No Dark Place (21 page)

One of the squires came running up to them. His round face was beaming. “The king is coming to spend the night!” he shouted to the knights as a group. “Sir
Nigel just returned from Malmesbury with the news.”

A ripple of excitement ran through the ranks of the knights.

Hugh frowned. This was a development he had not foreseen and did not like. He took Rufus to the stable and took care of the stallion himself, as all the grooms were busy trying to make room for the king’s horses. Once Rufus was groomed and fed and watered, Hugh made his way up to the castle.

The tables had already been set up in the Great Hall. Servants were scurrying around, putting down the benches and sprinkling dried herbs through the fresh rushes on the floor. Hugh asked one of the pages who was carrying the great saltcellar that went on the high table if he knew where Cristen was.

“I think Lady Cristen is in the kitchen, my lord,” came the reply.

Hugh decided that he did not want to attempt the smoke and the confusion of the kitchen just now. He went into the solar, hoping he might find Nigel.

The solar was empty, but the door to Nigel’s bedroom was open and William came out carrying Nigel’s dagger to be polished. The squire grinned at Hugh. “Have you heard, Hugh? The king is coming to dinner and to stay the night!”

“I’ve heard,” Hugh said.

Nigel heard his voice and called out through the partially open bedroom door, “Come in, Hugh. I want to talk to you.”

For the first time, Hugh entered the bedroom that
belonged to the lord of Somerford, which had once also belonged to his wife. It was a large room, with an immense bed covered with quilts, fur coverlets, and pillows. The heavy velvet curtains that enclosed the bed at night, both for privacy and for protection from drafts, were pulled back at the moment. Several large wooden chests, a chair, and two large stools with arms completed the furnishings.

Nigel was standing beside one of the chests, on top of which a rich, fur-lined robe was neatly folded. Clearly he was arraying himself in his best clothes for the occasion of the king’s visit.

Hugh said, “Perhaps I should have gone to Evesham after all.”

Nigel shook his head. “It wasn’t safe.”

Hugh cocked an eyebrow and didn’t reply.

“You can sit with the knights at dinner,” Nigel said. “There will be no reason for Stephen to notice you. I will give the king my bedroom, of course, and I will sleep in yours. You can spend the night in the hall as you did when Henry Fairfax visited.” Nigel adjusted the lace at the throat of his immaculate white shirt. “There will be no reason for the king to think you are anyone other than one of my household knights.”

“Perhaps it would be safer if I ate and spent the night in the stable,” Hugh said.

Nigel lifted the robe from the chest and smoothed his hand along the soft fur. “Aren’t you curious to see Stephen, at least?”

Hugh looked amused.

“You must be,” Nigel said irritably.

“Of course I am,” Hugh agreed. “I just do not want to be the cause of any embarrassment for you.”

“The king won’t ask for you. There is no reason for him even to know that you are here,” Nigel said. “Just stay in the midst of the knights and you will be perfectly safe.”

It was cold in the bedroom and Nigel shook out the cloak and settled it over his shoulders.

“All right,” Hugh agreed mildly.

“Stephen is an impressive man, Hugh,” Nigel said. “I think he will surprise you.”

The amused look came back to Hugh’s face. “Will he?”

William came into the room with the polished dagger ready to be thrust through its leather holder at Nigel’s belt.

“I’ll change my own clothes and get out of your way, sir,” Hugh said.

“Very well.” Nigel’s voice was gruff. “I hope to God this dinner comes off all right. I never thought I would be entertaining the king!”

Stephen arrived an hour later, accompanied by his main military commander, the Fleming, William of Ypres, and a number of lesser lieutenants. Hugh saw him for the first time when he came into the Great Hall and took his place at the high table between Nigel and Cristen.

Stephen was indeed an impressive-looking man.
In his fifties, he was yet tall, fair, handsome and splendidly built. Hugh watched as he bent his leonine head toward Cristen and made some comment. She smiled in reply.

