Knight's Honor (3 page)

"Perhaps you are right," he said slowly. "I do not know. I cannot think just now. You and that son of yours could always talk rings around me. I only know that I like direct action best. These elaborate plans fall by their own weight, and so many men involved in separate action tend to think, each one, that his own merit is slighted. Such things often come to naught."

The old man shrugged. "You need not answer now. There is time enough. You should settle all personal matters first, Roger. It is not well to start a war with a divided mind. Some time before February we must all meet. If we can agree, then you should be ready to join Gloucester's forces by midFebruary. You will need at least a month to get to know your men, and I hope we can go into action after the early thaws and planting of March."

"Good,” Hereford repressed a sigh of relief. “I have personal matters to settle, it is true. If this affair had been urgent I could have set them aside a little longer, but—"

"Lady Elizabeth grows restless, eh?" Gaunt interrupted, glancing sidelong at Hereford who had blushed faintly and laughed. "You must be something very special. I had not thought that one could wait at all for anything."

Hereford moved away restlessly again. He had learned to control his expression, but the curse of his fair complexion was that his blood wrote his emotion in his face without his permission for all to see. The best he could do was to turn his back and hope the color would subside before he needed to face his companion.

"It is not so much that as my lands. Of course my mother sent me word of how matters went, and I know Radnor defended them well, but I would like to see with my own eyes what heart the land has. My men-at-arms too must come to know me again."

Gaunt laughed again and drew Hereford toward the table where dinner was laid. "Yes, yes, I know. There are reasons and reasons, and none of them ever is a woman. So it is with my own son also. That being the case and since I see that you feel there is no need for haste at all in the matter of Lady Elizabeth, perhaps we had better go right after we eat. If we can make Ilminster tonight, we may catch Gloucester at Bath tomorrow and possibly settle the manner in which you may draw funds for support of the men. Once that is securely agreed and provision that cannot be readily revoked made, all else will follow easily. You may then devote yourself to collecting Elizabeth of Chester's dowry and person with a mind undistracted by minor matters such as affairs of state."

Several days later in the magnificent solar of Chester Castle, Lady Elizabeth sat staring into the fire with her hands idle in her lap. The room was otherwise empty, but if anyone had seen her it would have been apparent that some decision of momentous weight was being considered, for Lady Elizabeth was never idle. In a sense she was not even idle now, or at least she was not quiet, although she appeared so. In spite of the fact that her head with its two lustrous black plaits, thick as a strong man's wrist, rested against the carved lions and lilies of the chair back, a tension emanated from her that gave an almost palpable effect in the room.

A log snapped, and golden-amber flame shot up anew. Elizabeth turned her face slightly from the fire and slowly closed and reopened her dazzled and dazzling eyes. The light played on the soft roundness of her cheek, showing her skin to be a smooth olive against which the long curled lashes of her eyes looked almost blue rather than black. Elizabeth Chester was a strikingly beautiful woman, her nose short and fine, her mouth naturally red and generous, but beyond every other beauty it was said that she could turn men to stone with her eyes.

Certainly those eyes were startling enough to stop short in mid-sentence anyone who did not know her, for they were not the soft dark brown or light blue or gray that ordinarily went with her dark complexion. As though lit from within, Elizabeth of Chester's eyes glowed with the same golden-amber as the flames leaping in the hearth. They could become hard and cold as topaz, those eyes, but they were always so clear and bright that a man felt as if he could look right into her soul through them.

Even her present trouble could not cloud their limpidity, and Elizabeth was deeply troubled. Almost a year ago her father had told her that he had received a proposal for her in marriage from the Earl of Hereford and that he had accepted it. The Earl of Chester had spoken glibly, defensively, and at great length expecting the worst, but Elizabeth had raised no protest, and Chester had allowed his voice to fade away while he examined his daughter's lovely face. She is pleased, he thought, pleased. Ten, twenty, fifty, he could not even remember how many negotiations for Elizabeth’s marriage had been started, and all had come to nothing.

Some Chester himself had turned down as unsuitable because, unlike many men, he loved his daughter devotedly and would not sell her where he thought she would not be happy. Some he had urged on her with every form of pressure he could devise, but Elizabeth was no ordinary meek woman of the time. She laughed in his face when he commanded her; she cursed him when he beat her; she spat at him when he threatened to starve her. In the end she had always won, for she could make his life a hell on earth.

When Elizabeth was upset, no clothes were washed or mended, few meals were served and those so poorly cooked they were inedible, and day and night she railed, her venomous tongue picking out and lacerating every sore spot on her father's conscience. For the past five years Chester had refrained from argument. He had mentioned any proposal and accepted her negative without question.

