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.