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

never goosed a maid, takes no interest in the land and talks to his hawks rather than people.’

‘He sounds simple, but the lord Baldwin was all for him being clever and crafty.’ Catchpoll frowned.

‘Well, it depends on how you mean both, Serjeant. He can read, and he can write also, even chooses to do it, little notes on vellum he keeps in a box that nobody must touch. Not that anyone would know what they meant. One woman said he made her flesh creep, because he was watching everyone all the time, the way a cat watches a mouse. Sort of interested, and yet as though they were different animals.’ He dropped his voice. ‘She thinks there were elves at his birthing.’ Walkelin was not sure how seriously to take elves. His oldmother had told tales of them as if she had seen them herself, and they were not happy tales.

Bradecote looked sceptical. ‘He was clever enough also to get what he wanted by choosing his time with his sire. He understood him well enough.’

‘But, my lord, that would not be difficult, just from watching and learning. He would not need to understand him. The lord Baldwin, for example, must have understood his father, a man formed like himself, but blundered into requests like a boar in the forest. He understood but did not think.’ Walkelin was not put off.

‘And was this thinking lad awake when you returned to the steward’s home?’ Catchpoll thought direct knowledge better than talk of elves and weirdness.

‘Yes, for a while. He said he did not like Fulk’s dwelling because it smelt of chickens, and he would rather sleep in the church.’

‘With his father’s corpse laid before the altar?’ Bradecote raised his eyebrows.

‘Aye, my lord. No wonder you are surprised. So was Fulk. He said he could not sleep there with the body in the church. And then messire Hamo looked at him and said it was but a corpse and his father was on his path to God’s Heaven. He made it sound as though he was walking to Evesham … just ordinary.’ Walkelin shook his head. ‘When Fulk told him it was your command that he remain, he folded his arms and told Fulk to take his chickens to the hall so you could put up with them. Then, when Fulk shooed them out, he lay down, turned over and went to sleep. Er, the chickens were taken to Fulk’s neighbour.’

‘We can be grateful for that.’ Bradecote looked thoughtful. ‘It will be interesting to hear the picture of her son that the lady gives us. You stay to guard the lordling, Walkelin.’

‘As you wish, my lord.’

The lady de Lench was at that moment in heated argument with her husband’s son, who had turned on her when she emerged from the solar and told her in no uncertain terms that she would not sleep another night in the lord’s bed. Once his father was in the earth she would be gone, and he cared not whether she went to her own father or the guest hall in Evesham Abbey.

‘But I do, and I say she stays.’ Hugh Bradecote stood in the doorway, Serjeant Catchpoll behind him. ‘Until this is ended and the killer of Osbern de Lench taken, she stays.’

‘Through what need? She could not have killed him. Look at her.’

Bradecote looked. She still looked younger than her years, and there was a birdlike fragility to her. Without taking his eyes from her he spoke to Baldwin.

‘Yet you say, as if it were fact, that your brother,’ and he intentionally omitted the half-blood relationship, ‘paid men to kill your sire but discount the lady? Why?’

‘Me? Kill my lord?’ The lady de Lench actually jumped at the suggestion. ‘What good could come to me from his death? What he threatens,’ she pointed at Baldwin, ‘is no more than I have always known he would do. I lose all.’

Catchpoll was looking at the pointing finger, or rather her wrist now showing from the sleeve of her gown. There was bruising upon it, the sort of bruising that would come from a very hard grip.

‘Where came you by the bruises, my lady?’ The serjeant had seen women over the years whose husbands treated them roughly, when in drink or from plain ill-temper, though of course in this case it might be they came from Baldwin the son, not Osbern the husband. What had passed before the sheriff’s men had arrived the day before was unknown, but unlikely to have been amicable, if Baldwin had been all too ready to hang the son of her body.

‘Oh, I am not sure. I am one who bruises at the slightest thing, and oft times forget whence they sprang.’ It was said airily.

It was the husband then, thought Catchpoll, but wondered if she protected the dead from fear of the living, or as something she could barter for Baldwin pressing the case less harshly against the young Hamo.

Bradecote’s thought was that she was not a good liar, which might assist them in other things.

‘What matter are her bruises when you are seeking my sire’s killer?’ Baldwin snarled. ‘I have given you all you need so why do you not—?’

‘You may leave the hall, and we will speak with the lady de Lench here or in her solar.’ Bradecote spoke with authority and made it hers still, at least until the body was buried. He also did not much like Baldwin de Lench, so annoying him was a pleasure. It certainly worked. The new lord of Lench grew very red in the face, opened his mouth as if to defy him, then saw the amusement on Catchpoll’s grizzled countenance. The man was clearly waiting for the entertainment. Well, he would not get it. Instead, Baldwin declared he would go to the Great Field and see how the harvesters progressed. If he was wanted then they must come to him there. It was the best he could do, and it was not much.