Faithful Unto Death

by Sarah Hawkswood

  ‘How little you know me. You say I watch, and do nothing, but it is just that you do not see all I do, all I achieve. Hywel ap Rhodri, your sister’s son, came here and made trouble, trouble by his words and by his deeds. What would your strong lord have done? Shouted at him, thrown him out? That is nothing. I achieved far more, for I achieved his death,’ Thorold said it proudly, ‘and without even getting as much blood upon my hands as that finger of yours, wife.’

  The lady Avelina put her hands to her cheeks, and gave a low moan.

  ‘You killed him? Why?’

  ‘For several good reasons. The first was that I did not want him telling all that I was a Welshman’s bastard. The second was that I disliked him taking liberties with my servants in my manor. And the third was that I really objected to him tupping my wife among my own hazels.’

  ‘You saw? No, someone else must have—’

  ‘I saw. I “watched”, and some watching gives no pleasure. However I use you, or not, you are my wife, mine. He had no right. So you see, Mother, I can act, and far better my way than ranting and roaring and flashing my sword at him. I had him killed, and it was easy, and very satisfying.’

  ‘If you did that, then … Has Durand fallen back into illness because of poison?’ The lady Avelina was white-faced, excepting a smear of blood upon her left cheek.

  ‘Now there is an idea.’ Thorold laughed.

  ‘Fool. I have seen such fevers as Durand’s, and his is natural, not the effect of poison.’ The lady Matilda was watching her son, and, having despised him for years, was aware of a blossoming flower of fear within her.

  ‘Agreed. But it is still a nice idea. I had hoped, of course, that he might just die. It seemed such a likely thing for a while, but he disappointed me. If you want to know why I have not dealt with him as with the Welshman, it is simple. I could do nothing to pay back Hywel ap Rhodri except take his life. With Durand I take hope. As long as I live, he is a landless sword in the pay of Gilbert de Clare. He has no power, no woman, no “heirs of his body”. He has a living death of failure. Why end the pleasure of seeing that?’

  ‘And if I bore his child?’ The lady Avelina spat the question.

  ‘Alas, it would not survive … And maternity is such a risk, isn’t it? I would grieve, of course, but …’ Her eyes widened in horror.

  The lady Matilda was horrified too, by the lack of emotion. She could understand a man killing a deceiving wife in anger, but the idea of him watching and waiting, pretending to be pleased at her swelling form, and all the while planning her death, two deaths, was more than she could take. And then it hit her, with a cold certainty.

  ‘You said you had Hywel ap Rhodri killed.’

  ‘Yes, I did, Mother.’

  ‘Was it by Corbin?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Jesu, it was you who hit him, then.’

  ‘He would make things awkward with the sheriff’s men, now the horse is found.’

  ‘You sent a boy to do a man’s job.’ It was her first thought, that even in this her son had not been ‘the man’, and the disgust made Thorold snap. He strode the two steps towards her and hit her across the face, hard, with the back of his hand. It took her completely by surprise, and she fell. Her head caught the table edge and then, as she hit the floor, there was a peculiar, distinct sound. It was the sound of a snap. Matilda FitzGilbert stared up at her son, and her gaze did not reproach, because it was sightless.

  Thorold looked down at her, caught between horror, disbelief, and a strange sense of release.

  His wife gave a strangled cry that broke the silence, and he heard heavy footsteps in the hall. Not clever, was he? He grabbed the knife that lay discarded upon the table and plunged it into the dead woman’s chest. The lady Avelina stood, frozen, and he rose, grabbed her by the arm, and flung her round that he might pinion her before him. Then he yelled.

  ‘Murderess! She has killed her, killed my mother!’

  The door burst open, and undersheriff and serjeant almost fell into the chamber. They saw the woman on the floor, the knife protruding, the wild-eyed man with the equally wild-eyed woman in his firm grasp.

  ‘She killed her,’ he cried again, and caught his breath on a sob.

  Avelina FitzRoger just stared.

  ‘Why?’ Catchpoll barked the question.

  ‘They were arguing, not shouting, the usual clawing with words. My mother called her a whore, and then … My mother!’ The word became a wail.

  ‘No,’ whispered his prisoner. ‘He did it.’

  ‘But it is her knife, and look, she is not used to wielding it to such a purpose, for she cut herself where finger grasped blade. He prised open her hand, where the cut still showed a red line.’

  ‘The knife slipped as I cut a thread.’ Her voice was small.

  ‘She got blood on her face when she put her hands to it, seeing what she had done. It was a moment of madness, but she killed my mother.’ Thorold pushed his wife towards Bradecote and fell upon his knees by the body.

