THE EARL (A HAMMER FOR PRINCES) (37 page)

The people began to cheer. Fulk rode after Thierry into the main courtyard. The walls were hung with garlands of flowers, and the courtyard itself had been swept and all the livestock penned away. A great mass of servants awaited them. Fulk rode up toward the prince, to introduce him to Rohese, who was standing in the gatehouse door. She came forward, draped in white and red silk, and bowed to the ground.

Henry dismounted, and Fulk slid down from his saddle and ran up to him,. "My lady Rohese, my lord. My lord the Duke of Normandy."

Rohese straightened, her hand out, and Henry bowed oer it. "My lady. I am devoted to you for your generosity."

"My lord," Rohese said; her voice quivered. Henry stood pressing thanks and compliments on her, her castle, and her lands. Fulk saw him glance up behind her, and following his gaze saw Alys on the stair above them. He looked around for Thierry.

Thierry stood talking to Pembroke, near the middle of the courtyard. He gave no sign that he had seen Alys, but of course he didn't know she was here. The servants were taking away all the horses, and a blast of hunting horns rang out.

Henry turned, looking sharply around. Rohese said, "Will you attend me, my lord?"

"With greatest pleasure, my lady."
Fulk followed them up the stair. He could imagine what had gone through Henry's mind when, in a strange castle, he heard hunting horns give a signal. Chester came after him, and he heard Thierry's voice behind him. They climbed the stairs into Rohese's great hall. It was covered with flowers, and the new tapestry hung on the wall. Three tables had been set out for the meal; three pages in matching green and white stood before a cupboard filled with cups and jars of wine and kegs of ale; on every level surface not occupied by a mass of flowers was a dish of pastry.

Rohese sat down by the hearth, with Prince Henry opposite her, leaning forward to give her his attention. Alys lingered by the door. Fulk paused beside her. "Don't look so eager, will you?" he said softly.

She turned her shoulder on him; her eyes were fixed on the door. Fulk went over toward the hearth. The hall was filling up with people--Rohese had invited two neighboring lords and some no her tenants, and all of Henry's hunting party had come, of course. People began to chatter, and cups came rattling out of the cupboard, wine splashed into them, the pastry dishes emptied immediately, and laughter rang out.

Rohese was glowing. Fulk stood behind her--a page had brought him ale--and listened to her tell the prince exactly what was wrong with England; she was so rapt she did not see Thierry come in, and stop and speak to Alys.

Fulk watched them intently. Thierry said something, and Alys put her hand out, the palm raised, and he shook his head and bowed and went off. Alys stared after him. Fulk thought at first that she would leave. but she pulled herself up; her face looked all bones. Fulk looked down at Rohese and saw her still talking to the prince.

"Here is Stafford, jealous," Prince Henry said.

Rohese looked around. "Good day, my lord, I am pleased to see you again so soon." To the prince, she said, "My lord, I shall not keep you. You have other people to talk to. Thank you for listening to my ravings."

"Not ravings, but shrewd remarks." The prince bowed again. "Lady, we shall be friends, I think." He gave her his winning smile and went off to talk to Chester.

"He is so charming," Rohese said to Fulk. Her gaze stiffened. "That is your uncle, isn't it. I did not know he would come."

"Yes. I should have warned you."

"What can I do? They are all to spend the night--he can't, I will not allow it."

"Alys is here, but she isn't with him, is she?"

"She will find some way--"

"Rohese." He took a cup from a page and gave it to her. "How do you like our prince?"

"Oh, he loves himself well enough, and he is handsome. What a pity he is married."

Fulk laughed. "Don't pity him." He glanced impatiently at Henry, who was deep in talk with Chester. "I see you finished your tapestry."

"I worked on it all day long from the moment you took my message, so that it would be done. Alfred, come here, I want you to meet the Earl of Stafford."
She drew a thin young man with a wan face out of the crowd and presented him to Fulk. "Alfred is a tenant of mine."

