Blood Runs Thicker

by Sarah Hawkswood

  A skylark rose into the air, its song hanging above them in the breezeless blue, and then the notes dropping like dewfall. Far to the west, looming behind the bold outline of the Malvern Hills, there was dark cloud building, but here there was time still for sickle and bent back, the gathering of sheaves. A poor harvest meant empty bellies next summer, and a bad one starvation among the villeins. Bradecote crossed himself, and prayed that his barn would be full and the field all stubble.

  Catchpoll watched his superior and guessed the better part of his feeling. Catchpoll did not own land, had no desire to do so, but he knew that when he looked over Worcester from the battlements of the castle he felt it was where he belonged. It struck him, quite forcibly, that Bradecote was as good as English. He spoke Foreign at need, but from day to day he worked in good English, he had never been across the water to Normandy and had no reason to ever see it. Before the Normans came, there were still lords and ordinary folk, warrior thegns and farmers and traders. There was thegnlic blood in the lord Bradecote from the distaff, no doubt more so than in the lord sheriff. In the end, the man standing looking down to Lench spread below him was an Englishman like Catchpoll himself. Bradecote took a deep breath. The contemplation was at an end.

  ‘Now what, my lord?’ the serjeant asked.

  ‘I don’t think Hamo killed his father, by his own hand or by silver.’ Bradecote shook his head. ‘With him there is day and night, but no gloaming, if you see what I mean.’

  ‘Aye, I do. But there was one moment, speaking with him, when he changed. When he said his brother and father had laughed at him, but that they were the fools, then there was a rage in him. I wonder if, when that rage bursts, like a boil, he might not even think of it afterwards. It happens but is not him?’ Catchpoll pulled a face. ‘I make no sense, but …’

  ‘You think if he had killed his father he would hide it in his mind?’ Walkelin looked very confused.

  ‘I just don’t know, young Walkelin. Years ago, when I was in your place, a young woman was attacked one evening by the river. She was found wandering in the street by a priest called to administer the Last Rites to some soul departing. There was blood on her, some of it her own, her clothes were torn and it was clear she had been raped. In her hand, still held so tight it had to be prised from her grip, was her knife. We found the body of a man down by the wharves, half naked, stabbed many times, and his face clawed. The tale told itself. The weird thing was, the woman denied it was her, denied she had been harmed, and said she had gone to the river to cool her feet after a hot day and then returned home. She had no explanation of her injuries or the knife other than perhaps she had fallen and hurt herself. She was not mad, but everything to do with what happened was gone, utterly. My serjeant and the lord Sheriff agreed that nothing would be said further. There were no witnesses bar the priest finding the woman, and the dead man was some passing sailor from one of the Severn boats with none to mourn or seek wergild or any other justice. In fact, he got what he deserved, and the woman’s good name was not torn from her. Fortunately the bastard left no child in her, and she wed the next year. It sounds madness, but it is true as I stand here. I wondered if the lordling Hamo would be like that, if he had snapped and acted.’

  ‘But the young woman you speak of must have been, in every sense, out of her mind with fear and her act self-defence.’ Bradecote shook his head. ‘I cannot see Hamo going red-mist killing mad when he accidentally met his father upon the track, and besides, he would know as well as anyone the man’s habit, so any meeting would have been planned, in cold blood.’

  ‘And he said he went towards the north, my lord,’ added Walkelin.

  ‘He did. If he is responsible, then he is both very cunning and very bold. He strikes me as neither. Which leaves us where? Hoping we find some reason in the hatred of two neighbours.’

  ‘Do we make sure everyone here, on the manor, was seen and accounted for, my lord?’ Walkelin was always thorough.

  ‘We should, though I doubt they will thank us for interrupting their labours, and Baldwin de Lench will stamp and shout. I know sense says discount them first and then look further afield, but since there is small chance of our killer being out with a sickle today, I think we go to visit the manors of Flavel and Bishampton. At the very least we will give them news they will rejoice at, if they loathed him as the lady said.’

