‘Quite. Why did he raise it just before he left?’
‘I do not know. He was muttering about how he had failed her, not telling her high-and-mighty husband it was his fault.’
‘Whose? Walter’s own fault?’ Walkelin was confused.
‘No, Brian de Nouailles, lord of Harvington.’
Bradecote and Catchpoll exchanged glances. Harvington was a little to the north of Evesham, and not far from the bridge at Offenham. A man might choose to cross the Avon there and then head south if he had been to Harvington.
‘Did he say he was going to see de Nouailles?’ Bradecote tried not to sound too interested.
‘No, but he went on and on about how Edith should have had blood kin at her burying, and how we were fools to think Brian de Nouailles would have anything to do with a horse-trading family after he got the dower and the beauty.’
‘So he may have gone there?’
‘If he did, he would get no kind reception. He said that the last time, he had been threatened with a whipping.’
‘Really not keen on you then, this lord.’ Catchpoll was trying not to look again at Bradecote.
‘No. If he passed me in the street he would look away.’
It was clear where their next move lay, but Bradecote asked one final question.
‘And there was no idea of Walter naming another in your place to inherit?’
‘Who? Her?’ He pointed at Amicia. ‘Blood is thicker than … He knew what she is, but like a fool he was content with his lot, meagre as it was.’
‘You are just jealous, because I refused your fumblings. Cripple.’ She almost spat at him.
There were all the makings of a murderous row, but the sheriff’s men were not interested in remaining. If either were found dead in the next few days, they would know whom to arraign, and they had no power to part them. Yet Bradecote felt a sudden responsibility, so he folded his arms and grinned.
‘Don’t mind us, as long as the blood does not stain our boots.’
The angry pair suddenly remembered his presence and turned to look at him.
‘No, carry on. We’ll hang the survivor and it will be a quick day’s work.’
His cheerfulness defused the situation far more effectively than any command. They both looked at him, lord or not, with open loathing. The smile lengthened.
‘I think we have heard all we need here, Serjeant Catchpoll.’
‘Yes, my lord. Plenty.’ He smiled his death’s head grin, and the three sheriff’s men left, feeling remarkably cheered at the revealing of a new scent to follow.
Chapter Seven
The sheriff’s men ate the evening meal in a state that combined disappointment at the failures in Evesham with relief that they had a new path to tread.
‘We leave you tomorrow, Father Abbot,’ declared Hugh Bradecote, breaking his bread.
‘Have you made an advance, my lord?’
‘We think so. Walter Horsweard may have gone to visit Brian de Nouailles at Harvington.’
‘Ah.’
‘That “ah” sounded significant, Father.’
‘Well, you will get a good Christian welcome from the priest at Harvington, Father Paulinus. He was of this House when young.’
‘And de Nouailles?’
‘I regret that there you may be accorded a less generous welcome. Brian de Nouailles is a difficult man. He has been in dispute with this abbey over a mill he leased, and now claims to own outright, and the land about it. His actions have been … less than accommodating. We sent our local steward to him and the poor man was hounded from the village with threats and blows.’
‘He was married to Walter Horsweard’s sister.’
‘He was? Wait now, I do recall he married an Evesham maid, but Horsweard’s sister?’ He shook his head. ‘Is it relevant to the death?’
‘I do not know, but if we find Horsweard did go that way we have a greater chance of finding where he died.’ The undersheriff did not mention the thought that had occurred to him, which was that if he had not been expected to go north to Harvington, then all the more likely that the killer came from Harvington. The number of people there who would know Horsweard would be limited, let alone have a reason to want him dead. It suddenly looked far more promising.
‘I shall pray for your success.’ Abbot Reginald gave a small smile.
Bradecote had not been attending for a moment.
‘Oh. Er, thank you, Father. The priest at Fladbury, Father Jerome, he is lettered, yes?’
‘Oh yes. I admit some country priests forget much of their learning over the years, but I know Father Jerome is not one such.’
