Hugh squirmed. The salt-saturated rope, binding his wrists and ankles, cut into exposed flesh. “Untie me.”
“Do not confuse the man you see here with the child you once knew. In those days, I was a fool, chasing after you, longing for your approval, and willing to believe anything you deigned to tell me. But after you left with my father to fight the infidel, I learned to act and reason like a man.” Raoul laughed. “Were I so stupid as to release you, you would attack me.”
“Men also trust.”
“Want-wits do as well.”
“If I swore not to harm you, what cause have you to believe I would not honor my word?” He stopped. Was he imagining that the roar of the sea was closer? “Surely I was not cruel to you as a boy.”
Raoul extended his sword and lightly jabbed Hugh in the chest with the point. “Cruel deeds? The question you ought to ask is whether you ever protected me from them. Remember the time I stepped where your friends swore the ground was firm? I am sure you knew it was not but said nothing. The earth crumbled. As I fell, I watched the sea open its maw to swallow me. Had chance and a rock not caught me, I would have drowned.”
“I did not know they had lied, but you should also recall that I was the one who lifted you to safety.”
“And laughed because my bowels had loosened with terror.” He stared at the knight, then drew back his sword. “Sir Hugh, your greatest sin was never cruelty but rather your choice of boon companions.”
“Then why not untie me?”
“Because a man’s comrades prove his character.”
“You may have been a boy, but I was little older. Boys grow into men, and men grow in wisdom.”
Raoul roared with mocking laughter. “Did some priest teach you those fine words? Having known enough imprudent men, my brothers amongst them, I doubt the truth in such judgement.”
Again Hugh hesitated and listened carefully. It was not his imagination. The tide was coming in. “Hear the sea striking the cliffs?” He gestured with his head. “If this tide is high, we have little time to escape. Release me, and we shall argue on higher ground.”
“And allow you a fair fight? I captured you only because you had dropped your guard.” He waved his sword and chuckled. “You came here looking for a killer, and, having found my burrow, long to drag me from it by the ears like a cony. Despite your poor opinion of me and my wits, I know you are stronger and more skilled with a sword than I. Do not imagine I will let you take me prisoner and deliver me to the hangman.”
“Listen to reason!”
Raoul wagged a finger at the knight. “I am. There is good cause to believe that I killed Umfrey, and probably my other brothers as well. Am I not the only son still alive? That makes me my father’s heir, a fact that must gall him. What proof is there of my innocence?” He extended the sword again and playfully waved it over Hugh’s bindings. “None, or you would not have come. Shall anyone praise my virtues, swearing on a saint’s relic that I am incapable of committing fratricide? My mother, perhaps, a woman who sometimes forgets my name.” He pressed his free hand against his heart. “Or my father who showed his love by shaming me in front of his friends.” Then he touched the sword point on a spot between Hugh’s eyes. “And you expect me to trust you, a man who would have been relieved at the removal of an annoyance if I had fallen to my death that summer day?” He drew back his sword.
“Did you kill your brothers?”
“You find it necessary to ask the question.” Raoul’s eyes narrowed. “That proves I am right not to trust you. Of all those living in this place, only Leonel might defend me. But who would believe a man who never speaks ill of anyone?” He stepped back from Hugh and sheathed his weapon. “If I have confidence in anything, it is my hanging.”
Hugh shifted, but there was nothing he could do to find comfort or to keep the ropes from cutting into him. Now raw, his wrists burned with the salt.
Throwing his head back, Raoul murmured something inaudible. The sound was like a sob.
Hugh wished it were, but he doubted it.
“Whether or not you choose to believe me, I am innocent, yet the evidence suggests otherwise in two deaths at least. I did not stay in the castle long enough to learn all details of Umfrey’s death, but many surely have no doubt that I killed him.”
“Then return and defend yourself. Surely there were witnesses to prove you could not have done these deeds.”
“Innocence alone is a fragile shield.” Raoul spat. “Roger drowned but was drinking with me earlier that night. Many saw us together. No one saw us part.”
“His death was called an accident.”
“A man, so fearful of the sea, does not go out in a boat, particularly when the winds are high. Few believe he died by chance. Most conclude he drowned himself, although they choose not to say so aloud out of respect for my father. If men like you suggest murder, many will see the logic of that, look at me, and sagely nod their heads.”
Hugh knew he did not have long to probe further. The waves now hit the beach with crashing force. “Gervase fell from the window of the keep. You could not be accused of that.”
“Earlier that day, he had sent a servant to me with a message. The accounting rolls showed a questionable loan made to me, one I had never repaid. He required an explanation. Since I had never received such a loan, I was eager to see him, but he fell from the wall before I could. The servant has probably spread this news of my assumed misconduct.”
Hugh groaned. “Umfrey. How could you have murdered him?”
“I visited him in the chapel. I shouted that I wished to do horrible things to him and, when a servant appeared, told him who I was, although I had no desire to hurt my brother. My intent was to give Umfrey confidence that I had not come to murder him, but those ill-advised words will be remembered otherwise now. As you see, I am implicated in them all.”
“Have you witnesses to your whereabouts at the times of these deaths?”
“My lack of the usual sins condemns me. I whore, but not often. I drink, but rarely to excess. As for companions, I find my own company most pleasurable and claim few friends. Of those, I would safely turn my back on none.”
Despite the sting of the ropes, growing numbness in his legs, and the approaching tides, Hugh forced a brief smile. “Adam committed only one transgression in Eden: he ate an apple. A wise man cultivates at least a minor vice, involving potential witnesses, if he ever expects to be accused of murder.”
Raoul drew his sword again and pointed the tip at the knight’s throat. “And you face death with a merry wit.”
“I do not think you will kill me. If I am wrong, God will see my soul soon enough. I also doubt you would kill your brothers, especially in the ways they have died. You remind me of your father, another who stands apart from the crowd and holds to his own counsel. He is no courtier, choosing to use the blunt word and direct act rather than win men’s hearts with sweetened phrases. Had you wanted to murder your brothers, you would have finished the bothersome task long before your father came home and greeted him as the unquestioned heir.”
“Comparing me to my father was clever, Sir Hugh. The boy I once was would be delighted. The man is not swayed, however, and shall not untie you.”
Hugh shifted, trying not to hear the sea, and prayed he had time for another ploy. “Some fear that your father killed Umfrey and would have slain you, had you not escaped. He prefers Leonel as heir.”
Raoul lowered his sword but said nothing.
The broken waves hissed as they slipped across the sand outside the cave.
“Surely this tale is untrue,” Raoul whispered. The young man’s face was softened by the shadows. “You know my father better than any of us.”
Raoul is not so far removed from boyhood, Hugh thought with compassion, hearing tears in the youth’s whispered voice. The fact of his father’s indifference to him as a child was hard enough to bear. That his father might long to slaughter him was a cruelty beyond any son’s comprehension. “Your father is a hard man,” Hugh said, “but he accepts what God saw fit to give him as sons. He would no more murder the offspring of his loins than he would castrate himself. Aye, he loves his nephew, but he wanted Sir Leonel to earn his own inheritance in Outremer.”