Blood Runs Thicker

by Sarah Hawkswood

  ‘It was not something I spoke of, my lord, and the only person who might know of it otherwise is Mother Winflaed, who not only provides me with good pottage but comes to change the rushes upon the floor when she says my home is less tidy than a swine pen.’ He smiled gently. ‘I am not a tidy person, and thank the Lord untidiness is not a mortal sin. But she is an honest and godly soul, and if she has seen the box she has never said anything, even to me. She keeps what she knows better than most women, though a little gossip has been known to pass her lips. Her girl has come in her place if she has been ailing, but she would only then set the pot and stir the pottage every so often.’

  ‘Thank you, Father.’ Bradecote turned his gaze back to Baldwin de Lench. ‘So, you entered Father Matthias’s dwelling and searched for the box. You knew what it looked like.’

  ‘How many boxes would the place have in it? A small box is none so common.’ Baldwin ignored the look of mild reproach from the parish priest. ‘Besides, I recall the fuss the boy made about having it just so when it was put together. Almost stood over the man in Evesham as he constructed it, but he had to have what he wanted. All he had to do was ask. If I asked for what I wanted I got a short answer.’

  ‘Well, I but wanted a box, not a tradesman’s daughter to wife.’ Hamo was still trembling with anger, but this was less a jibe than a stated fact.

  ‘Keep your tongue between your teeth, or I will remove the teeth,’ growled Baldwin, colouring, ‘and she is a lord’s widow.’

  ‘And still the daughter of a man who sold cloth. She may have been good enough for Robert FitzBernard, but not us, and his family were swift enough to send her back to her sire.’ Hamo was not going to be halted.

  ‘Us? Since when have you been one of us? You are scarce part of the world, let alone this family.’ Baldwin’s lip curled in disdain, but rather than fuelling Hamo’s wrath, it seemed to puzzle him.

  ‘I am the son of Osbern de Lench, son of William Herce, son of—’

  ‘I know the bloodline, dolt.’

  ‘Then you know I am of this family and your question is no question at all.’ Hamo, rather to the surprise of the sheriff’s men, sounded suddenly his usual self, as though the rage had never existed.

  ‘As long as your mother did not—’

  ‘Stop!’ Bradecote held up a hand, though his voice alone would have been sufficient. ‘Squabbling may please you, de Lench, but we have better things to do than listen to it. I would speak with each of you, but not together. Lady, take your son into the solar and remain there.’ He looked to the pale widow, who nodded, and went to lay a hand upon Hamo’s arm. He looked at it, but said, quite matter-of-factly, that he did not need support and was not in any way hurt. As the solar door closed, Bradecote folded his arms and addressed Baldwin de Lench.

  ‘So your sire forbad the match with the widow whose blood he did not think worthy. Was he going to disown you?’

  ‘For him?’ Baldwin pointed to the shut door and laughed, mirthlessly. ‘No. He had more care to his lands than that. He had another match in mind for me, but Jesu, the woman is a cold, silent piece. As well lie with a corpse as her. I told him nay. We argued, but then we have argued often enough before. It was our way.’

  ‘And after this argument, the lord Osbern relented, did he, my lord?’ Catchpoll was in no doubt of the answer.

  ‘No, he did not. He said that just as his brother, Roger, is master of the manor that came with his wife, I could live in whatever came with her, which is nothing, or bide my time in the mercer’s house. He would not let her set foot in his hall in his lifetime.’

  ‘A lifetime now cut short,’ commented Bradecote.

  ‘Not by me. Had I wished that, surely I would have done it then, when he said it, and that was months ago.’

  ‘So why did he send you to Tredington? Was it not to cool your heels?’

  ‘No. Well, in part. I kept quiet about Emma, but I remained resolute that I would not wed the woman of his choice. Finally, I told him I would rather not sire a son at all than with her, and he told me I would do as he bid, and to go to Tredington, oversee the harvest and think upon the foolishness of my words.’

  ‘You obeyed him in that, then.’ Bradecote noted.

