A Man's Word (The King's Hounds series)

by Martin Jensen

“Because?” Then I understood. “Because she doesn’t know who they are.”

  “Exactly. Arnulf was as stingy with information as he was with money. And apparently not just with his wife. Gertrude and Rowena agree that he didn’t confide in anyone. Man or woman,” she added smugly.

  “But,” I said, turning to Winston, “I think we should look at Delwyn.”

  “Nonsense!” Winston set down his spoon, shaking his head haughtily. “A man doesn’t have his own son killed and then ask us to find the murderer.”

  I looked over at Alfilda, who merely went back to dipping her horn spoon into the bowl in front of her again. She looked as though she wanted to say more, but instead devoted herself to eating her porridge, which must have been cold by now.

  “He could be sly enough,” I protested.

  “For that kind of double dealing?” Winston shook his head dismissively. “He’s cunning and powerful for sure, but he didn’t murder his own son for perjury.”

  “So he settled for maiming his son’s best friend who happened to be in his custody as a hostage?”

  “A hostage in what dispute?” Winston asked.

  I shrugged, because I had no idea. Either Stigand hadn’t known that or didn’t feel that I should know.

  “But with someone who was his subordinate without a doubt,” Winston deduced. “Someone who didn’t have the power to avenge the wrong that was done to Bardolf, but would settle for taking Delwyn at his word and demanding an exorbitant fine. Didn’t Stigand say that the maimed boy’s family could demand whatever they wanted by way of a fine?”

  I nodded.

  “Delwyn is powerful,” Winston continued, “and men like that are used to getting their way. As you said, his son’s rapes bothered him, but he was thane enough to believe that it’s a nobleman’s right to take what he desires and what he can. All the same, his son’s behavior was a thorn in his side, because noblemen are sensitive about their reputation and that of their family. So did Stigand say that Delwyn welcomed it when Arnulf brought the case against Darwyn?”

  I nodded again.

  “And,” Winston said, “Delwyn was furious when his son swore his way out of it with the help of a friend’s false testimony. We saw that ourselves. He left the court right away.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “So angry that he killed his son after maiming the friend.”

  “No, no.” Winston shook his head arrogantly. “He’s not like that. Believe me, by allowing himself to be talked into perjury Bardolf paid the price for both of them. Only after he was maimed did Delwyn quiet down. You could maybe even say he was disfigured so that Darwyn didn’t have to be.”

  Alfilda pushed her porridge bowl away and glanced up at me. I bit my lip. Winston might be right, I admitted silently to myself. I had met thanes like that back when I was a young nobleman, men who flared up when anyone opposed them, but calmed down again just as quickly.

  Wasn’t it common knowledge that the king was like that? He ordered men maimed and disfigured when his indignation at having been defied raged in him, but as soon as the blood was shed, he calmed down again.

  “So forget Delwyn and ride to the village,” Winston ordered.

  I wouldn’t if I had any say. Hadn’t he told me yesterday to follow my own trail? Now he was suddenly going to force me to follow one I didn’t believe in just because Alfilda had had a door slammed in her face?

  Of course I was too wise to say all that, just as I kept to myself the fact that my reluctance to leave had as much to do with Brigit as my lack of desire to be forced to do Alfilda’s work.

  “And just what do you suppose I should do in the village?” I asked. I imagine he heard the reluctance in my voice, because there was a chilling look in his eyes.

  “We’ve established that Gertrude didn’t know the names of the men who owed Arnulf silver. But certainly all the village men didn’t ride to the Hundred Court, and some of the ones who remained behind may know. Someone has to go and question them, and that task is yours.”

  I gloated to myself in silence at how easy he made it for me before I quipped, “Not only should they be questioned about who owed Arnulf money, but apparently they also should be checked for the length of their arms.”

  Both Winston and Alfilda stared at me blankly.

  “There’s no way someone in the village could have stabbed Darwyn and then Arnulf to death. The murderer has to be here in Thetford, and we’re going to find him by revealing who had reason to want Darwyn dead—because there are obviously as many people in that category as there are stars in the sky—and who had the opportunity to stab him.”

