they are,’ agreed Catchpoll, nodding in agreement. ‘I doubt the lord Thorold has liked mother and wife both taken up with duties at the bedside of his brother, or did they become close by being parted? Often happens that way.’

  ‘Oh, I think both prefer the being apart, but fearful poorly was the lord Durand when he came home a month since. Came in a litter, he did, not being fit even to slump upon his horse. The servants were afeared he came with some evil disease that would spread among all, but it has not done so. The ladies cared for him most careful, and but a couple of weeks ago he looked much the better for it, pale but up and about the manor, but then, when he was even thinking of returning to his lord, the fever struck him down again, sweating and crying out in pain he was. Terrible to hear, were his groans. The lady Avelina, I think she believes he will die, but the lady Matilda says no. She says as she has seen such fevers that come and go and give such pains, and the man recovered, in time. Myself, I think if the lady Matilda has told him he shall not die, then he will not die because he would not disobey her.’ Brictmer gave a sad smile.

  ‘You do not think the death of Hywel, nephew to the lady Matilda, is linked to this manor?’ Catchpoll moved the conversation to the direct.

  ‘It will have been the servant as killed him. The man did not seem the sort, but then, who better than one who appears loyal.’

  ‘What was he like, the servant?’

  ‘Underfed, in the cook’s opinion. She took pity upon him, sure enough, and tried to ply him with extra bowls of pottage. His thin frame made him look a stripling, though I heard his master claim he was full five and twenty years, and it brought out the motherly in her. He was very alert, I thought … reminded me of a stoat, truth to tell.’

  ‘So we hunt a very tall stoat, do we?’ laughed Catchpoll, watching the man closely.

  ‘Stoats are not easy to catch, so you had best hope not.’ Brictmer grinned, but Catchpoll thought his eyes wary.

  ‘We will speak to all in Doddenham, in case anyone saw the Welshmen depart, or heard them in argument. Sometimes things mean nothing until events afterwards show them in a new light, and there is nothing wrong in not having worried over them before. It is the small things as lead to the greater ones, in our work.’ Catchpoll let that sink in, and could sense rather than see a hint of concern in the steward. ‘But there, I must not delay you in your duty. If you would tell me how many work within the palisade, and at what, I shall be about the lord Sheriff’s business.’

  Walkelin had found the stables empty of all but horseflesh, and therefore moved on to the kitchen. He liked kitchens, for they smelt good, and a pleasant young man could often get titbits, not just of information. The cook was the age of his mother, and he knew how to handle her, calling her ‘mistress’, very deferentially, and giving her ‘gossip’ about how ‘this body of some Welshman’ had been found, and that because of it he had been dragged all the way to Wales, where the cooking was awful, so that the lord Undersheriff could put a name to the victim, and the Prince of Powys had said the man was good and loyal. This, as intended, got the cook quite agitated.

  ‘Good? Him? Well, I care not what some prince says. I saw, with my own eyes, the way the man was when here, and he was far from good. His poor servant, now there was a decent lad, though blind to his master’s faults, so blind he was trying to persuade himself that his master could not resist a wench making eyes at him, but I knows better. The girls here are good, honest girls, and one is my niece. Twelve, she is, and yet to look upon any man in that way at all. He made her cry …’ her voice trailed off and she shook her head, ‘so I kept her in the kitchen the rest of the time he was here, and told her if a man such as he dared enter, I would hit him with the skillet.’ The cook fairly bristled with indignation. ‘Look at her, poor lambkin.’ She pointed her ladle as a girl − and Walkelin would not have described her as a woman − entered the kitchen, head down, shoulders hunched.

  ‘A man would not—’ He spoke what was uppermost in his mind, and stopped short, reddening. It did him little harm in the eyes of the cook, who approved of his disbelief, though it made the girl tremble.

  ‘No decent man, that is for sure,’ she corrected, but gently.

  ‘He did not harm you … hurt you … just frighten you, yes?’ Walkelin, for all he was asking a serjeant’s apprentice’s questions, wanted reassurance as any honest young man might seek.

  ‘Is not frightening more than enough?’ The cook gave the answer, and gripped her ladle as though imagining the assailant.

  ‘Yes, yes it is but … I hope you can come to know all men are not … like that.’ He spoke to the girl, but she did not lift her head, nor make any sign that she heard him. Walkelin’s open and generally happy face wore a grim expression. ‘I think only his prince will mourn such a man’s death.’