  The trio retraced their steps, pausing briefly so that Catchpoll could show the now barely distinguishable traces in the ground where Osbern de Lench was killed. Walkelin and Catchpoll went straight to the stable to make ready the horses, and Bradecote headed into the hall, to inform the lady de Lench that they would be absent until the evening meal, upon the lord sheriff’s business. More than that she need not know.

  ‘The thing is,’ said Catchpoll, pensively, as they rode north, ‘if Walter Pipard and Raoul Parler have been at such odds with the lord of Lench and the breach so open, why did not the lord Baldwin suggest that they had a hand in the death?’

  ‘Because he wants to see his brother hang?’ Walkelin frowned. ‘But if he is likely to send him to the brothers at Evesham he would be as good as dead anyway.’

  ‘The cowl does not appeal then, Walkelin?’ Bradecote laughed. ‘As good as dead, eh!’

  ‘I mean no disrespect to the monks, but … other than a payment gift as he entered, there need never be anything after between the two brothers. I cannot see Baldwin riding often to Evesham to ask after his health, and the lordling Hamo seems to have no interest in the manor or its folk, even kin. He would put them from his thoughts. Other than the gift there would be no difference between burying him within an abbey and in the earth.’

  ‘And thus avoid damning his immortal soul with the mark of Cain.’ Bradecote urged his grey to a trot. ‘Makes sense, but I get the feeling Baldwin would like to see the lady de Lench distraught, not least because she is not so over her dead husband, and having her son at a rope’s end would do that. Oh well. Let us find out about Parler and Pipard, and forget the strange Hamo de Lench for a while.’

  The manor at Flavel was well kept. It had an orderliness to it, as though it was swept daily. As with the other manors in the district, it was almost deserted, with all that could lend a hand out with the harvesting. The palisade about the lord’s hall had new wood, a pale block among the aged oak timbers where a second gateway had been filled in, and Bradecote guessed it was a manor where defence had become unimportant over the years until the dispute between King Stephen and the Empress Maud made having two points of ingress one too many for security. The single remaining gateway was shut. He came before it and announced his name and office, loudly. After a few moments he heard a voice, and the sound of a bar lifting. It would be but a short one that a single man might lift, not a major barricade of defence. The first gate opened a few feet. A man stood before them, built well enough to be labouring, but he stared at them with opaque white eyes and saw nothing. Bradecote repeated himself.

  ‘I am come to speak with the lord Raoul Parler.’

  ‘He is not here, my lord.’ The man heard the command in the voice, the expectation of obedience.

  ‘He is with the harvesting?’

  ‘No, he is not here. Would you speak with the lady?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The blind man let them in, and walked, with a stout stick sweeping before him, to the hall. He entered and called for his lady. A female voice came from the solar, and a woman then emerged, a woman easing her back as she came, for she was some way advanced in pregnancy. From the solar came the noise of squabbling children, several from the voices. Some women, thought Bradecote, flourished with childbearing. In others it drained them as though each life that emerged left less in the mother. This was such a woman. Her whole being looked worn, aged before the years, and though her belly was rounded, her limbs were thin and her face gaunt. She also looked worried.

  ‘I am Hugh Bradecote, Undersheriff of Worcestershire,’ began Bradecote, and she turned white and coll
apsed in a dead faint before them.

  ‘Well, I have never seen that happen before, just because you gave your title,’ remarked Catchpoll, as the undersheriff went swiftly to kneel at her side and rub her hands, speaking her name.

  ‘What has happened?’ asked the blind man.

  ‘Your lady has fainted. Women carrying can do that,’ Catchpoll explained.

  ‘Aye, especially if given a shock. She will have thought you are come to say he is dead, the lord Raoul.’ The blind man sighed.

  ‘Why think that?’ Bradecote was watching the first trace of colour return to the pale cheeks.

  ‘Because he left without warning, morn of two days since, after hot words, and she does not know where he went or why. She pleaded with him not to go, but he left and at speed.’

  ‘Had he been sent some message?’ Bradecote enquired as the lady stirred.

  ‘That I do not know, my lord.’

