Hugh’s eyes were fixed on one of the knights who had just come in.
He said, “Even if I am Roger’s son, I see little chance of claiming my inheritance from Lord Guy. He appears to be well entrenched.”
Philip looked at the knight Hugh was watching. He was a man who looked to be in his late twenties, tall, with distinctive chestnut hair.
“Who is that?” Philip asked curiously.
“I don’t know,” Hugh replied.
At that moment, the knight’s eyes swung toward them as if he felt their gaze. His whole face hardened when he recognized Hugh.
For a brief moment, the two men stared at each other across the noisy room. Then one of the knight’s companions put a hand on his arm to steer him toward a table. He broke the eye contact with Hugh and turned away.
“Judas,” Philip said. “I think you have an enemy there.”
“He does not look like a friend,” Hugh agreed.
“I’d find out who he is, if I were you,” Philip recommended.
Hugh nodded and lifted his ale cup.
A dog’s sharp yelp cut through the noise of the hall. Evidently someone had trodden on his tail.
Philip returned to his original topic of conversation. “If you had the backing of Robert of Gloucester, you might stand a chance of displacing your uncle.”
Hugh took a sip of his ale and did not reply.
“Earl Robert is a fine soldier,” Philip went on. “With him to back you, you would not be powerless.”
“So is Stephen a fine soldier,” said Hugh. He took another sip of ale.
A roar of laughter came from the men seated farther down the table from them.
Philip snorted. “Stephen can fight, I will give you that. He just cannot keep at anything for very long. If he decided to support you and besiege Chippenham on your behalf, he would last outside the gates for no more than two weeks. Then he would lose interest and march away.”
Someone shouted a question to Hugh. He shot back an answer, which produced another roar of laughter. Then he turned back to Philip and said regretfully, “You are probably right.”
“He is a usurper,” Philip said firmly. “Matilda is the only legitimate child of our old king. It is she-and her son after her-who should be England’s ruler. Not Stephen.”
“Stephen has been consecrated by the church,” Hugh pointed out. “He was not doing a bad job as king until Robert of Gloucester decided to challenge him.”
“He has not the right,” Philip said stubbornly.
“Both sides have some part of the right,” Hugh said. “To speak true, Philip, I am not overly interested in who has the greater right. I am interested in who will be the better ruler for England.”
The noise in the hall was rising to a riotous level. If the food didn’t come soon, half of the company would be drunk before the feast even started.
Philip was outraged. “You don’t care about justice?” he demanded.
Hugh said, “I care about England. I do not want to see us plunged into a civil war. It will be devastating.”
Philip drummed his fingers impatiently on the table. “Wiltshire is the bulwark that sits between Stephen’s holdings in the east and Earl Robert’s holdings in the west. The loyalty of the Earl of Wiltshire is crucial to both sides in this conflict.”
“I realize that,” Hugh said quietly.
Philip leaned his bright head closer to the ink-black one of the man seated beside him. He lowered his voice. “Come with me to meet Lord Simon,” he said.
Hugh turned toward him, lifting an eyebrow. “So he can try to talk me into asking support from Earl Robert?”
Philip said grimly, “So that he can explain to you how vital it is for you to assume your rightful role as Earl of Wiltshire. So that he can tell you that the Earl of Gloucester will certainly support you, if you in turn will promise to support him.”
Hugh looked faintly amused. “Do you know, Sir Nigel invited me to visit Stephen with him for the exact same reason?”
Philip set his jaw. “Nigel Haslin is not your blood kin. Simon of Evesham is your uncle.”
“Is he?” Hugh said bleakly.
“Aye,” Philip said. “He is.”
At this point there was a blare of horns and Lord Guy, dressed in a splendid tunic of emerald green, entered the hall. A golden-haired woman wearing a purple gown walked beside him, her fingers daintily perched upon his arm. They were followed by a small retinue of knights, among whom was Sir Richard Evril.
“I don’t know what your life has been like for the last fourteen years,” Philip said to Hugh, “but as of this day you must make up your mind to take up the responsibilities you were born to.”
After a tense moment of silence, Hugh replied, “If I am in fact the son of Roger de Leon, then my first obligation is to discover who is responsible for murdering my father.”
Philip stared at the remote, perfect profile of the man sitting next to him, and did not have a reply.
Cristen thought the feast would never end. The tables sagged under the huge amounts of food set upon them. Immense platters of roast pork and roast venison, pheasants, pigeons, swans, peacocks, and larks as well as a wide variety of fish covered the boards. The trenchers that the guests used as plates were of fine white bread, not the usual stale stuff from the day before. The majority of the knights in the hall were being served ale, but at Cristen’s table, wine was the drink being offered and it was being imbibed a bit too freely, she thought disapprovingly.
Even her father was celebrating the Somerford victories by drinking too much.
She fretted that she had not been able to sit with Hugh. He had been deeply upset this afternoon after his double encounter with Guy and Roger’s old chaplain. She was not even able to see him over the heads of the hundreds of men crammed into the noisy hall.
“Sir Nigel.”
Cristen looked around to see one of Lord Guy’s squires standing next to her father.
“My lord would like to speak with you,” the squire said.
Nigel had been laughing uproariously at a joke, but at these words, his face sobered. He rose slowly to his feet. “Of course,” he said.
Cristen watched her father cross the floor to the high table, where a place had been made for him to sit next to Lord Guy. Nigel seemed steady on his feet, she thought, and prayed that he was sober enough to answer Guy’s questions carefully.
There was no doubt in her mind that Guy wanted to know about Hugh.
A man sat down next to her. With a great effort of will, she repressed a shudder of distaste. It was Richard Evril.
“Lady Cristen,” the knight said jovially. “You are looking lovely as always.”
“Thank you,” Cristen said.
“My lord is still curious about the young man who won the horsemanship contest today,” Sir Richard said. “If he has been staying with you, you must know something about him.”
“Is Lord Guy so curious about all the men who won the contests today?” Cristen asked ingenuously.
“He is only curious about the one who bears such a noticeable resemblance to himself,” Sir Richard said grimly. “What do you know about him, Lady Cristen?”
Cristen replied with composure, “He is the lord of several manors in Lincolnshire. His father, Ralf Corbaille, left them to him when he was killed last summer.”
“This Ralf Corbaille-was he the boy’s true father?”
Cristen hesitated. “He was his foster father, I believe.”
“Who was his true father, then?” Sir Richard asked sharply.
“I do not know,” she said.
Sir Richard’s slate-blue eyes narrowed. “Are they large manors?” he said.
Cristen stared at him in confusion.
Sir Richard repeated impatiently, “These manors owned by Hugh Corbaille-are they large?”
“Oh,” Cristen said. “No, I don’t believe they are very large.”
“Then he is not a candidate for your hand?”
Cristen stared at the heavy knight repressively. “This is not a subject that you ought to be discussing with me, Sir Richard.”