Blood Runs Thicker

by Sarah Hawkswood

  ‘Be easy, friend, but did you not question why someone had cast them away?’

  ‘Ah.’ Alnoth nodded. ‘Had I found some poor soul upon the road, robbed, I would have given him help, and the hat and cloak also, but I saw none.’

  ‘And what about the other clothes?’

  ‘I had but hat and cloak, then.’

  Walkelin frowned. It was not what he was expecting.

  ‘What time of the day was it?’

  ‘Sun was right high, so a mite after noontide, near enough.’

  ‘And then you went through Lench and found the boots after that? Did you see anyone?’

  ‘I did not go through Lench but skirted about it.’

  ‘Had the lord Osbern been heavy of boot to you?’ Walkelin had decided Osbern and Baldwin de Lench were very alike in use of the lordly boot.

  ‘No, though I recall him as a man of temper, years back. He has a son, a strange son. The lordling followed me once, when I passed by, and stopped me. He was full of questions, not like yours though. He wanted to know how I did this and that, whether I felt hands that were not there, how did it feel to be “of no use”. It was like he was interested but not seeing me. Fair made the hair stand up on the back of my neck it did, and I vowed never to go through Lench again, lest I see him and he see me. So I went around the place, west side, and rejoined the Evesham road a ways beyond, as it rises and where the horse path leads off the road and up the little hill. Then I saw something, lying at the edge of the horse path, just before it bends to follow the hill slope proper-like, and it was a boot. For a moment I surely felt as I would see a body. I went to look, cautious though, and the other boot was in a bush, and the tunic, but there was no body. It made me wonder, for if there had been a man killed, who would take the body and leave the good clothes? Makes no sense. I did not go further up the hill, for I heard a horse’s hooves on the path. That would be the lord of Lench, for everyone for half the hundred knows it is his hill and he sits upon it every day when the sun is high. I had no wish to meet with him and be accused of wrong, so I gathered the clothes and ran, and it was a warm day to run. I spent the night at an assart on the Evesham road where an old man gives me a fair pottage in exchange for company at his board, and then came here to Evesham yesterday mid morning. There was no need for speed. It was just after I had set off that I met a man heading north. He admired the hat, and in truth it was so hot upon my head in that heat afore the storm, I said, in jest, I would sell it to him for tuppence. He offered me a penny ha’penny and I agreed, right there. That was it. Then I carried on to Evesham.’

  The sheriff’s man was silent, thinking, then he asked a sober question. Alnoth’s cheeriness diminished in the face of it.

  ‘When did you discover the clothing had blood upon it and was cut?’

  ‘Not until I was with the old man. I had bundled everything together and not looked close.’

  ‘And it was not odd that almost all that might clothe a man was found together? You must have thought the reason unlawful.’

  ‘I have to live as best I can, Master Walkelin, and as I said before, there was none to whom I could give aid, nor report upon neither. What good would come of reporting not finding a body? Who would look for something that was not there?’

  In Walkelin’s mind the answer was instantly ‘Serjeant Catchpoll’, but he did not voice it.

  ‘You saw no body, but body there was, and up the path to the hill. The lord Osbern of Lench was taken by a knife and stripped.’

  ‘Sweet Jesu, but … I heard his horse.’

  ‘You heard a horse, aye, but he was not upon its back. Now, let me see the marks upon the tunic.’

  The tunic was of soft leather, open down the front, designed to be held together with a belt and a clasp at the neck. Alnoth said he had seen no belt, but that such a thing might easily have been cast further and lost to view in the undergrowth. The jerkin was dark brown, and the stain where the knife had entered under the ribs was not as large as he expected, nor the slit wide. Walkelin measured it with his finger. There were no other cuts in the leather, so he surmised that either the lord of Lench had ridden with the tunic loose, because of the heat of the day, or it had been removed before the other wounds were made after death. He grunted.

  ‘The boots and tunic can stay with me?’ Alnoth was now being practical.

