Wolf at the Door

by Sarah Hawkswood

  ‘Where is the lord Sheriff?’ Bradecote’s voice had authority in it, which relieved Crocc the Hunter, who was not sure if he had been left in command and was delighted to hand responsibility upwards.

  ‘He is in the hall, my lord,’ responded Crocc, pointing to the King’s hall. ‘My lord, I think the steward is dead.’

  Bradecote assimilated this information and made a decision.

  ‘Well, no use letting the men and horses stand about in the cold. Put the horses in the stables over there, and the men can gather in there.’ He nodded to the part of the range next to the stables. ‘This place even has kennels for the dogs.’ Having given his orders, Bradecote crossed to the hall, with Catchpoll and Walkelin in his wake.

  Inside the hall, William de Beauchamp was walking up and down, thunderous of face, and making growling noises.

  ‘My lord, your hunter says Cedric the Steward is dead. Not in his sleep, I take it?’

  ‘No, and the wolf made a mess of his servant. They are in the steward’s chamber. Catchpoll, go and commune with the dead as you do, and see if anything beyond the obvious comes to you.’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’ Catchpoll stood his ground, and de Beauchamp frowned. ‘My lord, truth is we have been duped,’ admitted the serjeant, bitterly. ‘We have been seeking the killer of Durand Wuduweard, when the crafty bastard is still alive, and mayhap at the core of all this. We have sought the son, and he is in this for sure, but it will be Durand who is sat like the spider in the web. Grieves me, it does, to say so, but there.’ With which Catchpoll turned and went out, perfectly content to leave Bradecote and Young Walkelin to cope with the lord Sheriff’s ill-temper.

  ‘We can think of all that later.’ De Beauchamp was less worried by Catchpoll’s admission than the possible loss of something valuable to King Stephen. ‘The vermin have turned things upside down here. You wondered what the final prize might be, Bradecote. Well, whatever it was, it was here.’ He shook his head. ‘It may still be here if it was well hidden, but we just do not know.’

  ‘My lord, shall I search?’ Walkelin liked the idea that he too could at least get out of line of sight, and avoid William de Beauchamp’s general wrath.

  ‘If you do not know what it could be I see no point, but you can tidy up the chests in the solar, and see how much room is left in them when you finish. That might tell us something is missing.’

  Walkelin was quite happy to act like a maidservant, and left his superiors together.

  ‘My lord, what you said to me yesterday still applies. We hunt for the wolf, which will be the easier for it having been used last night, and when we find the “lair” we will see if they have any stolen things with them.’ Bradecote could not place the King’s possessions over the life of a child.

  ‘I will see they hang very slowly for this.’ De Beauchamp was taking it personally.

  ‘My lord, Feckenham would rise up if you did not. The boy was six or seven years old, I would guess, and one of these godless bastards snapped his neck because he caught sight of them as they escaped. My thought is that it was most likely William Swicol. All they had to do was ride away into the dark. When the village was fighting fires, nobody was going to listen to a small boy murmuring of horsemen, and by dawn it would not matter if they did.’

  De Beauchamp swore in Foreign, and Bradecote had to agree with Catchpoll that it was not as inventive as English obscenity.

  Catchpoll took a closer look at Osric than de Beauchamp had done, but it was more to reconstruct what had happened than to see how he died. He had noted the scattered rushes near the hearth, and signs of a scuffle. The fact that there were pieces of gore-stiffened sheepskin about Osric’s body told him the man had probably been awoken from slumber and attacked, but it was interesting that he had managed to move to put himself in front of his master. What also interested Catchpoll was that Cedric the Steward, whose stick lay within feet of his body, had been stabbed but once, and that not upon the side to enter the heart. The wolf had never touched him.

  ‘So your devoted slave saved you from the mauling, if nothing else. The wolf must have been allowed to treat the body as prey, and I doubt would have left it to bite at you. So whoever did for you wanted you to die, but did not need it to be quick, or else they would have slit your throat or stabbed up under the ribs to the left. Hmm.’