Like Nigel, Cristen had dressed in her finest garments in honor of the king’s visit. Her smoothly brushed hair was topped by a golden circlet from which fell a gauzy veil. She was wearing a fur-lined mantle over her deep red tunic.

Hugh thought she was the loveliest thing he had seen in all his life.

“The king looks younger than I thought he would,” Thomas said. Hugh was sitting with a group of the younger knights in the middle of the hall.

“He seems very amiable,” Lionel commented.

Hugh took a sip of his wine and said nothing.

“This should be a feast to remember,” one of the other knights confided. “They were cooking in the kitchen all morning long.”

It was a feast indeed. Cristen and her staff did Somerford proud, serving up a meal that was every bit the equal of the meals Hugh had eaten at the earl’s castle of Chippenham.

He ate hungrily. It was amazing the way his appetite had come back after last night. Even the mushroom stuffing, which he did not usually like, tasted good to him.

The main part of the meal was over and the servants were in the process of serving the sweetmeats when one of the pages who were waiting on the high
table came to tell Hugh that the king desired to meet him.

Hugh dropped his eyes to mask the flash of anger that shot through him.

I thought I could trust Nigel not to do this!

His face expressionless, he made his way around the tables and approached the high table. Stopping in front of Stephen, he went down on his knee.

“Your Grace,” he heard Nigel saying, “this is the young man you asked about.”

Hugh shot a quick look at Nigel’s face and realized that this introduction was Stephen’s doing, not his.

“You may rise,” Stephen said.

Hugh stood and looked at the king, who was seated far above him.

Stephen regarded him across a tray of sweets. “So,” he said, “you are he who claims to be the son of Roger de Leon.”

He sounded merely interested.

“Aye, Your Grace,” Hugh said.

The king leaned back in his chair as if he were perfectly relaxed. “Sir Nigel has told me that you were raised by my faithful servant, Ralf Corbaille, Sheriff of Lincoln.”

“Aye, Your Grace,” Hugh said again.

Stephen’s blue eyes scanned Hugh’s face. “And I am to understand that for all the years that you lived with the sheriff, you did not know who you really were?”

“That is correct, Your Grace.”

Hugh was doing his best to disguise the anger he felt at this forced meeting, but from the sudden frown on Stephen’s face he was afraid he had not been completely successful.

Then Stephen asked the one question that Hugh did not want to answer: “And where does
your
allegiance lie, Hugh? With your anointed king or with the rebel, Gloucester?”

“Are you asking that question of Hugh Corbaille or of Hugh de Leon, Your Grace?” Hugh replied steadily.

Stephen’s gaze sharpened. He might be an indecisive man, but Hugh could see that he was not stupid.

“I am asking both of you,” the king said.

Hugh clasped his hands lightly behind his back. “Hugh Corbaille is the owner of three small manors who owes his feudal duty to the king, Your Grace,” he said. “At the moment, Hugh de Leon owns nothing except his sword.”

Stephen’s graying golden brows drew together. “If you are indeed Hugh de Leon, your mother’s brother is one of Gloucester’s chief supporters,” he said grimly.

“And my father’s brother is one of yours,” Hugh returned.

“Let me remind you of this, Hugh whoever-you-are,” Stephen said. “All of England’s earls hold their honors solely at the will of the king. And I have named Lord Guy to be Earl of Wiltshire.”

Hugh bowed his head. “I perfectly understand, Your Grace,” he said softly.

Stephen’s frown deepened. This interview was not going the way that he had planned. This boy, with his de Leon eyes, was perfectly courteous, perfectly respectful, but…

Stephen waved his hand in royal dismissal. “You may return to your supper, Hugh Corbaille.”

He emphasized the last name, the name that was pledged to him.

“Thank you, Your Grace.” Hugh knelt once more, then backed away from the high table. Before he turned to make his way back to his own table he shot a quick look at Cristen.

She was looking very grave.

He tried to look reassuring.

Then he had to turn away and go back to the knights.

O
ne of the reasons Nigel had found it so easy to persuade Hugh to delay his visit to Evesham was that Hugh had had visions of spending a few more nights with Cristen.