  “You’re very persistent,” Winston all but growled.

  “Like your lady friend there, yes. We each have our opinions, and yesterday you told us we could act on them.” I purposefully kept my voice quite calm.

  “That was yesterday. Today you come in here spewing some rubbish about the murderer supposedly being the boy’s own father. That changes everything.”

  This wasn’t like Winston. Usually he never broke his word. I peered coolly into his eyes, and, to my satisfaction, he was the first to look down. When I looked over at Alfilda, she looked back at me hesitantly.

  They sure were easy to read. Winston was furious at himself because he had chosen to follow Alfilda instead of me; she was resigned because she’d run into the wall the farmers built between themselves and unknown women.

  I waited. Was he going to force me to ride away? That would delay me not only from pursuing the correct trail but also from seeing Brigit. So I cleared my throat and said, “Maybe Alfilda is right.”

  The astonishment in both their eyes was worth the lie.

  “Maybe the answer does lie with a debt-ridden farmer.” I paused before continuing. “But if that’s the case, he’s going to be here in Thetford. Perhaps I was wrong and for at least one of the men in question, his reluctance to talk is because he is afraid he’ll reveal too much,” I said.

  Winston and Alfilda both nodded.

  “And if that’s the case it would be futile to send me away.” I’d set the trap. Now I just had to wait and see if Winston walked into it.

  He tugged on his nose. For a long time.

  “So you think,” he finally said, “that the answer lies with one of the farmers we came here with?”

  I kept my voice calm and quiet. “No, but if Alfilda is right, it must be one of them. I still think we should begin with Darwyn.”

  My master looked at Alfilda. Then he said to me, “You’ll stay here. And once you’ve spoken with the farmers and reported back to me, you’re free to follow your own impulses.”

  Blast it! He’d walked into the trap, but not the one I’d laid for him. I had hoped he would do the talking with Bjarne, Sigvald, Herward, and Alwyn.

  26

  I hadn’t seen any of the farmers since I had returned to Thetford from the village, and although I was furious at Winston and Alfilda, I forced myself to ask them if they had any idea where the four men might be.

  “They come and go but mostly stay away from the tavern here,” Alfilda said with a shrug. “I suppose they’re disinclined to spend money on ale that they could drink for free at home. Our good host does not look kindly on men who take up space at his tables without putting their shillings on it.”

  So they were in town. Turstan had given them permission to go as far as the town’s gate.

  I got up, hitched up my sword belt, and started to leave. When Winston’s voice stopped me, I turned around grumpily.

  “You can forget one of them,” he said.

  I was about to reject his help, but then realized that the fewer farmers I had to talk to, the better. I opened my mouth to ask him what he meant. Which is when I realized it on my own.

  “Bjarne was here in the tavern when Arnulf was killed. Yes, thanks, I can think for myself.”

  Winston merely shrugged, but I was already heading for the door.

  It was cooler than it had been for a long time, whi
ch can happen in the spring as the sun and the wind struggle for supremacy. Clouds raced by above the town and the marketplace, and although they weren’t ominously dark, there was rain in them. But I’d be damned if I was going to return to the inn for my cape. I pulled my gambeson closed at the neck and headed through the market.

  I strolled along, scanning here and there, peering into ale tents and stands. I stopped at the edge of a large square where a group of jongleurs was entertaining an enthusiastic audience and carefully scanned the crowd for a familiar face. I figured the men I was looking for would be inclined to seek out diversions they could enjoy without needing to pay.

  Although I took my time and scanned the crowd three times, I didn’t recognize any of the clapping, smiling onlookers, so I moved on. I reached the wool merchant’s stall and tried to catch Brigit’s eye.

  As soon as her husband was busy helping a matron with an ample backside, who was touching the displayed rolls of cloth with the look of a connoisseur, I walked all the way up to the cloth-covered counter and leaned toward Brigit, who seemed at first not to have noticed me. But I noticed a blush creeping over her throat, and her chastely down-turned eyes were betrayed by her tongue, which moistened her inviting lips.