  Catchpoll went to survey the disruption in the solar, and saw it as more wrecking than systematic searching. He also found blood on the bedding.

  ‘So did Osric make his mark upon a man?’ Catchpoll would swear that Cedric had come to no harm in his solar. There were no marks beyond the wound, and nobody would have dragged Cedric from his bed and with his stick with him.

  He left the steward’s hall and, being thorough, checked the other buildings not now occupied by the sheriff’s men and beasts. The kitchen was not noticeably disturbed, and the chapel still boasted a silver cross upon the altar, though there was no sign of a box for the communion vessels, and no candlesticks. Had they been of wood they would be there still. From the chapel he returned to the hall, where de Beauchamp had ceased pacing the floor and was sat upon the throne chair, looking displeased.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘My lord, the things I note are that Cedric died easy, so to speak. One wound, not guaranteed to do for him in moments, but I think his ailing might have meant he went faster than intended. He was not tortured to reveal the place of any treasure or valuables.’

  ‘Or died before they could try it.’

  ‘True, my lord. The fact that so much is upturned shows they did not know where to find it.’

  ‘But that does not help us now, Catchpoll.’ Bradecote wanted to start the hunt.

  ‘No, my lord, but I knows just where I would hide treasure, and I can see that nobody has even thought of looking there.’ A very slow, and peculiarly evil smile spread across Catchpoll’s face.

  Chapter Seventeen

  William de Beauchamp and his men left the hunting lodge in the wake of an eager and vocal lymer. Catchpoll had taken some savaged cloth from Osric’s remains, and once they were outside the hunting lodge it had been thrust under the seek-hound’s nose. Reeve and priest had been informed of the corpses and told by William de Beauchamp that whoever had attacked Feckenham would be taken, dead or alive, before the day’s end. Considering the situation, de Beauchamp and his three ‘law-hounds’, as he described them with a grim half-smile, were as happy as the dog wagging its tail. They had confidence they would discover the thieves, fire-setters and child-killer, although Walkelin did whisper to Catchpoll that he feared the spoils may have been distributed swiftly and the culprits already scattering from the shire.

  ‘They was up half the night, and if departing this day, well, they would not think the lord Sheriff would even know of their deeds until now, and would have to gather his men, and dogs,’ Catchpoll assured him. We has time, Young Walkelin, never you fear. I just hopes that there hound shuts up a goodly way afore we reaches ’em, or else, yes, they will have tried to bolt and take longer to catch.’

  The box was awkward, half balanced upon the saddle bow, and half held in the crook of William Swicol’s arm. The riders had ridden to the brook, avoiding the mayhem they had caused, and then followed its bank southward to the ford. They did not ride as cautiously as before, buoyed by success, and the horses could feel their excitement, which agitated them, though not as much as the presence of the wolf so close.

  Durand the Wolf-keeper hurt. Sometimes he felt a little dizzy, but he knew where he was and where he was going. For all the pain, there was an exultation. He had paid off the scores upon Hubert de Bradleigh, Hereward and the village of Feckenham, with Cedric as the final pleasure. Deep down he was not sure what he would do next. Being ‘dead’, he would have to appear somewhere new, but the further north one went the fewer the folk and more numerous the trees. Having a leash-wolf made him memorable, and he considered going beyond the lands of the Earl of Chester, and over the Ribble to King David of the
Scots. If the contents of the treasure box that William held had anything personal of King Stephen’s, then giving that to King David might even earn him manors, for all knew King David had sworn to support the Empress, and sought revenge after his defeat at the Battle of the Standard. What king would not be pleased to flaunt something his enemy held valuable? What Durand did not do was think of his son.

  William Swicol also knew his way without concentrating upon the path, and it freed him to think far ahead. Part of him thought he ought to have ridden off in the direction of Alcester, and taken all the treasure for himself, hoping that the speed of his horse would enable him to outrun the others, but he wanted that moment of triumph, the chance to prove to his father that all his pride and his grudge-bearing was really unimportant and meaningless. As a boy he had listened to the repeated claims of superiority and what Durand would do when he could order the ‘Feckenham fools’ about. Well, at least that appellation was right, if nothing else was. He had listened also to the drunken rambles that had him hide and hope to avoid an angry hand. This evening was as much about son showing father his place as a joint revenge upon Feckenham and the final step to new opportunities in London.