‘Then might I ask that a note be written and sent with the next guest from your guest hall heading through Fladbury, just to say the murdered man is named and is English.’
‘Of course.’ Abbot Reginald instantly understood the importance of such a message. ‘It will be a relief, indeed.’ The cleric noted the undersheriff’s frown. ‘My son, even if the murderer eludes you, you have the consolation that the All Highest knows them, and that He will judge them, if they do not repent.’
‘That, good Father, is assuredly true, but will not placate the ire of the lord Sheriff, who expects results of a tangible nature, nor give the people faith in the ability of the law to protect them from being victims of violence.’
‘Then I shall add a prayer for William de Beauchamp also.’
‘And for me?’
‘My son, that was already guaranteed.’ Abbot Reginald’s smile grew, and Hugh Bradecote responded to it.
The three shrieval officers departed shortly after Prime next morning, and Bradecote was conscious of the good wishes that attended them. It was only a few miles north to Harvington, where the manor dominated the village in a brooding way. Hugh Bradecote always thought of his manor as enfolding the village of Bradecote in protection, and thinking of it brought Christina to his mind. He had been resolute in doing as she had commanded, and concentrating upon his duty, not dreaming of her, but the warm glow it gave him to think of her with the baby in her arms was worth a minute’s dereliction.
They trotted into the village, and were watched with suspicion by an aged woman on her doorstep, a bemused infant, and a man who lacked a hand.
‘They’ll be out in the fields, no doubt.’ Catchpoll felt the atmosphere also. It made his hackles rise.
The manor gates at Bradecote were more often open in the day, but here the heavy oak shut out the world.
‘What price our welcome?’ wondered Walkelin.
‘We are the lord Sheriff’s men, so it matters not,’ growled Catchpoll, and hammered upon the gates.
They waited. Eventually the gate swung open a fraction, and a wary eye looked them up and down. It was an eye singular, for the other had the sunken look and blank stare of the blind.
‘Your business?’ The man sounded grumpy, as if he had been disturbed.
‘I am Hugh Bradecote, Undersheriff of Worcester. We are here upon the lord Sheriff’s business, and would speak with Brian de Nouailles.’
There was a pause while the man assimilated this information.
‘I will see if he wishes to see you.’
‘No. You will tell him we wishes to see him, and you will let us inside first,’ snarled Catchpoll.
The gates opened with a creaking reluctance.
Bradecote looked about him. It was tidy enough, but forbidding. The hall was on the first floor of a stone building, with a flight of steps leading down, much, he thought, as at Cookhill, where he had first seen Christina. There were men about tasks, a girl carrying a heavy pail of water and leaning to one side to balance herself, but there was no chatter, no laughing, not even loose chickens scratching about in the bailey dirt.
The man from the gate spoke to a thin individual who climbed the steps and disappeared into the hall. A few minutes later a well-dressed, close-bearded man came out. He remained at the top of the steps, looking down.
‘What does the unde
rsheriff want to know of me?’ Brian de Nouailles had a deep voice, but it had a discordant crack to it, not a mellow rumble.
‘We would speak with you, but in private.’
‘About what?’
‘That, de Nouailles, I will tell you … in private.’ Hugh Bradecote did not like being treated in such a manner.
De Nouailles shrugged.
‘Then best you come in.’
He turned and disappeared into the dark of his hall, leaving the trio to dismount and follow.
‘You stay with the horses, Walkelin, and keep your eye on the way out, eh.’ Catchpoll had not liked their reception either.
Walkelin nodded.
Their eyes adjusted to the Stygian gloom of the hall. The shutters were mostly closed. Brian de Nouailles did not invite them into his solar, but sat at his high table as if about to decide the fate of a peasant misdemeanour.
‘So, we are private. Say what you have to say.’ He made no effort to be pleasant.
‘We are interested in the movements of your wife’s brother, my lord de Nouailles.’ It cost Bradecote a lot to be even formally polite.
‘I am not, and my wife is dead.’ The closed expression grew even more so, in Catchpoll’s opinion, shutting them out as firmly as the gates of the manor.