  ‘They are of no use to him. Both Abbot Reginald and the lady of Lench say the man was pious in his way, though of an evil temper. Best to think he would see such charity, even unintended, as aiding the passing of his soul, yes?’

  ‘That be a good thought, master, and I shall be sure to say a prayer for his soul every night right until …’ Alnoth thought of a distant date, ‘the Feast of St Luke.’

  ‘That seems fair. You do that, and safe travels.’

  ‘I would say none steals from a man with nothing, but,’ the man laughed again, ‘I am now the proud owner of good boots. I take your good wishes, master. And may you find him as took the lord Osbern’s life.’

  ‘We shall.’ Walkelin spoke confidently, as he thought Serjeant Catchpoll would answer, and then left Alnoth the Handless to his guarding duties.

  Chapter Eight

  Bradecote had no wish to speak with the villagers of Lench under the eye of the new lord, since they would undoubtedly be casting a wary eye to him and be more concerned about upsetting the lord of their manor than the lord Undersheriff of Worcestershire, who would be among them but briefly. Fortunately, it would be impractical to speak quietly with anyone with the threshing going on about them. Baldwin de Lench might not like it, but he decided to call the workers out in twos and threes, and send back swiftly all who looked blankly at him or shook their heads. This turned out to be the majority, though Catchpoll was watching them to see if any were overawed by rank and keeping their mouths shut on the principle that saying anything was dangerous. The boy who had espied his lord, and said as much to Baldwin, was neither shy nor overawed. He felt a certain importance, knowing something that powerful people wanted to know themselves, and it overcame any natural diffidence before such an august personage as the undersheriff of the shire.

  ‘You are sure that it was him you saw?’ Bradecote asked, without sounding as though a wavering would bring down curses upon his youthful head.

  ‘Sure as I sees you, my lord. Couldn’t see his face, o’ course, but it was him as sure as the sun rises in the east. I saw the grey mare, pale on the hilltop, and the whole shape of him was right, from head to toe. I would swear oath to it, my lord, that it was the lord Osbern.’

  Since the boy was being perfectly open, Bradecote questioned him further, upon who was present in the field.

  ‘You seem a lad who takes notice of things.’ A little flattery would do no harm.

  ‘Whole village was there, and the lord Baldwin came to oversee things. Our lady was not, o’ course. Fine thing it would be if she had to labour in the field. Oh, and the lord Osbern’s groom came back later, after the lord Osbern went riding.’

  ‘Was the groom expecting him to ride back to the field on his return then?’

  ‘No.’ The boy frowned. ‘I doubt that. But he had no need to worry, cos Fulk the Steward was there to see to the horse afterwards.’

  ‘Fulk the Steward was not with the harvesters?’

  ‘He was, but not all the while, my lord. He went back to the village late in the morning, but I would not know why. Mayhap it was something about the loads already in the barn?’

  With this nugget, Bradecote was content to let the boy return to the threshing. He looked at Catchpoll.

  ‘Well, that gives us something new, and of interest. You would have thought Baldwin de Lench would have said something, but for the fact he sees only what he has decided he will see.’

  ‘Best if we speak with the groom afore we corners the steward, my lord. If he was dismissed to the field it must have been by Fulk, and he might have had good reason to be away from the work.’ Catchpoll did not make thi
s sound very likely.

  Kenelm the Groom was, however, far less willing to talk than the boy, thinking several steps ahead and fearful of what retribution might descend upon him. He said he had seen nothing, which made Catchpoll smile. That smile alone had opened mouths more oyster-shut than Kenelm’s. He stepped forward and stood next to his superior.

  ‘You see, that is where you goes and makes my lord Undersheriff upset. He doesn’t look upset, I grant that, but he is. And if he is, then so am I, and you won’t like that.’

  Kenelm shook his head without even thinking, and Catchpoll continued, while Bradecote stood, arms folded, and looked what he hoped would be ‘upset but not showing it’.