  Durand led them off the trackway and into dark forest, silent but for the animals that scented wolf and fled. They arrived back at their forest hideaway after midnight, though they all felt weary of body after the excitement of the night. The horses were briefly rubbed down and watered, and then the men wrapped themselves in their blankets and slept, though Durand merely drifted from pain to semi-consciousness and back through the night hours. He woke fully long after dawn, to see Anda gnawing at the bone from a haunch of venison, and his son tending a fire in the hearth.

  ‘Awake at last, then,’ William did not turn round. ‘The others are making their preparations.’

  ‘What treasure is in the box?’ Durand’s voice was a little stilted, for his face was now stiff, and in part swollen.

  ‘I opens it when we are all together. I has no wish to be accused of cheatin’, not when outnumbered.’ William had every confidence he could cheat all of them out of a little of the treasure just by sleight of hand, but if they thought he had taken from the box before they saw its contents, he would be facing three dangerous and angry men. He had ensured he slept with Anda beside him, and the box between himself and the somnolent wolf. ‘If you wants to eat there is bread. Morfran found it.’ William hid a smile, for he was sure eating would hurt.

  ‘No, I am not hungry.’

  Voices sounded and the door opened. Morfran, Uhtred and Thurstan entered, and the Northumbrians were laughing.

  ‘So now we divides fairly, yes?’ Morfran tried to make it sound less of a question, but failed. He placed the silver chalice and paten on the ground next to the hearth.

  ‘Indeed. There are eight beeswax candles, and we have most of a flitch of bacon, a sack of grain and between us five horses as spoils.’ William had quietly already put four candles within his own bedroll, but brought eight, wrapped in coarse linen, from the corner where he had slept.

  ‘And the contents of that box.’ Morfran did not want to lose sight of the box.

  ‘And its contents. You can see it is still locked. Bring over that hatchet, Uhtred.’

  Uhtred brought the hatchet that lay beside some dead branches for the fire, and handed it to William, who smiled, and raised it to strike the box.

  ‘What are you doing, man?’ cried Thurstan. ‘You might brek what’s inside.’

  ‘You think King Stephen put a glass goblet in here? If he did then it is in pieces, and listen’ – William shook the box while holding the hatchet – ‘it rattles not like broken glass.’

  ‘Nowther does it sound like gold,’ commented Uhtred, thoughtfully.

  ‘It need not be gold to be valuable.’ William struck the hatchet sharply where lid met box, and small splinters flew from it, and sparks where blade hit the metal of the lock. He gave it a second blow, and levered also. There was a rending sound and then the wood of the lid split.

  ‘What is inside?’ Morfran was excited.

  ‘I do not understand.’ William was frowning, genuinely perplexed.

  The box was divided into parts, some stained by bright dust, and in two were small black spheres and scraps of a sort of brown nut. The box smelt exotic, but held neither gold and silver, nor gems.

  ‘We did everything for that?’ Morfran, peering over William’s shoulder, looked appalled.

  ‘Why lock it?’ Uhtred shook his head.

  ‘It will be spices.’ Durand almost wanted to laugh, but it would hurt if he did. ‘The rich and lordly spend good silver on such rare things from far away, even from Outremer. I saw the little black balls being crushed in the kitchens when I served a lord. It is pipor.’

  ‘Like the leeches use?’ Thurstan did not know whether he was more intrigued or disappointed.

  ‘Aye. Mayhap this was for the King’s cook, or for his healer. Do not look so face-fallen, Will. Even you could not be so clever as to guess this.’ Durand was enjoying his son’s expressions, which had moved from disbelief to anger.

