Knight's Honor (13 page)

"Oh, thank you, brother, dear, sweet brother, thank you—"

"Roger, Roger, have you made up your mind about me? Mother told me you were to think of my marriage. Will I see him at the wedding? Will I?"

The three female voices in varying degrees of shrillness all impinged together on Hereford's ears. Nothing could be more likely to put a tired, cold, hungry man, already ill-humored, into a blazing rage, yet nothing was further from the fact. Hereford's women always exerted a most soothing effect upon him, even when they plagued him. He shook his head as if slightly stunned, detached Anne from her stranglehold around his neck, although he retained an affectionate grip on her waist, and with his free hand drew his youngest sister close to kiss. Embracing both girls he faced his mother with his usual grin.

"Now, Mamma, I know you are quite capable of arranging these mattersAnne, do not kiss me on the ear like that, you will make me deaf—and I am sure you only wish to scold me."

"Scold you! I wish you were still three years old and I could smack you. Could you not at least have told me before you left for Chester that you were planning this insanity? That would have given me almost two weeks more. I said Anne must be married quickly, but I meant in the spring, in the normal manner. Do you know what everyone, Rannulf included, must think is the cause for this unmannerly haste? What a name you will give your own sister and worse, your own wife."

Hereford let out a long low whistle at that. "Good God, that had not occurred to me." An instant later, however, he laughed again and released his sister's waist to slap her rump. "Rannulf, at least, will know better soon enough, eh, Anne?"

Anne blushed and dropped her head. Her hair was darker than Roger's and her eyes gray rather than blue, but even if she had not the striking beauty of her brother she was a very pretty girl. The modest fit did not last long, because the more she blushed the more her brother laughed. Lifting her head, she too smiled, with a softer imitation of Roger's impish grin.

"Yes, he will, so there, you can stop laughing. And I still thank you. Oh, Roger, I will be a married woman, a lady with my own castle. And Rannulf himself seems very nice, I saw him yesterday and he—"

"Never mind her—"

"Oh, Roger!" Anne kissed him again with a sound enough smack to make him wince in assumed anguish as he turned toward Catherine.

"Never mind her. She knows who is to be her husband. Roger, do tell me what you have decided. Do! You will not make me wait and wait and tell me at the last minute, will you?"

"Catherine, you will tear my shirt. And if you do not stop hopping about from one foot to another, I will decide only that you are too young to be married at all because you cannot behave properly. Good Lord, you will bear me down between the two of you. Let me breathe. I have decided nothing, sweet Cate," he punned on her name and the word used for small sweet cakes sometimes served at breakfast, "but when I do, you will know."

Lady Hereford had been steadily losing patience with her son's absorption in his sisters. Their affairs were important to her and she was pleased by the affection which she had been at great pains to instill into her eldest son for the younger children, but she felt that there were more pressing matters to be discussed.

"That is enough, girls. Let your brother be. Either help him to undress quietly or go back to your quarters. And you are worse than they are, Roger, encouraging them to hang on you the way you do. You should have more sense."

Shaking free of his two limpets, who finally set about the business of getting his bath ready and bringing him fresh clothing, Hereford stepped forward to embrace his mother. "It is no light task, I know, Mamma," he said quietly and seriously, "but you must believe me that I could not wait till spring. I will be otherwise occupied then, and it is part of my purpose to cement the relationships with Chester and Lincoln before the spring. Indeed, you have a perfect right to scold; I have put you to a heavy labor and there is very little time. Still, we must manage as best we may."

"But the betrothals are as firm a bond as the marriage, why could you not wait until early harvest if you will be busy in the spring? Could Lady Elizabeth have agreed willingly to such a scramble?"

Hereford's eyes were momentarily shadowed by the specter that haunted him. "The autumn may be too late, at least for me. Elizabeth agreed willingly enough, for she understands what is before me."