Alfred lisped. while he and Rohese spoke of the effects of the recent rain on the roads, Fulk looked for Alys. She was talking to Simon d'Ivry, who had come with Fulk. Chester appeared beside them and edged Simon out, his beefy face flushed; Alys stepped back away from him. Beyond Chester Henry was watching her steadily. Alys glanced again and again at Thierry, by the hearth, but he took no notice.

"You see," Fulk said to Rohese.

"I see. Perhaps you are wiser than I."

Fulk hoped so. A page held up a bowl of nuts, and he took a handful and cracked a walnut in his fingers. "I know my  uncle." He hoped he also knew Prince Henry. He put the nutmeat in his mouth, picked out a whole walnut, and threw it at Thierry.

Thierry jumped and put his fingers to his temple; he jerked his gaze toward Fulk. Fulk smiled at him.

"You are--irrepressible, my lord," Rohese said sharply.

"New life springs in me when I am in your company, my lady."

Now Henry was talking to Alys. Even from a distance Fulk could see a sudden difference in her, an artful submission. "Let me look at your work, my lady," he said to Rohese. "You wove all these tapestries, didn't you?"

"I did. Do you like them?"

Fulk led her around the room, commenting on the tapestries, and she leaned on him and laughed. "I see you have an interest in King Arthur," he said, looking at the Grail tapestry. The strawberry wine had stained a corner of it.

"I find those stories prettier than Charlemagne or the lives of the saints,. Oh. I do think we should dine." She waved to the servant in the doorway, who went out again. "Everyone is envious of me. Did you see how the ladies looked, when I was talking to the prince?"

"Envious."

"And of you, too, giving me so much attention. Stafford, think of the rumors."

Before Fulk had to answer that, horns blared again, and every man in the room twitched. The cook came in, carrying his ladle, at the head of a parade of servants with platters of roast meat. The watching guests let out a gasp. The aromas of beef and mutton reached Fulk's nostrils. After the first three platters came boys with great golden fish, pigeons and capons, stacks of bread. The horns blasted; four swarthy kitchen knaves in greasy aprons carried in an enormous platter, on which a roasted deer, its head artfully braced up and set with parchment horns and apple eyes, reclined in a lake of sauce.

The cook accepted the cheers and stood back and everybody went to sit down. Pages escorted the prince, Alys, Fulk and Rohese to the high table.

"I hope you will enjoy our simple country fare," Rohese said to the prince, who sat in the high chair on her right. "We had so little time to prepare a true feast."

"My lady, I have seen nothing so tempting since I left Anjou." His glance flicked past Rohese, toward Alys.

The girl sat with her hands in her lap, not looking at him, and her nose wrinkled. "She has had them working for three days now." Her eyes rose, aimed not at the prince, or even at Fulk beside her, but at Thierry.

"He's been sorely wounded," Fulk said. "I hit him with a walnut. Simon, serve my Lady Alys first."

Simon leaned down between Alys and Rohese to put fish on Alys' plate. She said, "How do I look, my lord?"

"Very pretty."

"I haven't made a coif yet, and I will not wear one of my cousin's. Do I look too unfashionable?"

"No. I told you. You have beautiful hair. Alys, Thierry will never be jealous of me."

"Rohese wil be. Are you going to marry her?"

"I am in mourning, lady. Eat your fish."

Henry was drinking soup; whenever he looked at Rohese, his eyes moved past her to Alys.

"I think you should," Alys said, judicially. "Everyone can see you like her, the way you hang on her."

"Let's talk to something else. Have you--"

"But I want to talk of this. She frets when she has no husband. She doesn't like women. I don't blame her, I don't either."

Rohese in her high seat reached over and cracked Alys on the head with her ring. "Don't tease Stafford."

Alys straightened away from Fulk and gave Rohese an angry look. Prince Henry laughed.

"Lady," he said. "Tease me, I enjoy it."

Alys smiled at him. "My lord, no one could ever tease you, you aren't pompous, like Stafford."

Henry laughed again; his gaze remained on Alys' sleek red hair.

Rohese's hounds were tall and narrow, with narrow muzzles and dark narrow eyes; black, brindle, red, spotted silver-grey and cream-white, they leaned against their leashes, their eyes on the forest, and their arched backs taut with expectation. Fulk looked back at the hunting lodge in the meadow. The last of the hunters were riding down from it now, to join them.

