“Good night, my lord.”
Without speaking again to Hugh, the bishop walked regally out of the chapel.
“You put his back up,” Gervase said to Hugh.
“I don’t think it was the suggestion of murder that offended him as much as it was the suggestion that the murder of a mere knight could in some way be connected with the murder of an earl,” Hugh returned cynically.
The sheriff sighed. “You may be right. The bishop comes from a very noble family, something he never forgets.” He touched Hugh’s arm lightly. “Come, you and I had better be going as well.”
Hugh nodded, and the two men left the chapel, closing the door behind them on John Rye and his eternal sleep.
The streets of Lincoln were quiet as Hugh made his way alone toward the sheriff’s house. The only activity in town seemed to be at the Nettle, where a number of the camp-ball champions were getting noisily and rambunctiously drunk.
Gervase had excused himself from accompanying Hugh, saying that he had a few things to see to at the castle before he returned home.
Hugh walked past the uproarious waves of sound cascading out of the Nettle and continued on down the Strait. He checked his stride slightly as he perceived someone coming out of the Danesgate and turning in his direction. The sky had cleared and the full moon glimmered off hair so fair, it looked like silver in the pale moonlight. It was Cedric Harding.
“Harding,” Hugh said as the young man came abreast of him. “I did not know you were in Lincoln.”
The young Saxon stopped, showing no surprise at being addressed. He must have recognized Hugh before Hugh spoke.
“I did not know that I had to apprise you of my every move,” Cedric replied. His words were sarcastic, but his voice was surprisingly mild.
Hugh ignored the comment and regarded the moon-bleached face of the man standing beside him. “Did you come for the fair?”
“Aye. My father wished to sell off some of his sheep, and so we took a stall at the livestock market.”
“I saw the stall,” Hugh said. “I did not see you, however.”
“I was not standing about hawking the sheep, if that is what you mean,” Cedric said. “I came in early this morning to make sure that our men got home all right.”
A roar of laughter came from a group of men who had just exited the Nettle.
“Come and have a drink with me,” Hugh said. “The Nettle is still open for business.”
To Hugh’s surprise, Cedric accepted, and the two young men made their way back up the Strait to the door of Lincoln’s most popular inn.
The noise hit them first, then the smell. Apparently more than one reveler had not made it to the door before becoming sick.
As they walked in, a jubilant shout went up from the men standing packed shoulder to shoulder in front of them.
“Hugh! It’s Hugh himself, lads. Let’s hear it for our captain!”
“Good God,” Hugh muttered under his breath.
“Apparently you are the hero of the hour,” Cedric said into his ear. There was amusement in his voice.
Hugh did not advance any farther, but shot a few quick, sharply funny comments at several of the revelers crammed into the inn’s main room. Then, as the room roared with laughter, he said to Cedric, “Let’s get out of here.”
“Gladly,” Cedric said. “It stinks.”
Before the men could even realize that he was leaving them, Hugh was out the door.
“Whew!” he said, waving his hand in front of his face as if to waft away the smell.
“That was pretty disgusting,” Cedric agreed. “My father’s house is not far from here and it’s a lot quieter.”
“Lead the way,” Hugh said.
The Harding town house was of the old-fashioned wooden style with a straw thatched roof. Cedric and Hugh entered directly into a large main hall, which had a log fire burning on the central hearthstone. Three men were asleep on the wooden bench that lined the wall.
Cedric led Hugh to the fire and invited him to sit in one of the two high-backed chairs that were placed before it. Then he said he would fetch some wine and disappeared through a door in the far wall of the hall.
Hugh sat in silence, listening to the snoring of the sleeping men and the crackling of the fire, and wondering why Cedric Harding had agreed to talk to him.
Cedric came back into the room carrying two cups of wine in his hands. He gave one to Hugh, then took the chair next to him.
“So,” Cedric said, regarding Hugh with interest. “There has been another death in Lincoln.”
“Aye,” Hugh returned. “The sheriff has ruled it an accident.”
“Do you think it was an accident?”
Hugh shook his head and took a sip of wine, noting that it was very good.
“Why don’t you think it was an accident?” Cedric asked.
“I find two deaths by stabbing within two months of each other to be a little strange,” Hugh returned.
Cedric tilted his wine cup and thoughtfully regarded the liquid in its depths. Without looking at Hugh, he said, “I think I ought to tell you that my father did not come into Lincoln for the fair, so if you think that this is another murder, you can eliminate him from your list of suspects.”
Hugh was silent, digesting the fact that apparently Cedric had wanted to talk to him in order to establish an alibi for his father.
“He didn’t come in to oversee the stall?” Hugh asked.
Cedric shook his head. “He is ill, as a matter of fact. My mother has made him keep his bed these last three days.”
Hugh watched Cedric’s face. “And he can prove that, I suppose?”
“My mother has been taking care of him, along with her serving women.” Cedric lifted his eyes from his cup and stared at Hugh a little truculently. “If a Norman will accept the word of Saxon women, that is.”
“A Norman always accepts the word of a lady,” Hugh replied gravely.
Cedric rested his head against the straight back of his chair. “I watched the camp-ball game today,” he said.
Hugh, who had been in the process of lifting his wine cup for another sip, stilled. “Were you by any chance present when John Rye was killed?”
“As a matter of fact,” Cedric said, “I was.”
Hugh put his cup down. “Will you tell me what you saw?”
“Why not?” Cedric said lightly. He shifted slightly in his seat. “The accident happened when one of the men on your side knocked aside an opposition pass. The ball went flying off, and in a second a whole pile of men were jumping on top of it, trying to gain control. One of the men in the pile was John Rye.”
“Who else was in the pile?” Hugh asked sharply.
“At least thirty men from both sides were involved,” Cedric said. “It took the sheriff and his men a long time to disentangle them. When they finally got to the bottom of the pile, they found one of your men clutching the ball. He immediately jumped to his feet, threw it, and the game started up again.”
“What of Rye?”
“He was left behind, lying on the ground. No one stopped to see how badly he was injured, so after everyone else had run off up the street, I went out to look at him.”
“You were the one who discovered he had been stabbed?” Hugh said, clearly startled.
“Aye. He was lying on his back in the dirt, and when I put my hand behind him to lift him a little, it came away covered with blood.”
A tense white line formed around the edges of Hugh’s nostrils. “Was he dead?”
“He was still breathing, but he was not aware.”
“Was there anyone else around?”
“There was no one else in the street. An old woman who had been watching the game from inside her house came out when she saw me kneeling over Rye.” Cedric’s blue eyes were sober. “We tried to stop the bleeding, but he died before we could get him out of the street. Then I sent for the sheriff.”
“Who was the woman who helped you?” Hugh asked. “I should like to talk to her. Perhaps she saw something that will be of use.”