No Dark Place (15 page)

Simon himself had gone to bed early in his own private room, and he was full of energy and ready to start for Evesham. His pain-wracked knights trailed along behind him to the stableyard, mounted up, and rode stoically through the streets of Gloucester, heading for the road that would take them home.

Simon kept his horse next to Hugh’s and spent the entire ride trying to talk him into accepting Gloucester’s offer. Hugh spent the entire ride returning noncommittal replies to Simon’s arguments.

He was very glad to reach Evesham, where he hoped he would be able to escape, if only briefly, from Simon’s insistent presence.

The Lady Alyce was waiting in the Great Hall to greet them when they walked in.

“You are welcome home, my lord,” she said to Simon and held her face up to him for the kiss of peace.

Then she turned to Hugh.

“I have a wonderful surprise for you,” she said. Her eyes were sparkling like a young girl’s. “Guess who has come to visit?”

Hugh looked back at her blankly. He hated guessing games and had no reply.

“Your mother!” Alyce said triumphantly.

Hugh froze.

“I sent to Worcester to tell her you were here and she arrived yesterday. In all that rain!” Alyce was
bubbling on, completely oblivious to Hugh’s reaction. “She was so anxious to see you that she couldn’t wait.”

Simon spoke into the silence. “Isabel is here?”

Alyce gave her lord a radiant smile. “She is upstairs, my lord.” She turned back to Hugh. “I promised her I would send you to see her the moment you returned.”

The silence in the hall was catastrophic. Finally even Alyce noticed that something was wrong.

“I will take you to her myself,” she said, but with less confidence than she had spoken before.

Hugh’s face was as white as parchment. Then, still without speaking a word, he turned on his heel and walked out of the hall.

The people he left behind stood for a moment as if they had been glued into place. Then Simon cursed and started after him.

The horses they had ridden from Bristol had not yet left the bailey, and Simon was in time to see Hugh leap onto Rufus’s back and ride out through the inner gates of the castle.

“God’s bones,” he said through his teeth.

“That bastard.” It was Philip Demain, standing at his side. “Do you want me to go after him?”

“No,” Simon said in a flat voice. “Let him go.”

Philip shoved his hand through his hair. “What the hell is wrong with him?” he demanded.

“I don’t know,” Simon said. Unlike Philip, he did not appear to be angry. He merely looked bleak.
“Judas. I am going to have to tell Isabel what happened.”

The lady Alyce accompanied her husband to Isabel’s bedchamber and listened in fulminating silence while he told his sister that Hugh had left the castle.

Alyce waited for Isabel to cry out with dismay. Instead she sat silent, staring at her brother. The only sign she gave of distress was that all of the color drained from her face.

“I’m sorry, Isabel,” Simon said in a gruff voice. “Alyce should not have invited you so precipitately.”

“And why not, I should like to know?” Alyce demanded, defending herself. She glared at her husband. “Who could have suspected that Hugh would behave in such a fashion? What in the name of God is wrong with that boy?”

“I’m sure he had his reasons,” Isabel replied in a steady voice.

Alyce stepped forward with some notion of taking her sister-in-law into her arms to comfort her.

There were no tears in Isabel’s dark blue eyes, however. Her face was white, but she had herself under strict control. Only the trembling of her hands in her lap betrayed her feelings.

“I should have waited for him to come to me,” was all she said. Her face told Alyce not to embrace her. “It was my fault for behaving too rashly.”

“I don’t think it’s rash for a mother to want to see
the son she thought was dead,” Alyce said angrily.

“He was not ready,” Isabel replied. Her skin looked parchment-thin over her perfect bones.

Alyce used her husband’s favorite oath. “God’s bones, what did he have to be ready for? You’re his mother!”

“Quiet, my lady,” Simon said. “Isabel is upset enough already.”

Abashed, Alyce reined in her temper. Simon was right. “I did not mean to shout at you, Isabel,” she said.