  I glanced over at the bony old man. He had his back to us, and he was busy extolling the heavy fabrics the madam had just stroked. I reached out my hand, but before I could place it on Brigit’s arm, she moved away and once again stood virtuously with her hands folded over her stomach.

  Peering at the wool merchant, I decided that he was far too preoccupied to notice anyone besides the customer, who needed some convincing, so I breathed over the stacks of cloth that Brigit should come closer.

  She didn’t move, so I raised my voice, which caused her to give me an angry look. She mouthed “not here,” and then once again stood, the very image of virtue.

  I blew her a kiss, turned around, and strolled away calmly without looking back.

  Considering the market had been running for five days already, it was astonishing that the stalls and lanes were still so crowded. The thriving market emphasized Thetford’s importance as a town. Apart from London, Oxford, and Winchester, I’d never heard of a market that ran for a whole week.

  The many languages I heard spoken around me also made it clear the town was bringing in business. There was Danish as it was spoken in the countryside north of the River Humber, as well as the slightly more guttural dialect used back in the old country, and which could be heard all over the place since that was what the Vikings spoke. There were a lot of Vikings at the market. Cnut had paid them in silver and now they were looking for a good deal. The local residents had paid Cnut’s heregeld, an inconceivable number of pounds of silver, and now, ironically, some of that money would be making its way back into local coffers.

  The Anglian dialect of Anglo-Saxon was spoken everywhere—we were in the middle of East Anglia after all—but I also heard the Saxon tongue I knew from my childhood, along with the drawling West Saxon dialect the men from Wessex use.

  There were also people from Kent, who still spoke the funny Jutlandic language. Their dialect is hard for Angles and Saxons to understand, particularly because the Jutes make a big deal about how different their language is and thus don’t make any effort to speak so that the rest of us can understand them.

  A small group of sinewy, black-haired men, who had settled down in a little ale stand, spoke an unintelligible, rapid barrage of words that, guessing from their clothes and arms, I took to be Scottish or possibly Welsh.

  Basically, it was clear that Thetford’s annual market drew men from the entire Anglo-Saxon world as well as adjacent lands.

  This crowd of different peoples didn’t make my task any easier. I’m not a short man, but I don’t tower high above the crowd the way I once saw Winston paint a king of Israel in a book. While I can see over the heads of most women and many men, I still hadn’t managed to find any of the three farmers.

  Whenever I did spot a man I thought might be one of them, he usually ended up ducking into a passageway between a couple of tents, and before I managed to push my way through the crowd, he was gone, swallowed by a new crowd.

  I ran into Stigand no less than five times. I saw Harold, the mintmaster’s journeyman, darting off three times. And once I saw his master pop up, looking very much like someone who valued his own importance.

  I was sweating and hunger was gnawing at my belly. I hadn’t eaten since the porridge Stigand and I had together, and by my estimate I had probably covered enough ground crisscrossing these market lanes that I might as well have walked to the village. Then I passed a tent with the scent of roasted meat wafting out of it. I walked purposefully over to the entrance and had just spotted an available seat when Alwyn of the Heath suddenly appeared a few paces ahead of me.

  I greeted him and he looked irritated.

  “Why so grumpy?” I said with an amiable smile.

  At first I didn’t think he was even going to respond. He probably didn’t either. Then politeness took over, or maybe he just realized it made sense to keep on the right side of a man who’d been tasked with solving a murder. He confided with a colorful swear word that he was sick of walking around idle.

  “It’s not like there isn’t plenty of work waiting back home.” The farmer scowled. “But the reeve is a thane and he has no idea about the concerns of a common farmer.”

  I nodded sympathetically.

  “But we can still enjoy a nice meal,” I suggested.

  “You think I can afford to fill my stomach at any of these places?” Alwyn said with a dismissive snort. “Isn’t it bad enough that I can’t do the work that puts bread on my table, but now I’m also forced to throw money into the pockets of other cooks?”

