The Poisoned Serpent (9 page)

“He is certainly a good-looking young man,” Lady Sybil said.

“Hugh is magnificent,” Richard agreed amiably. “And he is smart as well.”

“My,” said Elizabeth sweetly. “You are making me sorry that I am not going to marry him after all.”

Richard replied with good humor. “You and Hugh would not deal well, my lady. For all his gifts, Hugh has an icicle where his heart should be.”

“Do you think I need a man who is…ah…warmer?” Elizabeth asked innocently.

Lady Sybil frowned.

“I’m quite sure you do,” Richard replied softly.

A small smile curled the corners of Elizabeth’s mouth.

“Lady Elizabeth will marry whomever the king tells her to,” Lady Sybil said sternly.

Elizabeth patted her companion’s arm. But her eyes lifted once again to Richard.

C
risten was in the pantry at Somerford making sure that the shelves had been scoured according to her standards when she felt Hugh’s distress. Without a word to the servants, who were anxiously watching her as she inspected their work, she turned and left, heading for the privacy of her bedroom.

Once she reached the solar she changed her mind, however, and instead of going into her own room she went into the one that belonged to Hugh. She crossed the floor, sat on the edge of his bed, and closed her eyes.

No words formed in her mind. She sensed no attempt on his part to communicate with her. She felt only this utter desolation. It filled her mind and her heart, and she knew that it was Hugh.

He could not be left alone.

She sat there on his bed, in his room, and tried to let him know that she was there. She tried to fill the pain and loneliness within her with comfort and love. After a while she felt she might have succeeded. The bleakness lightened. The sharp edge of pain dulled. She felt calm.

At last she was free to turn to the difficult task that lay ahead. However was she going to convince her father that she must go to Lincoln?

Cristen was still mulling over this problem when she joined Nigel for midday dinner in the great hall. They were halfway through the meat course when the door opened and a strange man dressed in a mail hauberk strode into the room. In the fist of his gloved right hand he carried a rolled parchment.

He wore no helmet, and Cristen recognized him as one of Earl Guy’s household knights.

The man advanced to stand before the head table, where he bowed to Nigel and announced, “Sir Nigel, I come from Lord Guy bearing a message for you. I am sorry to interrupt your dinner, but it is urgent.”

Nigel frowned and reached out his hand for the parchment. The knight stepped closer to the table and passed it up to the lord of Somerford.

Thanks to the proliferation of church and public schools, much of the English population could both read and write. There were exceptions, of course. The lowest of the low did not have the opportunity to learn, and the highest of the high did not feel the necessity. Nigel, who belonged to neither of these classes, unrolled the parchment that contained the message from his overlord, and read it through.

The friendly chatter that had filled the hall before the entrance of the knight from Chippenham had long since died away. The hall was silent. Every eye was on Nigel as he read.

He looked somber as he rerolled the parchment and turned his attention to Guy’s messenger.

“Do you know aught of this Cornish rebellion?” he asked. “I thought that Stephen’s man in Cornwall, William fitzRichard, was a loyal follower of the king.
Stephen has certainly gifted him handsomely with land and castles.”

“Aye. Well, apparently fitzRichard has changed his allegiance. What happened was that the Earl of Gloucester proposed a marriage between his half brother, Reginald, and fitzRichard’s daughter. The prospect of being related through marriage to both the empress and Gloucester proved more attractive to fitzRichard than his loyalty to the king. So the marriage was accomplished, and fitzRichard turned all his lands over to his new son-in-law, who promptly declared for the empress.”

Nigel frowned. “Reginald is another one of the old king’s bastard sons, is he not?”

“Aye. And the empress has named him Earl of Cornwall.”

Nigel’s frown turned into a scowl. “Judas,” he said. “Was ever a king so beset with treachery as Stephen is?”

Cristen said to the Chippenham knight, “Will you not have a seat at one of the tables and take some refreshment?”

The knight glanced at Nigel, who waved his hand and said, “Go along, go along. You must be hungry after riding through the cold.”

“Thank you, Sir Nigel, Lady Cristen.” The knight bowed and turned gratefully to take an empty place at one of the trestle tables set up in the hall.

Cristen turned grave eyes upon her father. “What does this mean? What will the king do now?”

Nigel gestured to the parchment, which lay on the table next to his trencher. “Stephen is gathering a force to take against Reginald, who has apparently fortified all of fitzWilliam’s castles against the king.”