Isabel gave Alyce a shadowy smile. The sun pouring in the window illuminated her face, revealing the fine lines around her eyes and her mouth.

“Is there aught we can do for you?” Alyce asked.

“I would like to see Father Anselm, if he is here,” Isabel said.

“I’ll send him to you,” Simon said. “And now that you have finally returned to Evesham, I hope that you will remain with us.”

She shook her head. “No, Simon, I shall return to Worcester in the morning.”

“You don’t have to pray for him any longer, Isabel,” Simon said grimly. “I can assure you that he is very much alive.”

Her face, if possible, looked even more ghostlike than it had before. “For all these years I have been praying for myself,” she said. “
I
was the one who needed Hugh to be alive. Now the time has come for me to pray for him.”

Stupid woman
, Hugh thought as he cantered Rufus away from the walls of Evesham.
To bring her there, without telling me. Stupid, stupid, stupid
.

His heart was hammering, his breathing was coming fast, and it was not due to the pace at which he was he was riding.

He continued to vilify the Lady Alyce for the next fifteen minutes while he cantered Rufus along the wide, well-kept road that would take him south, to Somerford. The vale of Evesham stretched around him on all sides, with its abundant fields that belonged to Simon’s honor, but Hugh was completely unaware of the richness through which he was passing.

At last, his bodily functions began to regulate themselves and his brain began to function once again. He slowed the white stallion, who had already made one journey today and would tire quickly if Hugh continued to push him.

It had been pure instinct, to turn and run when Lady Alyce had made that announcement.

Now instinct gave way to thought.

What must they think of him at Evesham? How was he ever going to explain his action?

How could he explain it to himself?

I can’t explain it. I just know that I can’t see her. Not yet
.

It was the only explanation that he could find, this instinctive feeling he had about not wanting to see his mother.

For she was his mother. She must be. Everyone said how much he looked like her.

The living image of Isabel
.

He closed his eyes and longed for Isabel to be Adela. His love for his foster mother had been total and uncomplicated, as hers had been for him.

This had not been the kind of relationship he had known with his own mother. He knew that. If it had been, he would not be feeling the way he was.

If Isabel had been Adela, he would have rushed up those stairs and thrown himself into her arms.

Instead, he had run away.

I ran away
.

He never ran away from anything. It was one of the laws he lived his life by. It was why he had forced himself to go to Somerford, even though the rational part of him had said to remain safely at Keal.

But he had most certainly run away from Isabel.

Why? What had happened in his childhood that made him so fearful of seeing his mother?

He didn’t want to find out.

Still running away
, he thought, and his lips compressed into a thin hard line.

He wrenched his mind away from what had happened at Evesham and looked for the first time at the countryside through which he was passing.

The road had left the Vale of Evesham and become a forest track, closely hemmed in on either side. He was riding through Gloucestershire now, with Wiltshire lying just to his south.

He thought of the offer Earl Robert had made to him.

He wanted to find out who had killed his father and he wanted to be the Earl of Wiltshire.

But he knew he would rather achieve both those aims on his own.

I
t was dark by the time Hugh reached Somerford, which was situated in the very northern part of Wiltshire, close to the border of Earl Robert’s territory. If Hugh accepted the earl’s offer, Somerford would most likely be one of the first castles that Robert would try to take.

Supper was finished and the tables already cleared away when Hugh walked into the castle’s Great Hall. Servants were carrying platters and basins to the buttery to be washed, while others were raking the rushes so that they lay evenly on the floor. A group of Nigel’s knights were gathered in front of the leaping fire. Thomas was playing his lute in accompaniment of Reginald, who was singing a French love song in his mellow baritone. A few knights played at dice, while others were mending harnesses and listening to the music.

Hugh sniffed the air appreciatively, smelling the faint, pleasant aroma of the herbs that had been sprinkled in the fresh rushes.

Reginald saw him first, stopped his singing, and
shouted a greeting. Hugh went to join the men by the fire.

After exchanging greetings with the knights, he inquired, “Is Sir Nigel in the solar?”

