But he could not remember what had happened.
He shut his eyes and turned his thoughts to the one person who had never failed him.
Adela, he thought. Help me. I need to know this. Please, please help me.
Nothing. Only the smell of damp and old incense. Only the chill of the unheated stone. It was growing dark outside and the interior of the chapel was becoming dimmer and dimmer.
It wasn’t going to work. He wasn’t going to remember. He was doomed to spend the rest of his life like this, not knowing.
He bent his head and covered his face with his hands.
He had shut the door behind him when he entered the chapel earlier, and now he heard the sound of the heavy oak door being pushed open.
Hugh’s hand immediately went to the dagger at his belt.
He didn’t look around. Instead he continued to kneel upright, his eyes on the crucifix that hung above the altar.
He listened intently to the noises behind him.
He heard the sound of more than one pair of feet. Several people were coming down the aisle.
A muscle flickered along Hugh’s jaw and he spun around in the pew, his hand still on his dagger.
A woman’s voice said, “Hugh, are you all right?”
With astonishment, he recognized the voice as belonging to his mother. His hand dropped away from the knife.
She was standing at the end of the bench where he was kneeling, and behind her was Father Anselm. Dimly, Hugh was aware of the presence of two other men, but his eyes were all for Isabel. He didn’t answer her question.
“Have you been able to remember?” she asked gently.
He shook his head. He didn’t think he was capable of speech.
“Then I will help you,” she said.
His fingers went to the bench in front of him, and then he levered himself to his feet. He had been kneeling for so long that his legs felt unsteady. He had a pain in the small of his back.
“How?” he croaked.
“Father Anselm and I were both in the chapel with you on the morning your father died,” she said. “We’ll show you how it happened.”
Hugh stared at her out of haunted eyes. “You were there, too?”
“I was there,” she said, “and Father Anselm and Walter Crespin and you. And, of course, your father.”
“Don’t try to tell me that Walter Crespin killed him,” Hugh warned harshly.
“No.” Slowly she shook her head. “I am not going to do that.”
Whoever was standing toward the back of the chapel was carrying a candle, so the central aisle was dimly illuminated. Hugh was able to see his mother’s face.
“Then you admit that Walter didn’t kill him?” he demanded.
“Walter didn’t kill him,” she agreed gently.
Hugh swallowed hard. “Who did kill him then?”
“Let us see if you can remember,” she said.
She held out her hand to him. “Come here.”
Slowly Hugh edged his way out of the bench until he was standing at his mother’s side. She took his hand into hers.
“This is how it happened,” she said.
He stared down into her face. His breath was coming short and shallow.
“Do you remember what Father Anselm told you about the way your father separated us and about how he made you kneel in the chapel for hours, praying that you would not turn out like me?”
Hugh nodded tensely.
“It went on for a year,” she said. “Then, when Roger showed no signs of changing his fanatical course, I knew that I had to do something. I deserved to suffer, but I could no longer bear to see what was happening to you. So I asked Ivo’s brother if he would take you away from Chippenham, to the protection of my brother, Simon. Walter said that he would.”
Isabel was still holding Hugh’s hand in hers. Her ringless fingers were icy cold.
She went on calmly, “That morning, Walter and I came to the chapel together. I knew I would find you here and I knew that you would not go with him unless I told you to.”
She glanced at the bench beside them.
“When we came into the chapel, you were kneeling in the very same place you just were. You weren’t alone, however. Father Anselm was kneeling with you.”
Hugh flicked a glance at the priest.
Isabel’s fingers tightened around his. “I told you what I wanted you to do. At first you refused to leave me behind, but I convinced you that you had a much better chance of reaching Evesham alone. I told you that my only real hope of rescue was for you to tell my brother what was happening at Chippenham.
“Finally you agreed to go with Walter.”
She tugged at his hand and walked with him the rest of the way down the aisle. They stopped before the altar rail. Then she put her hands upon his shoulders and placed him in a specific spot.
She motioned to Father Anselm, who came forward and took up a place at a little distance from her.
“This is how we were all standing when your father came into the chapel,” Isabel said. “Walter was behind Father Anselm.”
Hugh felt a terrible pressure beginning to build inside his head.
Not another headache, he thought despairingly. Not now.
But the sharp pain of a headache did not follow. It was only the pressure, building and building, until he thought his skull would explode with it.
A deep voice rang in his ears.
What are you doing here, Isabel?
“He was enraged,” his mother’s voice said. “I was not supposed to talk to you at all.”
A presence seemed to rise before Hugh. A presence that was huge and angry and terrifying. It blocked the space between him and his mother so that he could no longer see her.
Do I have to lock you up to keep you away from the boy?
The pressure in Hugh’s head was excruciating. He couldn’t see the chapel, or his mother, or the priest who was standing close beside them. All he saw was darkness. All he felt was this fearful, towering presence.
His father.
Isabel’s voice floated to his ears. “He threatened me, Hugh, and that made you try to protect me.”
Now it was a child’s voice that sounded inside Hugh’s head.
Leave my mother alone! You’re not a good man, you’re an evil man. God doesn’t love you. God wouldn’t love a man who does the things that you do!
Hugh’s heart and pulse were racing. He struggled to suck air in and out of his lungs. He felt terror right down to the marrow of his bones.
The presence turned on him.
What did you say?
Again came that defiant child’s voice.
I said you were evil. You’re evil and I hate you. Leave my mother alone!
A huge hand was lifted. A fist smashed into his face and he crashed to the ground.
Blood poured down his face into his mouth.
A woman’s voice screamed, Don’t touch him! Don’t you dare touch him!
Everything was dark and blurry. His head was ringing. The presence was still looming over him. Desperately he tried to scramble to his feet.
Then he saw her coming with the knife.
He screamed.
No, Mama. Don’t!
She said hysterically, You’ll never touch him again!
The presence swung around to face her, and she struck.
His father fell to the ground.
Except for the sound of Hugh’s labored breathing, the chapel was deadly silent. He stared with horror into his mother’s eyes. She was crying.
“I didn’t want you to know, Hugh. I didn’t ever want you to have to live with the knowledge that your mother was the one who killed your father.”
He felt tears sting behind his own eyes. He began to shiver.
“It’s all right, Mama,” he said. “It’s all right.”
She took a step toward him, and he lifted his arms. In a moment she was in them, sobbing brokenheartedly against his shoulder.
“I didn’t want you to know, but I couldn’t let you go on thinking that it was you.”