Faithful Unto Death

by Sarah Hawkswood

  ‘In the which case, I shall escort him, and we will conduct the interview, in private, at the bedside. I doubt he would like it in public.’

  ‘I will not—’

  ‘Quiet, Mother.’ Thorold FitzRoger did not shout. His voice was almost silky, but his eyes were hard, and his words carried weight. She stared at him, taken aback by his temerity, and her mouth opened and then closed at what she saw, or thought she saw, behind those eyes.

  ‘I care not,’ sighed Durand FitzRoger, weakly. ‘Ask what you will of me, I am sure I can aid you not at all.’ He emptied his goblet, which contained, from the smell of it, mead with herbs in it, no doubt of his mother’s concocting. A trickle ran down the side of his mouth to his chin, and he wiped it away with a shaking hand, a hand that shook just a fraction too much, in Bradecote’s view. He pushed back his seat and rose, leaning forward upon the table a little. ‘Let it be now.’

  Bradecote did not offer his arm, but did walk at the man’s side close enough to catch him if he fell. The sheriff’s man wondered if he might try that, but then thought that it was too much, and a feigned fall would be felt as he caught him. They entered the solar, with one tall shutter opened to let the morning light into the chamber. Durand took uncertain steps to his bed, and sat upon it heavily, letting his head droop and his shoulders hunch.

  ‘Be of good cheer, FitzRoger, your lady mother is confident that you will not die, of this disease at the least.’ Bradecote sounded brisk.

  Durand looked up at that.

  ‘She does not know everything.’

  ‘About illnesses or you? Does she know you have been mounting your brother’s wife, or just guess?’ Durand said nothing. ‘She knows Hywel ap Rhodri told you your brother was a bastard and you are the rightful lord of Doddenham, and she told you that was a lie. Do you believe her?’

  ‘She would not lie over that. If I had the right, she would have seen it made so, long ago.’ The voice was low, but stronger than before.

  ‘So you are happy to have nothing and your brother all?’

  ‘Of course not. Who would be? Thorold is what the people here, in their language, would call a “nithing” which is—’

  ‘I know what that means.’ Bradecote spoke sharply. He felt vaguely offended that this man saw the people of the manor as ‘them’ and different from the ‘us’ of the lordly class, though logically, in the hall of a great baron such as Gilbert de Clare, little English would be spoken. It occurred to Bradecote that in so many ways he felt closer to Catchpoll, and even Walkelin, than this man upon the bed’s edge.

  ‘Well, it describes him aptly, I will say that. He is lord in name, husband in name, but he is lacking, always lacking.’

  Bradecote noted he was no longer talking in short phrases.

  ‘So you would take his place, in the latter, if not the former?’

  ‘It may be a sin, but you cannot hang me for it. What point do you make, sheriff’s man?’ He shrugged.

  ‘Well, if your illness left you, shall we say, more like your brother, you would not care for the Welshman − whom we know liked to get his hands on women − getting his hands on the lady Avelina. A motive for murder, I would call that.’

  ‘Hah! Not liking is one thing, but, even if it were so, I was lying in this sickbed. I could no more kill him than fly like the birds.’

  ‘You need not be the hand, just the head behind it. Young Corbin has aided you in your frailty. He could aid you as the “hand”. What did you demand his oath upon last night?’ He dropped the question suddenly into the conversation like a stone into a pool, and watched the ripple seen in the expressions on Durand FitzRoger’s pallid face. Surprise was followed by annoyance, then a cloak of pretence.

  ‘Nothing, nothing I recall.’

  ‘Ah no, do not play the “sick man’s memory fails me” any more, FitzRoger.’ Bradecote shook his head. ‘I heard, heard the strength of his avowal. It was important, to the both of you.’

  ‘Ask him, then.’ Durand shut his eyes, shutting out the questions and the questioner together.

  ‘And expect an answer? Come. If it does not concern Hywel ap Rhodri, we will leave you to be sickly in peace.’

  ‘For which you think I should thank you?’

  ‘Not at all. The truth is more use than thanks.’ He pressed, without easing, wearing down the will shaken by fevers.

  ‘I did not kill the man, nor have him killed.’