“Sir Nigel is not here,” Thomas returned. “He left shortly after you did, to pay a visit to Marlborough. We expect him back shortly, however.”

Hugh slowly pulled off his gloves. He was not wearing mail, as Simon’s party had traveled back and forth to Bristol unarmed. Simon had had no fear of attack so deep in the Earl of Gloucester’s own territory.

“I see,” Hugh said, trying not to let his disappointment show.

“The Lady Cristen is here, though,” Thomas went on.

Hugh’s disappointment magically disappeared.

“She is upstairs with her ladies,” Thomas said. “Shall I send a page to tell her that you have returned?”

“Aye,” said Hugh. “Do that.”

He stood with the men in front of the fire, listening idly to Thomas’s music while the page ran upstairs to fetch her. It seemed a very long time before he heard the sound of the dogs’ nails scratching on the wood of the floor above. They came galloping excitedly down the stairs, and then, finally, Cristen herself appeared.

If someone had asked him what color tunic she was wearing, he wouldn’t have been able to answer. All he saw was her face, her eyes, and the delicate flush of color in her cheeks.

He went to meet her.

“Hugh.” She held out her hands. “Welcome back.”

He took her small, competent hands into his own and for the first time since that dreadful near-encounter with his mother, he felt the world steady itself under his feet. He managed a smile. “I’m sorry to arrive at such an inconvenient hour.”

She wrinkled her straight little nose in dismissal of such foolishness. “Come along with me into the solar and I’ll have some food brought to you,” she said briskly.

Ralf was whining softly and butting his head against Hugh’s knee. Hugh looked with mock sternness into the eager black face that was lifted to his. “Do you require some attention?”

The dog’s tail, which was tipped at the end with a splash of white, making it look as if it had been dipped in a pot of whitewash, wagged frantically. Hugh bent and scratched him behind his ears, in the exact spot he liked the most.

Ralf sighed with pleasure.

Cedric, more timid than his companion, looked longingly at Ralf’s ecstasy.

“Play fair,” Cristen said with amusement. “It’s Cedric’s turn now.”

Obediently, Hugh transferred the ministrations of his long, clever fingers to Cedric.

Proper recognition having been accorded to her dogs, Cristen was ready to move to the solar. Hugh and the animals accompanied her.

The page Cristen had sent ahead of them had already lit the candles and was in the process of lighting the charcoal brazier when they came in the door.

Hugh said, “Can it be possible that you have grown another inch in the week that I have been gone, Brian?”

The boy flushed with pleasure. “Perhaps not quite an inch, Hugh. But I
am
growing.”

“You certainly are,” Hugh said admiringly. “You’ll top me soon.”

Brian stood up straighter. Then he stiffened and his flush of pleasure was replaced with the brighter red of embarrassment. “I’m s-sorry, my lord,” he stuttered. “I did not mean to be overly familiar.”

“Don’t be an ass,” Hugh said easily.

Brian grinned.

“Food, Brian,” Cristen said gently.

“Aye, my lady!”

At last the food had been brought, the wine had been poured, the brazier was glowing, and they were alone.

“What happened?” Cristen asked.

While he ate he told her about his meeting with Simon and their subsequent visit to Robert of Gloucester. He finished by telling her about the earl’s offer.

Silence fell as he sat back in his chair, a cup of wine between his fingers. He had eaten every scrap of food that Brian had brought.

“He must need Wiltshire badly,” Cristen said at last.

She was sitting in her usual chair, with her feet resting on an embroidered footstool. She needed the footstool, else her feet wouldn’t touch the floor. The dogs lay on either side of the stool; Ralf’s chin was actually propped right on it, with his nose touching her small leather slipper.

“He does, of course,” Hugh replied. “He was disappointed, I think, by the response to his arrival. Except for Wallingford, which was pledged to him by Brian fitz Count, all of his support is in the west.”

“Well, he certainly did his best to tempt you.”