That had been before the king’s visit, of course.

As it was, Hugh spent the night in the Great Hall with the rest of the knights, listening to Ranulf snore and thinking about his interview with Stephen.

How did the king know I was at Somerford?

Guy must have told him that Nigel was the man who had discovered Hugh and introduced him into Chippenham, Hugh thought, as he lay on his straw pallet in the dark and chilly hall. Stephen could not have been certain that Hugh was still present at Somerford, but if the king had asked for him directly, then it wouldn’t have been possible for Nigel to lie.

It could have been worse
, Hugh told himself philosophically.
I might not have made a friend of the king, but neither did I make an enemy
.

At this point, however, he was truly stuck at Somerford until the king had left the district. If Stephen suspected that Hugh was planning a visit
into Gloucester’s territory, the king might very well arrest him.

Stephen would have to return to the siege of Malmesbury on the morrow, Hugh thought with a resurgence of hope. The king could not remain here at Somerford indefinitely. He would have to return to his troops.

That would mean that Hugh would get his bedroom back. And once everyone was asleep, he and Cristen…

With one part of his mind, Hugh knew that what he had done with Cristen, and what he planned to keep right on doing, would be perceived by others as grossly immoral. He knew others would think that he had betrayed Nigel’s trust and his hospitality by bedding his daughter under her father’s own roof.

But what he felt for Cristen and she for him transcended all the standard moral tenets of church and of society. He could no more keep away from her than he could keep from breathing the air that he needed to live. They belonged to each other.

They would marry. As soon as he learned what he needed to know about his past, they would marry. Then they would never be separated again.

The king left Somerford the following morning and the siege of Malmesbury continued. Finally, after eight days of being under constant fire, Robert fitz Hubert and his castle garrison surrendered. Conveniently for him, Robert was cousin to Stephen’s com
mander, William of Ypres, and it was the Fleming who arranged for Robert’s release. To no one’s surprise, once the former castellan of Malmesbury was free, he rode west to join with the Earl of Gloucester.

After his two successes in north Wiltshire, Stephen moved twenty miles south to Trowbridge, a well-fortified castle belonging to Miles of Gloucester’s son-in-law, Humphrey de Bohun. There the king began the laborious task of building siege engines to batter down the walls.

Shortly after Stephen had left the district of a devastated Malmesbury, Hugh prepared to ride northwest to Evesham in hopes of catching up with Father Anselm.

“I wish I could go with you,” Cristen said as they clung together in the night.

“I wish you could, too,” Hugh replied. His lips were buried in her hair and he inhaled the scent of lavender that always clung to its brown silkiness.

“If you need me, send and I will come.”

He laughed shakily. “Your father might have something to say about that.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said starkly. She pressed closer to him in the bed. “Nothing matters now except us.”

“Aye,” he said. He closed his eyes and relished her nearness with every pore of his body. “And that is what will keep me sane.”

He thought of this conversation the following morning as he mounted Rufus in the outer bailey and
prepared to move off with the three knights Nigel had insisted on sending with him.

Cristen had not come to see him off.

“I can’t bear to see you ride away from me,” she had said last night.

“It’s all right,” he had said. “It’s all right, my love. I will be back. I promise I will be back.”

Hugh and his escort rode north to Gloucestershire and from thence they turned west, toward the vale of Evesham. It was November now and the weather had turned cold. Under their mail, Hugh and the knights wore several layers of wool shirts, and around their shoulders they wore warm wool cloaks.

Fortunately, it did not rain. The wind was sharp and chill, but the sun shone most of the time. The forest trees were almost bare and the paths were covered by the leaves that had fallen during the last month. As they passed the scattered assarts that small farmers had cut out of the woods, they could smell the fragrance of burning charcoal.

Hugh remembered the last time he had made the journey from Evesham to Somerford. He had been running from his mother then. He still did not know why he had this feeling about her. As Cristen had said, if Alan’s story was true, she was very much to be pitied.

Did she love me, I wonder?
Hugh thought.
Or was I too much of a reminder of the husband she did not like?

