“I will tell Father that I don’t like him and that I won’t marry him.”
“What if he insists that you do?”
“He won’t.”
“But what if he does?”
“A parent cannot force a woman to marry against her will, Hugh. The pope has ruled quite clearly on that issue.”
There was a white line around his compressed mouth.
“I won’t marry him,” she said softly.
He let out his breath. “All right.”
“Find out the truth about your past,” Cristen said. “For your own peace of mind, you need to know it. Then, when all is made clear, we will go to my father.”
He scowled at her. “Don’t let that blond giant lay a finger on you.”
She smiled. “I have the dogs.”
Finally his face relaxed and he smiled back. “I love you,” he said. “I knew it the first time I met you. Do you remember? I had that headache and you asked me if I wanted you to stay with me and I said that I did.”
“I remember,” she said.
“I never want anyone near me when I’m ill, but I knew I wanted you.”
“I love you, too.” She stood on her toes, kissed him on the mouth, then turned to pick up her candle.
“Come,” she said. “I had better get back to my room before someone misses me.”
16
Hugh wrote to Lord Guy, telling the earl who he was and asking if he could pay a visit to his old home of Chippenham. Nigel’s messenger returned with Guy’s reply the following day.
“What does he say?” Nigel asked. The messenger had found the two men at the blacksmith’s forge, watching while Nigel’s stallion was shod. Hugh had been patiently working with the horse, holding his feet for longer and longer periods until he was able to stand quietly for five minutes at a time. This was his first shoeing and he was behaving very well.
Hugh slowly rerolled the parchment upon which Guy’s letter had been written. “He says he finds my claim of identity dubious, but that I am welcome to visit Chippenham if I wish.”
The stallion swished his tail irritably and Hugh said, “Put his foot down, Giles, and give him a rest.”
“Of course he is not going to admit your identity,” Nigel said scornfully. “To do so would be to throw his own legitimacy into question.”
“There is also the minor problem that I don’t have any proof,” Hugh pointed out.
Nigel grunted. “Your face is proof enough.”
Hugh gave the stallion a treat and his thick, arched neck. “Not for Guy,” he said.
“If your memory returned and you could answer questions about your childhood, then your claim would have validity.”
Hugh rubbed the back of his own neck as if it ached. “Aye, I suppose that is so.”
The air was filled with the acrid odor of burnt hoof. The stallion looked at Hugh and blew softly through his nostrils. Hugh said, “All right, Giles, you can try again.”
The blacksmith lifted the stallion’s rear foot and Nigel said, “I am going to accompany you to Chippenham. You will need someone to watch your back while you are there.”
“You cannot accompany me,” Hugh said. He was watching intently as the blacksmith fitted a shoe to the stallion’s hoof. “You are Guy’s vassal and simply by finding me you have done enough to anger him. It would not be wise to oppose him further.” Abruptly Hugh switched his attention from the horse to Nigel. “You yourself have been at pains to point out to me exactly how much power Guy wields. You don’t want him to send an army against Somerford, sir.”
“He won’t do that,” Nigel said. “I haven’t openly opposed him in anything. And I would never forgive myself, lad, if something happened to you that my presence might have prevented.” He smiled ruefully. “My daughter wouldn’t forgive me, either.”
Hugh looked unconvinced.
“I am not asking you if I might come, Hugh,” Nigel said pleasantly. “I am telling you.”
Abruptly Hugh’s face lit with his rare, radiant smile, the one that made him look as young as he actually was. “Thank you, sir,” he said. “I shall appreciate your assistance. You can point out to me which of my father’s knights are still at Chippenham so that I may question them.”
The Somerford household was at supper when the knights whom Nigel had sent to accompany Stephen’s army to Arundel returned home. They brought the astonishing news that not only had Stephen raised the siege, but he had agreed to give the empress a safe conduct to join her half-brother, the Earl of Gloucester, in Bristol.
Hugh was incredulous. “He let her go?” he said to the mail-clad knight who was standing in front of the high table addressing them.
Matthew was one of Nigel’s oldest retainers and his seamed, weather-beaten face was grim as he replied, “Yes, my lord. He let her go. Bishop Henry and Count Waleran of Meulan were to escort her to meet her brother.”
Even Nigel looked shaken by such news.
“What could the king have been thinking of, to do such a thing?” Cristen asked in amazement.
“I believe his thinking is perfectly clear, Lady Cristen,” Henry Fairfax said in a pompous, patronizing tone. “By raising the siege of Arundel, the king has freed his forces. This will enable him to concentrate them on Earl Robert, who is his real enemy.” He gave her the sort of smile one would give to a small child whom one was instructing. “Surely you can appreciate the chivalry of the king in choosing Robert as his main target, and not a lady.”
“His chivalry is misplaced, to say the least, if its result is to plunge the country into civil war,” Cristen replied tartly.
Fairfax looked first startled and then annoyed. Clearly he did not relish being contradicted by a woman.
Hugh said coldly, “What the king has done in releasing Matilda is to give Gloucester the moral claim he needs to make his cause a just one. What the king has done is to give Gloucester and his sister a solid, compact base in the west and Wales. What the king has done is to open the door to chaos.”
By now Fairfax was looking angry. “I rather think that the king has a better grasp of what is best for the country than does a young knight such as yourself, Corbaille.”
Hugh looked at him.
Fairfax’s already skin flushed a brighter red.
“You are disrespectful,” he said angrily.
Hugh said, each word dropping like a chink of ice into the vast silence of the hall, “It is difficult to respect a man who acts as stupidly as Stephen does.”
“What do you think he should have done?” Fairfax demanded. “Captured Matilda and thrown her into chains? Or perhaps you think he should have had her executed? I can imagine what the Church would have to say about that!” He leaned his upper body toward Hugh, who was sitting on the other side of Nigel, and said nastily, “Tell me, Corbaille, what would you have done if you were Stephen?”
“It isn’t difficult to answer that question,” Hugh said. As Fairfax grew hotter, Hugh was growing colder. “I would have captured Matilda and put her on a ship back to Normandy.”
“That would have been best,” Nigel agreed unwillingly. “I cannot see that allowing the empress to go free was a good move, Fairfax.”
Sir Henry scowled to find himself under attack from yet another quarter. “Stephen has a big heart,” he said. “It is one of his most admirable traits.”
Hugh lifted an ironic eyebrow. “I would rather have a king with a big brain.”
By now Fairfax’s face was scarlet. “I don’t know who you think you are, Corbaille…” he began furiously.
Hugh grew very pale. His light eyes glittered between their dark lashes. He stared at the older man for a long moment of silence before he replied evenly, “My name is not Corbaille, it is de Leon. And I can tell you who I think I am, Fairfax. I think I am your rightful overlord, the Earl of Wiltshire.”
Henry Fairfax retired to his bedroom early, still fuming at Hugh’s opposition and suspicious of his claim of identity. After Fairfax had gone, leaving Nigel and Cristen alone together in the solar, he told her that while he was at Chippenham he would ask Lord Guy’s permission for her to wed with the lord of Bowden.