His look was wry. “Get thee behind me, Satan…?”

Her face was grave. “Earl Robert has a few adherents in this part of the world, Hugh. Father went to Marlborough because Stephen was there, besieging the castle. John Marshall, the castellan, has declared for the empress.”

Hugh’s eyes glittered with sudden alertness. “Oh?”

“The king isn’t there any longer, however. I received word from Father yesterday that he has raised the siege and taken his forces south, to besiege the empress in Arundel. Father sent the knights of his own escort to accompany the king.”

Hugh leaned his dark head against the back of his chair and looked thoughtful.

“In the same letter, Father told me that Guy had also come to Marlborough.”

Hugh’s shoulders tensed.

Cristen’s brown eyes were solemn. “I don’t know
what happened between Guy and Stephen. Father will probably be able to tell us when he returns. I expect him tomorrow or the day after.”

Hugh took a sip of his wine. “If Stephen succeeds in capturing the empress and sending her back to Normandy, this war will be over before it begins.”

Ralf yawned.

“That’s your opinion,” Hugh said sternly to the dog, who stared back for a moment, then closed his eyes.

“That might not be a good thing for you,” Cristen pointed out in a neutral voice. “Earl Robert’s offer to support you only has value if there is a war.”

They looked at each other.

Finally he said, “I wasn’t raised by a great feudal lord, Cristen. I was raised by a man who had some respect for his country.”

She smiled at him, as if he had given her a great gift.

Some of the tenseness left his body.

Cedric turned and bit at the top of his tail.

“You had better not have fleas, Cedric,” Cristen said.

The dog gave her an adoring look.

Cristen turned back to Hugh. “Something else happened while you were at Evesham. You were very upset when you arrived, and it wasn’t about Earl Robert’s offer.”

Hugh lifted his brows in mock outrage. “Don’t I have any privacy at all?”

She smiled at him again. “Not from me.”

He sighed and then, in a flat, expressionless voice, he told her about what Lady Alyce had done, and his own disastrous response.

When he had finished he sat looking at her stoically, awaiting her judgment.

She leaned toward him and said in an aching voice, “I’m so sorry. Oh, Hugh, I’m so very, very sorry.”

She didn’t say what she was sorry for, but he knew it was for his pain, and he was comforted.

He managed a crooked smile. “The people at Evesham must think I’m insane.”

“Who cares what the people at Evesham think?” she said fiercely.

He put his wine down and ran his fingers through his hair. “I need to talk to someone who lived at Chippenham when I was a child, Cristen. Do you know the names of any of my father’s household knights? They must have been loyal to him. Perhaps I can trace a few of them.”

“Father will know,” Cristen said. “We’ll ask him when he returns.”

They talked for a little longer and then Hugh retired to his solitary bedroom, enormously appreciative of the quiet and the privacy after the noise and the cramped quarters of the night before.

Since Nigel wasn’t at home, Cristen had one of her ladies spend the night with her, for the sake of propriety. For her sake, Hugh hoped that Cristen’s companion didn’t snore.

It was three more days before Nigel finally returned to Somerford, and when he did he was not alone. Henry Fairfax of Bowden, another of Guy’s vassals, accompanied him.

The lord of Bowden was a man of about thirty-five, tall and fair-haired and ruddy of complexion. He had been at Marlborough in Guy’s train and so was privy to the deal that the earl had struck with Stephen. Nigel told Hugh all about it as they walked through the bailey on their way to the mews. Henry Fairfax was an avid falconer and had asked to see Nigel’s birds.

“It is as I feared,” Nigel said to Hugh. The two of them were walking together, with Cristen and the lord of Bowden several steps in front of them. “Fairfax has told me that Stephen promised to confirm Guy in his earldom if Guy would rally his feudal levies for Stephen when the king calls upon him.”

“No surprise there,” Hugh said noncommittally.

There was a strong wind blowing from the west, and all the Somerford flags were streaming straight out. As they passed the fish pond, Hugh noticed that even the surface of the water was rippling from the stiff breeze.