  “Well, yeah, but you’ve got to eat,” I told him.

  This time his response was a sigh, after which he confided that that was exactly the problem. He’d only brought about two days of provisions to town since he had been sure they would return home the day of the trial, but he’d been forced to stretch that so now all he had left was a hunk of dry bread.

  In my experience, it’s hard to get a hungry man to talk—whereas gratitude often loosens the tongue.

  “Believe me,” I added. “I know everything there is to know about being hungry and wouldn’t wish that on anyone else, so allow me to treat you to a meal.”

  “You don’t know me,” he said, peering at me suspiciously.

  “Not well,” I smiled cheerfully. “But, as I said, I know how it feels to be hungry, and I think what the reeve’s doing is disgraceful.”

  I don’t know whether it was the prospect of my treating him or that the meal would allow him to save his crust of bread for later, but he let me lead him into the tent, where I found us seats across from each other at a long, narrow table.

  An unbelievably fat woman with wobbly jowls brought each of us a slab of rye bread covered with thick slices of pork and a tankard of ale, which was a little sweet for my taste. There was nothing wrong with the food, though, and we both dug in, chewing pork and bread and gulping down the ale. I was soon licking my fingers clean, while the farmer politely held his hand over his mouth and burped his satisfaction at the meal.

  I stretched out my legs, yawned, and asked if he was busy.

  “Busy?” His eyes bulged with rage. “Didn’t you just hear me complaining over my enforced idleness?”

  “You’re not supposed to meet the other farmers from the village or anything?”

  He dismissed that with a wave of his hand.

  I held up our empty tankards and when the fat lady brought us two full ones, Alwyn let me pay for those as well.

  “Did you manage to collect on your debt? Someone owed you for some sheep?” I smiled warmly across the table.

  His tense body shuddered as if he expected that saying yes would put an end to my generosity.

  “Because then you will have gotten something out of your journey,” I explained.<
br />
  Alwyn studied me, his brow furrowed. “Yes. The sheep dealer and I had agreed to meet when the Hundred Court was in session, and my debtor is a man of his word.”

  I nodded, expecting no less of any man Alwyn would do business with. “And you could get your own debt out of the way,” I said.

  “My own debt?” His expression was stern. “Who told you I had a debt to pay?”

  “No one.” I calmly held my palms up in innocence. “I just thought . . . Who doesn’t have a debt to pay?”

  He straightened his stout body and said, “Not me.”

  “No?” There was a hint of doubt in my voice. “Not even after paying your share of the heregeld to Cnut a couple years ago?”

  I knew many farmers had been forced to put up animals or crops as a deposit in order to generate the amount of silver they needed to pay the army tax Cnut had assessed.

  He watched me self-consciously now, and if he hadn’t been such a burly man, I would have said he was strutting like a rooster.

  “You’ll find plenty of men who will tell you that Alwyn of the Heath is not the most insignificant of farmers.”

  “That’s what I’ve heard, too.” I beamed with admiration. “And with a farm that offers good grazing in the hills and fertile fields in the valleys.”

  He eyed me with suspicion.

  “How do you know about the conditions on my farm?”

  “You told us yourself when we met at Arnulf’s farm. You remember, right?”

  “Oh.” The farmer calmed down. “Well, it’s true.”

  “So you haven’t needed to borrow any money?” I wanted to bring him back to what I was interested in, which was also the reason I’d offered him a meal and two tankards of ale.

  “I haven’t needed to.” Again he seemed cocksure.

  “So you and Arnulf didn’t have any ties that bound you?”

  “Me and Arnulf?” His surprise melted into angry distrust. “Is that what this is about?”

  I raised my hand to calm him.

  “This is about my wanting to treat an honest man to a meal, a man who is in an undeserved pinch. But now we’re having a conversation. And remember that it’s my job, as instructed by my master, to shed some light on the murders to satisfy Thane Delwyn. If you find my questions insulting, I ask your forgiveness.”