Blood Runs Thicker by Sarah Hawkswood (best electronic book reader txt) 📗

get us closer, Catchpoll.’ Bradecote folded his arms as Walkelin slid from the grey.

‘Yes, but we knows he wasn’t killed by no robber, and it was someone he recognised, like you said. No stranger would get knife-close to his side, either way.’

‘Which means we will find the killer, because they are still here.’ Walkelin sounded delighted.

‘And just how many men are still here? A village full.’ Catchpoll grimaced.

‘But it is harvest. Everyone would be in the fields, Serjeant, from men-at-arms to oldmothers.’

‘Except our killer? Fair point, young Walkelin.’

‘We are ahead of ourselves.’ Bradecote was not going to leap ahead to a line of thought that might be too narrow. ‘I agree with what you say. The killer was not unknown to Osbern de Lench. I go no further, yet. Let us hear from the son who found the body, and then we will also see where he was found. Come on.’

Chapter Three

Within the hall it was as though those present had been turned, like the wife of Lot, into pillars of salt, for they seemed not to have moved and the atmosphere suggested that nor had they spoken. Baldwin de Lench still looked uncomfortable in his father’s place, and the widow was staring at her folded hands in her lap. Her face was impassive, but those hands were gripped tightly together. Bradecote was unsure whether she was angry, frightened, or both. The one thing she did not look was grief-stricken.

‘So, you have seen my father’s body. It is clear what happened. He was stabbed.’ Baldwin looked tired and was even more tetchy.

‘We have, but knowing that a man died by knife or arrow, sword or stone is but a very little step upon our path to who did the deed.’ Bradecote was unruffled. ‘I said I would speak with you after seeing the body, and I will, but if it was you who found him, I would have you speak as you lead us to the spot. We have an hour until full dark and can still learn much that is fresh. On foot would be best, unless it is far, which I doubt.’ Catchpoll had already remarked that only a lord would bother to ride to the top of the little hill, since it could be no more than a few furlongs from the hall to the very top.

Catchpoll did not test this reckoning by paces as they set off out of Lench upon the Evesham road, which rose to the southward. He listened as intently as his fellows while Baldwin described how he had come from the Great Field, as soon as a woman had appeared from the village, gabbling that his father’s horse had returned home alone.

‘My thought was the obvious one, that his horse had stumbled or been frightened by a rising bird and jibbed, and my father had been caught unawares and fallen. He was not home even as we reached it, so he must have hurt a leg, twisted a knee, perhaps even broken a bone. I ordered Fulk the Steward to bring two men with a hurdle as fast as they could manage, and set off myself, upon my horse, to the spot.’ He paused. ‘I did not expect to find his corpse. We leave the road here and it is but the track to the hilltop, not one taken on the way from anywhere. No casual passer-by killed my father, my lord Bradecote.’

Bradecote noted the more polite appellation. He was glad the man was calmer.

‘And you knew he would be here because he had told someone it was where he was heading?’ The undersheriff already knew this was a habitual journey, but it was good when everyone said the same thing.

‘It could be no other around the noon hour, and besides, a lad saw him up on the hill, almost silhouetted as he liked to be, with the sun on his back and his manor before him. He used to say the land was the one thing that would never change beyond the circle of the seasons, never betray you. “Lord of the Hill” the people here called him, and I shall be as him and do as he did.’ Baldwin made it sound a vow. He halted. ‘There, that is the place. He pointed to a patch of earth the same as any other but did not go closer. ‘He was lying upon the ground, his eyes open, staring Heavenward, and he was dead. God have mercy upon his soul.’ He crossed himself.

Catchpoll went forward first, his back bent, looking as though he sought some small precious item lost among the grass and dust. Then he called for Walkelin, with his young eyes, to follow his path. He knelt, grunting, and Bradecote was not sure if it was his usual complaint about his knees or acknowledging some detail that proved something to him. He let his men study the ground and spoke to Baldwin de Lench.

‘You say whoever killed him knew him well enough to know his habit of coming up the hill, yet he was robbed of garb and … was there a dagger?’ There was no reason the man would wear his sword, but he might have been a man who always had a dagger at his belt.

‘Either the killer thought to disguise their deed as robbery, or was paid to kill and the dagger and clothing were an added gain. I regret its loss, for it was a good one.’

‘Yet they did not steal his horse,’ commented Walkelin, rubbing his finger in a horseshoe imprint upon the ground. The weather had been dry, and the lord Osbern took the same path every day. He was not sure if it was new or days old.

‘It must have been frightened and headed home to its stable before they could catch the reins.’ Baldwin shrugged. ‘If they were paid, then it was bad luck for them, but not worth chasing after it and being seen.’

‘Where did you dismount, my lord?’ enquired