The bedroom door opened and a page looked in. Hugh had heard the door open and close periodically while he was lying in bed, but he had kept his back to the door and lay still. Now the page saw that he was awake, however, and advanced into the room.
“Are you feeling better, my lord?” he asked courteously.
“Aye,” said Hugh.
“The household is at supper. If you wish to join them I will help you make ready.”
Hugh moistened his dry lips with his tongue. “Is…is the lady Isabel at supper in the hall?”
“No, my lord. Lady Isabel takes her meals in the ladies’ solar.”
Hugh felt wrung out and exhausted. A headache always left him in this condition. But he could put this off no longer. It had to be done now.
He said steadily, “Will you go and ask the lady Isabel if she will see me?”
“Aye, my lord,” the page said. He hesitated, as if he would add something, then changed his mind and left the room.
Hugh got out of bed and looked down at his clothes. His shirt was a mass of wrinkles, and his hose were stained with the mud the horses had kicked up from the wet road.
Adela would be furious with me if I presented myself to my mother in such a state, he thought.
The automatic reflex of never doing anything Adela would not like sent Hugh first to the washbasin and then to the wooden chest along the wall. Someone had folded his spare clothes into it, and he lifted out a clean linen shirt and began to change.
The page returned with word that Isabel would see her son. The boy helped Hugh finish dressing and then knelt to tie the leather cross-garters around his hose.
Finally there were no more excuses to delay. Hollow-eyed and pale, Hugh left his bedroom and went down the passage to the ladies solar.
He was admitted by a serving woman, who slipped out the door as soon as he entered, leaving him alone with the woman who waited for him inside.
The solar was large and well-furnished, with pieces of sewing and embroidery spread out on a large table along one of the walls. The room was well-lit by candles. A charcoal brazier gave off a glowing heat and the floor was covered by a rug. Isabel was sitting in a heavily carved chair in front of the window, whose shutters were closed against the cold November rain.
Hugh advanced toward her slowly. His heart was hammering so loudly that he thought for certain she must hear it. He stopped when he was yet four feet away from her.
“My lady,” he said. “I am glad to find you safe.”
She didn’t answer, just looked at him as if she could not believe that he was really there.
Her eyes were dark, dark blue. That was what Hugh saw. Not the beautiful bone structure that was so like his own, but the eyes.
He remembered them.
His lips parted, but no words came out.
Isabel said, “Hugh.” Her voice was faintly husky. Wonder and joy shone in the deep blueness of her eyes. “Hugh, it is really you!”
He swallowed. “So it seems.”
“I have prayed,” she said. “For so long I have prayed that you were still alive.” She laughed shakily. “But to actually see you again…”
The blue eyes filled with tears.
“Don’t cry,” Hugh said hoarsely. “Please don’t cry.”
He, who never felt physically awkward, did not know what to do with himself.
Isabel gestured to the footstool that was in front of her chair. “Will you sit here, so we may talk?”
Hugh crossed the remaining space that separated them and cautiously lowered himself to the stool. It put him at a lower level than her chair, so he had to lift his eyes to look at her.
He felt like a child again.
He said, “I am sorry that I did not stay to see you the last time you were here.”
He didn’t try to explain why he had run away.
She shook her head. “You have nothing to be sorry about, Hugh.” Slowly she reached out her fingers and lovingly touched his cheek. He remained perfectly still under her gentle caress.
“They tell me that you have lost all memory of your childhood,” she said.
“Some of it is coming back,” he said. His nostrils quivered slightly. “I remember your eyes.”
Her face lit as if he had just given her the most precious gift in the world. “Do you?”
He nodded.
She took her hand away from his face and said anxiously, “You were ill when you arrived this morning? Are you well now? You still look very pale.”
“I had a headache, that is all,” he said. “I’m all right now.”
Her delicately arched brows drew together. “What kind of a headache?”
He shrugged. “Just a headache. It makes me sick to my stomach, however, so I need to keep to my room until it goes away.”
Her frown did not lift. “When did you start getting headaches? You did not have them when you were a child.”
He made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “They started just recently. They’re a nuisance, that is all.”
Isabel regarded him somberly. “I get headaches like that,” she said.
His eyes widened in surprise.
“A fine heritage I have bequeathed to you,” she said. In her voice was a mixture of sorrow and bitterness.
Hugh did not know what to answer.
She folded her hands in her lap. “Will you tell me something of your life since…since you left Chippenham? I hear you were fostered by the Sheriff of Lincoln.”
Hugh could talk about Ralf and Adela. He told her how Ralf had found him and brought him home. He told her about Adela and how she had insisted on keeping him. He told her about his life with them.
“You loved your foster mother very much,” Isabel said quietly when Hugh had finished.
“Aye,” said Hugh.
“I’m glad, Hugh.” Her voice ached with love and with sadness. “I’m so glad that you had someone like Adela to take care of you. And this Ralf sounds as if he was a good man.”
“He was a very good man,” Hugh said quietly.
Her smile was full of pain. “You were more fortunate in your foster parents than you were in your natural ones.”
Hugh dropped his eyes.
For a long moment, the only sound in the room was the drumming of the rain against the shutters.
Then Hugh said resolutely, “My lady, there is something I need to ask you.” He met her eyes directly and brought it out. “Do you know who killed your husband?”
The lovely rose-colored flush that had been blooming in her cheeks drained away. “Hugh,” she said. “Leave that alone.”
“I cannot,” he said. “I think I was there when it happened.”
She went ashen. “Why do you say that?”
“I remember seeing his body. I remember blood…”
He shook his head as if to clear it.
“It was Walter Crespin who killed your father,” his mother said. “I thought everyone knew that.”
“Why would a mere household knight want to kill his lord?” Hugh said steadily. “What would he have to gain by such a dreadful deed?”
Isabel looked away. She shook her head. “I do not know,” she said in a constricted voice.
Hugh made the discovery that he was incapable of taxing his mother with the story he had heard at Chippenham.
He said instead, “Two days ago I was on my way to Winchester to see Father Anselm. I only turned back because I heard rumors that Gloucester was on the verge of attacking Worcester.”
A spark of hope awoke in her deep blue eyes. “Were you perhaps worried about me?”
“Aye,” he said.
“Oh, Hugh. Oh, my darling son.” She leaned forward, reached her arms around him, and drew him close so that his head was pressed against her breast.
Hugh let himself be held.
She was crying. He could feel her tears wet his hair.
She doesn’t want me to know, he thought. Why?
At last her grasp on him loosened and she sat back in her chair. The tears, which he knew had been genuine, had not reddened her eyes or her nose. Her face was as beautiful as ever.
He said soberly, “I am still going to see Father Anselm.”