Lady Hereford had paled at her son's first statement, but the pang of jealousy that pierced her with the second made her turn literally white and reach for a chair back for support. Hereford noticed but made no comment because he did not recognize the second, stronger emotion. For her fears he could offer little comfort; women had to accept the death of their menfolk if war took them no matter how dearly loved. So ran the pattern of life, but the girls were back, and Hereford shook off his troubles to joke and laugh with them as they undressed him and washed him. From the tub he called his mother to come closer.

"I can do nothing but plan tonight. Tomorrow we shall set out in earnest to make ready and you will see that nothing will be wanting. You have cleared the three floors of the keep already, I hope, and the bottom of the manor house is also prepared. That will give us sleeping room for fifty or sixty noble guests—on the two top floors of the keep—another fifteen or, if we press them close together, twenty may be put in the hall of the manor house. There are sixteen tower rooms, which will take two to four guests each. At the best that will give us room for almost one hundred and fifty. I do not believe we will have more than that. From the east and the far north few will come. The way is too long, the travel too hard."

"I am not exactly a new-made wife and I have entertained a few guests in the past. You need not tell me how to keep house. I would be grateful though if you would tell me how we are to house the retainers and what we are to feed everyone."

That was that. All he needed to do was be there and everyone knew everything. If he was away, it was all impossible to accomplish. Hereford climbed out of the bath and permitted his sisters to dry him. For a time his conversation with Lady Hereford was suspended again as he answered excited questions about where he got this scar and that one. Like all gentle ladies, Catherine and Anne were fascinated by tales of war and enjoyed the bloodiest descriptions in a way that one would not believe from their gentle manners. Eventually, however, he was dressed; then he smacked both girls fondly, kissed them, and firmly dismissed them to their own duties in their own quarters.

"The retainers can be packed like salted fish into the ground floor of the keep and this building and into the passages. For the remainder, we will only need to drive the serfs out of their huts in the village, give those sties a rough cleaning, and let the men-at-arms sleep there. They will be warm and sheltered, and if the quarters are not elegant, they will have to put up with it. The village cattle will have to be sacrificed to the table too. I have sufficient money at present so we can forgive them their
aide
for my marriage and take the animals instead."

"Those scrawny beasts. What is there to eat on them?"

"Whatever there is, we will have. Tomorrow I will go to hunt. Lincoln and Rannulf—I gather they have arrived and that Anne is pleased with the young man from her manner—can help, and when Chester arrives he will be out from morning till night. Nothing could give him greater pleasure. If worse comes to worst and we are still short of provender, we can raid the town. I do not like to infuriate the merchants, but what is needful is needful."

"If it is settled, you must have your way, of course. What do you plan to do to entertain the men? They will murder each other if they are kept pent in this keep so close together all that while."

"That is the worst of all, Mamma. We can have no tourney in this weather to lighten their hearts. The animals in the forest will be fewer because of the heavy hunting for the feast and the sport will be poor. Nonetheless, I will have the boarhounds out and I think I will send men to beat game from the furthest bounds of the woods. Also, you had better send a man to each of my vassals and tell them to bring with them any minstrels and jongleurs who are staying at their keeps or whom they meet on the way. At least we can dance."

"If there be room," Lady Hereford said wryly. "You will not have a mil left when this is over, Roger. Why does not Chester bear the cost of his daughter's wedding?"

"I have not come to ruin yet, and am not like to. You make ready, let me take heed for the cost. Come, Mamma, smile at me. I swear I did not do it to plague you but because it was the best path. Can you not trust me to do the best I may for all of us?"

Lady Hereford did make shift to smile then and stroked her son's hair. "For everyone else, yes; you do your best. Only for yourself, sometimes, you do not take proper heed."

"That is my mother talking. Who but she so blindly fond as to think I do not seek my own advantage."

"Your father was just such a one. Ever he spoke of his own advantage, yet he went first where duty led him without one thought for his safety or benefit."

"Yes, and was it not to his advantage to do his proper duty? Did it not bring him this earldom with wealth and honor too? Now, Mamma, you know I do not like this kind of talk—also, I am hungry, and I do not think I should avoid my guests longer lest they take offense. Let us go."

