Rhuddlan (7 page)

“Ah, well,” Delamere replied instead with an
exaggerated sigh, “I, for one, found the language of Ireland
fascinating.”

“Probably because you had
many willing teachers,” Longsword said dryly. Delamere had made the
most of the enforced layover in Dublin. Longsword had hardly seen
him for three months. He gave his friend a sly look. “But did you
actually
learn
anything?”

“Of course!” Delamere managed to seem
offended. “Hello, good-bye, I love you, you look beautiful by the
light of a candle…things like that. I’d like a similar opportunity
to learn Welsh,” he mused. “Sounds so lovely, doesn’t it? The women
don’t speak, they sing. Of course, I don’t think the king will stay
more than one night. Then it’s rough sleeping, non-stop riding and
more sailing straight back to Normandy.”

Longsword’s lips twisted sourly at the
thought of another imminent sea voyage. He firmly put it in the
back of his mind. “Richard, if you can’t get a woman to share your
cloak within an hour of our arrival at Cardigan I’ll lose all
respect for you.”

Delamere laughed. “Well, Will,” he answered.
“You know it’s not in my nature to refuse a challenge.”

Chapter 5

April, 1172

Chester Castle, Cheshire

After several days of violent rainstorms, the
sun turned out for Sir Robert Bolsover’s bedraggled entrance into
Chester. He and his men had left the king’s entourage at Chepstow,
and while Henry continued eastward across England, Bolsover had
turned north. He was finished with the king’s service now; he
proposed to stay with his brother-in-law for as long as it suited
either one of them.

The journey had been wet and miserable, but
Bolsover displayed no ill effects, jumping lightly from the saddle
and giving Hugh a short bow before being caught up in a welcoming
embrace.

Roger of Haworth witnessed the return of
Robert Bolsover with apprehension. It was Hugh’s transformation
which bothered him most. For the past seven months the earl had
seemed on edge, even testy at times, and Roger could count on one
hand the number of times he’d been invited to share his bed. He had
shrugged it off and put it down to Hugh’s new marriage and his
adjustment to it and had determined to patiently wait it out,
confident Hugh would eventually fall again into their old routine.
In the meantime, he hadn’t attempted to seek companionship
elsewhere; he was devoted to the earl and the idea of taking
another lover would never have occurred to him.

So it was a bitter blow to see Hugh suddenly
burst to life the moment Robert Bolsover rode through the gate,
wind-whipped and rumpled but with his fair hair still shining
brightly and his insolent manner still intact. And then to see Hugh
embrace him like a brother and kiss his cheeks and stand there
speaking with him as if they were the only two in the ward. And
then, to add insult to injury, to see Bolsover sling a familiar arm
around Hugh’s neck and watch the pair of them walk right past
him—with Hugh not even giving him a second glance—and up the steps
and into the hall! He stood alone and stared dumbly after them…And
then he realized that the earl’s preoccupation hadn’t been due to
the presence of a wife but to the absence of her brother. Such
ardent longing could mean only one thing.

Bolsover and Hugh were lovers.

It was a possibility that Haworth had never
considered. Perhaps he’d merely been naive, or perhaps he’d not
wanted to believe it. He had known since the coronation of the
Young King two years ago that Hugh was interested in Bolsover, but
he hadn’t assumed the interest was so deep or physical. In all the
years he and Hugh had been intimate, Haworth had never had even the
faintest hint that Hugh might have been sleeping with another man.
He felt for a moment as if his stomach had been ripped out of him.
His heart pounded furiously. He dared not turn around; he thought
everyone was staring at him, knowing he’d fallen out of favor,
silently laughing at him. He had been betrayed by the one person he
could never betray.

But, as so often happens in the tangles of
love triangles, Haworth didn’t blame Hugh. Bolsover was the
culprit, the seducer. Bolsover was the one he blamed…and
cursed.

From a window in a second storey apartment
which overlooked the ward, Eleanor and Gwalaes were also watching
the arrival of Robert Bolsover. “Are you jealous, Eleanor?” the
other girl inquired. “Your husband just kissed your brother three
times.”

