Season of the Raven (A Servant of the Crown Mystery Book 1) by Denise Domning Page B

only for the wake and the funeral before returning home."
    Simon put his hand on the younger man's shoulder. "'Wina saw her father just before he passed. Not so her mother, and now she's grieving mightily. Last she spoke to me, the day before her mother died, she was saying that the illness was nothing, and all would soon be right again. I think she blames herself for not visiting her mother before death came to take her."
    "I hadn't thought of that," Stephen said, his voice trailing off into another sigh.
    Try as he might, Faucon could see nothing contrived about Stephen's grief. "Tell me something, for I'm curious. This morning when I arrived, the sheriff's man was trying to release the wheel with no success. Why did you not help him open the brake?"
    "Why do you ask me that?" Stephen frowned up at him. "Was it not at your command that I did so?"
    "My command?" Faucon repeated in surprise. "How could it be? I hadn't yet arrived."
    "You weren't here but your clerk most definitely was. He arrived before our lord sheriff and spoke most forcefully in your name."
    Faucon blinked at that, not surprised by Stephen's description of Edmund's manner, but by the fact that the monk had been in Priors Holston to spew commands at all. "How did Brother Edmund even know to come here?" The question was out before Faucon realized he should be asking this of Edmund, not the son of the murdered man.
    Stephen only shrugged. "Through our bailiff I expect," he said. "It's on our bailiff to report to the sheriff any felony that occurs within our boundaries. Simon, you called for the bailiff after you raised the hue and cry, didn't you?"
    "I did," Simon agreed. "He came, saw your father in the race then left for the priory to send his message."
    Faucon glanced between the men, still confused. "Then your village name tells the truth? The Priory of St. Radegund holds Priors Holston?" It wasn't uncommon for whole villages and hundreds to be bound to monasteries, the same way that serfs and bondsmen owed the bounty of their strength and their fields to a nobleman.
    "Not for much longer. There are but a few of us yet bound in servitude to the priory," Stephen replied. "A good number of my neighbors have bought their freedom from the Benedictines the way my father did a few years past, when he purchased the right to operate the mill and take its profits from the prior. As freeholders, we now owe the monks only a token rent. But that's not why our bailiff went to the priory. The monks always have messengers going hither and yon. They don't mind adding our words to a pouch that's on its way to the sheriff's clerks, whether at he's at Kineton or Killingworth. I've no doubt it was through our bailiff that your clerk knew to come to the mill. I'm sure all the brothers were aflutter at the news of my father's death."
    Simon nodded at that, then glanced around the courtyard. "I haven't seen Gilbert since he left this morning."
    "That's because he had to continue on to Stanrudde to catch the man carrying the pouch," one of the other men said.
    "A fool's errand," another man laughed, "since the sheriff's already been and gone this morn."
    Faucon frowned at that. "How far is the sheriff's seat from here?"
    "Across the shire," a man replied.
    "Then how did Sir Alain arrive before me?"
    "Now, that's a different tale and much of it depends on our Bertie, here," Stephen said.
    As he spoke, he reached out to pat the arm of a beardless youth of no more than ten-and-four. At the same time, Simon put his arm around the boy's shoulders. That was all Faucon needed to confirm the lad's parentage. If the son was taller and more slender than the father, he had the fuller's round face and fair hair, and his brown tunic exactly matched the color of Simon's attire.
    "Simon sent Bertie running to my wife's family home to bring me the news of my father's death. Once I heard the tale I sent Bertie running once again, this time going another mile farther to the west to fetch the