  ‘Then why did you need assurance?’

  ‘Because I needed to know that … my brother did not know something, not for sure.’ Durand sighed.

  ‘Thorold? About you and his wife? Why would you care, if he is a “nithing”? And besides, Corbin would not be the person to involve, since he sets his lady upon a height in the adoration of youth.’

  ‘He does? But he is a peasant.’

  ‘I have news for you, FitzRoger. Peasants are not beasts of the field, but the same creatures as lords and even kings, and if you ignore that your life may end sooner than you think.’

  ‘Of course they have feelings, but to admire a woman so far above him …’

  ‘Is undoubtedly half the attraction. Adoring the unattainable is part of growing up, for most. Perhaps you were one of the few to whom that did not apply. However, it does not change the point that Corbin would not have concealed knowledge of her falling from grace and still been in the throes of calf-love. So, try another answer, one I can believe.’ Bradecote sounded almost bored.

  ‘I did not want Avelina to know about … well, about another woman, one I mentioned when lost in fever. Corbin asked me, impertinent boy, who was the lady I mumbled for in my dreams, and I said she was nobody, but if he mentioned the name “Isabelle”, then it would betray me. Avelina would know it was not some tumble with a field wench, something she could forgive when I was elsewhere so long.’

  ‘If you “mumbled” it before him, who is to say you did not do so also when the lady Avelina tended you?’

  ‘Because her manner has not altered, of course. Do you understand women so little? You cannot be wed.’ Bradecote said nothing. ‘If a woman is jealous there are no bounds to what they will do. If Avelina thought I played her false, she might make it seem I had killed the Welshman as her revenge upon me.’

  ‘So much for love, then.’

  ‘Love? Love is for boys and for gullible fools, and women, which last two are often one and the same thing.’ Durand sounded very cynical. ‘What a man needs is a comely woman who supplies his needs, obeys his commands, and gives him sons. It is simple enough. Love is a complication I can do without.’ There was a trace of bitterness, and Bradecote thought, for all the coldness, Durand had at least been besotted with a fair face once, and been supplanted, or excluded. Perhaps even this ‘Isabelle’ had inspired more than ardour in his loins, and it was she whose hand had been refused him. For one moment Bradecote knew pity for the man, not because of the lost ‘love’ but because he saw no advantage to the emotion. Well, Hugh Bradecote had experienced a marriage based upon no more than tolerance and mild affection on his own part, and it paled like a winter dawn compared to midsummer noon when set against the marriage he had now. Then pity shattered like ice on a puddle at Durand’s next words.

  ‘The Welshman was more like me, I suppose, and certainly more like me than my brother. He was, however, lacking discretion. Avelina said dallying with him was sport, and I think she did it to spur me on, but she later admitted it was poor taste to play seduction with the wife of one’s host.’

  Durand was not looking at the undersheriff. Had he done so, Bradecote’s expression would have made him edge away. There was silence, and Bradecote could feel his own pulse throbbing in his neck. Durand FitzRoger almost admired Hywel ap Rhodri, and, had the depths of the bastard’s crimes been revealed, Bradecote sensed he would have ‘condemned’ them for the risk the man ran, not for what he had done to innocent women. Hugh Bradecote could do nothing to Hywel ap Rhodri, whose punishment lay with God, but knew a desire to th
rottle this callous lover as his proxy. He controlled himself, slowed the heavy beat of blood in his veins, and when he spoke again sounded cold, and calm.

  ‘I have no more to say to you, or to ask, unless I find falsehood in your truth. Keep to your bed if you wish, I am unlikely to drag you from it.’ Bradecote turned away, and strode out, the door reverberating as he slammed it behind him. It was that which made Durand FitzRoger wonder.

  Catchpoll was not in the hall, but out in the bailey, chatting ‘idly’ to a man-at-arms who, unlike his fat and somnolent comrade, was at least standing upright, and was in fact holding a heavily built horse by the halter stall. Catchpoll, observing not just the beast, but the man’s manner with it, saw an opportunity, and was discussing horseflesh as though Catchpoll loved the beasts more than he did his wife, which was not the case.