Her tone of voice was bland, leading Eleanor
to believe she was being sarcastic. Although they had argued about
Gwalaes’ opinion of Hugh several times, Eleanor didn’t want to
bicker now. “Well, they’re good friends and Robert’s been away for
half a year,” she answered mildly. “Naturally they’re happy to see
each other.”

“Oh, naturally,” Gwalaes echoed, but with
that same sarcastic drawl.

Gwalaes had changed. Once, aside from Robert,
the most zealous proponent of marriage with the earl, she was now
strangely monosyllabic whenever Eleanor brought him up. It had
started almost as soon as they had passed through the gates of the
castle, when they’d arrived for the wedding in September. And when
she wasn’t practicing reticence on the topic of the earl, she was
complaining profusely about his castle; its population, its
dangerous proximity to Wales, its sheer magnitude. It was a trial
for Eleanor; she had finally reached the point at which she
accepted, and was even starting to enjoy, her fate, and Gwalaes’
moods and displeasures grated on her.

Before she could retort, Gwalaes said, “I
don’t see Alan, do you?”

Hugh and Robert had disappeared into the
keep, but there were men and horses still milling about in the
ward. The squire, however, was nowhere to be seen.

“No…Perhaps he’s already gone to the stable.
That black horse of Robert’s is missing also.”

Gwalaes sniffed. “Your brother was probably
concerned that his precious animal caught a chill in the rain and
sent Alan to rub him down and throw a warm blanket over his
back.”

“Should we go down, do you think?”

“Too crowded. Besides, they looked fine
without you. God knows, you haven’t seen your brother in half a
year also, but he wouldn’t greet you like he greeted Hugh.”

“I’d like to hear about Ireland,” said
Eleanor.

“Don’t worry! I’m certain that’s all Robert
will be talking about at dinner. He loves to have an audience.”

Eleanor could not remember Hugh looking so
happy in all the months of their marriage. The large hall was full
of people, knights and ladies, men-at-arms and guests of the earl,
and servants bearing trays of steaming food and jugs of wine. They
sat at the high table, Hugh in his elaborately carved chair,
Eleanor on his left and Robert in the place of honor on his right,
along with Sir Miles de Gournay, Hugh’s steward, and half a dozen
other notables. As Gwalaes had predicted, Bolsover described his
adventures in Ireland with humor and some slight embellishment, at
which the knights who’d accompanied him smiled indulgently. It was
obvious Bolsover had a respected reputation as a wild but competent
soldier. If he lied a little, it was only to spice up the story,
not to inflate his own role in it.

After the meal, the musicians came out.
Bolsover took one’s instrument and attempted to describe the way
the Irish played and the strange language in which they sang, but
only succeeded in provoking gales of laughter which had been his
intent all along. With mock resignation, he handed the instrument
back to the musician and called loudly for a good French song.
Eleanor clapped with everyone else, flushed from the wine and proud
that the two most important men in the castle belonged to her.

She slipped away a short while later to use
the privy chamber and nearly bumped into Gwalaes afterwards on the
stair leading back down to the hall. The black-haired girl reached
for Eleanor’s arm, her face concerned.

“Alan isn’t here!” she said.

“What do you mean, isn’t here?” asked
Eleanor. “I’m sure I saw him—”

“You haven’t seen anyone tonight but your
precious husband!” snapped Gwalaes. “Alan didn’t come with
Robert—your brother was angry with him and left him with the king
in Wales!”

Eleanor was so surprised that she didn’t take
offense to Gwalaes’ snide comment about her husband. She stared,
open-mouthed. “How do you know?”

“Because I asked!
You
were too busy to care,
but
I
asked!” She
related the story that another of Bolsover’s squires had told her
about the runaway horse and Alan d’Arques’ misfortune. “He’s kin to
you! How could Robert leave him?”

“There must be a simple explanation, Gwalaes!
Avranches was Robert’s favorite horse—he won him from Hugh! When he
leaves Chester, he’ll more than likely send for Alan to join him
again.”

“If he ever leaves…” muttered Gwalaes.

“What are you talking about, Gwalaes?” said
Eleanor sharply.

