‘Aye, done us a favour has that.’ Catchpoll nodded. ‘And we discounts Ulf Shortfinger and all the family, for the way they was rings true, and the only men as would not need to explain bein’ there would be them. Neither need nor wish could there be to kill.’

  ‘True enough, though one of them might have seen the priest with the cat, and another watching him. It still leaves us with plenty to do on the morrow. It has to be one of no more than fifteen or sixteen, even including striplings, but since the treasure was never in the oldmother’s home, whoever killed her is still seeking it, and everyone is at some risk.’ This worried the undersheriff. ‘Catchpoll, Selewine the Reeve really did not want you to believe his son, which makes me wonder, in view of this death.’

  ‘Aye, my lord, we needs to find out exactly where Master Reeve was all day today, and after noontide the day the priest were killed. I did not detect any great panic in ’is voice when he spoke of the priest and cat, but that need not be a proof. It is work for the morrow, once latches is lifted.’

  ‘And Thorgar? It was the reeve as made the decision.’ Walkelin did not think the ploughman was forgotten, but this new death put his more to the edge of their investigation.

  ‘He could not have known that Thorgar would find the priest. That was chance.’ Bradecote was firm on that. ‘But it would be to his advantage if the whole matter were seen as over and done with swiftly and tidily.’

  ‘Would that be murder, then, my lord. Getting a man you knows to be innocent strung up for your crime?’ Walkelin was curious.

  ‘Morally, I cannot see it as anything else, but in terms of the King’s laws, I simply do not know, Walkelin. I am not a Justice in Eyre.’

  ‘Nor me, my lord, but I ’as seen the Justices at work these twenty years and more, and I thinks they would see a man usin’ the Law as a weapon, and if that makes them as fair angry as it does me, they would see it as much murder as if the man used a knife.’

  ‘True enough, Catchpoll. What I can say is it would remove one obstacle to his wedding Osgyth.’

  ‘I thinks the biggest obstacle to that, my lord, is, and will ever be, Osgyth ’erself.’ Catchpoll permitted himself a small smile.

  ‘He was very keen to see us looking for someone outside the village.’ Bradecote was collating all the circumstantial evidence in his head. ‘I was interested in his reaction, and he was quick to create a diversion. Yes, the reeve is now one we watch closely, and into whose recent actions we delve into deeply, for I do not think we have so much that he would be bound to admit his guilt, or his oath swearers desert him.’ He sighed.

  ‘Once we has food in our bellies and a night’s sleep, my lord, we can ferret out more.’ Catchpoll was philosophical.

  ‘Let us hope so, Catchpoll.’

  Selewine the Reeve was grim-faced as he knocked upon the door. He had not planned to return for several days, but the death of Oldmother Agatha changed things. The village was in uproar and folk were frightened. This household would be no different, and they lacked any protection. He could offer that, and it would be the tipping point that would have Osgyth say yes. He had seen Osgyth in a huddle with the other young women of the village, no doubt exchanging opinions on the killing, which would give him the chance to speak with Winflæd alone. It did not surprise him that the door was not answered swiftly.

  ‘Oh, it is you Selewine.’ Winflæd did not look very eager to let him in.

  ‘Come on, Win, you ain’t afraid of me, and it’s about your safety I am come to see you.’ The expression on his face softened slightly, but was still solemn.

  Winflæd took a pace back and opened the door. He stepped within. The child Baldred was curled up on the bed, and the younger two were prodding woodlice, watching them curl into little armoured balls, strangely like their bigger brother.

  ‘What ails the boy?’ Selewine asked, jerking his head towards the bed. ‘Not catchin’, is it?’

  ‘No. I think the loss of ’is brother struck a cruel blow, especially since Baldred were the one as always walked at the oxen’s side and helped in their care. Made the bond stronger.’ Winflæd looked at her son, and the worry was clear on her face.

  As long as no risk of contagion existed, Selewine was no longer very interested in Baldred.

  He did not ask permission to sit, but took a stool and did so anyway, with a touch of having the right to do it. Winflæd sat slowly and eased herself back against the plank that made hers a chair.

