No Dark Place (5 page)

“The master and Lady Cristen are already seated in the front,” his youthful escort murmured, and obediently Hugh made his way down the narrow aisle. He stepped into the carved wooden pew next to Nigel.

His host gave him a grave smile and then turned his attention to the altar.

Hugh stared straight ahead, first at the carved crucifix that hung on the wall over the altar, then at the altar itself, covered with an embroidered linen cloth and topped with gold candlesticks and a carved wooden tabernacle.

The too-familiar feeling began to creep over him again: part terror, part anger, part utter desolation.

He was all right in a large church, but in a chapel…

Why do I always feel like this?

Instinctively he knew that he did not want to learn the answer to that question.

The earl was killed in a chapel
.

He did not want to think about that, either. It was fruitless to think about that. He couldn’t remember.

The priest had come out onto the altar. He faced the tabernacle, raised his hands and began to intone the prayer that always opened mass: “
In nomine patris
…”

The congregation, Hugh included, made the sign of the cross.

When mass was finished, Hugh filed out of the chapel with Nigel and Cristen.

“How are you feeling this morning?” his host asked, scanning Hugh’s tense face with narrowed eyes.

“Much better,” Hugh replied. “I apologize for arriving in such a pitiful state.”

“You don’t look well,” Nigel said bluntly.

Hugh’s nostrils pinched together. “I assure you, I am fine.”

The three of them began to descend the stairs to the great hall, where the servants were busily setting up the trestle tables for the morning’s breaking fast.

Halfway down the stairs, they were met by two dogs who came racing to shove their noses into Cristen’s hands. The girl laughed, caressed their heads briefly, then turned to Hugh. “You must allow me to introduce you. This is Cedric,” she nodded toward the shaggy brown mongrel with one torn ear that was pressing against her leg. “And this is Ralf.”

Hugh felt his eyes widen at the mention of the name. He looked at the large, black-and-white, freckle-nosed dog and, unconsciously, his hand
went up to encircle the gold cross he had worn around his throat ever since his foster father’s death.

Nigel said with resignation, “My daughter should have a purebred, of course, but these are the dogs she wanted.”

“There is always someone who will take a purebred,” Cristen said briskly. “Cedric and Ralf need me.”

She bestowed one more pat on each dog and then resumed walking down the stairs.

“Cristen rescued Ralf from being drowned in the river when he was a puppy and Cedric came wandering up to the castle walls one night, injured and crying, and she insisted that we take him in.” Nigel’s voice held a mixture of amusement and pride as he spoke of his daughter and her animals.

They had reached the bottom of the stairs and now they began to walk across the hall floor toward the high table. Hugh noticed that Ralf had a noticeable limp.

A servant stepped up to Cristen’s side and she stopped to speak to him. “How is Berta this morning?”

The man smiled at her, revealing two missing front teeth. “She is feeling better, my lady. She wanted to come down to the morning meal but I told her she had best not stir until you gave her leave.”

Cristen nodded. “You did well, Martin. I will go to see her after the breaking of fast.”

“Thank you, my lady.”

Hugh looked with curiosity into the small oval face of the girl who was walking beside him flanked
by her dogs. “Are you a doctor then, Lady Cristen?”

She laughed. “No. I merely have some knowledge of herbs, and the castle folk find me helpful.”

“Not just the castle folk,” her father interjected. They had reached the dais by now, and he gestured Hugh to the chair on his right. “Cristen’s skill as a healer is well known in all the surrounding countryside.”

Hugh said, “So that is why you were able to take care of me so ably yesterday.”

The two dogs established themselves with comfortable familiarity behind Cristen’s chair. She said, “If you would like, Hugh, I will show you my herb garden after we have broken fast.”

Hugh looked at her. “I should like that very much.”

Hugh stood before the high table, waiting for Cristen to return from her visit to the sick Berta. The cats were gone from in front of the fireplace and the hall was filled with servants busily scouring the trestle tables and moving them back against the walls so they would not be in the way of the morning activities.

Sunlight slanted in through the open windows on the right wall, dappling the heads of the busy servants.

Thomas, the young knight who had been part of Hugh’s escort, passed in front of him and offered a tentative smile. Grave-faced, Hugh nodded back.

What am I doing here?

It was the thought that had haunted Hugh ever since Ralf’s death. Night after night, he had stood in
front of the fireplace at Keal, staring at his own hall, at his own dependents, and the thought had risen in his brain.

