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

‘Steward, you will see that messire Hamo comes to you and does not leave your dwelling. We will speak with him on the morrow.’ Bradecote thought he looked more able to restrain the youth than the mild priest.

‘As you wish, my lord.’

‘And Walkelin will be lodged with you also, lest your watch be less than needful.’ That made for added security.

Walkelin was caught between relief that he would not have to share the same chamber as the lord Baldwin, who looked as if he might as easily kick other men’s subordinates as his own, and regret at being out of any muttered exchange of views between Serjeant Catchpoll and the lord Bradecote.

‘Shall I bring your roll, my lord?’ Catchpoll was so unlike a servant that Bradecote could have laughed out loud.

‘No, Serjeant, I want to see my horse is bedded well for myself.’

It was the excuse they wanted. Having Baldwin de Lench in the chamber with them would prevent mulling over anything learnt thus far.

‘If we are going to spend much more time among the horse dung and hay munching, we might as well bed down here,’ grumbled Catchpoll, when they entered the stable. ‘Pox on the man for not taking to the bed he knew. It was good enough for him last night.’

‘But last night it was his and now it merely belongs to him. Sweet Virgin, how he hates the lady his sire wed.’ Bradecote shook his head.

‘Hates now, my lord, but was it hate born of something else?’ Walkelin, who had decided that his watch would commence after he had taken any private instructions from his superiors, looked thoughtful. Those superiors stared at him. This was deep thinking.

‘Go on, young Walkelin. Your loins are the youngest.’ Catchpoll, realising what he was saying, grinned his death’s head grin. ‘Tell us the lust of youth.’

‘Well,’ the flame hair met the rising blush to the brow, ‘a mere lad he was when his sire took a new wife, but when he left boyhood and became a man she was what, no more than twenty, beautiful and being used by his father in the same chamber. A curtain can hide sights, not sounds. An easy step it would be to hear, and dream, and if ever he overstepped the mark and she rejected him, or mocked his youth, well, love and hate, Serjeant, you have said, are close as lovers themselves. One became the other, and festered. If we had not been here tonight, would he have torn back the curtain from hate and sinned with her against her will? Who would stop him?’

Bradecote winced. It was not a nice thought, but likely enough.

‘You know what,’ remarked Catchpoll, looking at the still-blushing Walkelin, ‘I have often moaned at you for thinking with your beallucas but I think they give you wisdom in this. Makes good sense, I agree.’

‘But he cannot wed his father’s wife, nor whore her, openly. Even if he loved her, not hated her, there is no reason to kill his sire.’ Bradecote spoke as if to himself.

‘And it was the other son who was absent. The lord Baldwin was in the field with the harvesters, my lord. He could not have done so.’ Walkelin did not wish to dwell on carnal matters, at least not other men’s. Dwelling on what he had been doing with Eluned, the kitchen maid, just after sunset last eve, that was worth dwelling on, but in private, and with a grin on his face.

‘Yes. I ramble.’ Bradecote scratched his nose. ‘So, in the short time we have before the rumbling of my belly is louder than my voice, was there anything learnt from the place where Osbern de Lench died, and does it prove anything?’

‘There was the hoof prints from two horses, my lord. One set heading up the hill and the other down.’ Catchpoll was confident. Walkelin looked amazed. ‘The one coming down must have been the dead man, returning from his gazing upon his lands, and the one going up met him.’

‘But how do you know they was from today, Serjeant?’ Walkelin stared at him.

‘There was others, I grant, and the ground is quite hard, but there were signs that a horse coming down the hill stopped and stood square. Its toes dug in a little, and only the marks of a standing horse would be side by side. The traces of the horse heading up the hill were less certain, but there was fresh horse shit where it must have stood.’

‘But were not the second set of marks those of Baldwin de Lench’s horse when he came to find his father?’ Bradecote frowned.

‘Ah no, my lord. You see, I found the standing prints not where he said he stopped when he dismounted. There you could see the scuffs from the hurdle being dropped, and not footprints but disturbing of the ground, from feet, the dragging of the corpse, and no doubt the lord Baldwin kneeling by the body. Flower stems were broken off, and there was a trace of dark, dried blood. No doubt the body was rolled before it was stripped. The two horses I speak of met so the riders were close, knee to knee, you might say.’

‘So the killer was mounted, my lord. They had a horse, which discounts most of Lench,’ said Walkelin.

‘Or had access to a horse for at least as long as it took to trot up the track and do the deed,’ amended Catchpoll, looking about the stable. ‘We have the lord Osbern’s grey and the two horses of the sons, both of which were not here. The other horse is the one the lord Sheriff sent the steward back on, so the beast that came to Worcester was here.’

‘But if you aren’t used to riding a horse you fall off a lot. I know I did when I first had to ride,’ said Walkelin.

‘You still do.’ Catchpoll grinned.

‘But you were a town lad.’ Bradecote remembered riding