Cristen continued to gaze steadily at her father.

Nigel sighed. “Stephen has called upon Lord Guy for his feudal levy and Guy wants me to lead it.”

Cristen blinked as if she had taken a blow. “You? Why you?” she demanded. “Why does not Guy lead his men himself?”

“I imagine that Guy does not want to bury himself in Cornwall at this particular moment,” Nigel said wryly. “I heard yesterday that the Earl of Chester has gone into Lincolnshire to meet with his half brother. Now that the earldom of Lincoln is empty, the two of them will be plotting ways to earn it for William of Roumare. And, as we both know, Guy has his eye upon that particular earldom for Hugh.”

Cristen’s small, capable hands were clenched in her lap. “But why ask you to lead his feudal force? You and Guy are certainly not the best of friends.”

Nigel looked as if he were debating what his answer should be.

Cristen swept on. “Is it because of Hugh? Guy wants you out of the way so that if he puts pressure on Hugh, you will not be at Somerford to offer him refuge?”

“I don’t know why you ask me questions when you have worked the answers out perfectly well for yourself,” Nigel said a little grumpily.

Cristen, who was usually so quick to smooth over her father’s ruffled feelings, did not appear even to notice that he was put out. Instead, she said decisively, “This is not the time for Stephen to be depleting Wiltshire of its fighting men. Once the king has taken our men into Cornwall, what is to stop the Earl of Gloucester from coming against us with his own forces?”

“Guy is only calling up a portion of the muster owed to him from each of his vassals,” Nigel replied. “He is not depleting his forces. We, for example, are
only being asked for six men and forty men at arms. I can assure you, my dear, you will be well supplied with defenders here should Gloucester come calling in my absence.”

“You are leaving me in charge then, Father?” Cristen asked in a faintly troubled voice.

Nigel looked at her in surprise. “Who else would I leave in charge?”

It was a common custom to leave the lady of the castle in command when the lord was called away.

Cristen was frowning thoughtfully. “Who will command the knights?”

“I will leave you Lionel,” Nigel said.

The worried look cleared a little from Cristen’s face. Lionel was about forty years of age and had been at Somerford since Cristen was a child. He was very competent and very well respected by the other knights.

“Guy’s force is to meet at Chippenham in three days’ time,” Nigel said. “He wants me there earlier, however, in case some of the men arrive early.”

Cristen raised her delicate brows. “Guy can’t even be bothered to greet his own feudal levy himself?”

“Guy is not going to be at Chippenham, Cristen,” Nigel said soberly. “He writes that he is leaving tomorrow for Lincoln.”

After the table had been cleared, Nigel wrote a return message to Lord Guy, then sent Guy’s knight back to Chippenham to deliver it. Once the messenger had left the hall, Nigel turned to Cristen, who had kept her seat at his side, and said cheerfully, “Well, if you will excuse me, my dear, I must send for the knights who are to accompany me to Cornwall. We have a great deal to do before we set out.”

“Who are you planning to take with you, Father?”

Nigel listed six names, and Cristen immediately objected to one of them.

“I wish you would leave Thomas here with me,” she said. “He is one of the few knights capable of thinking for himself. If aught should happen here in your absence, I should feel much more comfortable knowing that I had Thomas to rely upon.”

Nigel frowned. “He is one of my best knights, Cristen. He will expect to be chosen to accompany me.”

“You have other knights who are perfectly capable of fighting brilliantly, Father. Thomas is one of the few who has imagination. I need him here.”

Finally Nigel gave in. “Thomas won’t thank you for this,” he warned his daughter. “He will be furious when he learns that you subverted his chance to go to war.”

“Then we won’t tell him that he was originally one of your choices, will we?” Cristen returned serenely.

After a moment, Nigel sighed. “Well, he’s young. He’ll have other chances.”

At this comment, Cristen leaned back in her chair, folded her arms across her breast, narrowed her enormous brown eyes, and regarded her father, who was still sitting beside her.

“You are simply thrilled that you were given this command, aren’t you, Father?” Her words sounded more like an accusation than a question.

Nigel looked a little guilty.

“Men,” Cristen said. Her small, straight nose quivered in a way that managed to convey utter disgust. “You complain all the time about how terrible war is, and then, when you get a chance to fight, you love it.”