What am I doing here?

Accompanying that question was the terrifying sensation that he had been separated from the rest of the people in the room by a wall of ice. He could see them clearly enough, but he could not communicate with them. No matter what he did, he could not break through the frozen wall that isolated him in such desolate loneliness. The despair that welled up inside him at these moments was almost unbearable. One day it would be truly unbearable, and what would he do then?

A warm hand touched his arm.

A white-tipped tail slapped against his leg.

He looked down into a pair of clear brown eyes.

“I’m ready,” Cristen said. “Do you still want to see my garden?”

Hugh inhaled deeply. “Aye,” he said. “I do.”

T
he morning was pleasantly warm, with only a few fleecy white clouds floating across a serene blue sky. As Hugh walked down the castle stairs with Cristen, he looked around and for the first time actually saw the outside of Somerford Castle. He had been in no condition to notice much of anything yesterday.

Somerford had obviously been built as a traditional motte and bailey castle, although it had been added to as the years had gone by. The original wooden keep had been replaced by a three-story stone structure situated on a hill that overlooked a swiftly flowing stream, which Cristen informed him led into the River Avon a few miles away. Around the top of the hill, or motte, was a ten-foot-high wall that had also probably once been made of timber but was now built of local stone. Four guards stood duty on the four sides of the wall’s sentry walk, which afforded them an excellent view of the surrounding countryside.

A sloping bridge that finished in a drawbridge led over a filled moat from the motte to the level
lower ground of the bailey. Hugh walked across the bridge with Cristen, their feet, encased now in outdoor boots, making a hollow sound on the wooden planks. The dogs paced along at Cristen’s heels, as close as shadows.

Looking around, Hugh estimated that the bailey of Somerford probably covered about four acres. It contained the usual necessities of castle life: cookhouse, bakehouse, brewhouse, armory, barns and pens for cattle and horses, grooms’ living quarters, and workshops for the skilled craftsmen who served the castle.

Nigel maintained a guard of resident knights, but Hugh thought that this castle was more a home than it was a military bastion.

All that might change with the coming war.

Unlike the inner wall surrounding the motte, which was made of stone, the outer wall of the bailey was constructed of the original wood. Hugh remembered passing over the outer moat and through the bailey drawbridge yesterday. He didn’t remember anything else.

As they walked along, Cristen was greeted respectfully by each homespun clad workman they passed.

No, it was more than respectfully, Hugh corrected himself. It was fondly.

“My garden is this way,” Cristen said to him as she led the way toward a part of the bailey that was blocked off by a five-foot-high wooden fence. He
trailed after her like one of her dogs as she led the way into her private domain.

The first thing that struck Hugh as he walked through the gate was the heady, aromatic fragrance of the herbs. He looked around and saw row upon row of plants, all neatly laid out one after the other. Along the far wall of the garden there grew a profusion of rosebushes that were in full bloom. He could smell their perfume mixed in with the herbs.

Adela had loved roses.

Against another wall there stood a small wooden shed.

Cristen saw him looking at it. “The shed is where I dry my herbs and make my medicinal potions.”

“You are young to be so knowledgeable,” Hugh said.

“The garden was actually started by my mother. She was interested in herbs and healing and she passed her knowledge along to me.”

She tipped her head up to smile at him. This morning she wore her hair plaited into two long braids and her sleeveless blue outer tunic was worn over a long-sleeved robe of red. It was too warm for a cloak.

“I need to boil up another cough mixture for Berta, if you don’t mind waiting,” she said.

“Of course not.” He followed her to the shed and looked inside. Dried herbs hung from the roof and shelves lined the walls. They were filled with
bottles, some already filled and stoppered, some still open, waiting to be filled. A small charcoal brazier stood near the door, and there was a bench along the wall beside it.

“Pull the bench into the sun and sit down, Hugh,” she said. “This won’t take very long.”

He did as she suggested and watched her as she competently crushed some ingredients together and put them in a bottle with wine and honey.

“Most frequently I use crushed almonds and chestnut leaves for coughs,” she said. “As Berta seems to be responding well to the mixture, I won’t try to change it.”

Hugh sat in silence, feeling the warmth of the sun on his back and shoulders. The shed and the garden seemed very peaceful, and he felt some of the chapel-induced tension begin to drain away. The dogs stretched out in the sun behind him.