‘So we have heard, my lord.’ Catchpoll invested the comment with significance, even if, in truth, it meant nothing.
‘I buried her little over a month ago, and if I never see her brother again, I will be happy.’
‘Then you are in luck, my lord, for they buried Walter Horsweard yesterday,’ the serjeant responded, quickly.
De Nouailles’ expression did not flicker.
‘Then the sheriff’s interest in him comes too late.’
‘We are interested in who killed him, de Nouailles, and why.’ Bradecote’s voice had an edge to it.
‘Frankly, I do not care. I loved my wife,’ de Nouailles’ voice wavered for a moment and he paused, but when he continued it was as strong as ever, ‘but her family were nothing. When I wed her, I removed her from them. Would you want horse traders, smelling of stables, sitting down to your table as kin, Bradecote?’
‘No, but then I did not choose to marry a horse dealer’s sister. You did, knowing her background.’
‘Edith was different. She was beautiful, in face and heart.’ De Nouailles suddenly turned his face away and shielded his eyes with his hand. ‘Damn you, cannot you leave a man’s grief untouched? You have surely never buried a woman you loved.’
Bradecote could not reply for a moment. He had buried Ela, been cast into a form of grief that robbed him of the power to think and act for a while, stunned by her sudden absence, but he had not loved her. Perhaps he ought to be more accommodating, for grief might make any man turn against the world.
‘We have a duty to the law to find who killed Walter Horsweard, that is all, my lord de Nouailles. We know,’ and he thought it better to be positive, ‘that he came here, and then only that his body turned up in the mill leat at Fladbury several days later, stabbed. We also know you threatened to have him whipped if he came here again. That is not just keeping unwholesome marriage kin at arm’s length; that is dislike bordering on hatred. What had he done to rouse it?’
‘You root like a hog in beechmast, don’t you?’ de Nouailles sneered.
‘It is my task.’ Bradecote did not rise to the bait, though Catchpoll’s eyes narrowed.
‘Look, I said I would have him lashed to keep him away. He had no more right to call me “brother”.’
‘He did that?’ Catchpoll sounded surprised. He could not imagine Will Horsweard doing so, and nor, by association, Walter.
‘Not to my face. He valued his hide that much.’ De Nouailles looked Catchpoll up and down, and recognised him for what he was. Some serjeants were, he thought, just naturals, born to the job. Here was one, and he would not be knocked off balance by insult.
‘So why threaten him?’ Bradecote would not let this drop.
‘Oh, for the love of the Virgin, is it not clear? He came here, complaining that he and his brother were not told of Edith’s death in time to attend her burial. Well, she was buried as befitted a lady, and no taint of stable was going to attend it, nor was I thinking of them at the time. She was my wife, that was enough. I wanted nothing more to do with the family, the tie was broken. So I threatened him with a whipping. What of it? I did not threaten to kill him.’
‘But he came here, one last time. Did you whip him then?’
‘No. I saw him, told him in simple terms such as even a man like him might understand that there was no connection between us at all, that he would get no favours from me, nor support, and that if he interfered in my life I would make his so miserable he would wish he lived in the Fens.’
‘The Fens?’ Bradecote was momentarily thrown.
‘Yes. Ever been there? I did once, and I hope never to go again. November it was, boggy, foggy and the air festered in your lungs.’
‘Glad you didn’t threaten him, then,’ murmured Catchpoll.
De Nouailles threw him an angry glance.
‘Do you know where he went after he left Harvington?’ Bradecote was back on track.
‘Neither know nor care. Why should I have asked after his plans?’
There was sense to this, though it helped them not at all.
‘And you know of no connection between Horsweard and any of your villagers? No reason any should dislike him?’
‘None, to my knowledge. So you have found all you can here and can leave me in peace.’
‘We decide when we leave, de Nouailles, and that is not yet.’
‘I offer no hospitality.’
‘Understood.’ Whilst it made matters more difficult at a practical level, Bradecote could not imagine staying under de Nouailles’ roof would be pleasant. ‘If we need to speak to you, or to your servants, again, we shall.’