  Bradecote looked at Catchpoll, and Catchpoll looked back. It sounded simple at first glance, but nothing was right. Bradecote took the woman’s left hand and looked at the cut. It was tiny, and upon the tip. If the knife was held to stab, and grasped too low, the finger would be cut in the closest part to the hand. He wondered also at the fact the injured finger was upon the left hand. Some people preferred the left, but it was not as common as using the right. Catchpoll came to the other side of the corpse, and reached, gently, to close the sightless eyes. FitzRoger did not expect his hand to move next to the neck. The other hand helped lift the head, even as Thorold sat back upon his heels.

  ‘Now there is a thing,’ remarked Catchpoll, without haste. ‘Why should the lady stab a woman whose neck is broke?’

  ‘She fell when the blade went in,’ sniffed FitzRoger.

  Catchpoll looked at the knife hilt, sticking from the chest. The angle of the blade was slightly upwards.

  ‘Done a lot of killing, have you, my lady?’ Catchpoll enquired.

  ‘No, I —’

  ‘You see, I have seen many knife wounds, and many who have wounded with a knife. A woman can kill with one, yes, but they are actually very bad at it. You see, a woman does not learn to use a knife, and she will stab down,’ Catchpoll made a fist about an imagined blade and matched action to words, ‘but a man, he knows the best way, the sure way, is to stab upwards, like so.’ He performed the action. ‘This knife went in on an upward stroke.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ FitzRoger scrambled to his feet.

  ‘I think what Serjeant Catchpoll is saying is fairly clear, FitzRoger. It was not your wife who killed your mother.’ Bradecote had set the lady Avelina to one side, and she stood, trembling.

  ‘She killed her, I tell you, stabbed her and she fell and—’

  ‘Pick up your sewing, my lady.’ Bradecote had to repeat the command. She blinked at him, but did so.

  ‘The lady is right-handed, yet you say she stabbed with the left because the blade cut her. Most … unusual. And Catchpoll here has seen more corpses than you have eaten roasted heron, I would think. You killed her.’

  ‘He hit her, and she fell.’ The lady Avelina found her voice. ‘Her neck broke then. He took my knife from the table and stabbed her after … when he heard you coming.’

  ‘Now that,’ said Catchpoll, with satisfaction, ‘is a much better explanation of what we see here.’

  ‘No!’ The exclamation came not from Thorold FitzRoger, but his brother, steadying himself against the door frame. His recent pallor was increased. He stared at the scene before him, and then launched himself towards his brother, though unsteadily. Thorold was on his feet before Durand reached him, and began to draw blade from scabbard. He had forgotten Catchpoll, and forgetting Catchpoll was always a mistake. The serjeant simply linked his hands and struck a blow, as if a two-handed sword swipe without the sword, catching FitzRoger behind the knees and sending him to the floor. Bradecote grabbed Durand, a
s he half fell and half threw himself upon his brother.

  ‘No, let the law have him, Durand. He has even more than this to answer for, and he will answer.’

  The man struggled for a moment, and then gave up. Catchpoll had pinioned Thorold FitzRoger, and Bradecote, leaving the crumpled Durand, stepped to unbuckle the man’s sword.

  ‘You will need good light to inspect this, Serjeant,’ he said. ‘Leave the prisoner with me. Oh, and best you fetch the priest and tell Walkelin his watch is stood down.’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’ Catchpoll took the sword belt and the sword in its scabbard. Bradecote looked at the people in the chamber. Catchpoll said you should not get involved, with victim or culprit, but sometimes that was hard, even impossible. Yet here he felt he was standing back, observing from a distance. He had felt more concern over the youth Corbin, hoping he would live, and not just to provide the answers to questions. These four, three living and one dead, were the people of this hall, this solar, and none cared deeply for any of the others. The wife might have cuckolded husband with brother, but there was no love between them, just need. She offered no comfort to him now, but sat upon the floor as if dazed. Both sons had been in awe of the mother, and held her in feared respect mixed at times with dislike, though Durand wept for her now. The two brothers hated each other, and the two women likewise. It bore no more relation to his own hall than starlight to mud. There was silence but for the sound of Durand’s emotion.

  ‘My mother was right, she was always right, though I hated her for it. I ought to have done things myself.’ Thorold spoke almost dreamily.

  Walkelin arrived, for the second time in a few hours followed by a breathless priest. Father Durand shook his head, crossed himself, and went to the side of the body of the lady Matilda. He began prayers for the dead. Walkelin had a length of rope with him.

  ‘I thought this might be useful, my lord.’

  Bradecote just nodded.

  Chapter Seventeen

  By dusk, everything was quiet and arranged. Thorold FitzRoger was tied securely in the stable, and the body of the lady Matilda laid out upon a trestled board before the altar of the little church. Durand FitzRoger kept to the bed in which he had slept since his return, somehow not wishing to take the bed in the chamber above just yet, though it might have been from the exertion required to get up and down, and the lady Avelina slept in that bed alone, yet no more alone than she had throughout her marriage.

  The sheriff’s men slept in the hall, and Rhys ap Iorwerth joined them.