  ‘Do not be distressed, lady, I bear no ill news, at least not of your husband, I swear it.’ Bradecote’s voice was all sincerity.

  For a moment she stared up at him, uncomprehending, and then she took a deep breath which was exhaled as a sob. Bradecote felt guilty, though he could not have guessed his words would be met with such a reaction. Her eyes, focusing upon him, still held a fear. He tried to help her sit up, but she actually pushed him away as anger took the place of her trepidation.

  ‘Leave me alone.’ One hand slid to cradle her swollen form as she sat, paused, and then called to the blind man. ‘Come to me, Siward.’

  The man crossed the chamber as her voice guided him, and he felt her hand reach up to touch his.

  ‘Help me rise, slowly.’

  He bent, his arm strong. She got carefully to her feet, ignoring the sheriff’s men, thanked Siward with a soft word and took her seat upon the slight dais that stood proud of the rush-strewn floor.

  ‘If you come not to cast me into despair, why are you here, my lord Undersheriff?’ She was mistress of herself now, and guarded.

  ‘I come because Osbern de Lench lies in his church awaiting burial, and he died by the hand of another.’

  She crossed herself, though her hand trembled very slightly.

  ‘God have mercy on his soul.’

  ‘Your lord and he have not been good neighbours these last few years. I wanted to ask him why that was so. I find he is not here, and not seen since the day before yesterday. Osbern de Lench was dead about yesterday noontide. You can see why I find that of interest.’

  ‘Then your interest will be short-lived, my lord. My husband can have nothing to do with the death of the lord of Lench, though it will not be sad news to him …’ her voice wavered for a fraction of a moment, ‘when he returns.’

  ‘But if you do not know where he has gone, you cannot know he is not involved, lady. Why were they at odds? Do you know?’

  ‘I know that Osbern de Lench was a betrayer of trust.’

  ‘In what way?’ Bradecote watched her face. She was reluctant. ‘In what way, lady Parler?’ A hint of steel entered his tone. She wavered, crumbled.

  ‘He had sworn to support King Stephen, but after Lincoln he went back on his oath.’

  ‘After Lincoln many did so, thinking all lost.’

  ‘It is true, but …’

  He could almost read her thoughts. Parler held the manor from William de Beauchamp, whom the Empress Maud had shown favour after Lincoln. Would his undersheriff report back and place her lord at risk?

  ‘Lady, I doubt not that the lord Sheriff knows his tenants and their allegiances. In these times I think he would ask only that they do not plot against him. After all, he is still the lord Sheriff, and King Stephen still holds the throne.’

  ‘My lord would not waver. He stays true.’

  ‘But there is more.’

  ‘Yes, but I am not privy to it. Truly, my lord.’

  ‘Were they both at the battle, at Lincoln?’ There was brave combat that day, lord upon lord and on foot as in the old days of the shield wall, sword and axe. King Stephen himself had wielded a great axe, and cloven helms and flesh with it. Yet there had likely been betrayals also, personal betrayals. When the man at your side steps back to let an enemy strike you, or worse, strikes foul himself, then that is treachery beyond changing allegiance to a king or an empress. That would not be forgiven.

  ‘Yes. My lord was wounded, lost two fingers of his left hand when an axe went through his shield. I do not know anything of the lord of Lench.’

  It was only a possibility then, but more likely than simple disloyalty. After all, King Stephen’s own brother had changed sides when the King was captured and in chains, and reverted when he was released and the chances of the Empress actually sitting upon the throne had receded. Oaths were not what they once were, or perhaps they had never been as inviolable as was pretended. What it left the sheriff’s men with was a lord who had disappeared just before the killing and had not returned home.

  ‘You have no idea why your husband left or where he has gone? None at all?’

  She shook her head, and Bradecote glanced at Catchpoll, who looked grim. Leaving Walkelin, or even Catchpoll, to see if the man came home might prove pointless, and if he did, would he attend to them? Not attending to Serjeant Catchpoll was unwise, but … Bradecote made the decision.

