‘It cannot be true,’ she cried, running in a flurry of skirts to the body of her husband. She lifted the cloak that covered it and took the head in her hands, gazing at the face as if she expected him to speak. ‘Osbern. Osbern!’ Her voice rose, she let go of the cloth and stepped back very suddenly, crossing herself, and began to weep. Baldwin looked down upon her bent head.
‘Tears of grief, or of guilt, lady Mother?’ he asked softly, but she raised her head as quickly as if he had shouted at her. He always gave her the title with sarcasm, for she was perhaps no more than five years his senior.
‘What do you mean?’ Her hands, which had been clasped tightly together before her mouth, went to her breast. ‘What do you mean, Baldwin?’
‘I mean he wed you for your looks and to give him more children, and all you bore him was that whelp you dote upon. What sort of a wife does that make you? And where is Hamo himself?’
‘He is not here. He … he went out with his hawk this morning.’
‘Did he, indeed?’ Baldwin’s lip curled, and his face regained some of its colour. ‘And did he by chance go alone?’ Her face gave him all the answer he needed. ‘He did. How … interesting.’
‘You cannot imagine he would harm his father, mes … my lord,’ interjected Fulk the Steward, watching both of them.
‘No, not with his own hand. Too weak and watery for that, my little brother Hamo, but his hand might have given silver to others, yes?’ Baldwin dismounted now, taking his leg over his horse’s withers and jumping to the ground. His knees held firm. He drew back his cloak with what was almost a flourish, revealing Osbern de Lench bootless, swordless, and in only his undershirt and braies.
‘He was robbed? So close to home?’ The priest sounded amazed. ‘He was but going up the hill as always.’
‘Yes, “as always”. Everyone here knows he does … did so. No stranger would. So perhaps it was a great mischance and lawless men set upon him, having by some strange coincidence turned off the Evesham road to go up the hill, but I doubt it, I doubt it very much.’
The lady de Lench, apparently speechless, cast the steward an imploring look, and he shook his head.
‘But why? Why would any of Lench seek the death of the lord Osbern?’ Fulk, frowning in perplexity, voiced the question. The nods from the other villagers were designed to associate themselves with that question, but many were dwelling upon incidents when their lord had been far from popular. The lord Osbern in his ire had been free with boot or hand, even the flat of his sword, and his tongue scathing, even if half his swearing was in Foreign and its niceties lost upon them. There were also memories among some of the women of the man, in his youthful years especially, when handing out violence was not all he did; sometimes he took. Old resentments rose, old fears too, for although Osbern de Lench could hurt nobody now, his heir was in the same mould; moody, intolerant and physical. Perhaps it was not so much ‘why?’ as ‘why now?’. All the things that had caused mutterings and whispered oaths had gone on for ever, and there was nothing new or special. Besides, had not all been in the Great Field with the harvest? It could not be a villager, and of those who knew the lord Osbern’s habit of riding each day at the same hour to survey his land, there only remained the stripling, the younger son.
Baldwin de Lench said nothing. He glowered at them, daring them to think other than as he thought. He could not himself think why his half-brother would see their father dead, since it would profit him nothing, but there must be some cause, hidden like a snake in the long grass, that he could discover.
‘My lord,’ Father Matthias’s voice was soft, supplicating, ‘would you have the lord Osbern laid now in his hall or in the church?’
‘In the church.’ It was the lady who spoke, and she sounded surprisingly determined. ‘Its rebuilding meant so much to him, so very much. Take him there. I will come and do what is needed,’ she shuddered, ‘though it is a terrible thing to have to face.’
‘God will give you strength in this hour, my lady,’ assured the priest, ‘as he does to us all.’ He crossed himself yet again and, seeing that the lord Baldwin looked not so much grief-stricken as angry enough to commit murder himself, commenced an Ave Maria, which he hoped would give time for him to calm himself.
The villagers took up the familiar cadence, heads bowed, the lady de Lench began to weep again, and Baldwin muttered the prayer through gritted teeth. What Father Matthias dreaded was the swift return of Hamo de Lench from hawking. However godly a man, his added prayer was not heeded, for even as Fulk the Steward and the taller of the two hurdle bearers lifted the corpse from across Baldwin’s horse there came hoofbeats, and a dun pony was pulled up short in the bailey. The rider was small, still boy more than man, though he was beginning to broaden a little at the shoulder. His voice had broken but sounded as if he were as yet surprised at its depth, and there were odd notes to it. Hamo would have flung himself from his pony, had he not had his hawk upon his wrist. He was a solitary lad, who loved his hours with his bird of prey, and would as often go out alone as with