  ‘Look, Win, I am no fool. I knows that Osgyth would not choose me, but she is young and full of dreams. We both of us knows dreams disappear in the cold of dawn, and reality alone stays. What I said this mornin’ is even more important now. Oldmother Agatha has been killed, and the lord Undersheriff says as it is to do with The Priest’s Treasure, and your Thorgar brought it up with the ploughshare. None of us is safe, not while there be someone seekin’ it, and especially not you, as Thorgar’s family. Remember what fallin’ out were caused years back when a single bronze pin were found in the north field? Of itself it were worth but a pair of silver pennies, but for weeks everyone watched close every time a neighbour bent down within reach of another’s strip of earth, and my father had almost to step in and break up fights. That were but one pin, and now we knows The Treasure itself ’as been found. The lord Undersheriff can announce that the silver chalice is rightly back with the lord Bishop and that whatever small items is left belong to King Stephen and must be handed over, but who in Ripple believes there be but a few silver pennies or a brooch? Everyone knows the hoard contained everything the folk of the parish, not just Ripple itself, thought the Danes would steal, every silver penny, gown pin, ring or torc. To a king it would be but nothing, and nothing is what the King will see, mark my words, but to any of us … Such wealth makes good neighbours into enemies. Thorgar brought up The Treasure, and kept quiet about it, but someone found out, and that led to both Father Edmund’s death and, by a twist of wyrd, his own. Now Oldmother Agatha is dead. Do you want Osgyth, or your boys to be next? You cannot protect them, nor yourself. I can. If you were a few years younger and not crippled, I would be content with you, Win, for you were a comely woman once, but Osgyth has to be told the realities and set dreams aside.’

  Winflæd was actually several years younger than Selewine, but painfully aware that her disability made her an object of pity to some neighbours and avoided as one who had been God-cursed by others. She already felt guilt that Osgyth bore so much of the household duties, and now she would be asked to accept a man she despised because her mother was crippled and aged beyond her years.

  ‘I cannot force her to accept you, Selewine, and it would be easier if you did not always treat her as you do, knowing it angers her.’

  ‘As for that, she likes to show spirit, and it is all in jest.’ He brushed the idea way with a gesture of his hand. ‘And you can make her see reason. She is a dutiful daughter, when all be said, and will not see the family starve in the longer term, nor face violence in the shorter. Send ’er to me tomorrow with the answer.’

  Selewine got up and left, well pleased with himself, and in a dutiful mood decided that as the village reeve, he would rise early next morning and knock upon the door of the few households without a man, to check all was well. Winflæd, however, rocked in her chair and wept, watched by the pale-faced boy who curled even tighter upon the bed and whimpered.

  Walkelin awoke before his superiors, and not just because he did not have the benefit of a proper bed. Father Ambrosius, upon his return from comforting the living and praying for the dead, would not hear of sleeping in his own cot, and insisted that Serjeant Catchpoll took it, while the other remained for the use of the lord Undersheriff. He had therefore taken his blanket and slept the other side of the hearth to Walkelin. The small black cat, which had been proved innocent of any involvement in Oldmother Agatha’s death, had slipped in with him when he had returned, and curled up between him and the hearth, and drifted into slumber with a low, consistent purring. Father Ambrosius regarded the hardship engendered by this charitable act as good for his soul, even if not for the quality of his slumbers. However, the priest had in fact fallen asleep quite swiftly, and had been found to be a snorer. It was not so loud as to rouse the other two, but Walkelin, already tracing strands of thought through his head, found it intrusive. When he finally slept, his dreams were troubled, and he awoke feeling jaded. He sat up, easing his neck and shoulders. Those with proper beds were not yet stirring, and he decided it was best not to shake shoulders.

  Bradecote and Catchpoll actually roused when Father Ambrosius went to his first private prayers of the day, kneeling before the cross on the bed end wall of the house. The prayers were murmured, but enough to bring both serjeant and undersheriff to consciousness.

