“There is nothing more dangerous than a fool who doesn’t know he’s a fool,” Richard agreed. His intense blue eyes regarded his father sympathetically. “What can you do?”
“I can disregard his orders,” Gervase said grimly.
“That might work for a while. But what will happen when he finds out?”
Once more, Gervase smashed his fist upon the table. He shook his head in angry despair. “I cannot understand how Stephen came to appoint such an idiot earl of the shire.”
Richard ran his fingers through his short, dark gold hair. “Would William of Roumare have been any better? At least Lord Gilbert will be loyal to Stephen.”
“Hugh would be better,” Gervase said emphatically. “He may be young, but he was raised by Ralf Corbaille. He understands military strategy.”
Richard leaned back in his chair, stretching out his long, muscled legs. Alan was sitting by the fire, tossing a set of dice from one hand to the other and listening to the men. He looked at his master with idolatry in his eyes.
Richard was a splendid-looking young man of twenty-two. Over six feet tall, he possessed a magnificent physique, brilliant blue eyes, and strong, even features. He was a superb athlete. In addition to all this, he had never been anything but kind to the young squire who served him. Alan thought he was the perfect example of what a knight should be.
Richard said regretfully, “Unfortunately, Hugh cannot become earl unless Gilbert dies.”
Gervase scowled.
Richard changed the subject. “I’m hungry,” he announced. “What about you, Father?”
The dark look on the sheriff’s face lightened to one of affection. “You’re always hungry.”
“I missed supper,” Richard said with humorous vindication.
The sheriff turned in his chair to look toward the fireplace. “Alan, will you fetch some meat and bread from the kitchen for Sir Richard?”
Alan scrambled to his feet and hurried on his errand. When he returned, he placed the food in front of Richard, along with a napkin, a spoon, and a trencher.
“Thank you, Alan,” Richard said with his customary courtesy, and reached for his knife to cut the meat.
He frowned as his hand came away from his belt empty.
“The devil,” he said mildly. “I don’t have my knife.”
“You didn’t lose it?” Gervase said in some alarm. He had given Richard that dagger along with his sword when he had been made a knight.
“Nay, I remember now,” Richard said. “I took it off this afternoon when I went into the Minster. I put it down on one of the tables in the vestibule, thinking to reclaim it when I left. I must have forgot it, however.”
One of the bishop’s rules was that visitors must disarm completely before they could enter the church.
“You will be lucky if it is still there,” Gervase said sharply.
“Shall I go and look for it?” Alan asked, stepping forward eagerly.
Richard frowned. “It is dark out, Alan.”
“That is no matter,” returned the enthusiastic squire. “It will take me less than half an hour to get to the Minster and return. I shall be glad to retrieve your knife, sir.”
“Let the boy go, Richard,” the sheriff said. “He’s sixteen years old, not a child. And I do not want you to lose that knife. It belonged to my father before me, and I want you to be able to give it to your own son.”
Richard gave Alan a rueful smile. “Very well. I didn’t mean to treat you like a child, Alan. Forgive me.”
Alan’s return smile was radiant. “There is nothing to forgive, my lord.”
“I am not a lord,” Richard reminded him gently.
“You are to me!” Alan said stoutly, and went to get his heavy wool cloak and a lamp.
It was dark and cold as Alan made his way from the sheriff’s town house on the Strait to the Minster, which was situated just within the castle’s outer walls. The guard on duty at the castle gate grumbled, but let Alan enter when he explained his errand.
The Minster was always open to the faithful, and Alan used the glow from his dish lamp to light his way up the stairs and into the vestibule of the imposing stone church that served as Lincoln’s cathedral.
There, on the small wooden table in the hall, lay Richard’s distinctive dagger. Alan lifted the knife, started to slip it into his belt, then decided that first he would say a quick prayer before he returned home.
He laid the dagger back on the table and pushed open the door that led into the center aisle of the church. His attention was instantly caught by the illumination of another lamp halfway down the nave. He stopped dead, then gasped at what he saw caught in the lamplight.
Bernard Radvers, with a bloody knife clutched in his hand, was kneeling over the recumbent figure of a man.
“Who is there?” the knight demanded, squinting up the aisle toward Alan.
Alan’s heart was hammering but he managed to reply with respectable steadiness, “It’s Alan Stanham, squire to Richard Canville.”
In the light of the lantern, Bernard’s face was hard as iron. “I’ve just found Lord Gilbert de Beauté,” he said. “He’s been stabbed to death. You had better go for the sheriff.”
3
When he was two miles away from Somerford, Hugh sent Cristen a message.
I’m almost home. Meet me in the herb garden.
He had done it once before, cleared his mind of all else and sent her the same message. Neither of them could be sure if she had heard him, but she had most certainly felt an impulse to go down to the herb garden.
A wet snow began to fall as Hugh and his escort approached the high wooden walls that surrounded Somerford Castle.
“Good thing we’re almost home,” Thomas said, glancing up at the heavy sky.
“Aye,” Hugh replied. Aye and nay were the only two words he had uttered during the entire ride.
The gate to the castle swung open as the men on guard recognized their party. Hugh and his men clattered over the wooden bridge that spanned the moat, and rode between the gate towers into the outer bailey.
Grooms came running to take their horses. Hugh relinquished Rufus, his white stallion, to his customary groom, and without a word to anyone strode across the courtyard toward the fence that marked off the herb garden.
The escort knights he left behind exchanged a look. They had recognized the expression that Hugh had worn ever since his interview with Lord Guy, and they had been as cautious around him as men forced to walk beneath a tottering bucket of boiling oil.
“If anyone can calm Hugh down, it is Lady Cristen,” Thomas said as the three knights watched him disappear through the herb garden gate.
“Judas, but he can be a touchy bastard,” Lionel said fervently. Lionel had made the mistake of trying to engage Hugh in conversation on the ride home. Hugh had not answered him, but the look he had given the knight had scorched poor Lionel to his soul.
“Something happened between him and Lord Guy,” Thomas remarked.
“A brilliant deduction,” Reginald returned sarcastically. He scowled. “I wonder if Lord Guy has changed his mind about recognizing Hugh as his heir.”
“That would be a most grave injustice!” exclaimed Thomas, who was one of Hugh’s most ardent partisans.
“Justice is not often a concern of the great,” Lionel commented with resigned realism.
“I wonder what’s for supper,” said the practical Reginald.
The three knights began to walk toward the bridge that would take them from the outer to the inner bailey, and thus to the castle and their meal.
The door to the herb shed was closed, but Hugh could see smoke from the brazier escaping out the smoke hole in the roof.
She was there.
He covered the last steps at a half run, pushed open the door, and stepped inside. Cristen was just putting down a half-filled jar of some kind of medicinal jelly, and she turned to where he stood in the doorway.