No Dark Place (24 page)

“How is Lady Isabel?” he asked. “I have been thinking about her and this raid on Worcester. Is she safe?”

“Aye. My uncle fetched her to Evesham before Gloucester’s men arrived.”

Father Anselm’s eyes closed briefly. “Thanks be to God for that.”

Hugh moved to the other chair, sat, and rested his hands carefully on the smooth oak arms.

Father Anselm asked painfully, “Why did the Lady Isabel send you to
me
?”

Hugh said, “You were the chaplain at Chippenham when I was a child. You must know the things that happened in the household.”

“What things do you want to know about?”

Hugh thought that the priest sounded afraid.

A little heat began to radiate from the brazier.

Hugh said, “I want to know about my mother and Ivo Crespin.”

The priest’s head jerked up. His back went rigid. “Where did you hear about Ivo Crespin?”

“I spoke to Alan fitzRobert, one of Roger’s old knights who is still in service at Chippenham. He told me about it.”

The silence in the room was taut with tension.

Hugh went on doggedly, “Alan told me that Ivo and my mother were lovers. He told me that when Roger found out about them he had Ivo castrated. He told me that Ivo killed himself.”

Still the priest said nothing. In the light of the candle burning on the table next to his chair, his face looked cadaverous, his brown eyes sunk deep into their bony sockets. His body was still rigid with some emotion, which Hugh more and more suspected to be fear.

“I want to know if Alan’s story is true,” Hugh said.

There was a long silence, which Hugh did not try to break.

Finally Father Anselm replied in a hoarse voice, “God help us all, it is true.”

Hugh’s fingers tensed on the arms of his chair. “For God’s sake.” Despite himself, a tremor crept into his voice. “What kind of a man would do such a thing?”

It was clear to Father Anselm that Hugh was not talking about Ivo.

With an obvious effort, the priest made himself meet Hugh’s eyes. “Your father felt that he was justified in doing as he did. Remember, he was Ivo’s feudal lord, and Ivo had betrayed him.”

“What Roger did was vicious,” Hugh said. He was white around the mouth. “Was he a vicious man then?”

“No.” The priest’s voice was thin and strained. “No, I do not think that he was vicious, Hugh.”

“Under the circumstances, that is a little difficult to believe.” Hugh’s fingertips were white, he was pressing them so hard against the arms of his chair.

“He felt he had been betrayed,” Father Anselm repeated.

Hugh said, “And what of my mother?”

The priest wet his lips with his tongue. “What do you mean?”

“Why did my mother commit adultery with Ivo Crespin?”

Father Anselm winced. “You don’t understand, Hugh. You don’t understand how it was.”

“That’s right,” Hugh said starkly. “I don’t understand. That is why I am here, Father.”

“You didn’t…you didn’t ask your mother about Ivo Crespin, did you, Hugh?”

The priest’s eyes pleaded with him.

Hugh inhaled, then let the breath out slowly. “No,” he said a little bitterly. “I didn’t have the nerve.”

“Thank God for that,” the priest said. “Lady Isabel has enough to bear without knowing you have learned about
that
.”

Hugh leaned back in his chair and shrugged his shoulders, as if to exorcise the tension that was making him hold them so stiffly. He said, “Obviously my mother did not love or respect her husband. What of Roger, though? Did he love Isabel? Was that why he exacted such terrible retribution from Ivo?”

The priest replied with ineffable sadness, “I don’t think Lord Roger loved anyone but God.”

Hugh rested his dark head against the high back of his chair and regarded the priest with somber eyes.

“Your father was a great crusader,” Father Anselm said, still with that note of sadness in his voice. “It is a thousand pities that he was forced to return home and take up the burden of a family. He was not the kind of man who should have had a family. He should have been a priest.”

“He had a younger brother,” Hugh said. “He did not have to marry. He could have left the earldom to Guy.”

The priest shook his head. “Roger was incapable of turning his back upon what he perceived to be his duty. If God had called him to be the Earl of
Wiltshire, then he would take up that responsibility, no matter how personally repugnant he might find it.”

“Personally repugnant?”
Hugh repeated.