  ‘You says you saw nothing, but you are the lord’s groom. You have got to be the last person as saw him alive, except for his killer.’

  ‘I never killed him,’ gasped Kenelm, paling.

  ‘Of course you didn’t, but you can tell us everything that happened when the lord Osbern called for you.’ The serjeant sounded very reasonable, even soothing, which was peculiarly unnerving, and with even the merest hint of suspicion hanging over him, Kenelm nearly fell over his words trying to get them out.

  ‘He was in a foul mood, but that was none so rare, not with him,’ he confided. ‘He had been shouting at his lady, but that too was just as always. I thought, though, that the day was a bad one,’ the small man frowned, ‘a day of ill-fortune.’

  ‘So he went off on his horse, and you waited for him to come back and swear at you.’ Catchpoll knew this was wrong but wanted to get a full account.

  ‘Oh no. Fulk came round from behind the barn, where the middens are, and asked if there was reason for the lord Osbern being so angry. Then he said as I could go back to the Great Field and he would see to the grey on its return.’

  ‘Did he often offer to do that?’ interjected Bradecote, sharply enough for Kenelm to flinch.

  ‘Sometimes, when the whole village is busy and the labour long. I think he must like a little idleness and taking the weight off his feet to show he is a bit above the rest of us.’

  ‘You would think he would be more keen to oversee the work and show his presence,’ mused Bradecote. ‘How did the lord Osbern take that?’

  ‘Doubt he ever knew, my lord. It is … was nearly always when he went up the hill, which is why I was given leave to go back to other work.’

  Undersheriff and serjeant exchanged a glance so fleeting that Kenelm did not notice it in the least.

  ‘So you went back to the harvesting. Did you too see the lord Osbern up on the hill?’ Catchpoll ensured the man thought any positive answer was just corroborating a fact already learnt.

  ‘Aye, I did. He always just sat there, looking. Then he would ride back, nice and easy, on a loose rein, and in better humour too, mostly.’

  ‘You’ve good sight then, for I am sure I could not make out one man from another up there.’ Catchpoll sounded regretful about his own eyes rather than doubting.

  ‘You don’t need the eyes of a hawk to spot the lord Osbern. The grey mare is always pale, and even in summer the lord Osbern rarely left off his short cloak and his hat.’

  ‘Would you have expected him to come to see the harvesting, when he returned?’ Something was niggling Hugh Bradecote, but he was not sure what it was.

  ‘I suppose so, but I was working hard after and did not think. The lord Baldwin was with us, so I may have just thought he had been sent instead.’

  ‘Been sent? He arrived after you were back in the field?’ Bradecote’s brows drew together.

  ‘Yes, for he tied his bay to the branch of an oak and came to watch the women gathering the sheaves.’

  ‘Not the men cutting them?’

  ‘Not sure he would enjoy the view as much, my lord.’ Kenelm could not help but grin. ‘When they bends over, you see.’

  ‘Yes, I see. Does he … does he do more than look?’

  ‘If he does, who’s to stop him?’ The groom shrugged. ‘Many’s the wench as goes to the marriage bed having learnt its secrets from the one man she could not refuse, and it would be the foolish husband as blamed her for it.’ He sounded resigned.

  Bradecote looked genuinely shocked. Never having wanted a fumble with a girl on his own manor, and with lascivious thoughts about maidservants limited to gazing dry-mouthed and breathless as a girl stripped to the waist and washed in a courtyard when he was an adolescent squire, he was stunned to think not that it happened, but that it was simply accepted as quite ordinary.

  ‘And is he like his father in that?’ Catchpoll could have laughed at his superior’s innocence but kept to the task in hand. ‘Old stags don’t just bellow.’

  ‘Mostly he was bellow.’ Kenelm looked less comfortable.

  ‘Only mostly?’

  ‘Her husband says as the babe will be his, but there’s whisperings.’ The man looked at his feet.

  ‘The woman who came from the village to tell of the riderless horse. Why was she not working?’ Bradecote, focusing back on what was being said, posed it more as a question to himself.

