‘My lord Hamo, it is your decision, but I doubt the lord Sheriff would object.’ Bradecote intentionally gave him his title and saw him wince at it. No, William de Beauchamp would not mind at all. What use to him was this strange young man who did not understand people, who looked at everything through unemotional eyes?
‘Then that is what I will do. I will go and write to the lord Sheriff. It seems fitting, and I will delay my journey to Evesham until my uncle takes seisin.’ With which he walked out, not glancing again at the body nor his mother.
‘And what of you, lady?’ Bradecote addressed the lady of Lench. He realised he had never heard her name.
‘I have already said that I will leave. I might return to my family, but then … I will not bear another child and lords want sons, as Hamo says. I have a cousin who was at Wherwell and escaped the burning. She is at Romsey now. It might be a better life.’ She did not seem to have very great expectations, but then it was one where she was not going to be bruised and beaten upon the anger of a violent man. Yes, it would be a better life, though what was uppermost in Hugh Bradecote’s mind was the image of the Sacrist of Romsey, and for the very first time since Ela died, he felt no twinge of guilt. What remained was a gratitude that he had met her and a prayerful thought that she prospered. His penance was complete.
‘Lay Baldwin in the solar. He can have it as his now, and the lord’s bed.’ The lady smiled gently, but her eyes held a victory in this, if in nothing else.
Fulk went silently to the priest and between them they carried the body to the solar. The lady nodded at the undersheriff.
‘I shall go to the church and pray … perhaps even for him. Come with me, Hild.’
The girl looked to her lady, and dipped in obedience and in obeisance to Bradecote, who thanked her and commended her for her skills. She blushed.
Thus within a few minutes the sheriff’s men were alone. Walkelin permitted himself a small groan.
‘Good. Now you have let that from you, no more complaining.’ Catchpoll did not look sympathetic. ‘At least it is all ended, and tidily so, all in all, my lord.’
‘Yes, but … the healing woman did not deserve her fate.’
‘Many a soul taken by a killer is not deserving of such an end, but God sees all, my lord, and I doubt not He looks kindly upon those who go to Him thus. And before you says it, no, we could not have foreseen it, not unless we had taken the lord Baldwin straight off, and without cause. I have been a-thinking it through whilst the maid tended you and though my head kept spinnin’.’
‘Are you sure, Catchpoll?’ Bradecote looked doubtful.
‘Aye, my lord, as sure as I can be. When we came here we got it wrong, and thought the lord Osbern was killed on his way down the hill, not on his way up, but even had we guessed so, and I cannot see how, it would not have helped us with his killer. We knew a bit after that his son, Baldwin, came to the harvesting not long afore the grey horse trotted home and was reported. Every action he took thereafter looked sound, and when we found out where he had been away, well, he would most like have come down from Alcester way and not ridden up over the top of that there hill to be in time to kill his sire. Nor did we have any reason for it, ’cepting they were tempersome bastards the both of ’em, and it was a cold-blooded killing, remember. No, we may not have liked him, but he was not our killer, not then. I grant that after finding the amber-bossed badge he looked likely, but Fulk was the more so, and it was then the healing woman met a sudden end. Fulk, well, he betrayed his lord, and betraying even a hard lord is a grievous thing. He had good cause to kill to save his skin. Meanwhile the lord Baldwin’s lies were not wild, nor easy to see as falsehood.’
‘And then there was the lord Parler, and not knowing all about him. That did not help. It all made the thing hard to untangle.’ Walkelin had no regrets about how they had dealt with the killing of Osbern de Lench.
‘We are finding excuses,’ bemoaned Bradecote, ever one for self-blame.
‘No, my lord, we are not. We are finding reasons, and I will put it down, charitable-like, that your paining wound makes you think wrong on it.’ Catchpoll gave his superior a not unkind look, which from the sergeant was nigh on a benediction. ‘It seems simple now, after it is over, to see it all, like a map laid out clear. Baldwin de Lench feared he would be declared a bastard by his father unless he married the woman chosen for him, and just when his Evesham lover was with child. He was angry and he was afraid, and when he met Osbern heading up the hill to his favourite spot, that anger led to a killing. Baldwin is the rash sort, so to imagine he had the clear head to take his father’s place on the hilltop,