It didn’t matter if Isabel had loved him or not,
Hugh told himself firmly. He had had Adela. She had been more than mother enough for him.

It was late in the afternoon and the gray of evening had started to set in, by the time Hugh and his party reached the walls of Evesham. The knights on gate duty recognized him and let him in. With a trepidation he tried to deny even to himself, Hugh approached the formidable stone walls of the castle.

He hoped she wasn’t there.

Philip Demain couldn’t believe his eyes when Hugh walked into the Great Hall of Evesham.

The incredible nerve of the man! After the way he had behaved to Isabel, to return here as if assured of a welcome!

Philip simply couldn’t believe it.

Simon had been sharing a cup of wine with a group of his knights in front of the fire, and he too looked amazed when he saw who had come into his hall.

“Hugh,” he said in astonishment.

Everyone seated by the fire watched in silence as the slim young man crossed the floor. The only sound in the huge hall was the roaring of the fire and the clinking of his spurs.

Hugh stopped when he was still a few feet away from Simon. “My lord,” he said respectfully. “I am sorry to have arrived unannounced like this. If I am not welcome, I will go away.”

He was carrying his helmet under his arm. His fine-boned face that was so like his mother’s was
framed by his mail coif. His skin was red from the cold.

Philip longed to make a cutting remark to him, but there was something about Hugh’s expression that warned him off.

“I did not expect to see you here again,” Simon said. His own face was stern. “You left us so…precipitously…the last time you visited.”

“I am sorry for that,” Hugh said.

“It is not me to whom you owe an apology,” Simon said grimly. “It is to your mother.”

Philip saw a flash of quickly suppressed emotion flicker across Hugh’s guarded face. “I realize that,” he said quietly. “Is she still at Evesham?”

“Unfortunately, she is not,” Simon said. “She went back to the convent in Worcester right after you left us.”

Philip, watching Hugh closely, saw the relief that he could not quite disguise.

“I see,” he said.

The scene in the hall had frozen into a tableau. The squires, who were playing dice around one of the trestle tables, had stopped their game. The pages, who were sitting on a bench along the wall kicking their heels and waiting to pour more wine for the knights, had ceased their low chatter. The knights around the fire sat in dead silence, staring at Hugh.

“Why have you come here?” Simon asked his nephew. “Was it just to offer your apologies?”

Against all the laws of hospitality, he was keeping
Hugh, who was still dressed in full mail, standing while the rest of the men around the fire remained seated, wine cups in hand.

Hugh did not seem at all discomposed by his position. He stood easily, his feet a little apart, one arm cradling his helmet, the other hanging loosely at his side. He still wore his gloves.

He said, “Actually, I came to see Father Anselm, sir. Is he still at Evesham?”

“No, he is not. He left to return to the cathedral in Winchester two days ago.”

Hugh’s expression never altered. “I see. Well, if I may beg your hospitality for the night, I will be on my way again in the morning.”

Simon’s eyes narrowed. “You are going to go to Winchester?”

“Aye,” Hugh replied simply.

Simon frowned. Then he waved toward the squires who were gathered around trestle table throwing dice. They, like everyone else in the hall, had stopped all activity and were silently watching Hugh.

“Someone come here immediately and disarm my nephew,” the lord of Evesham said impatiently, as if it were the squires’ fault that Hugh had been kept standing.

Two squires jumped up and ran to assist Hugh. For a long minute the only noise in the hall was the jingle of sword belt and spurs being removed, the rattle of a mail coat as it was pulled over the head.

Finally Hugh stood before them in his wool shirt
and padded leather jerkin. There was a faint mark around his neck where the mail coat had chafed him.

“Sit down,” Simon said, waving toward a stool that was placed next to his own high-backed chair.

Hugh obeyed. He sat easily, making it look as if the backless stool was the most comfortable seat in the world.

“We heard that the king was besieging Malmesbury,” Simon said. “Is it true?”

“Aye,” Hugh replied. “Robert fitz Hubert and his garrison surrendered a few days ago.”