  Walkelin, his thoughts filed, stood up, casting the rough blanket from him. He poked the last embers of the fire with his foot, but they steadfastly refused to show any greater signs of life.

  Catchpoll, stifling his morning grumble in view of the priest’s prayers, got up a little stiffly from the cot, and pulled his boots onto feet that had grown cold in the night. He came to stand on the edge of the hearthstone, hoping it might hold some residual heat that would pass through the soles of his boots.

  ‘Serjeant, I was thinkin’ afore I slept.’ Walkelin spoke barely above a whisper so as not to disturb the prayers.

  ‘Glad to hear it, unless it were about that Eluned of yours back in Worcester. Them thoughts is best kept to yourself.’ Catchpoll rubbed his hands together, chafing them.

  ‘No, though that would be nice.’ Walkelin blushed and smiled, though the smile faded. ‘We said yesterday that the killer has to be someone of Ripple, but we really means in Ripple. We knows …’ he remembered Father Ambrosius saying he was part of Selewine’s kindred, and decided not to name the reeve, just in case, ‘our most likely man, but would it not be wrong to discount the treewright and his son? They ’ad been in the village a week when the priest were killed, and lodge with Tofi, so who is to say that old tales was not told to them as they sat about the fire? They could have come to know of the silver and of the priest lookin’ after it. We just thought that when the priest yelled at Tofi’s door, in Welsh, ’e were complainin’ about Pryderi not bein’ at work and ale-sodden, but that need not have been in Welsh. Why did ’e use Welsh that others could not understand? It niggles me like a sore tooth, do that.’

  ‘To show off, mayhap?’ Catchpoll did not offer this up with confidence. ‘You is right that we must not discount the pair of ’em, though.’

  ‘Discount who?’ Bradecote, who had been sat upon his bed, pulling on his own boots and gathering his thoughts, drew close. He had not fully heard all that had been spoken.

  ‘Pryderi and his son, my lord,’ answered Walkelin. He repeated his reasoning.

  ‘Ah. Well, you go and speak with them, Walkelin, as soon as they go to their work.’ Bradecote went to the door and opened it to the burgeoning light of an early spring morn, and the innocence of birdsong. The air was cold but smelt fresh, especially after the staleness of a chamber with four men and a hearth fire.

  ‘And I was wonderin’ how we is to speak with each family when they is all in the fields again, my lord. Does we ask each where their cott stands in the village?’ Catchpoll could foresee some confusion.

  ‘I thought of that before I slept, Catchpoll. All I need is a stick.’

  ‘A walking staff, my lord?’ Walkelin looked puzzled.

  ‘No, Walkelin, just a good, pointed end of a thin branch, strong enough for me to draw in the earth with it. I will draw in where the oak stands, and the church, and this house, and then Oldmother Agatha’s. Each household can point to where they live, and I draw a square on the earth. That way we literally build a picture.’

  ‘Now, I would never have thought of that.’ Father Ambrosius crossed himself and rose to his feet, then turned to look at them. The black hair about his tonsure stuck out at very strange angles, and made him even more heron-like than usual.

  ‘Father, we would not ask you to break the seal of the Confession, but you are almost the only man in Ripple we know to have nothing to do with the killing of Oldmother Agatha. You know these people, so if anything strikes you as odd in their behaviour, be extra eyes and ears for us and tell us, please.’ Bradecote spoke earnestly. ‘It need not be that they are the killer, but perhaps they are afraid because they have a suspicion and dare not speak with us. Encourage them to do so, because while it is only known to them they are at risk. A man who would attack a defenceless old woman will harm anyone he fears will give him away, even if he is mistaken.’

  ‘Oh dear, yes. It still seems beyond belief that any of my parishioners could have done such a thing, but it must be so.’

  ‘Thank you.’ There was a pause. ‘What sort of man is Selewine? I ask because he is the reeve and might also be more likely to know all the undercurrents in the village, but might he be so close to everyone that he would be reluctant to give us information?’ Bradecote thought this might glean more than a more direct question, and felt rather than heard Catchpoll’s slight sigh of relief.