Cristen took tinder and flint from its place on a shelf, lit the charcoal brazier, and placed the flagon she had filled on the heat. Then she came to join him on the bench.

“Have you ever met the Earl of Wiltshire?” Hugh heard himself asking.

“Aye,” she returned. “I have met him a number of times.”

Hugh gazed fixedly at the flagon on the brazier in front of him. “Tell me,” he said, “is it true that I look like him?”

She answered matter-of-factly, “You have his
eyes, Hugh, but the rest of his features are heavier than yours, more massive.”

He continued to stare at the flagon. “Your father thinks I am the boy who was kidnapped from the castle thirteen years ago.”

He did not know why he was talking to this girl like this, but for some reason he felt comfortable with her.

“I know,” she said.

At last he turned to look at her. “Why did he invite me here, Cristen? What does he hope to gain by it?”

She smoothed her hands along the fine blue wool of her outer tunic. “Justice, I think,” she answered. “My father has always thought that Guy was behind his brother’s death. It has angered him to see a man whom he regarded as a murderer sitting in Lord Roger’s place.”

“Your father thought highly of Lord Roger?”

She smiled. “All the world thought highly of Lord Roger. He was a great crusader, you know.”

“No,” Hugh replied slowly. “I didn’t know.”

“Father has always thought it particularly shameful that such a man should be murdered in his own chapel.”

Hugh’s eyes narrowed. “Your father also wants an earl who will pledge Wiltshire to Stephen, and I told him that I was not sure that I could do that.”

“Why not?” Cristen asked curiously. “Are you an adherent of the empress?”

Hugh shrugged. “I know little about the empress, but I think that her brother, Robert of Gloucester, would be a better king than Stephen.”

“My father thinks Robert of Gloucester is a good man also,” Cristen said agreeably. “But Gloucester is a bastard and so cannot be king. He is supporting the right of his half-sister and her son.”

Hugh stretched his legs in front of him and didn’t reply.

“What don’t you like about Stephen?” Cristen asked.

Her voice was merely interested.

Hugh stared at his boots and replied, “He is indecisive, and at this point in time what England desperately needs is a king who is strong. Stephen needs to stop this rebellion before it starts, and he is not doing the right things to accomplish that end.”

“He has taken all the castles that rebelled against him,” Cristen pointed out.

“He has not taken Bristol and he needs to take Bristol. As soon as Gloucester returns from Normandy, he will make Bristol his headquarters, and Stephen cannot afford to give him that kind of advantage. Once Gloucester is established in Bristol, all of those castles that Stephen has taken will fall once more to the empress.”

Cristen moved her foot back and forth on the dirt floor. It was a very small foot, Hugh noticed, and the boot she wore was scuffed.

Behind them one of the dogs began to snore.

“My father says that Stephen is very gallant,” Cristen said.

Hugh returned grimly, “What we need at the moment is a king who is ruthless, not gallant.”

“Ruthless is an ugly word.”

“Civil war is even uglier. It is the little people who will be hurt the worst by such a war, the very people whom the king has sworn to defend.”

Cristen sighed. “It always seems to be the little people who get hurt.”

“Unfortunately,” Hugh said.

The snoring behind them stopped as the dog shifted position.

Cristen said, “My father said that Gloucester and the empress will be coming to England any day now and that Stephen has posted troops at all the main ports to repulse them.”

“They won’t try to land at any of the main ports,” Hugh said. “Gloucester is too clever for that.”

Cristen got up to go and check on her potion. Evidently she judged it not yet ready, for she left it on the brazier and returned to the bench. She folded her hands in her lap and Hugh noticed that the tips of her fingers were stained with green from the leaves she had crushed.

“Where do you think they will land?” she asked curiously.

“It could be any of several places. Arundel, perhaps. Matilda’s stepmother, Adeliza, holds the castle there.”

“I don’t like to think about it,” Cristen confessed. “The whole idea of war is frightening.”

“Aye,” Hugh said somberly. “It is.”

A comfortable silence fell between them. On the brazier the liquid in the flagon began to bubble.

Hugh inhaled the warm, herb-scented air.

“I don’t know why I agreed to come here,” he said slowly. “I have been thinking ever since I left home that I must be mad.”

“Not mad,” Cristen said. “Just confused, I imagine. It’s a little overwhelming to be suddenly told you might be somebody else. And I think it’s only natural to want to find out if it might be true.”