Hereford woke in the dawn with an urgent need for a woman. He reached out automatically, but the bed was empty except for himself, and he opened startled eyes to look around the room. Then he smiled rather wryly and lay still, fighting the urge. His mother had been very efficient indeed in dismissing his erstwhile favorites from the castle—he had not even remembered to ask what she had done with them—and it had seemed impolitic to take another maid to his bed when Elizabeth was due to arrive any day. Soon enough, he told himself and got up to urinate, which he knew would help. He shivered in the cold, and, knowing quite well that he would have to dress to hunt in a few minutes, plunged back into the warmth of the heaped featherbeds. He lay looking at the canopy above his head and thinking with some satisfaction of the accomplishments of the previous evening.

Anne and Rannulf seemed to have taken to each other very well. That was not surprising; she was pretty, affectionate, gentle, and Hereford was dowering her richly so that Rannulf had good cause to be well pleased. The young man was not ill-looking and was well-bred. He was brave enough and a strong enough fighter to make his wife proud of him, and his father was rich enough to give him a keep of his own to hold as a vassal upon his marriage even though he was a younger son. That was a piece of work well done.

The matter of Peverel was well in hand too. Hereford had spent a good part of the evening telling Lincoln how rich the Constable of Nottingham had become through being the king's favorite. He had also gently reminded him of the insult to the family in the attempted poisoning of Chester that had gone unavenged. Chester, he said, as if it were a matter of no real interest to him and he was merely relating interesting gossip, was bound by some oath exchanged before Peverel had proved an enemy not to molest him and had given surety of that.

Since the king was Peverel's friend and Chester's enemy, it was scarcely safe to void that promise lest the king require that the surety be yielded in spite of the fact that Chester was in the right. Hereford had sighed gently and commented that it was too bad he could not take the excuse offered by that insult and his marriage to attack Nottingham Castle. He had heard that Peverel was close as a miser and had chests full of gold and jewels, but he had been away too long. His men were in no condition to fight just now; no new recruits had been trained, and, what was more, he leered, he had other plans. That he had repeated more than once, always with the leer which directed Lincoln's thoughts to his marriage, but the statement was insurance against Lincoln's saying that Hereford had lied to him when he began his spring campaign for Henry.

The light of avarice had wakened in Lincoln's eyes, and he assured Hereford that the insult would not go long unavenged. He had not known of Chester's oath, he explained, and thought his half brother had some private reason for sparing Peverel. After all, Chester had not died from poison although three of his vassals had. It could have been, Lincoln said, that Chester wished to be rid of them and Peverel had obliged him. He was not on such terms with his brother that they confided their secrets to each other.

Hereford suppressed his disgust with himself and Lincoln and concentrated his mind on the fact that even evil was attended with some good. If his brother Walter had not often behaved just as Lincoln did, he would not have known how to bend the man to his will. Then too, Lincoln's avarice, which was certainly an evil in itself, would probably lead to the just punishment of the Constable of Nottingham. What a father for his brother-in-law.

Hereford yawned and threw off the covers, wondering whether it was worse to have such a man for an enemy or for a relative. It was done, he thought, and there was no use worrying; Rannulf seemed a good enough sort in spite of his background so that Anne would be happy, and if Lincoln finally ended on the gibbet where he belonged, Hereford was sure he could protect Anne and Rannulf from any evil consequences.

"Roger."

Hereford groaned inwardly. "Yes? I am awake. Come in."

"Awake, but still like a bear in winter. Are you coming to the chapel this morning?"

"Yes, I am coming. Do not wait for me, Mamma. Send William in to help me dress and you go ahead and tell the chaplain to wait. Save a place beside yourself for me and set the girls elsewhere. I want to talk to you about Catherine."

"During Mass?" Lady Hereford asked, her eyes opening wide with surprise.

That was a mistake that might get him a long lecture. Hereford took his lower lip between his teeth. He had forgotten that his mother was truly pious. He had been too long with Henry of Anjou who always used his time in church to write letters or plan strategy or just gossip.