  ‘Good strong back there. Bet she pulls a goodly load when asked. Myself, I prefer the wagon beasts to the fancy ones that are ridden as much for show as good purpose. The constable in Worcester, he has a chestnut, very pretty to look upon, but no depth of chest and a narrow back. He is always sour after a long day in the saddle, and I can tell why. Of course, it had white stockings and I never trusts a horse with more than a pale fetlock.’

  ‘Oh, I do not know. That Welshman’s horse, he has a white stocking and moves sweetly.’

  Catchpoll nearly crowed like a cock, but maintained his casual expression. The man-at-arms must have realised his mistake, though, and muttered about best being about his duty and taking the mare to hobble at the pease field borders for an hour or so of grazing. Catchpoll let him go, and turned, with twitching lips, at the sound of the undersheriff’s long stride. The humour died. Bradecote looked like thunder, and it took a lot to anger the man.

  ‘His reason was good, my lord?’ He fell into step beside him, and the pair of them walked through the gateway. Bradecote turned to the left and halted where there was a little shade close by the palisade. He ran a hand through his hair.

  ‘I can see no clear fault in it, though whether it is true or false is not decided, not yet.’ Bradecote paused, forced down his natural anger, and gave the explanation, and the man’s attitude. Catchpoll made a good guess. As he saw it, the lord Bradecote coped very ill with the mistreatment of women, which was praiseworthy, except he took it to heart and let it show. Catchpoll assumed that lay with having been burdened with the thought that the lady Christina had faced the very real threat of mistreatment and dishonour at the hands of a mad bastard, and it was too close to home. It was as near the truth as even Catchpoll might sniff.

  ‘It fits, there’s the trouble with it, my lord, and thinking of women in the same light as a horse or a good sword comes as natural to some men. Wrong that may be, but not unlawful of itself, unless it leads to worse, and the Hywel ap Rhodris of the world are few, heaven be praised.’

  ‘Amen to that, Catchpoll. Durand steps back a pace from our line of suspects. However, and I say this with caution, I still wonder if it is the real reason.’

  ‘Why so, my lord?’

  ‘For one thing, he feigns greater weakness and sickness than afflicts him at the present, though the reality of his past fever I do not doubt. Why does he play the invalid while we are here? Secondly, I doubt him because if he cried for this woman Isabelle in his fever, we are being asked to believe he not only did not mention her before the lady Avelina, but also the lady Matilda, and if she had a name like that to play with, can you imagine what use she would put it to, taunting her daughter-in-law?’

  ‘True enough, my lord. It would be a sharp bodkin to prick her with, and the dame would enjoy every dig. That means the lady Matilda would be looking secretly smug, and the lady Avelina betrayed and afflicted, and neither of those things have we seen. It is a good point. Make that half a step back from our line of suspects, then?’

  ‘That line is swiftly reducing to one man, Catchpoll.’

  ‘It is that.’

  ‘So what was his motive, and what did he do with Rhydian and the grey pony?’ Bradecote folded his arms and leant against a sun-warmed wooden wall.

  ‘Man and pony I can say nothing about, my lord, but surely the motive must be his wife.’

  ‘The wife he already suspects, unless he is a fool, of playing him false with his brother. Yet he has not killed the brother, and I would guess there have been short times when the ailing Durand was unattended and would have been easy to stifle. None would have questioned if he had stopped breathing in the midst of such sickness.’

  ‘Then let me try your thoughts upon him, my lord. You said he was one to watch rather than do for himself, yes?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Then he kills Hywel, knowing he has been sniffing far too close to her skirts at the least, and waits.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Well, the sensible thing to do if you kill a man is bury him, good and deep.’

  ‘Which Thorold FitzRoger would not do for himself, even if his life did depend upon it.’

  ‘No, but he could get Brictmer and his son to do so if he hinted that Hywel went too far and insulted their lady as he had the maidservants.’

  ‘Go on.’ Bradecote was interested.

  ‘He therefore does not bury the man, but gets one of those two, Corbin at my guess, to take the body into the next Hundred and just hide it, except Corbin goes too far and ends up back in the same Hundred, but there. He then waits for it to be found, and investigation made.’