  ‘Evil comes upon the innocent,’ declared the cook, ‘but them that does it must pay in the hereafter.’ She crossed herself.

  ‘And should pay here, an’ all.’ A young woman, willowy of stature, and with a strand of fair hair escaped from her coif, brought in a basket of pease. She looked at Walkelin, judging him, and decided he was not one to object to that sentiment. ‘He tried it with me, putting his hand where none but a husband might and I slapped his face, good and hard, lord or no lord. He swore at me, as I guess, but in his own natural tongue, and I care not what he said. To think us free for his using!’

  ‘He is dead, Aldith,’ said the cook, and Walkelin heard warning rather than admonition in her voice.

  ‘Good.’ Aldith dumped the basket of pease upon the kitchen floor with an angry flounce, and took a wooden bowl from a shelf. ‘The lord Sheriff might be here, but who is he looking for justice for? Not for the likes of me, for sure.’

  ‘It is the lord Undersheriff who has come, and the sheriff’s serjeant,’ murmured Walkelin, feeling almost guilty.

  ‘And would they care that I was molested by that Welsh lecher? No, because I am nobody, and he was somebody, even if only in Wales.’ She took a handful of pods from the basket and began to shell the pease with a vicious enthusiasm that Walkelin found slightly unnerving.

  ‘You were glad he went, then?’ He stated the obvious, but with a reason.

  ‘Glad? I never saw the going of him, or I would have left burrs under his saddle and hoped his horse would throw him in a ditch, even a dry summer ditch. Slunk off, he did, in my opinion, tail between his legs, and I wish that was all he had there, for the sake of every maid in the shire.’

  ‘But his servant, you said, mistress, was not a bad man, yet spoke not against him?’ Walkelin looked back at the cook.

  ‘Some good men are blinkered to the sinful,’ replied the cook, virtuously, ‘or rather they try to be. I heard them together, voices raised, that first evening, outside the hall, but it was all in Welsh foreign, so … The servant, his name was Riddeann I think, had little English, but said his lord was “a good man” − more in hope than belief, I would say. He said he was the one always being led on, well did this little mummery really, and it was funny to see. He fluttered his eyelashes and made like a woman being forward, and sighed, and shook his head.’


  ‘Then he was a fool, good-hearted or not.’ Aldith shelled another pod and the peas rattled in the dish. They smelt sweet and fresh and at odds with everything to do with Hywel ap Rhodri, which was linked only with corruption and death.

  ‘Well, I must go and see what my superiors want to do with me,’ sighed Walkelin, sounding suitably put upon. ‘I will leave you to your labours, ladies all.’ He made them a little bow, which made the cook smile, but Aldith just sniffed.

  The sheriff’s men walked out into the cluster of cottages that made the village of Doddenham, but did not set about knocking at doors, since few, unless decrepit, would be found at home with the hay at least cut, and probably being turned. Instead they went to the little church, which was cool and empty.

  ‘So what have we got, Catchpoll?’ Bradecote leant his arms on the stone of the font and looked at his serjeant.

  ‘Bits, my lord, small bits, but interesting ones. The men-at-arms are idle in my view, of mind and body, from lack of use and training also. They could give me nothing. From Brictmer the Steward I have it that the lady Matilda still rules the roost.’

  ‘No surprise there. I met the woman,’ grinned Bradecote.

  ‘Not only that, though. The lady Avelina has been wed three years, and no babe in her cradle, and the steward clearly thinks his lord not up to the task, shall we say. The lady is thwarted then, in several ways. She has a manor in which she cannot be the lady, and a husband who is not enough of a husband to her.’

  ‘A less than contented wife is nothing new, and I guessed the same, but of what use is it to us?’ Bradecote’s brow furrowed.

  ‘We shall see as to that, my lord, for I am not yet of any view upon it. However, there is more. The sick man we did not see, attended by the two ladies, is Durand, the lord Thorold’s younger brother, and far more “able”, at least from repute, if the hints were true. He and his brother are not close. They were at odds often enough when Durand was young and in the manor, but he left to join the lord Gilbert de Clare, and no doubt wished to get advancement that way, being landless. The only person he ever attended was his mother. He was a man who acted first and thought later, the opposite of his brother. The feeling is that he was always favoured by his parents, who thought Thorold more the litter runt than sturdy firstborn. Durand returned a month back, ailing good and proper with a fever. Brictmer thinks the lady Avelina fears he will die, which makes me wonder how fond she is of her brother by marriage, but that the lady Matilda is convinced he will live and he will not disappoint her.’