“There is not going to be a battle, Cristen,” Nigel
said defensively. “The kind of combat we saw at the Battle of the Standard happens very rarely. War is usually a matter of besieging and taking castles. You know that.”

Cristen’s eyes were somber. “And in the process of besieging those castles, men get killed.”

“Knights are worth far too much in ransom money to be killed,” Nigel reassured her. “It’s only the poor wretches who have no armor and no value, the archers and the men at arms, who actually get killed.”

“Maybe if the knights did get killed, there wouldn’t be so much fighting,” Cristen muttered.

Nigel regarded his daughter with exasperated humor. “What are you complaining about? The fact that I might get killed, or the fact that I won’t?”

After a moment, her lips curled in a rueful smile. “I’m just annoyed that you are looking forward to leaving me, I suppose.”

“Actually, I’m scared to death to leave you,” Nigel said. “You will do so much better a job running the castle than I do that when I return no one will want me back.”

Nigel, his six chosen knights, and the forty men he had called up from his lands departed from Somerford the following morning under gray skies that promised either rain or snow, depending upon how warm the day grew.

Cristen stood beside the fishpond in the outer bailey and watched the knights ride out, dressed in full armor, their horses gleaming even in the dull light of the overcast morning. The men wore the nosepieces on their helmets up, but otherwise they were fully prepared for war.

Each Somerford knight carried the distinctive Norman kite-shaped shield, which covered a man from shoulder to shin. The skirts of their hauberks of interlinking rings reached to their knees, and were slit at front and rear from hem to crotch to enable the wearer to ride. Under their hauberks the men wore mail sleeves that reached to the wrist, and mail leggings that went down to their boots. Each knight had hung his sword from the sword belt at his side, and in his free hand he carried a lance.

Their faces were grim as they rode past Cristen, but she knew that in their hearts they were supremely happy.

Thomas was not happy. He was young, but he was one of the best of all the knights when it came to swordplay and horsemanship. He could not understand why he had not been chosen to accompany his lord.

He was standing in the bailey, looking forlornly after the dashing party that had just ridden out, when Cristen approached him.

“Don’t feel bad, Thomas. I think Father felt he had to take the older knights,” she said comfortingly.

“Perhaps. But they had a chance to fight at the Battle of the Standard,” Thomas said mournfully. “We younger men have seen no action at all.”

Cristen patted him on the arm, rather in the way she patted her dogs. “Your day will come,” she promised.

At that moment, Brian came up to her, returning the dogs from their morning exercise. He, too, had been watching the departure of Nigel’s chosen few.

“Did they not look splendid, my lady?” His hazel eyes were shining.

“They certainly did,” Cristen agreed.

“How grand the whole company will look when all of Lord Guy’s vassals join together! I wish I could go with them! How lucky William is to have this chance!”

Nigel’s squire had accompanied the knights, along with several grooms to care for the horses.

“I never got to go to war when I was a squire,” Thomas said gloomily.

With difficulty, Cristen refrained from comment.

Ralf rolled over on his back and proceeded to rub himself industriously into the dirt of the courtyard. His black legs waved in the air as he scratched.

Cedric watched him with intense interest.

“Come along,” Cristen said to her dogs. “I have things to do even if these men do not.”

Thomas looked guilty. “Don’t worry, my lady. Sir Nigel gave me a long list of tasks to perform.”

“How nice,” Cristen said pleasantly. “Then why don’t you start to do them?”

“Yes, my lady,” Thomas said, and hurried off in the direction of the archery butts.

Cristen waited until she was certain that Guy’s feudal force must have left Chippenham for Cornwall. Then she sent for Thomas to come to see her in the herb garden shed. She wanted to be sure that she would have complete privacy, and during the day privacy was at a premium within the castle itself.

“My lady,” the young knight said when he presented himself. “May I be of some service to you?”

Cristen regarded the round, freckled face gazing at her with such gallantly concealed perplexity.

She removed a small pot of bubbling liquid from the charcoal brazier and placed it carefully on a tile to cool. Then she turned her full attention to Thomas.

“Hugh is in trouble,” she said gravely.

Thomas was instantly concerned. “Why? What has happened, my lady?”

Cristen was bareheaded in the warmth of the shed, and now she pushed one of her long brown braids back across her shoulder, where it swung down to her waist.

“I don’t know precisely what has happened, but I know that he needs me.” She paused, then corrected herself. “He needs
us
.”