BURY ME DEEP an utterly gripping crime thriller with an epic twist (Detective Rozlyn Priest Book 1) by JANE ADAMS (best book reader .txt) 📗

the villagers and ceorls will feel the same way,” Hugh warned him, “if the abbot has demanded a tything already in work done on the abbey fields, you’ll find men reluctant to give yet another to a Lord they do not even know.”

“Whichever season saw our coming would be difficult for some. Had we come Aerra Litha or Aefterra Litha, we would have been a far greater burden. That, I would have been loath to be.” June and July, those times just before and after midsummer, were the hungry months among the poor. The winter store had dwindled almost to nothing, the first harvest not due until Lammas, the loaf mass. It was a time of year when the Thegn’s duty would have been to support his people, not, as Hugh was pledged to do on the King’s behalf and Treven bound to support, to assess them for taxes.

The people of Theading had been aware of their coming. They came out of their houses to stare at the strangers, Hugh in his rich clothes, Treven, a linen shirt added to his outfit and his hair showing some effort with the comb and now accompanied by his three armed and mounted servants.

The vill consisted of a dozen houses scattered either side of the dusty road. Timber framed and thatched, many of the houses looked new and here and there were visible the burnt timbers and scorched land left from the earlier burning by the raiding army.

Pigs snuffed and chickens and geese clucked and hissed between the buildings where small children tumbled and played. For the most part they looked well enough fed, Treven noted, though their parents were poorly clad and looked worn and tired. They had just completed the busiest time of their farming year and the long hours of work, beginning when the sun first broke over the horizon and continuing well into the night if the moon was bright, had clearly taken a heavy toll.

Women called their children back from the road. Some of the adults murmured greeting, but it was clear to both Hugh and Treven that these people were wary, untrusting of this stranger appointed by a king whose name they recognised but who had been so often in battle that they as yet knew nothing of him as a ruler, only as a warrior.

There were remnants of palisade surrounding the vill, close up against the forest edge, though much of it was broken down and also showed clear signs of burning. In places this gave way to bramble thickets and mixed hedging. The Hall stood beside a great pond. It had been a natural feature, Treven guessed, and a small stream on the forest side could be seen emptying itself into a natural dip in the landscape, but he guessed also that it had been deepened and widened by generations of owners and stocked, most likely, with food fish, as the abbeys did. It was a feature that spoke of a time of prosperity and labour to spare. Treven wondered idly how long ago that had been and if the large building standing by the water had once been the Manor of Theading before the now ramshackle but more substantial house had been built closer to the ford. The hall was old and strongly built, though the rear of the building showed signs of new lime wash that did not quite conceal the repaired timbers. The thatch too had been patched, new straws showing golden against the grey aged bundles. That it had survived at all told Treven that it had been in use, perhaps as a base or storehouse for the Heathen army before being reclaimed and repaired by its owners. At the rear stood a new building, long and low with smoke indicating hearths at either end. The cookhouse, Treven guessed. Another sign of hoped-for prosperity, that this should be housed in a separate building. Other small outbuildings close beside the palisade suggested privies and stores and a half dozen fattened pigs grunted happily in a wooden pen.

The doors of the great hall stood wide atop three wooden steps.

Two men and a woman emerged and came down the steps to greet Treven and his company. The men looked alike enough to be brothers, dark haired and heavily built, their shoulders and arms muscled and the close fit of the woollen breeks showing well-formed thighs and calves. Men used to hard work, though not fighting men, Treven thought; they were built for the plough rather than the sword.

The woman was of a different order. Dark also, but more delicately made and with bright blue eyes. Her undershirt was of good linen cloth and the russet of her dress was meant to be that colour, not faded from red like Treven’s cloak. A leather thong hung about her neck from which was suspended a shallow, pierced spoon designed for straining beer as it was poured from jug to drinking vessel. A symbol of her position in the household, she touched this lightly with her fingertips, as though it were an unfamiliar object.

Beside him Hugh drew a swift breath. “Things improve by the moment,” he whispered. Treven cast him a disapproving look but had time for no more as the older of the two men stepped forward.

“Lord, my name is Edmund Scrivener. We had letters concerning your arrival, but my servants tell me you came last evening to Theadingford. Had I known, you would have had better welcome.”

“We made faster time than I had hoped,” Treven told him. “My servants had the camp prepared. It is of little matter.”

Edmund bowed his head slightly in acknowledgement. “This is my brother, Eldred,” he said, “and his wife, Cate.”

Cate smiled shyly, but Eldred, Treven noted, was tight faced and his eyes held no greeting.

“This is Hugh de Vries,” Treven told him. “The King, in his wisdom, has appointed him Shire Reeve for this Hundred