She got up and went to take the flagon off the brazier, using a thick cloth to shield her hand from the bottle’s heat.

He watched her for a while in silence.

Then, “Did your father tell you that I can’t remember anything of my first seven years?” he asked.

“Aye,” she said. Her back was to him as she carefully placed the hot flagon on a tile that stood next to the brazier. Her braids were bound by scarlet ribbons that matched her undertunic. The nape of her neck looked as tender as a child’s.

“Have you ever heard of such a thing before?”

She turned around to face him. “Many people have little memory of their early childhood.”

He didn’t reply, just regarded her steadily.

“You must have remembered that your name was Hugh,” she said.

“Perhaps it wasn’t. Perhaps it was something else. Perhaps I am not this Hugh de Leon after all.”

“There is always that possibility,” she agreed.

Her large brown eyes were luminous as she regarded him.

“I think you need to find out,” she said. “I think that’s why you came here.”

His face was bleak. “I think perhaps you are right.”

Nigel stood in front of the blacksmith’s hut holding the lead line of a large brown stallion, his eyes on Hugh and his daughter as they crossed the bailey together. As he watched, Cristen glanced up at the boy next to her and said something. Hugh flashed her a smile in response.

Nigel stared in amazement at that brilliant, youthful look and shook his head.

Cristen was working her magic again.

His daughter was another reason that Nigel would be happy to see Lord Guy replaced as Earl of Wiltshire. Three times in the last two years Guy had proposed matches for Cristen and three times Nigel had refused them.

All of Guy’s choices had been men at least twenty years older than Cristen. More importantly, they had been men whom Nigel did not like, men who were Guy’s followers, whom Guy had wanted to reward with the desirable honor of Somerford.

Cristen was seventeen and she should be wed, but she was his only child and Nigel was not going to hand
her over, along with her dowry of Somerford, to a man he did not trust.

It was not always easy these days to find a suitable match for a daughter. Because of the Norman custom that decreed that all of a family’s holdings be passed down to the eldest son, it was only the eldest son in a family who was eligible to marry. Penniless younger sons usually remained bachelors. This left a limited number of potential husbands for the daughters of the nobility, and competition was fierce. The convents were filled with girls whose families had not been able to give them a good enough dowry to purchase a husband.

But Cristen would eventually have Somerford, so Nigel knew he should have little trouble finding a husband for her. The trouble lay in securing the agreement of his overlord, Guy, to Nigel’s choice.

If Hugh became Earl of Wiltshire, he would owe his position to Nigel. Under such circumstances, Nigel didn’t think that Hugh would object to Nigel’s choice of a husband for his daughter.

Cristen had seen him and now she changed course and began to walk in his direction. Hugh and the dogs followed her lead.

The forge was going and the sound of the smith’s hammer rang out in the warm summer air. Nigel’s favorite horse was being shod this morning and he had come to see that the shoeing went well. Byrony had been becoming increasingly more difficult for the blacksmith to handle.

As Cristen and Hugh came up to the forge, the big, dark brown stallion snorted and aimed a kick right at the smith’s head.

With a sharp curse, the smith leaped out of the way.

“Oh dear,” Cristen said. “Is Byrony up to his tricks again?”

“He hates getting shoes, especially on his hind feet,” Nigel said. He looked at Hugh. “He’s been this way ever since I bought him and it seems that every time we shoe him he gets worse.”

Hugh watched for a few minutes as the blacksmith picked up Byrony’s off hind and tried to hammer in another nail.

The horse kicked out again.

Again the blacksmith leaped out of the way and cursed.

“You’re holding his foot too high and it’s hurting him,” Hugh said quietly.

The blacksmith, a stocky man wearing a leather apron, looked at Hugh truculently. “I been shoeing horses for fifteen years and more. I’m holding his foot like I always do.”

“He is probably more sensitive than other horses, and he is not willing to suffer,” Hugh said. “You need to work with him differently.”

The blacksmith glared at Hugh.

Nigel said, “What do you suggest?”

“If I were you, I would begin by getting him used to having his feet picked up without pain,” Hugh said. “Just lift them slightly for one or two seconds
when you bring him back to his stable after a ride. Praise him. Give him a treat. Gradually you should be able to increase the amount of time he will allow you to hold them. Just be careful you don’t lift them too high.”