“Think of this, Hugh,” Father Anselm said gently. “Your mother was fifteen years old when she was wed; your father was a man in his late forties. It was not easy for her—so young a girl, and so very very lovely—to be wedded to a man who was not interested in her.”

Silence fell as Hugh digested this information.

“So she turned to Ivo,” he said.

Father Anselm lifted his hands. “It was wrong. It was adultery and it was wrong. They were wrong. But…I can understand how it happened.”

Hugh regarded the priest with interest. “You did not condemn her, then?”

“No! No, of course not.” Father Anselm seemed to realize that he was being too vehement, and he moderated his tone. “Christ did not condemn the woman caught in adultery either, my son. It would be well for you to remember that.”

A strained silence fell between them. The room was still quite cold and the priest folded his hands into his sleeves to keep them warm.

Hugh shifted the line of his questioning. “Was Roger as indifferent a father as he was a husband?”

Father Anselm’s sharp intake of breath was audible in the quiet of the room.

Deliberately, Hugh relaxed the pressure of his fin
gers on the arms of his chair. Once more he made a shrugging motion with his shoulders. He waited.

At last the priest said cautiously, “He cared about you, Hugh. In his own way, he cared about you.”

Hugh lifted his brows. “‘In his own way’? What do you mean by that?”

Father Anselm removed his hands from his sleeves and reached up to rub his eyes. “Are you quite certain that you want to know all this? It can only cause you pain.”

“I am quite certain,” Hugh said, his voice very clipped.

“Very well, then. Perhaps it is best that you do know.” The priest linked his fingers together and rested them in the lap of his brown wool robe. He did not look at Hugh but instead fixed his eyes on the reddening coals in the brazier.

When he spoke his voice was firmer than it had been all evening.

“When you were a young child, you were quick and bright and fearless and Lord Roger was proud of you. He put you on a horse when you were two years old and you loved it. Nothing ever made you afraid.

“After the incident with Ivo, however, everything changed.”

Hugh’s fingers began to tense again.

Father Anselm rubbed his forehead as if it ached. “Lord Roger felt that his wife had shown that she was sinful and lustful and he was afraid that she might have passed those traits along to you. So he started
you on a program that he felt would stamp out any of your mother’s weaknesses, a program that would ensure you grew up strong and pure.”

Hugh said a little incredulously, “I was six years old.”

“He was afraid for you. He was afraid that you were tainted. He felt that it was his duty to save you.”

For a brief moment, the priest’s eyes flicked from their contemplation of the brazier to Hugh’s face. “He really did think that, Hugh. It was not a subject on which he was completely rational.”

The priest went back to staring at the coals. “He separated you from your mother. She was not to be allowed to see you anymore. He did not want her to influence you in any way.”

Hugh’s heart began to beat more loudly.

Unmistakable pain crept into Father Anselm’s voice. “It was terrible for Lady Isabel. Your mother loved you very much, Hugh. You must always remember that.”

Hugh sat, rigid as stone, and listened.

“Next, Lord Roger took over your education himself. You were no longer allowed to play with the pages or the other children in the castle. You were kept away from the knights. Lord Roger isolated you completely.”

A chill began to seep into Hugh’s bones.

“He made you spend hours and hours on your knees in the chapel.”

Hugh remembered how he had recognized the
window in the chapel at Chippenham. He swallowed.

“He would pray with you for a while, and then he would leave you there by yourself. You had to kneel upright and never move. Sometimes you were there for five hours at a time.”

I was six years old
, Hugh thought.

“I knew that what he was doing was wrong, and I tried to get him to stop it, but he would not listen.” The priest gave Hugh a wretched look. “I was very young and he was the greatest crusader of his time. Why should he listen to me?”

Someone knocked upon the door and then it opened. The housekeeper peered in. Her small bright eyes went curiously from Hugh to the priest. “Would you like me to bring you anything, Father Anselm?”

The priest turned his head to the door. “No, Mistress Alney. Thank you.”

She flashed her white teeth at them, and her three chins jiggled. After one more curious look, she retreated, leaving them alone once more.

As soon as the door closed, Hugh said harshly, “Did I never see my mother again?”

