‘And was learning the sum of all he did? I cannot believe the lord Osbern would see that as a day-long task.’
‘Mostly, by then, for his father was stiff of joints and sometimes unable to stand all day, so Fulk gave up his hours with …’ Her eyes widened a little, as she saw a trap looming. ‘His hours with those labouring.’ It was not the real answer.
‘How many men-at-arms did your lord keep?’ Bradecote asked, softly, and she reddened to the roots of her hair.
Catchpoll gave a faint sigh of pleasure. This was serjeanting craft.
‘The marks upon your arm, lady, came from being held, held hard.’ Bradecote suddenly lunged forward and took her by the wrist, not too tightly, but watching the instinctive cringing and pulling back, and the fear in her eyes. ‘Yes, you are not unused to such treatment.’ He let her go. ‘Osbern had a temper, as we see in Baldwin, and you say he was not a man as was liked. He was a man who hit and held, wasn’t he.’ It was a statement, and she merely nodded, and rubbed at her wrist as if also from habit.
‘I failed him,’ she whispered. ‘I failed him in sons, and I failed him in spirit. He wanted what I could not provide and what I could not be. I think … I think he wanted the wife he had lost, though it was a tempestuous marriage, from what I gathered. Yet when he selected me it was, my mother told me, because I would cause no trouble and be biddable.’ She sighed. ‘Perhaps he did not know what he wanted. Sometimes he was angry because I was quiet, sometimes because I made some mild comment. It was never right.’
‘You must have felt very alone.’
‘Yes, I suppose so. I did not question it.’
‘And Fulk the Steward tried to protect you?’
‘Protect me?’ She gave a shrill laugh. ‘If he had he would have been dead years ago. Osbern had his rights and would brook no interference with them.’
‘So if he did not protect, did he solace?’ There was no judgement in the question.
‘He was there. That is what meant something. It was as though there was something at my back so that I would not fall backwards into an abyss.’
‘Strange. I had not seen Fulk in the light of a listener.’ Bradecote raised a brow.
‘Listener? Not really, but listening to him, just him saying that what had happened was wrong … it made it easier. If it had been right, normal, natural, then I could not have borne it for all these years.’
‘Fulk must have been angered at times, not being able to protect you as he wished, being only able to speak freely with you when your lord, and his, was up the hill. At least it was at the same time, almost every day. It was your time, yes? To do with as you willed.’ There was no implication that what they willed involved adultery, for if it had been there, she would have heard his disapproval. It was not just a morality about adultery, but about lordship, and the trust within it. For some men it was one way, as with Osbern and the women in his manor, but Hugh Bradecote saw it as a mutual bond. Breaking it broke more than a commandment.
The lady de Lench lowered her gaze anyway, and her hands found each other for support.
‘When you last saw your lord alive, there were hot words, even from you, words that sent young Hamo away to avoid them, and more than words. Your skin tells us that. What was it that caused such heat on both sides?’
‘I suggested to my lord that it would be better that Baldwin married and sired sons than did not wed at all.’
‘You would have had him bring the tradesman’s daughter as lady?’ The undersheriff was surprised. ‘Even your son thinks that would be demeaning the name of the lords of Lench.’
‘Yes. I have not so great a feeling for the name, since it was imposed upon me by my marriage, yet is strange that Hamo has found within himself that much blood. But he is thinking one way only. If he thought more then he would see the advantage to himself. Baldwin has but to sire a son and he can go to the monks and be safe.’
‘You thought he was not?’
‘No. Yes. I mean the bad feeling between Hamo and Baldwin has been greater of late. What you saw over the box, well, it might have happened at any time, and had you not been there, Baldwin would have killed him and been able to say he was but defending himself against a man gone mad with rage.’
Bradecote was a little surprised. He had not thought the lady had much beyond a sad and pretty face. She saw more than expected. It was a sound enough conclusion to reach.
‘So you would see Baldwin happy to save your son.’
‘Hamo is the only child I will ever bear. I would give my life itself for him, however so strange he may be.’
‘And Osbern saw it as what? Betrayal?’
‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘He said I was disobedient and disloyal. Said I betrayed him and there was no greater sin in a wife. Then he held me, hard, and said it again, very deliberately. I thought he …’ She looked frightened, the ghost of the fear Osbern must have seen. There was a silence, and then, slowly, Bradecote asked the question at long last.
‘Had he cause, lady?’
‘He had cause. God in Heaven forgive me, he had cause.’ She bowed her head in shame and began to weep, softly. ‘It was comfort and meaning something to someone.’
‘And so when Fulk came you told him what had passed between you.’ She nodded her answer. ‘And was it he or you who decided that the only way to protect you both was to kill Osbern de Lench?’
‘No!’ Her head rose instantly, and