  ‘Too far gone to bend, she is, and likely to have it within the week, according to Mother Winflaed,’ Kenelm gave the answer anyway.

  ‘And it is her you meant?’ Catchpoll did not want them asking awkward questions of every pregnant woman in Lench.

  ‘Gytha, wife of Edmund.’ He nodded.

  ‘And when she came to the field you went back to the hall, after the lord Baldwin?’ Catchpoll wanted everything in one line of time in his head. It was easier to file it away that way.

  ‘I did, as we all did. Harvest was clean forgotten. The grey was before the stable, tied to the ring as if waiting, except that the lord Baldwin was ranting so it was getting upset. I calmed her though, and could assure him and our lady, when she came out after Fulk, that at least the horse had not fallen, for it was clean and pretty sound, though she had been a little less willing than usual. She is none so young and had a bruised frog the beginning of last week, and how the lord Osbern berated me, as if I could have prevented her stepping on some sharp stone.’

  Bradecote opened his mouth and then shut it. The state of the horse was barely a confirmation, but the casual mention of the steward was another matter. However, it was one best kept between the sheriff’s men. The man before them could not have been the killer, and he was dismissed back to work.

  ‘So we have a possible motive, though dismissing this Edmund will be easy enough if he is vouched for as in the field, and Fulk the Steward came out of the hall, which is actually far more interesting,’ murmured Bradecote, pensively.

  ‘It makes you think, for sure, my lord. We discounted the lady herself, and that still stands, but if those bruises we saw were inflicted by her husband and she was angry enough, then she might have been able to persuade the steward to do what she could not. We had not considered her arranging the killing.’

  ‘No, we had not, and there was no affection, it would seem, in the marriage. In fact, the reverse, and Osbern came out to his horse having had angry words with the lady. The only trouble is that this was not unusual, from what the groom said, so why would this one thing have pushed her so far?’

  ‘Well, be fair, my lord. We only saw the bruises on her wrist. Who is to say what else happened besides?’

  ‘Yes, but the steward would not have known that when he came back and sent the groom to the field. It would have had to be a chance, and would a man go off and kill another because a woman told him to do so when in a temper?’ Bradecote could not quite see it working. Every man knew that women could fly into a blind rage one minute and as likely be meek and loving as brittle and sharp-tongued the next. At least every married man knew it. He had made the assumption that Fulk the Steward was wifeless now but had been married. Could it be that he had never taken a wife at all?

  ‘Depends on the woman,’ responded Catchpoll, but did not elaborate, as the girl set to watch in the hall came to them and made a deep obeisance to the undersheri
ff.

  ‘My lord, the man stirs. I cannot say he speaks as yet, but he stirs for sure, and when I touched him he moaned.’ Her voice held awe, but Catchpoll thought it more the act of speaking to someone as illustrious as the lord undersheriff of her shire than the fact that the sick man showed signs of returning to the land of the living.

  ‘Good. We shall come and see him, whether he speaks or not. Go and fetch the healer to him also. We would have her views.’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’ The girl dipped again, but then grabbed the hem of her skirts and raced, swift as if she were chased by wolves, to fulfil his command. The sheriff’s men walked towards the hall.

  ‘If everyone was that obedient with you, we would solve our problems so much faster,’ remarked Catchpoll, with a grin.

  ‘Sadly, too many take your path though, Catchpoll, and are tight-lipped, stubborn and downright disobedient.’ Bradecote sighed, but his eyes were screwed up with unvoiced merriment.

  ‘Yes, there is that. Mind you, most are not such crafty bastards, which is a relief.’

  Bradecote laughed then, and was still laughing as they entered the dimly lit hall, but the laughter died instantly as he saw Baldwin de Lench standing next to the sick man. His back was towards them, but his fists were clenched.

  ‘De Lench.’ The undersheriff’s voice was very calm, though he wondered if he might have to spring forward. The lord of Lench turned, showing them a grim visage.