“Of course not, my lord,” she said hastily.
Guy narrowed his eyes in a way that made him look remarkably like Hugh. “I have no intention of turning my honors over to an upstart boy, even if he is my nephew. I will hold what is mine, no matter what it costs to do so.”
“What do you think he is going to do next?” Sir Richard asked.
“I think Nigel will take him to Stephen,” Guy said. He set his jaw angrily. “Which means that I must get to Stephen first.”
12
Nigel was enormously relieved when he reached Somerford safely. All during the ride he had been blaming himself bitterly for his carelessness in taking Hugh to Chippenham.
I should have realized that Guy was bound to strike out at the boy, he thought as he walked wearily up the ramp to the door of his castle. He killed to get the earldom. What a fool I was not to realize that he would kill again to keep it.
He looked at his daughter, who was walking beside him.
“I feel like a fool, Cristen,” he said. “It is my fault that Geoffrey is dead.”
She said to her father what she had said earlier to Hugh. “The fault is Guy’s, Father, not yours.”
“That’s too easy a way out,” he said tiredly. “It is I who bear the responsibility of taking Hugh to Chippenham. And all that was on my mind when I did so was that perhaps he would remember something if he saw the place where he passed his childhood. I never thought seriously about Guy’s reaction. I was only thinking of Hugh’s.”
They passed through the door, which was being held open for them by a page, and entered the Great Hall.
Cristen was immediately attacked by her dogs, who leaped around her in ecstasy.
“Manners, manners,” she admonished them, but her hands were caressing two eager heads and scratching two blissful sets of ears.
“Watch out they don’t knock you over,” Nigel warned.
She laughed and knelt down to be closer to her welcoming party. “I missed you, too,” she said to shiny black Ralf. “And I missed you as well,” she added to the rapturous shaggy brown ball that was Cedric.
Nigel had moved along to the fire, which was burning brightly in welcome for the lord of the castle, lowered himself to the largest chair, and called for a cup of wine. It was nine o’clock at night and the day had been a long one. Nigel was feeling every one of his fifty-five years.
A group of returning knights had come in the door after Nigel and Cristen, but their numbers were depleted, as Hugh and some others had taken Geoffrey’s body into Malmesbury, to see him properly disposed in the abbey church.
Finally Cristen was able to quiet her admirers enough to come and join her father by the fire.
She sat in one of the high-backed chairs and a page brought her a cup of wine, which she sipped gratefully.
“That was quite a coup the men pulled off, managing to extricate Geoffrey’s body without any of Guy’s men knowing what they were doing,” she said with admiration.
“Aye,” said Nigel. “Two of them held his arms around their necks and carried him away from the castle seated on their crossed hands. They told the guards that he was one of the men who had accompanied them to pay their respects to Geoffrey, but that he had drunk too much earlier and had passed out.”
“Thank God his body had not yet begun to stiffen,” Cristen said.
“Aye,” her father agreed. He leaned back in his chair, stretched his legs before him, rested his chin on his chest, and said sorrowfully, “Poor Geoffrey. He was a fine lad. I dread having to tell his mother that he is dead.”
“I know,” said Cristen.
One of the dogs nudged her thigh. Automatically, she stroked his head.
Behind them, the knights who had returned with them were speaking in low voices as they unpacked their gear. Cristen’s ladies had already retired to their solar on the next floor.
“Your idea to take Hugh to Chippenham was not entirely without merit, Father,” she said quietly. “He did remember something.”
Nigel’s head jerked up. “He did?”
“Aye.” She continued to stroke Ralf’s black head. “He told me that he remembered the chapel.”
Nigel stared at the small, pure oval of his daughter’s face. She was wearing her long brown hair in braids and they fell across her shoulders all the way down past her waist. One of them almost touched the dog’s head.
“He wouldn’t tell me anything at all,” Nigel said.
“It is that he is more comfortable with me,” she said easily. “I think it is less difficult for him to talk to women than to men. He loved his foster mother a great deal, you see.”
She didn’t say anything to her father about Hugh’s refusal to meet his natural mother.
Nigel put his hands on the carved oak arms of his chair. “And did he see fit to confide any of his future plans to you?” he asked, a slight edge to his voice.
“Just that he was going to pay a visit to Simon of Evesham,” she replied serenely. “Evidently Philip Demain asked him to go back with him.”
At that, Nigel pushed himself upright in his chair. “Simon of Evesham is a supporter of the empress!”
Both dogs looked at him, reacting to the tone of his voice. Ralf laid his ears back and growled softly in his throat. Cristen patted him reassuringly.
“Set your mind at rest, Father,” she said, her voice as reassuring as her pat to Ralf. “I don’t think Hugh is interested in politics at the moment.” Her face was grave. “I’m sorry to say that at present, his sole interest appears to lie in avenging the death of his father.”
Nigel’s eyes, the same color as his daughter’s but not nearly as large, were fixed on her face. “Are you saying that he has finally admitted that he is Hugh de Leon?”
Cristen said simply, “Aye, he has.”
Nigel pounded his fists on the arms of the chair. “That is wonderful!”
“I don’t know,” Cristen said.
He scowled at her. “Surely you couldn’t wish him to continue as he was? As Hugh Corbaille he owned three small manors in Lincolnshire. As Earl of Wiltshire he will be the overlord of forty-three manors-in Wiltshire, Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Surrey, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, and Ox-fordshire!”
She withdrew her hand from the dog. She looked very small in the big chair, almost like a child. The expression on her face was not at all childlike, however.
She said, “But he is not the Earl of Wiltshire yet, Father, and in order to gain that title he will have to overcome Lord Guy-who is a formidable adversary, as we have discovered to our sorrow.”
“I realize that, my dear,” Nigel said. “But the king is desperate to control Wiltshire. The support of the Earl of Wiltshire, like that of the Earl of Chester and the Earl of Essex, are prizes that both Stephen and the empress will be vying for with all the largesse that is in their gift.”
Cristen smoothed her hand along one of her braids. “Have you thought that it is possible that Guy will sell his backing to Stephen in order to gain Stephen’s support against Hugh? Guy is the man presently in possession of the earldom, remember. It will be almost impossible to dislodge him if he has the backing of the king.”
Nigel scowled. “Guy is staying aloof from this fight.”
“He was staying aloof before he knew about Hugh,” Cristen said. “Now that he knows there is a challenger for his title, he may well offer to sell his support to Stephen in exchange for the king’s promise of assistance against Hugh’s claim.”
Nigel’s scowl deepened. “Then we must get to Stephen first.”
Cristen said, “Hugh is right. First he must go to Simon of Evesham to have his claim validated. By the time he does that, however, it may be too late to go to Stephen.”