Nigel said gruffly, “What happened at Evesham?”

“Simon took me to see Robert of Gloucester, who made me the identical offer that Stephen made to Guy,” Hugh said.

The breath hissed between Nigel’s teeth.

“And what was your answer?” he demanded.

The wind was blowing Hugh’s black hair, which needed to be cut. “I didn’t give him an answer.”

Nigel walked along in silence, his head lowered as he fixedly regarded the dirt of the bailey yard. “I’m sorry, lad,” he said at last. “I bungled things by taking you to Chippenham. I forced Guy’s hand in a way that I never intended to happen.”

Hugh disagreed. “On the contrary, it was the right thing to do. I needed to go to Chippenham.”

He noticed how the wind was blowing Cristen’s red tunic flat against her slender body.

“You are the rightful earl!” Nigel exploded. “Everyone who sees you must know that!”

Hugh answered patiently, “It doesn’t matter if I am Roger’s son or not. Earldoms have changed hands before this, sir. You know that is true. And Guy has been the earl for fourteen years. My face isn’t going to change that.”

There was a moment of frustrated silence. “Are you giving up, then?” Nigel demanded.

There was humor in Hugh’s voice as he answered, “I never give up. Perseverance is one of my few virtues.”

Nigel stopped walking. “Well, then, what are you going to do? Accept Gloucester’s offer?”

Hugh replied quietly, “Before I do anything, I need to know how my father died.”

After a moment, Nigel’s scowl lifted and he began to walk forward again. “I’m a fool. Of course. The best way to depose Guy is to prove him a murderer.”

“Aye. And to do that, I need to talk to someone—preferably several people—who lived at Chippenham when I was a boy. I was wondering if you knew where I might find some of my father’s old household knights, sir. Perhaps they might be able to shed some light on what happened all those years ago.”

Nigel frowned. “Roger’s knights? To the best of my knowledge, lad, most of them are still at Chippenham.”

Hugh was stunned.

“Still at Chippenham?” he repeated, staring at Nigel in amazement.

“Aye. Guy had no following of his own. He was a younger son, remember. He brought a few friends with him when he became the earl, but otherwise he kept on Roger’s household guard.”

“My father’s knights transferred their allegiance to Guy?”

Hugh’s amazement was so profound that Nigel began to feel uneasy. “Why does that surprise you so?”

“Well, for one thing, it must mean that Roger’s own knights did not suspect Guy of having a hand in his death!”

“Not necessarily,” Nigel said. “It is not easy for a landless knight in these times, Hugh. There are few men who would forsake a comfortable place in an earl’s household, no matter what they might suspect in their hearts.”

“No honorable man would serve his lord’s murderer,” Hugh snapped.

“You wouldn’t. I wouldn’t. But necessity is a hard mistress, lad.”

There was a sharp line between Hugh’s brows. He did not look convinced.

“At any rate,” Nigel said, “if you wish to speak to some of Roger’s old knights, you have not far to look for them. Of course, many of them will have grown too old for service, but I’m sure a few still remain at Chippenham.”

Cristen’s laugh floated back to them. She was smiling up at Henry Fairfax.

For some reason, this put Hugh out of temper.

“Did you question that Father Anselm?” Nigel asked. “He was Roger’s priest. He might be a good source of information.”

Hugh flushed as he thought of the manner of his leaving Evesham. “I didn’t have the chance,” he said shortly. “I will do so eventually, but first I think I shall go to Chippenham.”

“And just how do you plan to gain entrance to Chippenham?” Nigel asked with heavy sarcasm. “Introduce yourself to Guy as his nephew and ask if you might pay a visit to your old home?”

Hugh looked amused. “A brilliant idea,” he said. “I believe that is precisely what I shall do.”

Nigel groaned.

“I rather think that he will let me come,” Hugh said. “He’ll feel more comfortable with me under his eye than knowing I’m running loose around the countryside.”