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

bareback as a boy even before he had a lordling’s pony. ‘On a manor most lads have been up on a horse’s back, whether they risked a thrashing for it or not. They vie to bring in my horse from grazing, and would not lead it all the way. A few manors even have a horse for a cart, not the plough oxen. It may not be as likely but … and there is a groom who will be confident with the animals here. It is possible.’

‘And we have been happy to think the killer is here, my lord, but lords know their neighbours and their neighbours know them,’ declared Catchpoll, with a grimace. ‘The Lord of the Hill name must have been known for miles about, and his habit. If the father was like the short-tempered bastard that is the son, as the priest said, we may have to cast our net wider.’

‘I pray that is not so,’ Bradecote groaned. ‘Let us hope that our speech with the young Hamo in the morning makes all clear. The only trouble is, I think that Baldwin de Lench takes a path and cannot step from it. His very certainty makes me doubt he can be right, and if he is not, we are as in this stable, in the dark.’

‘You listen well, young Walkelin, if the steward’s wife is loose-tongued over the meal. We may learn more from others one step back from this family at each other’s throats.’

‘Er, he is wifeless, Serjeant. A serving wench told me.’ Walkelin looked pleased to reveal something that the serjeant did not know, but a bit sheepish.

‘Then you’ll be eating with the servants, and even better. More tongues to wag. Just make sure yours doesn’t …’ The lecherous look on Catchpoll’s face, even in the gloom, needed no more.

‘Upon which we part.’ Bradecote interrupted him. ‘You have a mind like a—’

‘—single man of twenty summers. Yes, my lord. It keeps me young.’ Catchpoll grabbed his bed roll. ‘Your belly is rumbling loud, my lord. We eats and sleeps, and God grant us wisdom on the morrow.’

‘Amen.’

Chapter Four

Hugh Bradecote woke to the sound of Catchpoll coughing and hawking into the cold hearth and grumbling about his knees. The serjeant walked past him, a little stiffly, and headed out into the cool of early morning, if not to commune with nature then to answer its call. Bradecote stretched his long limbs, sniffed and sat up. Baldwin de Lench was lying on his stomach with his head pillowed on his arms, still oblivious to the world. At least the lady would have slept safely, thought the undersheriff, getting to his feet and rolling up his blanket. They had learnt nothing over the meal except that his cook made a good pottage with the added delight of a portion of spit roasted pigeon, not that a brace of pigeon went far between three. Catchpoll had not been offered any of it, for it was kept for the lord, the lady and the undersheriff, with none even for the lad whose hawk brought the birds to ground. The fact that the lordling had gone out hawking and returned with game did not mean much, since a good bird and good fortune might have brought down their dinner soon after he rode out.

Bradecote went outside and found Catchpoll shaking water from his face and hair, having thrust both in a bucket of water. He reminded Bradecote of a grizzled old hound.

‘Better?’ enquired Bradecote.

‘Much.’

‘De Lench still sleeps.’

‘Good. Them as has real work is already about, so we should have time to speak with Walkelin and see if he learnt anything, nice and quiet like. Most everyone will be off to the field as soon as they may. There’s streaks of red in the dawn and a smell in the air makes me think they have today, if lucky, to get in their harvest.’ Catchpoll sounded less than hopeful.

‘I wish them luck then, for theirs is mine also. We were well over halfway when I left, but I could not say for sure we would end today. Mind you, Alcuin, if he feared rain, would have all to work before the sun was full risen over the horizon.’

‘But the steward here has more to worry him than the harvest. Ah, here is Walkelin.’

Walkelin, his red hair looking tousled and his eyes bleary, emerged from the steward’s modest dwelling beyond the palisade without looking up, and relieved himself against a nearby tree as his superiors walked from the enclosure to join him. When he turned round, they were but a few paces from him, looking mildly amused.

‘Greetings to you also, Walkelin,’ murmured Bradecote. ‘Having got that off your mind, did you learn anything from the servants or Hamo de Lench himself?’

‘My lord,’ Walkelin ignored what he had just been doing, ‘I cannot say anything about whether he had his father killed, but he is an odd one and no mistake. And that is the view of everyone else, not just me.’

‘So, tell us.’ Bradecote led the trio away from the cluster of low cotts that made Lench and leant against the solid trunk of an ash tree, folding his arms before him.

‘The lord’s servants do not think their lot will be better under the lord Baldwin, because they say he is as like unto his father as one pea in a pod to another, with an added dash of his mother’s temper thrown in. Moody was the father, and moody will be the son, and all had best watch out when he snarls. I asked, all innocent, if they would have preferred if the young lordling Hamo had the manor in his stead, and they laughed outright. Seems he has a mind that drifts, lives in a world all his own. He does not shout at them or act powerful, but never speaks to them unless he gives a command, and then assumes it will be done because servants … serve. He has