BURY ME DEEP an utterly gripping crime thriller with an epic twist (Detective Rozlyn Priest Book 1) JANE ADAMS (fox in socks read aloud TXT) 📖

he thought, but he chose not to say this aloud. “I’m glad the girl has seen sense, though,” he added with feeling. “Your relations with her could only lead to grief.”

“She’s with child,” Hugh blurted suddenly.

Treven stared at him. “Yours or his? Or don’t you know?”

Hugh didn’t answer at first. “It could be either,” he admitted finally. “She had to tell him. She told him also she'd done nothing with me to be shamed of and she thinks he believes her, or, at least, chooses to seem to.”

“God above, Hugh. When will you learn?”

“The man is an animal, Treven.”

“And you’re not? You rut like one. You yourself told me you went from this lass to another’s bed.” He shook his head and then rubbed hard at his belly as it cramped painfully. “Christ curse it!” He poured more of Osric’s mint fragrant potion into his cup and drank, fighting the urge to vomit.

Hugh watched him with narrowed gaze. “If this continues, you should return to Winchester and seek help,” he said. “I do not trust Osric’s skills. Treven, I’ve not seen you cramped like this, even when we’ve been forced to eat rotten food and carrion leavings.”

Treven waved his concern away. “It will pass,” he told Hugh. “It is better than it was.” He had not told Hugh about his dream or the sense that it was the omen of something so very wrong. Hugh’s way of thinking was not like Treven’s. He would either laugh at his imaginings or tell him to see a priest.

And thinking of priests . . . Reaching for his pack, Treven withdrew the leather wallet that had been sent by the King. Inside were the deeds to this land and a command signed by Aelfred himself that Abbot Kendryk of Storton Abbey should respect Treven as King’s Thegn and leave off troubling him. It was an honour Treven had never looked for, that the King should name him as one under his direct command and he had read the words practically off the page in the days since the messenger had arrived bearing it. There was a sanction attached, of course. Treven, as King’s Thegn, would have to spend each third month in his Lord’s house, but Aelfred had put off this demand until Eastertime the following year, to give Treven time to settle affairs on his lands and for this, Treven was doubly grateful. He recalled the words of the Heliand that he had read the night before and felt a moment of exaltation. Perhaps, after all, the reward for service was not only night terrors.

Kendryk was due today. He’d lodge at the Scrivener’s home, it still being more fitting to his status and comfort than Treven’s half-finished hall. There were grievances to be heard, disputes held over from the Shire Court and directed to Treven’s judgement and Treven was glad that Kendryk had come to observe the proceedings. Not only was it good timing for Treven to show this new covenant, but Kendryk would see, also, that Aelfred’s newly drafted laws were to be implemented without delay.

Glancing up as a shadow blocked the light from the door, he saw Osric standing in readiness.

“It’s time we were on our way,” he told Hugh. “It wouldn’t do to keep the Abbot waiting on us. At least, not for too long.”

* * *

Abbot Kendryk had set up court in the Scrivener’s yard. A massive oak chair, carried from the abbey, had been set atop the steps and from this vantage point, Kendryk surveyed his subjects. He lifted his gaze to observe Treven and Hugh and their little entourage as they trotted into the yard and Treven was struck by the political play in which this man of God involved himself.

“He seeks to lord it over you,” Hugh commented.

“He requires the trappings of authority,” Treven said simply. “I do not. He must bring twenty monks plus their servants and lay brothers with him to make a point of his own importance. He’s welcome to them. I hold power here, Hugh, and the Abbot knows it.”

He was conscious of Hugh’s sideways look. Of the little doubt in his friend’s mind. Treven had not been one for such game play, but he had observed it at close enough quarters to understand it. Kendryk had his entourage; Treven had the authority of the King. Both Abbot and Thegn were required if the peace was to be kept and the region prosper and the two were equally aware of that.

Hugh laughed briefly and softly. “Since when were you a reader of men’s minds?”

“Since I had reason to be. Come, let us get to business.”

They dismounted and crossed the open space. Kendryk did not move to greet them. Hugh, raised with customs that Treven saw as Frankish and demeaning, knelt to receive his blessing while Treven looked on, meeting Kendryk’s gaze; the man’s attention on Treven even while he murmured the Benedictus over his companion.

Kendryk was an old man but he had lost nothing of his strength or sinew. His grey hair curled softly about his tonsure, but that was the only moderated aspect. His skin, stretched tight enough to outline his skull, was tanned as dark as that of a farmer, the sharp planes of his cheek bones jutting and cadaverous and his hands, leathery on their backs, scuffed and calloused at the palm like a pair of well-worn gloves that fitted tight to the bone.

He motioned to one of his followers. “Bring seats for their lordships,” he said, and it was done in the next instant. Two monks returning with the carved chairs belonging to the brothers. They set them beside Kendryk on the topmost step and Treven sat, then looked about him wondering where the Scriveners could be.

“Edmund and his brother will return presently,” Kendryk told him, noting his interest. “There was some disturbance they