  ‘My lady Parler, when your husband returns it is most important that I speak with him. Send him to Lench where my men and I are discovering the killer of Osbern de Lench. If that person is taken before he comes, I will send to stand him down. It will go very ill with him if he ignores this command, which comes from me but with the authority of William de Beauchamp, and ultimately, the lord King. You understand?’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’

  ‘Good.’ The sound of squabbling was getting more heated, and an infant’s cry was added to it.

  ‘How many children do you have?’ He smiled, stepping back from the official.

  ‘I …’ She hesitated a moment, and Bradecote wondered if she was thinking of children shrouded and buried. ‘There are five at home and this one to come.’ She stroked her swollen figure. She sounded resigned more than proud. ‘My daughter was wed year before last, the eldest boy is thirteen years and now with the lord Hugh de Lacy, but the younger ones are here.’

  ‘Then we will not keep you from them, lady. Good day to you.’ He made her a polite obeisance, and requested blind Siward to follow them out and close the bailey gate behind them.

  ‘Which is worse, Catchpoll, not being able to discount the lord of Flavel, or not being able to ask him the questions we need answering?’ Bradecote gave a heavy sigh.

  ‘Not sure, my lord. Having nobody we see as the killer is bad, but so are “if” and “but” as all we have to go on.’

  ‘Then one way or the other, let us pray that we discover more at Bishampton.’ Bradecote urged his grey into an easy canter, and Walkelin kicked his lazy beast into a shambling gait that just about kept pace.

  Chapter Six

  The track south to Bishampton was good and the manor was less than three miles away, so they arrived some time before the sun was at its zenith. It beat down, but there was a change in the air, something oppressive looming. Bradecote could not help watching the sky to the west, where the clouds seemed to be massing like grey, mail-coated cavalry, gathering together and awaiting the charge. When they swept down to the Severn and eastward, the rain would be heavy. Catchpoll followed his gaze.

  ‘Aye, my lord, it’s coming right enough. You have no need to be a weather-feeler, just have eyes in your head. It just depends on whether it plods like an ox or gallops like a horse.’ Catchpoll sounded fatalistic. Everyone knew a good harvest was important, and in hard years town dwellers felt it in the price of bread, but he had not the direct connection to the land. As long as the majority of manors had a surplus to sell, Worcester bellies would not be empty. His superior worried about a few small manors, and most of all Bradecote itself. It was his home, and he could name every so
ul within it.

  ‘I pray for the ox, Catchpoll.’

  ‘As will all who look to the Hills today, my lord, for sure.’

  Bishampton was held as two manors, and as they passed the first men piling sheaves onto a cart, they asked which was that held by Walter Pipard. The men, sun-browned and sweating, said that he was their lord, and pointed them towards a modest hall with a fence about it that could not be said to count as any defensive structure. The building was thatched and with low eaves, stone to the height of a man’s thigh, and thereafter wattle and daub as any villein’s dwelling. Within the enclosure a barn stood, doors wide open, and a man, better dressed and clearly in control, stood with folded arms, watching a cart being unloaded. He turned at the sound of approaching horses.

  ‘Walter Pipard?’ Bradecote halted his big grey and looked down at the man.

  ‘That is me.’ The man was thinning a little on top, broad of chest and increasingly of girth. He assessed the men before him, and recognised authority.

  ‘I am Hugh Bradecote, Undersheriff of Worcestershire. We are come to ask you about Osbern de Lench.’

  ‘Have you indeed … my lord?’ The courtesy was not given grudgingly, but with a hint that Pipard saw no need to abase himself in any way. He held this manor of the de Lacys, who held in turn from the Church, but he was not clinging to the edges of lordship. ‘You should have been asking about him long ago, may he rot in Hell.’

  ‘I don’t know about Hell, but he’ll be rotting in the earth soon enough. He’s dead.’ Bradecote was assuredly not the bringer of bad news.

  ‘Then what is there to ask about him now?’

  ‘Who killed him,’ growled Catchpoll.

  Walter Pipard’s eyes darted to the serjeant and then back to Bradecote, and his look became wary.

  ‘I would shake the hand of the man that did it, but I do not know whose hand to shake, God’s truth.’