  ‘The good Father has more to deal with, what with the injured and the dead, a burial and soon a wedding, to want to look to me,’ he explained, ‘and besides, I would like the whole tale, that I can get it quite straight in my head to prepare for my prince.’

  ‘I do not know about a straight “tale”. It goes round more like a dog chasing its “tail”,’ complained Walkelin. ‘There was Thorold FitzRoger and his mother both saying as the servant Rhydian did it, thinking it a lie to cover Thorold’s involvement, and Brictmer saying the same to cover Corbin’s, so all of them was lying, but yet telling us the truth!’ He shook his head. ‘And since we find out lies, we could not see the truthful lie, or was it the lying truth. I give up.’

  ‘Never give up, lad, just take time to reconsider. It always sounds better,’ advised Catchpoll, wisely, picking his teeth.

  ‘It is still going to sound as “moon madness” to the lord Sheriff, though.’ Bradecote accepted the fact.

  ‘Ah, but the lord Sheriff, for all his scowls, has been lord Sheriff long enough to know that sometimes “moon madness” is all there is.’ Catchpoll appeared philosophical.

  ‘Could we have untangled it without other deaths, other near deaths too, I wonder?’ Bradecote rubbed the back of his head.

  ‘We had the attacks upon the girls in the wrong order, my lord, and that complicated things. It was easily done. We took them in the order we heard of them, and there was no clue that was not the way of it. Thus we had it the bastard went so far that the girl Milburga was struck into silence by what happened to her, that he then tried his luck with the older and more womanly Aldith, who was caught in a public enough place that she could fight back and mayhap threaten to scream, and then next day he found Wi—the village girl, whom he had eyed on arrival. She kept her mouth shut because she feared being disbelieved, and he had power.’

  ‘Should we not have wondered why the manor men did not kill him after the first attack, if we thought that the one upon Milburga, since it was so serious?’ Walkelin wondered out loud. ‘We wondered about Tovi.’

  ‘If Milburga was struck dumb, they might have got nothing from her, nor even guessed it all that first night. That was what I assumed. We could not fathom why Tovi had not killed him, certainly, but the real answer is that of course he did not know of the crime until after Hywel was already dead. That is why he said it was not for him to do. It was done. Since nobody was really talking about what happened to her, least of all herself, we did not grasp that she was attacked last of all. Should we have seen?’ Bradecote tried to set things out in his own mind. ‘In my head I supposed she was the quieter sort, and perhaps nobody would have thought the unthinkable that first day. They thought her young, innocent, and shocked by the sort of manhandling Aldith fought back against. That is how I saw it then. Think of it. Aldith had defended her honour and was angry enough and bold enough, and wise enough too, to make it known. Nobody, knowing her, seeing her wrath, and hearing her denounce Hywel ap Rhodri, would think he got very far, and besides, it would make him ridiculed within the manor. She had her victory, and no real harm done.’ Bradecote looked grim. ‘They would not think him persistent.’ He paused. ‘And also, Thorold FitzRoger used the plural “maidservants” from the first and at that stage I had not seen Milburga for myself. By the time we spoke with her father, Tovi, I had set the timing in stone in my mind, I suppose.’

  ‘And the field wench,’ added Catchpoll, ‘was out in the village proper, and would not have heard as quick as by next morning what had happened to Aldith in the manor if the wench slept by the kitchen.’

  ‘And Rhydian did know he was persistent,’ mused Walkelin, almost to himself, taking up the word. ‘That is why he argued with his master that evening, warning him to curb his desires. He did not know what really happened in Bromfield.’ Walkelin shook his head. ‘He closed his mind to it as much as he could. The cook gave us that at the first. She said he indicated his master was a good man but susceptible to forward women, and said he looked as if trying to get himself to believe it true.’

  ‘We also had brother trying to place brother before us as the killer, or at least the one who ordered the killing, and without the compelling reason of seeing Milburga being attacked, we were casting about for reasons, none of which ever sat well.’ Bradecote ran his hand through his hair. ‘Dog chasing its tail. You are right there, Walkelin.’

  ‘But you got to the truth, my lord, and in no longer a time than Hywel ap Rhodri was in this manor. My prince will not see that as failing.’ Rhys tried to sound encouraging.

  ‘Ah, well he is the person we have not failed, since we could not chase after Rhydian two weeks after he left.’ Bradecote pulled a face. ‘But you see, if we had taken Thorold earlier, Corbin would have been saved a broken head, and the lady Matilda her death.’

  ‘Couldn’t have taken Thorold FitzRoger before he hit the lad, not as it stood, my lord, not with more than suspicion as would not stand, and once we had tried to get what we could from Corbin we came. We just came a mite too late for the lady.’ Catchpoll disliked Bradecote’s tendency to flog himself over failings he could only see with hindsight. There was quiet for a while.