Simon waved to a page to bring Hugh some wine.

“We heard that as well,” Philip said in a hard voice.

With a courteous nod of thanks, Hugh accepted a cup of wine from the page.

“Where is Stephen now?” Simon asked. “Do you know?”

He stared at his nephew as if he were issuing a challenge.

Hugh sipped his wine and replied calmly, “I believe he has gone to Trowbridge.”

It was clear from the expression on his face that Simon had already known that.

“I would have returned to Evesham sooner, but with Stephen in the neighborhood, I did not feel it was wise for me to attempt a trip into Gloucester’s territory,” Hugh said.

Simon grunted his agreement. “If you had been caught, he would most probably have arrested you.”

Philip said, with barely concealed hostility, “Did
you meet the king while he was at Malmesbury? Somerford is only a few miles away, I believe.”

The light gray eyes lifted to meet his. They wore an ironic look and Philip had the uncomfortable sensation that Hugh knew exactly what he was thinking.

“As a matter of fact, I did meet him,” Hugh replied.

“God’s bones,” said Simon. He blew hard through his nose. “What happened? Did he ask you to swear allegiance to him?”

“Aye, he did.”

Simon looked grim. “And did you so swear?”

Hugh took a sip of wine. “No,” he said. “I did not.”

The men around the fire regarded him with open disbelief.

“Then why aren’t you under arrest?” Philip demanded.

A page came quietly forward with a flagon of wine and refilled one of the knight’s cups.

“I didn’t exactly refuse to swear allegiance to Stephen, either,” Hugh replied mildly. “I…er…avoided the subject.”

He took another swallow of his own wine.

“How did you manage to do that?” Simon asked incredulously.

Hugh rested his wine cup on his knee. “I told him that as Hugh Corbaille I owed him allegiance for my three manors in Lincolnshire, but that as Hugh de Leon I owned nothing and so had nothing to swear allegiance for.”

The stares of the knights slowly turned to grudging admiration.

Philip scowled.

“That was clever,” Simon said.

Hugh did not reply.

“Why do you want to see Father Anselm?” Philip demanded.

Hugh lifted one level brow. “I want to talk to him.”

“About what?”

Now Hugh’s stare was frankly inimical. “I believe that is my affair, not yours.”

Simon waved his hand impatiently. “Enough of this brangling! Did Stephen tell you that he would continue to support Guy as Earl of Wiltshire?”

“He did,” said Hugh.

Simon looked pleased. “Well, then, it must be plain to you that your only chance of winning back your rightful place is to join with us.”

“Perhaps,” Hugh said mildly. “However, I am not ready to think of that yet. First I must speak to Father Anselm.”

Simon’s face was suddenly grave. “Why must you talk to the priest, Hugh?”

His voice sounded strangely heavy.

Hugh kept his level gray gaze trained on his uncle’s face and did not reply.

“Why not just leave it alone?” Simon went on. “Digging up the past never did anyone any good. The present is challenge enough, I should think.”

Hugh shook his head.

After a moment, Simon sighed. “All right.” The heaviness had not left his voice. “If you must talk to the priest, you must talk to the priest.”

“Thank you,” Hugh said.

After another half an hour of general conversation, mostly about Stephen’s prospects of succeeding with his siege of Trowbridge, Simon got to his feet and announced, “I’m for bed.”

The rest of the men stood with him in courtesy.

Simon looked at his nephew. “You had better come upstairs with me and greet the Lady Alyce, Hugh. She will tell you where you are to sleep.”

Hugh looked faintly apprehensive. “Very well, sir.”

Philip was glad to see that something could shake that formidable composure.

“She is not happy with your behavior,” Simon said.

“No, sir,” Hugh said resignedly.

Simon beckoned. “Come along then.”

As the lord of Evesham moved the stairs, two of the squires who had been playing dice leaped to their feet and followed behind him.

Hugh had planned to leave for Winchester the following morning, but when he awoke it was to find that a storm had swept in from the west. Rain was falling in torrents and the wind was whipping it in sheets against the western wall of the castle.