  ‘As I told your underserjeant here, I am by way of kindred. My father was his father’s younger brother, so he is my sweor, though I am a few years older than he is, for he and Tofi came late as sons, after daughters and babes that died. He and Tofi are both like their father, very aware of the status of reeve, even if Tofi does not hold the position. I have even heard him call himself “Reevesbrother”. Such foolishness. They set much store by the position and the power in the village, but then they have rarely gone further than Tewkesbury and think Ripple far more important than it is in the shire. They value power more than true friendship, I think, and are not even close as brothers, alas. I do not think you need worry that Selewine will conceal knowledge if he has information that would see one of his neighbours hang. After all, he showed no compunction with poor Thorgar.’

  ‘Yes, that makes sense. Thank you, Father.’ Bradecote was now wondering even more whether Selewine might offer up another to pay a blood debt that he himself owed, and whether that might lead them to incontrovertible proof of his guilt.

  Walkelin almost sauntered through the churchyard, as casual as though he had been given leave of absence for the day and was wondering what to do. However, the treewright and his son were not in their temporary workshop, so his feigned insouciance was wasted. The only persons in view were industriously digging a grave in the far north-west corner of the churchyard and were already only visible from the chest upwards. Walkelin smiled to himself. That would not be the grave for the respected oldmother. Father Ambrosius could not refuse to bury his brother priest within consecrated ground, but he was ensuring that he was as far from the sanctity of the east end as possible. No crime had been proven, nor even charged, but it made a statement that all Ripple would understand, and applaud. Walkelin entered the church, the door’s creak amplified by the acoustics of the space, but the voices he could hear did not alter and evidently had not heard him. He went forward towards the chancel and from the corner of his eye noticed the stretcher with a blanket cast over it just inside and to the left side at the back of the church. There was a shrouded body on trestles in the chancel, and for a moment Walkelin wondered whether the priest, however disgraced, still took precedence over the blameless parishioner. The voices, with the distinct cadences of Welsh clear even before he could make out words, came from the north porticus, a small chamber like a stunted transept. Pryderi was up a ladder held in place by his son, and driving home pegs into a half-lap joint where the rotten end of a tie beam had been replaced.

  ‘Bore da,’ called Walkelin, in a friendly tone.

  The ‘bore da’ that came as the reply was an automatic ‘good morning’ from men concentrating on their task and not thinking about who was addressing them. Walkelin, whose understanding of Welsh was improving, thanks to his wife, still had a very limited vocabulary in which terms of endearment predominated, which made continuing in the language impossible. He held up his hand as a phrase he did not understand was spoken, and excused himself, and then Pryderi looked down properly.

  ‘Oh, ’tis you, Underserjeant. Sorry, I thought – where did you learn “good morning”?’

  ‘My wife is Welsh.’

  ‘Got good taste, then.’ Pryderi sounded just a little more friendly and perhaps willing to speak.

  ‘I thought you was not workin’ inside until after the burial.’ Walkelin did not specify which of the two burials that were now needed.

  ‘Father Ambrosius said as we could, and the old soul’s son did not mind, for we is so behind with our work. She lies peaceful enough before the altar and will not hear us. We said a prayer for ’er too, when we began today.’

  ‘So the priest is the one back—’ Walkelin jerked a thumb towards the west end of the church.

  ‘Oh yes. Father Ambrosius said some prayers over him yestereve, as we was told, and then ’ad the body moved and the oldmother lies altar-ward. As soon as them outside can dig a grave deep enough, the priest will be buried with due ceremony and no mourners. Whole village will come for the next one.’

  ‘Can you come down to answer a question?’

  This time Pryderi paused before speaking.

  ‘What more could we say? This is not our village and we know none, beyond Tofi’s family, and not even everyone by sight.’

  ‘We wants to know why you did not mention that Father Edmund was Welsh.’ Walkelin did not split hairs and say ‘half-Welsh’, in part to find out whether the treewright considered the man Welsh enough to count as a countryman.