Chambers of Death by Priscilla Royal

Brother.” The stableman coughed and leaned on his pitchfork to catch his breath. “The old master can be hard in his ways and speech, yet he has always been fair, and there is little about the running of this land he doesn’t know. Last harvest, a pestilence struck many here. One villein’s wife died, leaving him with two swaddled babes to tend for a day until his sister came to help. Master Stevyn stripped to a loincloth like the rest of us and replaced the man in the fields. He may not have offered comfort to the man but neither did he punish or reproach him in any way for not giving his labor that once.”
    Thomas nodded, the description firming the impression he had gotten of the steward. “Why does he tolerate his son’s foolishness then? Is he so fond of his eldest?”
    “Fond? Nay, not so much,” he grunted, “but what choice has he? Master Ranulf is the heir. Methinks we are wiser to get used to the fool’s ways and learn how to work around them. This eldest was born with too little of his father’s nature and too much of his mother’s.” His expression turned sheepish. “Begging your pardon, Brother, but she did spend a good deal of time on her knees in prayer and consequently birthed a monk. We all knew she was a good woman, and I believe she must have grieved not to have given her husband a better firstborn.”
    “What of the second son?”
    “Master Huet?” He laughed. “Now he was spawned with stronger seed, and we all now say he’s more the man by far. A few scoffed, suggesting he was a cokenay with that fair skin and his sweet singing, but they changed their own song quickly enough when he gave them a one-fisted love tap and they awoke with a blackened eye, staring at the clouds. The Earl of Lincoln took a liking to the lad as well, which is why he paid his way at university.” He gestured westward. “Methinks both Master Stevyn and our lord would rather have the second son as steward than Master Ranulf, but the earl’ll find a place somewhere for Master Huet in his service.”
    “Which should happen soon since Master Huet has returned and must be done with schooling.” Thomas knew better but was curious to hear what rumors were already about.
    The man bent closer and spoke in low tones. “I’ve heard that he wandered about in France for some months before he came back and finally confessed he had escaped the Latin exercises. But none of us ever thought he’d take to monkish ways. That’s one with hot enough loins to seed babes all over the shire, begging your pardon.”
    Thomas laughed as he tossed a load of clean straw into the donkey’s stall. “Any proof of that before he was sent across the Cam?”
    The man’s face darkened. “The lass died of birthing. So did the babe. As I heard the tale, he turned black with melancholy and thus agreed to have his head shaved with the tonsure for his sins.” Then he shrugged. “No marriage would have been possible even had he wished it. She was a villein’s daughter.”
    “He seems cheerful enough now. Perhaps his heart has healed.”
    Again the man shrugged and bent his back once more to the cleaning of the stalls.
    “Two brothers who could not be more different,” Thomas said after a long while.
    “They share their father’s stubbornness, but Master Ranulf looks like his mother and took on a brittle version of her faith. As for Master Huet, he has his father’s build, but, if I didn’t know his mother to be an honest and most Christian woman, I’d say some spirit exchanged her babe for another in the birthing room.” His brow furrowed. “If a switch did happen, it gave the master a sweet-tempered lad with the voice of angels. That change would never have been made by any evil imp, would it?”
    Thomas shook his head. “If the master’s first wife was a good woman, perhaps God wanted to make up for the firstborn,” he suggested. “You have heard him sing?”
    The man brightened. “I overheard one of Master Stevyn’s