Season of the Raven (A Servant of the Crown Mystery Book 1) (23 page)

"When I think of Halbert's death, I understand the need for his blood to be shed. The one who killed the miller had once loved Agnes, and had put his former love into Halbert's protection, only to have Halbert betray him with his drunken violence. I can only think this was the reason the man dressed Halbert in the tunic Agnes had given him as a wedding present. Perhaps that garment was a symbol of what Halbert had done to earn his death.

"But when I see Halbert beneath the wheel, I get trapped by the thought that he was put there after death so that Halbert's family might be destroyed as well. This, when I am certain Stephen participated in his father's death. I cannot understand why he agreed to assist in his father's murder, when the cost of the deodand for the wheel would send his family into penury."

"Not likely," Alf laughed. "Paying that deodand might well have pinched Stephen some, but it would hardly have stolen the food from his table."

Faucon frowned. "What do you mean? I thought the wheel needed to be given to the Church for cleansing, and a new one built to replace it."

Alf was still smiling. "Perhaps that is how it works in some vales, but that is not how I've ever seen it happen. Aye, if the deodand is a small item, say a woodcutter's axe or the awl used on Halbert, then the Church takes it and a fee is charged. But that amount is usually nothing, a farthing or two. Something large or immovable, like a well in which a man drowns, is different. The owner is required to pay the value of the item as assessed by the inquest jury, then a priest comes to cleanse it while it remains where it is."

"But, the value—" Faucon started.

Alf held up his hand. "Let me finish, for this is the piece that you, being no commoner, will have missed. If you think any member of that jury is going to ruin his neighbor for the benefit of either the Church or crown, you are sorely mistaken. Those times that I have participated in juries that value deodand, I have every time confirmed a value for the item that is but a shadow of its true cost."

Faucon stared at Alf, hearing again the subtle laughter that rippled over the inquest jury as Stephen protested how the cost of the deodand would ruin him. Halbert was put beneath the wheel for the exact reason that Faucon had stared at all day: to disguise the fact that he'd been murdered.

"Mother of God. A simple, drunken accident, one that wouldn't even raise eyebrows in the village. At almost no cost to himself, Stephen allows another man to take his father's life, thereby winning this one's favor. And Agnes is freed from the trap of her marriage."

Here he paused to look at Alf. "Only there never was a trap for Agnes, was there? You are leaving Priors Holston too soon, you know. I'm told that Halbert committed his will to parchment a few weeks ago."

Alf kept his gaze focused on the road. "Did he? What import has that for me?" His voice was even, his tone seemingly uninterested.

"I thought we were speaking honestly. You are Halbert's elder son," Faucon replied.

This time when the former soldier looked at him, he smiled. The spread of his lips was slow, and it didn't stop until he was full-out grinning. In doing so, he revealed a line of healthy teeth which had the same snaggled arrangement Faucon had noticed in Halbert's mouth.

"Not just the elder, but his only legitimate son," Alf replied. "My mother still lives, and, as she never sought to claim Halbert dead after he abandoned us, she is yet Halbert's true wife. Or rather, his widow."

That made Stephen Halbert's bastard, and Agnes a wife who never was. Halbert's marriage was a secret he had never shared, not even with Agnes' former lover, the man who had once been his commander and had led him into the Holy Land. It explained why Halbert had told the village he would not remarry. He had risked all when he'd pretended to wed Cissy, wanting the mill, and the comfortable life it represented, more than he feared discovery.

"Halbert recognized you when you came to Priors Holston?" Faucon wanted to know.

"Nay. Nor did I wish him to know me. I had followed his trail from place to place, even to the Holy Land, as you have learned. By the time my troop had left the blood of Acre behind us and King Richard was marching us past the walls of Jerusalem, I'd long since begun to doubt if the man who sired me was worthy of discovery." Again he fell silent.

"Then you followed him to Priors Holston, and found him living a life of luxury at the mill with his son, his bastard. What then?" Faucon prodded.

"Then I doubted no longer. However humble, my uncle's cottage was a far more cheerful place in which to live than the miller's fine abode." As he spoke, Alf kept his gaze focused on the road ahead.

"Yet you remained in the village. You worked with him for a full year. And in all that time you never told Halbert who you were?" Faucon pressed.

Alf shot him a laughing, sidelong look. "I never said that. A moment arose. We spoke. He was surprised that I would come without ambition and ask for nothing from him save the chance to know him."

"And then what happened?" Faucon wanted to know.

"What happened is that the next day I still called him 'Master' and life went on as it had. Now he's gone, and my life is no longer cluttered with musings about who sired me. Although I must admit I find myself at loose ends. I've come to enjoy milling."

"Then you are walking in the wrong direction," Faucon replied with a laugh. "But this is a discussion for the morrow. For the now, come with me to Blacklea, my new home, and take your ease. I will see that you eat well in the kitchen—I was told there would be mutton tonight—and you may take your rest in my hall. Stay the day tomorrow. If sunset on the morrow still finds you yet at loose ends, I will bid you good journey and see you on your way." Once again, Alf offered him that grin. "As you chided me, sir, I must now chide you. I thought we were speaking as honest men here. Say what you mean. Tell me you need me to stay for your own purposes."

"I very much need you to stay for my own purposes," Faucon repeated, liking Alf well indeed. "I yet have details to puzzle out before I can finish this."

"Then you are resolved to expose the one who used that awl on Halbert last night?"

Faucon nodded. "I am. But such a man as this one will not easily fall. I cannot think that tomorrow will offer me any success. Instead I suspect his exposure may be years in coming despite my best efforts. After all, there are no witnesses to what happened, save one who cannot speak because he participated. I cannot act against this man if all I do is
believe
I know what he has done."