  ‘It was easier, and besides, the steward there is as dithering as an old woman and always sending messages to ask this or that. The man cannot make a decision about wiping his own backside without consulting someone else. We ought to have got rid of him ages past, but his sons died and his grandson is still learning the duties. By next harvest I will have someone there who can think and can obey without knowing every last detail.’ Baldwin sounded perfectly reasonable. He sighed. ‘Emma was available to me, since I can pay for her, and I could afford to wait until my time came as lord. My sire was not a young man, and of late seemed to dwell increasingly upon his own mortality. Whether I had the running of the manors or not, they were mine by blood inheritance and were not going anywhere. I am Baldwin de Lench.’ He shrugged. ‘I doubted he had many more summers, and Emma is but seventeen. We have time on our side.’

  ‘If you can pay for her, why hold out to have her as your wife?’ It was cynical but practical, and Bradecote saw Baldwin as fundamentally practical when his anger did not cloud him.

  ‘I pay as much to keep her money-grabbing father from selling her off to another man as anything, and to keep her as she has been used to live. It is her and no other, for me.’

  Bradecote could not quite conceal the astonishment he felt at this admission. Baldwin de Lench had not seemed in any way a man who would have such an attachment. He looked more the sort to take his pleasure and move on. Nor, importantly, had he shown any sign of being a patient man. It gave the undersheriff doubts.

  ‘If you have no other cause to keep me, I will be about my business, my lord Undersheriff.’ Baldwin did not sound as if he intended to remain, unless physically constrained, and half turned before Bradecote gave the nod of agreement. Walkelin, who had been by the doorway, stepped aside, and the lord of Lench passed him with a grunt. Father Matthias, feeling his was an unwanted presence, begged to be excused in far more emollient terms, and departed with an obeisance to the undersheriff.

  ‘And how much of that was true, I wonder?’ mused Catchpoll.

  ‘Well, he may have his aim set only upon the widow now, but will he be constant? I have no idea. I think he believes what he says about her though.’ Bradecote rubbed his chin. ‘Not a side I had expected, Baldwin the lovelorn swain.’

  ‘More important, my lord, was he as accepting of his father’s command as he said?’ Catchpoll sounded doubtful.

  ‘It seemed to me,’ offered Walkelin, ‘that he respected his father, on the one hand, and railed against him on the other. Two peas from the same pod in character, so they would be bound to rub each other the wrong way, but the lord Baldwin sort of understood how his father viewed life.’

  ‘I can see Baldwin being hot-headed and violent. Holy Virgin, we have seen that ourselves, but if this forbidding of his wedding the love of his life is not of very recent date, would he plan a killing in cold blood? Both sons seem to be prone to a sudden killing-anger, and they got that from the siring side, no doubt. Of course we also have to consider that the finding of the copper badge must mean one of the two is the killer. Either Baldwin had the badge and broke into the box to make it seem hidden by his brother, or he did discover it there.’

  ‘Fair enough, my lord, but not quite as clear as it seems. There is always the chance that someone else put the badge in the box, and …’ Catchpoll still frowned.

  ‘But only the priest and the healing woman knew of it, and you do not suspect either of them, do you, Serjeant?’ Walkelin sounded incredulous.

  ‘No, that I do not, but I am never totally sure that those who claim to have spoken nary a word about somethin’ are speaking true. They might think they have been silent, but it is very easy to let slip a detail and not know of it. It is just possible there was someone who knew. We hav
e to bear it in mind, even though just that.’

  ‘You are right, Catchpoll. We must consider, but nothing more, and now we speak with young Hamo, who appears to have calmed as quickly as he rose to fury.’ He strode to the solar door with Catchpoll right behind him and Walkelin several paces to the rear, not totally sure if he was included or not.

  Within the solar, Hamo de Lench was sat upon a stool, leaning forward and with his hands clasped together loosely, his shoulders hunched. His mother fussed over him, and the youth’s expression was one of put-upon adolescence, resentful and yet still obedient.

  ‘So you have never possessed the badge from your sire’s hat, messire?’ Bradecote saw being direct as the best, if not only, way of dealing with Hamo.

  ‘Oh, I have, but that was years past. My father pinned it to my cap once, when I was a small child. It made holes in the cap, for it was too heavy.’ Hamo sounded as though he felt his father ought to have foreseen that eventuality.

  ‘But not since.’

  ‘No, my lord. It was his badge, for his hat.’ This was a conclusive reason to the youth.

