Patches of lighter sky showed here and there where the cloud cover momentarily thinned, but overall the early sunshine had turned to gray. Hugh followed Ermine Street through the city and out into Lincoln Fields, the meadows and farmlands on the north side of the city walls that belonged to the town.
The winter fields that stretched before Hugh were bare and brown, but he remembered how green and gold they looked under the summer sun. Each freeman of the town held and farmed four to six acres of this open land, and in the warm months the fields were ripe with wheat, barley, rye, oats, vetches, peas, and beans.
The town’s hay fields were bare as well. Hugh recalled how Ralf had been forced to restrict the number of livestock a freeman could graze on the common pasture because the town possessed only one hundred acres of meadow on which to grow hay, the only forage available to Lincoln’s animals through the winter.
Hugh might not have been reared to manage the great estates and vast lands he had been born to, but he had learned very young what it meant to administer a large city. Ralf had been more than a mere law enforcer when he had been Sheriff of Lincoln. His competence, his honesty, and his sense of justice had made people turn to him to solve all of the town’s problems. In everything but name, Ralf Corbaille had been Lord of Lincoln. Hugh had learned more than just the knightly arts from his foster father. He had learned the skill of governing.
He passed beyond Lincoln Fields into the bare, frozen countryside. He had been told that John Rye’s manor lay seven miles to the northwest of Lincoln, near to the hamlet of Kestven. Hugh took the path to the village, planning to ask directions to Linsay once he arrived in Kestven.
The hamlet lay in a valley that in summer would be a vista of green fields and ploughed farmland but that today looked bare and cold under the gray February sky. Hugh stopped Rufus at the first cottage he came to, where an elderly woman was feeding chickens in her front yard.
He dismounted and stood at the log fence that separated the yard from the road. “Good afternoon, mistress,” he said. “I wonder if you could tell me the way to Linsay.”
The woman straightened up and automatically rubbed the small of her back as if it ached. She turned where she was standing and regarded Hugh at the fence.
“If you bear right at the end of the village, there is a road that will take you straight there,” she said at last. At her feet, the chickens pecked industriously in the dirt, searching for their food.
Hugh smiled. “Thank you, mistress.”
She smiled back, showing toothless gums, and went back to her chores.
Hugh put his toe in his stirrup, swung up into his saddle, and continued on the single road that went through the hamlet, which consisted of a few modest huts and livestock pens. At the end of the village, the road forked and he turned right.
He had ridden for less than a quarter of an hour when he reached a stockade fence surrounding a manor, which he took to be Linsay. It looked to be about as large as his own manor of Hendly, the third-largest of the properties that Ralf had bequeathed to his foster son.
The gate that led into the courtyard was shut and appeared to be unattended. When no one answered his shout, Hugh dismounted, walked to the tall timber door, and banged on it. He received no reply, but thought he heard scuffling noises within. Holding Rufus’s reins, he gave the gate a slight push.
To his surprise, it swung open.
What is going on here? he thought. Cautiously he pushed the door wider so he could have a view of the yard inside.
In the middle of the deserted courtyard stood a girl and a boy. The girl was holding a large stick, which she evidently had been using to play with a light brown mastiff by her side. Upon seeing the stranger, the huge dog flattened his ears and lunged toward him.
Hugh didn’t move.
The girl screamed, “Benjamin. Stop!”
The dog halted two feet away from Hugh and growled low in his throat.
“Hello there, fellow,” Hugh said mildly, and very slowly stretched out his hand.
The children came running up, their feet pounding on the dirt of the courtyard.
Suspiciously, Benjamin sniffed Hugh’s proferred hand. His head was enormous. After a moment, the dog’s tail wagged back and forth. Once.
“Good boy,” Hugh said.
The boy took a firm hold on the thick hair of the dog’s ruff.
Rufus, who liked dogs, pricked his ears and bent his head to sniff the mastiff.
The dog flattened his ears and growled.
Rufus lifted his head and blew through his nose.
The boy, who looked to be about eight, took a stronger hold on the dog. “Who are you and what do you want?” he demanded of Hugh.
“My name is Hugh de Leon and I am in search of John Rye,” Hugh replied easily. “Can you tell me if he is here?”
The little girl answered in a high, clear voice, “Papa isn’t at home right now.”
“Iseult!” the boy hissed warningly.
The girl’s eyes, which were the exact same blue as the boy’s, sparked with anger. Mud was caked on her boots and on the hem of her cloak. Her untidy black hair was spilling out of its braids. She looked about five.
“You are always scolding me, Nicholas,” she complained. “I didn’t say anything wrong.”
“Your brother thinks that you don’t know me and that perhaps it isn’t wise to let me know that your father isn’t here to protect you,” Hugh replied. He looked gravely into the suspicious blue glare of the boy. “I mean you no harm,” he said. “I only came to have a word with your father. I am alone.”
He turned his head to glance around the deserted courtyard, then he looked back at the children. “Shouldn’t there be someone at the gate?”
Iseult said sadly, “Everyone ran away when Mama got sick.”
Hugh glanced toward the stone hall that was the manor house. “Your mother is sick?”
The boy looked at his feet. “Aye,” he muttered.
Benjamin lay down, evidently deciding that the children were safe, and the boy released his hold on the dog’s neck.
“Who is looking after her?” Hugh asked.
“Edith is,” Iseult said helpfully.
Hugh frowned. “Perhaps I had better talk to this Edith. It sounds as if she might need some help.”
The two children could not disguise their relief.
“I think perhaps you are right,” the boy admitted.
“May I put my horse in your stable?”
“Aye. There is no one to look after him, though. All the grooms ran away.”
“I will look after him myself once I have seen Edith,” Hugh said.
The two children and the dog accompanied Hugh to the empty stable, where he unsaddled Rufus and put him in a bare stall with a bucket of water. They left the dog in the stable and went toward the house, which was of a type prevalent among the Normans. In this popular design, the stone hall was raised on a storage cellar, which could be entered by a doorway in one of the side walls. The door to the main part of the house was reached by an external staircase made of wood.
“You have pretty eyes,” Iseult said to Hugh as they climbed the stairs to the front door.
“Thank you,” Hugh replied gravely.
“Iseult!” her brother commanded. “Don’t be rude.”
Hugh regarded the boy, whose hair was as black as his own. “It was a compliment,” he said.
The boy flushed, pushed open the big front door, and gestured for Hugh to precede him inside.
They entered a long narrow lobby, which was enclosed by the timber partitions that separated the stone hall into two rooms. The children led Hugh through the door on their left, into the room that was the manor’s great hall.
A niggardly fire was burning in the fireplace; otherwise the room showed no sign of occupation. The rushes on the floor looked dirty and gave off an odor that made Hugh’s nostrils pinch together.