‘Yes, my lord, at once.’ Walkelin looked to Catchpoll. ‘Can you tell me where to find the Widow Brook, serjeant?’
‘Aye, I can that. I will come with you to saddle up, if my lord gives leave.’
Bradecote nodded, told him to return to the solar, where he would be speaking with the lady, and belatedly wondered why Catchpoll was being so deferential. Then he saw Baldwin de Lench in the doorway. Catchpoll was wily, insubordinate and sometimes outright disobedient, but he knew the value of everyone respecting the office of undersheriff, and he would play the game to accentuate the idea that his superior must be obeyed. No doubt he also had other instructions for Walkelin on how to conduct his meeting with the leman.
‘Need this man remain in my hall?’ Baldwin pointed at the injured man. He sounded as if Edgar were an unpleasant smell. To annoy him, Bradecote looked at the girl.
‘What would you say, Healer?’ He could give her the title but calling her Mistress would sound as if he spoke in jest and also feel foolish. She would need some years yet to earn that.
‘I …’ She wavered, but found that the lord undersheriff’s gaze, and his addressing her with a title, could give a girl courage. ‘I would say, my lord, that he could be brought to Mo … the Healer’s house, and I would care for him there. In a day or two, why then he might go on to Flavel, if he finds a cart going there, or walks slowly, and with a stick. The legs are strong, and ’tis but the breathing that will be hard at first.’
‘Then there is your answer, de Lench. Your Healer says he can be moved, so move him, but gently and under her guidance.’ Bradecote hid a smile. Baldwin de Lench would not like that, not one bit. Without looking at the lord, however, he thanked the girl and went to the solar door, opening it as one with the right.
The lady de Lench was sat upon her chair, and from the size of it Bradecote thought it had always been the lady’s seat. Hamo was on his knees upon the floor, which made the undersheriff’s brows rise, but then he saw that he was taking his pieces of vellum and arranging them in some order which was meaningful to him. He glanced up at Bradecote, hunched a shoulder and resumed his task.
‘Perhaps you should take those to the priest, messire.’ Bradecote wanted him gone, for it was hardly likely that he would find out anything about the mother and her relationship with the steward when the son was in the chamber.
‘Father Matthias does not need to read them. He knows the words. I am missing one, missing the commandment of the Lord Christ, the one to love one another. It is very hard to do. I do not love Baldwin. I try to do so, but I fail and so I ask forgiveness for it.’
‘It might be still in the priest’s house, fallen upon the floor and in a corner. You ought to look for it.’ Bradecote was all helpfulness.
‘Yes, but if he had found it, the good father would have brought it to me.’
‘Indeed, but remember he has been looking only to the body of Winflaed the Healer and praying for her soul, as we will also.’ Countering logic with logic looked most likely to have an effect, and Hamo certainly looked more pensive than aggrieved.
‘Yes. The potions she made were often foul to the taste, but she intended nothing but good. Murder is against God’s commandment, but some seem most specially wicked. I will pray for her too.’
‘I suggest that if you go and look for your missing vellum and then go to the church, your prayers and those of Father Matthias will ascend together.’
Hamo wavered, sat back upon his haunches, and then, gathering his neat piles together, he rose.
‘Mother, you will keep these for me? The box is broken but if you place a pebble upon the top they will not become disordered, and Baldwin does not come in here.’
‘I will keep them.’ She smiled at the youth, who returned the smile, but as though mirroring it rather than feeling it within himself. He left, and she sighed, turning to the undersheriff. ‘You cannot think he would harm his sire, nor poor Winflaed, my lord.’
‘I think it unlikely, I grant, but I have seen also how he can be killing-mad upon a cause most would think should merely give rise to shouting or a raised fist. You cannot deny that he would have killed Baldwin in the hall, had he been able.’
‘But …’
‘He would not kill in cold blood, I am sure of it, but if he snaps as he did over the box, nothing is beyond him.’ Bradecote realised he was making an even better case for Hamo’s innocence. Neither killing bore any sign of rage in the attack, nor an attempt at defence, which being advanced upon by a man behaving like a crazed fiend would have made certain. ‘I am not here now to talk of your son but of your steward.’
‘He is a good man.’
Her words were guarded, and Bradecote noted she did not give him his name. Was that intentionally stepping back? He did not challenge her but decided to seek at least some of his answers by a different path. He heard Catchpoll enter behind him but did not turn round.
‘Tell me about him. Is he the steward by inheritance, following his father?’
‘Yes, this I know for sure, since he was not steward when I came here to wed. He was learning, had learnt from boyhood, but his father was