  ‘Bitch!’ William dropped the box. ‘She said there was great treasure hidden, and it was just powders and smells.’ His disappointment was clear, but his mind was racing. Sæthryth would not have called this ‘treasure’. He had been foolish not to try and push further with her, and wheedle the location from her, but her gasp and shutting like an oyster shell had given him enough, as he thought. How hard could it be to find a box of treasure in the hunting lodge, which was not some massive castle. Well, he had failed the first time, but he knew what he would do now, and it meant the treasure would be all his. ‘I am sorry.’ He looked at the three men, but not at Durand. ‘I gathered you upon the promise of treasure and there is but dust. But we have gained horses and some silver and the candles.’ He intentionally made it sound as if the candles were a good bonus.

  ‘Candles!’ Uhtred spat into the floor. ‘You call a candle a prize?’

  ‘It is better than nowt,’ murmured Thurstan, though he did not sound convinced.

  ‘Then it is only fair that the division reflects my failure.’ William sighed, and picked up the hatchet, bringing it down suddenly upon the silver paten, splitting it in two. ‘We divides the silver between four, not five. We can test the weight to make sure all gets the same. I will take but the candles.’ He buckled his blanket roll about them.

  This was greeted with approval. William knew the candles were of less value than a silver share but not drastically. The chalice was broken, and after a minor argument, the division of the shining spoils was accepted by all.

  ‘We can share out the bacon and wheat for our journeys, of course, and the ponies belong to those who brought them,’ he nodded at Morfran and Durand, ‘but there are five horses, so each man gets a horse.’

  Morfran, Uhtred and Thurstan nodded, took their silver and went to divide the food, and any other supplies they held. Durand looked at William.

  ‘So that is it? I built this,’ he held out his hands, ‘I cared for her,’ and he nodded at Anda, ‘and now I get a horse and some bacon and a handful of hack silver.’

  ‘You did not do this for gain, but for pleasure.’ William stood, picking up the blanket roll. ‘You just wanted to be revenged upon the people who did not show you the respect you felt was your due, or give you what you wanted. You have had that.’

  ‘But no name, no home, no—’

  ‘Now you think of this? Did you not see it before? No, perhaps you did not, blinded as you were by grudges. You have enough, and you have the wolf. I will not take her from you.’

  ‘You could not.’

  ‘You think that too?’ William laughed. ‘If I wanted her, she would follow me, but I do not. I will take my chances in London, treasure-laden or not, and I will thrive, old man, I will thrive.’ He had drawn closer to Durand, close enough to lean so that his face was but a hand’s breadth from his father’s. ‘I do not care what happens
to you.’ He growled the words. ‘Now I will check those fools are not squabbling over the bread.’ He turned away, but Durand stopped him with a hand upon his arm.

  ‘I am your father. I deserve respect.’

  ‘You stopped deserving respect when you took out your hatred of the world on me when I was scarce tithing age. Be glad it is not me taking revenge.’ William’s eyes glittered, and he raised one hand to Durand’s face and ran a finger down the wound that ran from eye down cheek, letting his nail catch it. Durand hissed and pulled back, and his hand went to his knife, but William struck him with his full hand, and he staggered back. Anda barked, and William glared at her, eye-locked, until he reached the door of the chamber.

  The other three were talking, laughing over the bacon. William did not need bacon. He smiled, walked past them and selected the best horse, smiling to himself at how easy it had been to get the others to saddle them all in readiness for departure. He strapped on his blanket roll, picked up a small sack that lay with the nosebags for the horses, untied the bridle and led the horse forward as Uhtred looked his way.

  ‘Hey, I wanted—’

  ‘Too late.’ William Swicol laughed as he ducked his head to get under the gateway, and took the narrow northern path. Uhtred ran to the gate to stare after him, wondering if it was worth giving chase, but the horse disappeared from view and only the echo of a mocking laugh remained. He shrugged, and turned back to tell his brother just what he thought of William fitzDurand.

  The lymer’s nose was good, but then the scent of wolf was a dominant one over woodcock and stoat and buck. Crocc the Hunter and Robert the Wuduweard were aware that their skills were not needed, but then they realised that the moment it was clear that the wolf had been in Feckenham during the night. The difference between them was that Crocc was thinking about getting back to Elmley, and Robert was praying that he would reach his father’s killer before anyone else.