  ‘Easy to see after the fact, Catchpoll, but at the time? It needs the corpse to be found, not just buried by some nervous villagers − and I would guess that happens on occasion and no word said − and for us to work back to this manor. As we said ourselves when we found the body, even getting a name was unlikely then. Stripping the body was a mistake. Leaving something distinctive, preferably Welsh, upon it, would have helped.’

  ‘Er, what might he have that marked him as Welsh, my lord?’ Catchpoll looked genuinely puzzled.

  ‘No idea, but it would make sense. Anyway, my concern is it is leaving much to chance.’

  ‘If nothing comes of it, he got rid of a man whom he did not like, and whose secret death makes him feel clever. He is the sort to like to feel clever.’

  ‘I agree with that, Catchpoll.’

  ‘And if we turn up, he makes it hard enough so that the finger does not point too clearly, and then makes sure his brother Durand looks guilty as sin, my lord. Thus, he gets rid of the cuckolding brother, and mother’s favourite, and watches every move of it.’

  ‘By using the excuse of the man being jealous or … Catchpoll, he stressed the loyalty of Gilbert de Clare at the first interview, without belabouring the point. He could use “Durand the loyal King’s man” if the “jealous lover” failed.’

  ‘That bucket holds not water, my lord, alas, since we are on the King’s business, and killing a man involved in treason would be more likely to be applauded in some quarters. He was not to know which way it would fall.’

  ‘You say that, Catchpoll, but it must be common enough knowledge that William de Beauchamp is of the Empress’s faction, at a personal level, however well he collects King Stephen’s taxes.’

  ‘I still think “angry, impetuous lover” sounds the more likely, my lord.’

  ‘True. Now we come to the final problem.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘He has not actually pushed us towards suspecting his brother. In fact, it was Durand who tried to hint at the opposite.’

  Catchpoll said several very rude things.

  In the solar of the hall, Thorold FitzRoger dismissed his wife.

  ‘Upstairs with you. This is not your concern.’ He glared at her, and she pouted, and flounced to the stair, where steepness precluded anything other than a practical ascent. He stood, hands behind his back, and stared at his brother. ‘You are better again. I want you gone, tomorrow, before you have this family and manor shamed.’

  ‘He cannot go, Thorold. His fever …’ the lady Ma
tilda intervened.

  ‘He will go. This is my manor and I say it. He can take the spare horse, which is better out of here as soon as possible, and Corbin can ride with him in case of fainting. If he ails again, well he might find even better care among Holy Brothers. All that he will do here is stagger towards a noose. Why did you do it?’

  ‘You do not seriously think that I killed the man? Sweet Jesu, I was not fit to—’

  ‘Not fit to bed my wife, no, but killing a man takes but a moment of stamina.’

  ‘Thorold!’

  ‘Come, Mother, we are not children. Durand has been usurping my position when he can, but upon this visit … I think not.’ He looked at his brother in thinly disguised dislike. ‘That is all you will usurp. I do not know why you took against the Welshman, but—’

  ‘I did not kill him.’

  ‘Your denials do not interest me very much. Under the wing of de Clare you have some protection, at least as long as he remains upon the side of King Stephen, but I cannot, and indeed, will not, put myself out for you in this shire.’

  ‘He is your brother, Thorold.’

  ‘And I cannot ever forget it. You will not let me forget it, so precious is he to you. I am as much your son.’ He threw the words at her.

  ‘If he said he did not kill the man, he did not kill him.’ The lady Matilda could be infuriatingly calm.

  ‘Then if you believe him, why have you been aiding this … mummery, of him being weak and incapable?’

  ‘The fever waxes and wanes, but it is difficult to make such a thing seem real. It is better for him to remain “sick”, for you saw how exertion when Hywel ap Rhodri was here set him back. That way he will get better faster, and also be less tormented by the impertinence of de Beauchamp’s undersheriff.’

  ‘Which is the point. He was well enough when our unlamented cousin was here, and suddenly ill when he disappeared. I find that … odd.’

  ‘But I did not kill him, so it is I who ask, who did? Was it you, Thorold? It hardly seems possible of course, you actually doing anything but …’