“Eleanor, open your eyes! Chester suits
Robert very well! The earl dotes on him the way he should dote on
you! Didn’t you see it at Oakby? Couldn’t you tell when we arrived
here for the wedding and Robert, not Hugh, came out to greet us as
if he owned all this? There isn’t any reason for Robert to leave! I
think that if Hugh could have married Robert instead of you, he
would have preferred it!”

“You’re being ridiculous! They’re good
friends just as we’re good friends…”

The other girl opened her mouth as if to make
a retort, but shut it just as quickly. Without another word, she
turned and walked away, leaving Eleanor to stare after her in
complete confusion.

Two weeks later, the earl and Bolsover left
Chester, bound for Normandy with the intention of witnessing the
passing of the papal court’s verdict on the king. Eleanor and
Gwalaes were awakened by the stamping and snorting of horses and
loud male voices. Hardware clanked and jingled. Gwalaes unlatched
the window and they leaned out as discreetly as they could. Scores
of soldiers and horses milled below them in the ward, breathing out
with vaporous puffs in the damp morning air. Then Hugh and Robert
appeared. Roger of Haworth barked some command and the genial chaos
quickly became order. Bolsover, laughing at something Hugh said,
mounted a handsome, sleek roan which the earl had presented to him
as a replacement for Avranches. Another command and the soldiers
formed themselves into rough lines, led by Hugh and Bolsover. Then
everyone moved towards the gate; knights followed by archers
followed by men-at-arms followed by three baggage carts—nearly one
hundred men in all. In a quarter of an hour the ward was empty, and
silent once again. Gwalaes said nothing, but Eleanor felt
humiliated. Hugh, whom she hadn’t seen privately since her
brother’s arrival, hadn’t informed her of his impending
departure.

She had never been jealous of their father’s
complete and exclusive devotion to Robert but she discovered she
resented her husband’s excessive attention to him. While Robert was
at Chester, Hugh ignored her completely. Never one for idle
chatter, he didn’t even have a spare word for her. Perhaps there
was a point to Gwalaes’ inexplicable hatred of the earl after
all…but Eleanor couldn’t bring herself to hate Hugh. It was her
brother’s fault, of course. Gwalaes, who had worshipped him growing
up, was still too loyal to him to see the truth. Eleanor knew
better; her eyes were unclouded by infatuation. She thought about
Robert and the anger built up slowly inside her. He had manipulated
all their father’s attention and now he was doing the same with her
husband. It was abominable, unbearable. She hated him with an
intensity she once would have never believed she possessed.

Chapter 6

June, 1172

Avranches, Normandy

Hugh observed the negotiations between the
king and the papal legates with a curious sense of detachment. Of
course Henry was his king and he and all his property were sworn to
him, but if the Church refused to find him innocent…well, then,
that would virtually mean the disintegration of his empire,
wouldn’t it? It would mean all oaths made to him were null. And it
could mean that his son, the Young King, would be the successor to
whom the barons looked for leadership. In return for his support,
Hugh might finally be able to get the earldoms which Henry
continued to deny to him. He conceded it was a long shot, but life
had certainly brightened for him since his acquaintanceship with
Robert Bolsover, and who could tell what other surprises might lay
in store?

But at the end of May, King Henry II was
formally absolved of complicity in the murder of Archbishop Thomas
Becket by the papal legates. And fewer than three weeks later,
Bolsover was dead.

The sun had been strong in their eyes.
Everyone involved agreed afterward that had been a large
contributor to the accident. They’d been racing like madmen after a
phantom stag. And they had spent the afternoon drinking—really, it
was a miracle no one else had been killed.

Without war, there was little for a knight to
do. He wasn’t an administrator; he had stewards to take care of the
day to day maintenance of his property, and he wasn’t a
businessman—that was a role for lowly burgesses and trades people.
He could sit on his court and listen to the petty disputes among
the men of his holdings, but there was no excitement in it. From a
young age, the knight had been trained for only one purpose: to
serve his master with arms. Perhaps when a man grew older and had a
wife and children and his own bit of land, he began to look
distastefully on rushing off to besiege one or another of the
king’s recalcitrant vassals, but Hugh, Bolsover, Haworth and all
the men with them were young and still a little careless of their
mortality. If there was no war, then they spent every waking hour
practicing for one. Or they went hunting.