“At first you used to sneak in to see her.” The priest rubbed his forehead once more. “God help me, but I aided and abetted you. Then one day he found you in her room. He beat you in front of her, which distressed her unbearably. After that you didn’t try to see her again.”

Hugh’s mouth was very dry. He said with difficulty, “I thought you told me he wasn’t vicious.”

“I have thought about this for many years, and I understand now that he truly thought he was doing what was in your best interest.”

Hugh made a sound indicative of contempt.

The priest looked at him sadly. “Perhaps I am making a mistake by telling you this.”

Hugh shook his head in disagreement. His face did not look young at all. “I need to know,” he said.

Father Anselm shut his eyes, as if he were trying to hide from a vision he did not want to see.

“During the course of the year, you changed.” The priest’s voice was very low. “All the brightness left you and you became quiet and withdrawn.

“I blame myself,” the priest said wretchedly. “I should have done something. Your mother was helpless. I should have gone to her brother and told him what was happening. I should have done
something
. I know that. I knew it then. But…I was afraid of him.”

Hugh looked incredulous. “Afraid of Simon?”

“No, of Roger. He was so cold, so convinced of his own righteousness. And he was such a powerful man.”

“Because he was the Earl of Wiltshire?”

“It wasn’t just his position. It was something in himself, in his personality.” Father Anselm looked directly at Hugh. “You have it, too,” he said.

Hugh stared at the priest. He was very pale.

“There is something…compelling…about you that makes other men look to you for leadership. It is
hard to explain, but it is most assuredly there.”

“You are mistaken,” Hugh said tightly. “I in no way resemble Lord Roger.”

“In this way you do,” Father Anselm contradicted him. “Nor is it a bad quality, Hugh. In fact, it is a good quality, if it is put to its proper use. It is what made Lord Roger such a great soldier.”

Hugh did not reply. He was once more gripping his chair arms with white-tipped fingers.

The priest continued, “Roger’s great flaw was that he would listen to no one but himself. He was guilty of the oldest sin in the world, the sin of Lucifer, the sin of pride.”

Hugh inhaled deeply. When he spoke again, his voice had hardened. “I understand, Father Anselm, that you were the one who found Roger’s body.”

“Aye.” The priest’s voice was cautious.

“Tell me about it,” Hugh said.

Father Anselm looked uneasy. “There is nothing much to tell. I came into the chapel and found him lying on the floor in front of the altar. He had been stabbed in the chest.”

“It must have been quite a shock to you, to find him like that,” Hugh said neutrally.

“Aye.” The priest swallowed. “That it was.”

“What did you do then?”

“Well…I raised the alarm, of course. None of us could imagine who might have done such a thing. Then…then the guards reported that Walter Crespin
had ridden out earlier, with you on his saddle. That is when we knew that Walter must have exacted his revenge for Ivo.”

Someone walked past the door and went down the stairs.

“What I don’t understand is why
I
did not raise the alarm,” Hugh said. “After all, I was in the chapel when it happened. And if Walter did indeed kill my father, why would I have gone off with him like that?”

Father Anselm went rigid. Every ounce of blood drained from his face. “You weren’t in the chapel!”

“I remember being there,” Hugh said. “I remember seeing my fa…—Roger’s—body laying on the floor. I remember being afraid.”

The priest was staring at him, looking both frightened and appalled.

“Walter Crespin didn’t kill my father, did he?” Hugh said.

“Of course he did!” Father Anselm cried. “I was there! I saw it happen. Of course it was Walter Crespin! Who else could it possibly have been?”

Hugh’s eyes were cold as they rested on the priest’s face. “You were there when it happened?”

“God help me,” the priest muttered. Visibly, he tried to pull himself together. “Aye. I was there. I saw it happen. I saw Walter Crespin draw his dagger and stab Lord Roger in the chest. Walter couldn’t bear to see the way Roger was treating Lady Isabel, and so he killed him.”

The priest’s face looked like a death’s head.

“I told Walter that I would give him time to get away. That’s why I delayed my discovery of the body.”

“And did you also arrange for Walter to take me with him?”

Father Anselm looked hunted. “He was taking you to Evesham, to your mother’s brother.”

“Why?”

“So you would be safe, of course.”