"Ah, belief," Alf laughed. "That is precisely why you find me here on the road. I am a newcomer to Priors Holston. I do not believe that I can recruit enough men from the village to swear to my innocence, should someone with a stronger purpose wish to prove me guilty. If I cannot do that, then I will likely hang."

He grinned again. "And that, Sir Crowner, I am not ready to do."

Upon their return to Blacklea, Faucon went with Alf to the kitchen to see he got his meal, only to discover that Sir John and Lady Marian had requested he join them for their evening repast. Although there wasn't time for another bath, he did shed his under-armor and dress in his best. As he unrolled the garments from the protection of the oiled skin, he almost laughed. How this day had changed him! His fine linen shirt and dark green floor-length gown with its golden trim—the precious threads embroidered onto the garment by his lady mother's needle—didn't look nearly as rich as the attire Stephen Miller had worn this day.

Following the cook's directions, stopping only at the laundry to ask the washerwomen to see to his under-armor cleaned for the morrow, he walked from the stone manor house to a cottage half the size of Halbert's fine home. Despite that difference, there were similarities.

A curtain divided the home's single room into public and private areas. If there was no fine cabinet, a good number of wooden shelves filled the walls near the hearth end of the house, each one piled high with well-made bowls or carved wooden spoons or some other sort of dining utensil. As in the miller's home, there was a loft—the space that Robert had claimed as his own and now had to share with Mimi. The ladder that led up to this loft wasn't nearly as fine as the miller's.

And just as in Halbert's house, a table sat at the center of the dwelling. However, this table, presently dressed with a white tablecloth, was meant to be disassembled when not in use. If it weren't, there'd be no easy passage from one side of the cottage to the other.

The family had waited for him, the evening's mutton stew kept warm on the hearthstone at the kitchen end of the room. Although it was but a cottage, Marian hadn't dismissed the niceties required of a meal. Looking the sober housewife dressed in a blue gown over a pale green undergown, her head covered in a plain white wimple, she showed him the bowl and aquamanile so he could wash his hands. When he was done, she offered a fresh cloth for drying them, then led him to the place of honor at their table.

Marian's husband sat at the opposite end. Blacklea's former steward was a man more than two times Faucon's age, his skin beaten to leather by time and the elements. Although the older knight's hair and beard still owned a youthful thickness, they were white as deepest winter. He was a big man, but pain had eaten him to just bones. Faucon could see that in the shadows hanging below his pale eyes and the hollows in his cheeks.

The table was set with wooden trenchers to hold the bread that would absorb the night's stew. As the guest of honor, Faucon used the household's finest cup for his watered wine. It was a pretty metal affair, chased with silver. Sir John and Marian shared a small wooden mazer, while Mimi and Robert made do with a worn wooden cup between them.

At first, the children peppered him with questions about the day and the dead miller. Since good manners required a guest to entertain his hosts in payment for his meal, Faucon did his best to make his story worthy of their hospitality, holding back only what he could not yet share. Once he finished, a squabble broke out between the children over the cup. This resulted in them being banished to the loft, although the punishment didn't seem to sting too sharply. Whispering and quiet laughter soon descended from their gaol.

"That's quite the tale, Sir Faucon," Sir John said, his voice deep but quiet. "I think Lord Rannulf will be glad he gave you the position the bishop wanted for him."

The older knight paused, his gaze on his guest. "And I think I am glad that you are the one who will now guide Blacklea. My time here was finished before you came." His final word caught in his mouth as he flinched.

Marian, who sat around the corner of the table from him, reached out to touch his hand. "Shift your legs a little, my love," she said.

He shot her a quick sidelong look. "I am not a child to be ordered about," he retorted, but there was affection in his tone. Moreover, he did as she said, although he had to use his hands to reposition his legs.

Once he was again comfortable on the collapsible stool which served him this night, he offered Faucon a weary smile. "Last year, I fell from my horse. It was a ridiculous accident, one I couldn't repeat if I tried. Since that day, my lower limbs seek to fall from their sockets, running like rats from burning thatch. I have outlived my body."

"Hush," Marian commanded. Fear and grief filled her gaze. "You know I don't like to hear that."

Her husband took her hand, placed a kiss on her fingers, then released her. "Go," he told his wife. "See to those hellions of ours. Sir Faucon and I have matters to discuss regarding the management of Blacklea."

She made an irritable sound. "I am not diverted."

"Pardon, Lady Marian," Faucon said. "Before you go, I'm wondering if you—or perhaps you, Sir John—can help me. I'm yet seeking the name of the knight or baron who might have kept Agnes of Stanrudde as his leman. Is there any chance you know?"

"I wouldn't," Sir John said. "Although I came here more than ten years ago, I am still considered an outsider. No one shares gossip with us newcomers, as you may already know. What of you, my sweet? You were raised in this shire."

Marian laughed. "Aye, I was raised in the shire, but in the wrong class for Sir Faucon to be asking me about the doings of knights."

She looked at Faucon, still smiling. "My father is a wool merchant in Coventry. All I know of Stanrudde, outside of the fact that I love going into the city on market day, is that my father thought the world of a wool merchant who lives there, by the name of Peter. Now it is my turn to ask something of you."

"Marian!" Sir John protested.

"Nay, I must ask him," she almost begged. "I cannot feel comfortable on the road with only a few serving men to see to our safety."

"He owes us nothing." Sir John held up a forestalling hand, but he might as well have been trying to command the tide to recede. His wife opened her mouth to argue, fierce determination filling her eyes.

"I may not owe you anything," Faucon dared to interrupt, "but I would hear the request. Please allow your wife to continue, sir."