Brian de Nouailles frowned. He disliked the idea of the sheriff’s man questioning his servants. Then he shrugged.
‘Do as you please. My servants are loyal. You can see the door. Use it.’ The dismissal was deliberately insolent and insulting. Catchpoll had little personal pride, but accounted the office of sheriff’s officer barely below that of the King himself, and ground his teeth. Hugh Bradecote feigned unconcern, though he shared the anger.
‘We will, de Nouailles, for leaving, and, if needs be, for entering.’
He then turned and stalked to the door, with Catchpoll in his wake.
‘You know,’ de Nouailles’ voice carried after them, ‘I dislike de Beauchamp, who holds the manor next to mine of the abbey, nearly as much as I dislike the monks, and I can see that his minions are as bad.’
The air, even in the bailey, seemed blissfully fresh. Walkelin was holding the horses as instructed, but also engaged in clearly bantering conversation with a servant girl, who scurried away as the thin steward appeared from the kitchens.
‘Are we finished, my lord?’ asked Walkelin.
‘For the time being.’ Bradecote gathered his reins and mounted. ‘Now we speak to those without these walls, and seek shelter for tonight. I do not really want to return to the abbey at Evesham.’
Had the atmosphere not been so oppressive, Harvington would have been accounted a pleasant village, but its inhabitants were loomed over by their lord, and were wary. Most were in the fields this April morning, but Catchpoll suggested trying the church. Whilst village priests often laboured with their parishioners, they also kept the daytime offices, labouring with prayer. The three men therefore dismounted and tethered their mounts by the little church, which stood at the junction of three trackways, and entered. The windows were small, but the nave was light, for the walls were whitened, and the zigzag pattern over the arch to the tiny chancel was picked out in red ochre. It was a building on which love had been lavished, and the echo of it lingered in the stone. A spare figure in a priest’s garb was wielding a broom over the stone floor, with the hiss
of a man grooming a horse and keeping the dust from his lungs interspersing with snatches of Latin. He turned as the door closed behind them, and his face welcomed. It was the first smile that they had seen in Harvington.
‘Father Paulinus?’ Bradecote recalled Abbot Reginald’s words, and Catchpoll looked approving. The undersheriff had found out the name of the priest in advance, had he?
‘Indeed, my son. You seek me?’
‘Well,’ Bradecote’s face erupted into a grin, ‘we seek knowledge, and where better to find it than in the church.’
The priest actually laughed, and set his domestic duty aside, indicating a narrow bench set against the wall of the nave, where the most elderly and infirm were permitted to sit rather than stand for the services.
‘No better place indeed, my son. And since you know me, might I know you?’
‘I am Hugh Bradecote, the Undersheriff of Worcester, and these are the sheriff’s men, Serjeant Catchpoll, and,’ he paused, ‘Apprentice Serjeant Walkelin.’
Walkelin had never heard himself announced by such an impressive title, and his chest stuck out with pride.
‘Goodness! What can the authority of the shire hope to learn here?’
‘We seek to find out who killed Walter Horsweard of Evesham, who was brother to the lady of this manor.’
‘Walter Horsweard is dead?’ The priest looked shocked, and crossed himself. ‘God have mercy upon him.’
‘You knew him, Father?’
‘Not well, you understand, for he came rarely, much to the sorrow of my lady de Nouailles. She was a loving woman, and loved husband and family both, so it gave her great sadness that her lord wished to forget her kin. She spoke of him more than I saw him. But you say he is dead by violence? I saw him, about a week back, alive as we are here. Poor man.’
‘He came to see the lord.’ Bradecote declared the fact. He did not want Father Paulinus to think he was about to reveal secrets, not that he looked a man to be swayed by threats over justice.
‘I believe so, yes. The poor fellow was very aggrieved that he and his brother were not here for the funeral, and …’ the priest paused and furrowed his brow, ‘he felt that blame attached to the lord de Nouailles over his sister’s death.’
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