  ‘And your box?’

  ‘That is mine, and none see within it. None, not my father, nor mother, nor Baldwin, nor—’

  ‘Yes, we understand. Nobody looks in your box.’ Bradecote interrupted, lest every member of the community should be named. ‘How came you to be in the lodging of Father Matthias? You had gone hawking, so I was told, against my instructions.’

  ‘You did not say I might not go hawking.’

  ‘Not specifically.’ Bradecote sighed. This was becoming tiresome. ‘But I said that you should not leave the manor.’

  ‘And I did not. I had nothing to do, so I went hawking. Superba was restless also.’ Hamo looked a little confused. Why was he being asked this? Bradecote wondered why he was bothering also.

  ‘So it was to exercise yourself and the hawk. Yet you did not say that you were going.’

  ‘I did not see you. If I had seen you I would have said.’ Hamo sighed.

  ‘But you did not enjoy your sport for long, did you.’ It was not put as a question. ‘You returned to find your box and contents strewn about.’

  ‘My hawk was unwilling, and there was nothing to be gained, so I came back. Then I found out what Baldwin had done.’

  ‘And had we not come in when you and your brother were fighting, would you have killed him, if you could?’

  ‘Baldwin is stronger than I am, but … we do not get on.’

  ‘Yes, we gathered that. But you do not answer me, messire.’

  ‘Killing is wrong, murder killing.’

  ‘But you were blood-angry in the hall.’

  ‘Was I? I did lose my temper I think.’ Hamo shrugged, and looked to his mother. ‘Was I very angry?’

  ‘Yes, my son, you were.’ She sounded exhausted by the altercation.

  ‘Baldwin should not have opened my box, and indeed he damaged the lid.’ Hamo’s sense of injustice was strong, but the sheriff’s men were not looking into the damage of a box, and Bradecote picked up on something else the lordling had said.

  ‘The last time you saw the badge it was upon your father’s hat, on his head, the morning he was killed.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you said—’

  ‘It was on his hat, but his hat was in his hand, in his fist, all crumpled.’

  ‘Ah.’ Bradecote gave a half sigh of relief. ‘You saw him here in the hall, and he was shouting at your lady mother. Do you know why?’ Having heard Hamo’s brief but straightforward answers to other questions Bradecote did not think that he would lie over such a thing.

  ‘I … he often shouted. He shouted at me, at Baldwin, at … but I think he was angry because …’ Hamo frowned.

  ‘My son does not understand the relationship betwixt a husband and wife,’ murmured the lady and coloured a little. ‘Osbern treated any refusal of … even when I could not help … it made him angry. His rights were not to be denied.’ The blush now turned her pale cheeks crimson. ‘My lord, I would not care to discuss the matter here, this moment.’ Her eyes moved to her son, softened, but her mouth formed a twisted smile. ‘You will permit—’

  She got no further, for a boy of about eleven burst in without even knocking. His chest was heaving, his ears, which stuck out from the side of his head and parted a tangle of sandy hair, were red, as were his eyes, which were round with horror.

  ‘She’s dead!’ he cried, in anguish, his voice tear-heavy.

  ‘Who is, lad?’ Catchpoll’s was the voice that calmed.

  ‘Mother Winflaed. I found ’er in the Far Coppice. The pigs was rooting there today.’

  ‘Fair enough. Now, you take us to see where she lies.’

  ‘It was not me.’ The boy seemed to feel that the weight of the law would fall upon him.

  ‘We knows that. Now, lead us.’

  ‘I will speak with you, alone, later, my lady.’ Bradecote, grim-faced, nodded to the lady de Lench, whose mouth was agape, and the trio of sheriff’s men followed the small discoverer of the body of Winflaed the Healer into the hall and thence into the sunlight, where they were accosted by the healer’s girl, wringing her hands and weeping.

  ‘Say it is not true, oh, say it is not. I can’t do it all, not right I can’t, and there’s the birthing for Gytha, and all I have done is help and watch, not been a-catching of the babe myself. Holy Virgin aid me!’ The girl Hild was clearly as distressed at the burden laid suddenly upon her as at the loss of her mentor. She looked to authority, to the undersheriff.