Pembroke was walking his tall brown horse up and down past Fulk, his eyes on the prince and Alys. When he passed Fulk the third time he gave him a harsh look. Fulk gathered his reins and moved his horse closer to the hounds. None of them had known Alys was with them--they had left Highfield before dawn, and in the dark, cloaked and hooded, she had gone unnoticed. He was sure that Rohese didn't know she was here.

"My lord," Chester shouted. He and Thierry jogged up to the rest of the hunters. "You must pardon us for holding you back, my lord."

Henry waved to him and signed to the keeper of the hounds. The dogs were coupled in the leashes, and when they started down toward the forest they nearly pulled their handlers off their feet. Spread out over the open slope, the horsemen followed them. Fulk drifted across to the edge of the party. The sun had not yet risen above the trees, and patches of mist clung to the ground in the shade; the grass glistened with dew, but the windless air was already uncomfortably warm. Just before they reached the forest, the crickets in the grass began their high shrilling. It would be a hot day, even in the forest.

Riding side by side, their faces turned toward each other, the prince and Alys followed close behind the hounds into the forest. Fulk eased the bow on his back. A rider loomed up beside him, and he stiffened, and his horse sensed it and shied.

"My lord." It was Simon. "Two of Thierry's men have been here since yesterday."

Fulk reined his horse back onto the trail. "Oh?" He started to look for Thierry and changed his mind. "Follow him, Simon." He rode into the forest, into the cooler air and the shade.

In the threes, the hunting party drew closer together, stirrup to stirrup. All along their path, birds and animals rustled through the underbrush, startled away, and overhead the squirrels squeaked and chattered. Chester rode just ahead of Fulk, with Pembroke, but Fulk could not see Thierry and knew he was behind him. His back tingled; he felt as if he were naked.

The dogs began to bark. "False scent," Chester cried. "It's too close." In the narrow space of the path the horse jostled back and forth, nipped and kicked out.

"Hold your horse."

"I am--can you not hold yours?"

"Watch out, up there. Keep moving."

Ahead of the confusion, the prince and Alys disappeared around a curve in the path; Fulk caught a glimpse of her red sleeve through the green branches. His horse ranged up behind Pembroke's so close the lanky brown horse skittered and pinned back its ears, and Pembroke gave him a fierce look over his shoulder. Fulk reined down. The horse fretted against his hand; he knew he was urging it, pressing it on because he wanted to get away from Thierry behind him, and he tried to relax. The dogs had quieted, only one barking now, and they rode down a steep slope toward a stream. The path widened. He moved his horse up through the crowd toward the prince. Smelling water, his horse stretched its head forward, and its ears pricked up.

Suddenly the dogs burst into their deep-throated belling; the mob of horses bounded forward, and the dogs' handlers slipped the leashes and darted into the brush. Hunting horns sounded, ringing in the trees. Two of the dogs streaked through the water and up the far slope, yelling with each stride, and the pack followed in a long stream of ears and tails and ridged backs. Fulk's horse bolted forward.

Horses jammed the ford over the stream; Fulk crossed above them, banged his knee on a tree trunk and galloped across the slope after the ululation of the dogs. Prince Henry was charging along almost at the heels of the pack, with Alys just behind him, and Chester racing to catch up. Fulk bent down to clear the low-hanging branches before him. The dogs veered suddenly, and the horsemen swung to follow and engulfed Fulk. With the horses galloping all around him he raced up toward the crest of the hill.

The dogs were pulling ahead of them. Their musical baying faded with distance. Close underbrush and trees slowed the horses--Prince Henry swore in a high voice. Fulk's chestnut stumbled, caught itself up, and ran up alongside Chester's horse.

Chester glanced at him. Fulk met his eyes only for an instant, but the other man's hard, piercing look made him straighten up, slowing his horse, moving out of reach. Pembroke surged up beside him, his eyes on the prince. They struggled along the last stretch of the hill to the crest, through thorny bushes and clumps of rocks.