  ‘Wait here.’ It was a command, but not harshly given. A panicking girl was the last thing they needed at the scene. He sensed more than saw the lady of the manor behind him and turned. ‘Will you keep her with you, my lady, until we return?’

  She nodded, and the swine boy and the three men left the woman and girl together.

  Chapter Eleven

  The coppice was mostly hazel with a little holly scattered amongst it like prickly green sentinels and the odd legacy of a greater wood, an occasional oak or ash. The body lay in a small clearing, where one of the great trees had fallen, not at its end of years, but lightning-struck and split. Such a ‘ghost tree’, accounted cursed by many, had not fed the village hearths, and its parts lay supine, the saplings that would fight to replace it merely supple mourners about the skeletal remains. The clearing was perhaps fifteen paces from the trackway, behind a wall of hazels and green shrubbery. A shaft of slightly dappled light played over the corpse like shimmers upon water, creating an illusion of movement, though Winflaed the Healer would never move again. She lay with one cheek upon the earth as if listening to its heartbeat, one arm still outstretched towards a sprouting of mushrooms against the pale roots of the ghost tree. Another of the tree’s roots, ripped from the earth and pointing skywards, seemed to be drawing the attention of Heaven to the evil that had been perpetrated. Her other arm was still beneath her, and the fact that it was not flung out suggested to Bradecote that she had been insensate even as she toppled forward. He did not need Catchpoll’s skills to work that out. The pale cloth of her coif was pale no longer, but heavily stained scarlet, and the ground was damp-dark.

  Catchpoll skirted to the side of the body and knelt down. He touched the flesh of her cheek.

  ‘Only warmth in the skin is the little from the sunlight.’ He closed the sightless eyes. ‘No real death-stiffening as yet, but then we knows she was alive a couple of hours ago, so that is no surprise at all.’

  ‘And the basket for her foraging is almost empty,’ noted Walkelin, picking up a shallow basket that the woman had evidently set down out of the way before her death. It had but half a dozen mushrooms and a sprig of some plant, its leaves slightly wilted. ‘So she was killed not long after setting out.’ He cast about the edge of the clearing and added that a horse had been there. ‘We are not far from the track, but no rider would bring their horse among the trees and bushes by mistake.’

  Catchpoll nodd
ed his agreement and approval, though he was still looking at the body. ‘Leastways it was quick.’ His fingers touched the red stain upon the neck of her gown and soaked into the folds of her coif. ‘Blade went in behind the left collarbone and straight down to the heart, I reckon.’ Catchpoll looked up and caught the movement of the swine boy wiping his sleeve across his nose. He looked pinched and rather green-tinged. ‘You go back and fetch two men and a strong blanket or a hurdle, boy. Be swift.’ The boy just nodded, turned and ran. ‘Should’ve thought of him before. Doubt he will say anything but we doesn’t want gossip, and we doesn’t want the truth spread neither.’

  ‘Agreed.’ Bradecote was pondering the wound. ‘That is clearly not a woman’s strike, nor that of one who has not borne arms. It was a man, with a dagger or as good as, and one who knew what he was doing.’ The undersheriff frowned. ‘So if we discount a wild coincidence that had her killed for no good reason by a passing stranger, it leaves us with Baldwin de Lench, who left us just before she did, and whom we did not see again between the confronting of Raoul Parler and the fight over the treasure box, and his brother, Hamo, who was out hawking until the same time. The angry lord Baldwin stamped out of the hall saying he was going up the hill, but I doubt he went.’ He shook his head. ‘This seems very cold-blooded for both, who are quite capable in hot blood but …’ The undersheriff did not look happy.

  ‘And that messire is no warrior, my lord. You can see as how he would make a monk, but I doubt his sword arm.’ Catchpoll sniffed.

  ‘My lord, what about the lord of Flavel?’ Walkelin encountered a look of some surprise but continued. ‘I do not say it is likely, but is it not possible? He left from the church before we did, but what if he had seen the healing woman as he mounted his horse?’

  ‘But what reason could he have to kill her, lad?’ Catchpoll’s face screwed into an expression of strong doubt. ‘Good that you consider it as an idea, but …’ He was gently rolling the body over. The right hand had been pressed over her chest, but once released fell sideways.