Only in part, however, was this acquiescence due to Elizabeth's behavior. After all, Chester had many places he could go away from his daughter. Mostly it was because Chester found Elizabeth increasingly useful to him in political affairs. Now it seemed that that usefulness was at an end. He had broken with King Stephen, and Queen Maud had dismissed Elizabeth from her retinue of ladies. Court circles were closed to her and she could no longer bring her father information or advice.

Hereford had every qualification for a good husband; he was young—younger than Elizabeth if it came to that—handsome, rich, brave, and heart and soul with Chester's cause. The lands Elizabeth had inherited from her mother lay closer to Hereford's domains than to Chester's, some of the castles to be ceded as Elizabeth's dowry being right on the border of Hereford's estates. Best of all, Elizabeth knew Lord Hereford well and liked him. Chester had gambled, accepted Hereford's offer, presented his acceptance as a
fait accompli,
and the gamble had paid off.

At that time Elizabeth had been almost as pleased as her father. The year before the proposal was tendered she had, as a matter of fact, laid snares to entrap Lord Hereford and had been chagrined because, although plainly interested in her person, the young earl loudly proclaimed that he would not marry. When, therefore, after a year of absence Hereford had written to her father offering very generous terms for her, she had been filled with triumph at her victory. Now she was not at all sure that she wanted the spoils of that victory, but it was too late to retreat.

Elizabeth of Chester had many faults, but dishonesty with herself was not one of them. This idle hour before the fire had been spent in an earnest inquiry into why she was so unhappy about Hereford's return. She knew that she liked him, indeed found him more attractive than any other man she had ever met; they laughed about the same things, enjoyed the same rough sports and unrefined jests. He was rich—at least as rich as her father—not that it mattered, for she believed she could have had Lord Radnor if she desired wealth. He would not be harsh to her; no man as soft to his mother and sisters as Lord Hereford would be really brutal to his wife.

What then? He was young, handsome, more than handsome, beautiful in a way that stirred her blood, virile— Elizabeth stopped her thoughts and closed her tawny eyes. Ay, she thought, there lies the pin in the cloth. Take it out and look at it. All of Roger of Hereford she would welcome gladly into her life—his fighting skill, his laughter, his principles—all but his passion.

Her knees trembled and she put her hands on them to stop the motion while a dark blush, which gave her complexion a fascinating violet-hued rosiness, covered her face and throat. It was true that her revulsion at the thought of complete physical contact had been a small part of her previous rejections, but it had never been the major reason. It was different with Roger anyway; she was not icily revolted or flatly indifferent; she hated Roger's passion because she responded to it. Every time he touched her she was driven so wild that she wanted to scream and strike, yet when he was near she could not resist placing every temptation in his way to make him touch her.

A year, how little she had thought of him in that year. She had spent much more time considering how to make him offer for her than in considering their relationship once he had done so.

"So here you are, Elizabeth. I have sent all over the castle for you. I thought you would like to read Roger's letter."

"Thank you, Father. I had one from the same courier." Elizabeth took the letter, nonetheless, and started to read, a skill only a few women had then. Her mind, however, was more occupied with the difference between her father's appearance and her memory of Hereford's than with the written message. Both men had blue eyes, but Chester's were pale, without intensity, and often shifted. In a sense Chester's face was nobler, with its high, broad forehead and long, high-bridged nose, but the forcefulness of her father's upper face was denied by the soft, almost loose lips and the chin, which receded slightly. Even the white puckered scar along the jawbone could not lend decisiveness to that chin, while Roger's jaw line promised that, for all his laughter and good humor, he would be a bad man to cross. Elizabeth handed back the sheet of parchment.

"He is certainly no great correspondent. The words and phrases might have been copied one from the other. All he can think to say, apparently, is that he will be here in two weeks' time and is in great haste to be betrothed. Great haste! He managed to wait a year without the least sign of impatience. What makes him so hot to grasp his prize now?"

"That is no way to talk, Elizabeth. It was the thought of a considerate man to write to you separately. As you know, there was no need for him to let you know his plans at all."

"There is no contract made," Elizabeth retorted hotly, "only a promise without witnesses. I may still decide to withdraw myself as unwilling."

Chester narrowed his eyes. "You! You have no voice in this matter. It is too late now to seek excuses to deny your word. I will make that contract with Hereford no matter what you do or say. There is no need to make contract here. I can easily ride to Hereford Castle to do it. And I will bring you to the church door for your marriage even if I must drag you screaming and cursing every foot of the way, even if I must beat you unconscious and make the replies for you. A fine sight that will be for those who know you, a fine laughingstock you will make of yourself."

"You would not treat me so. You threaten often, but you would not." Elizabeth was not sure this time, however, because her father's voice held a certain note, and her own voice trembled a little. She knew her father. He was weak and changeable, but sometimes unbelievably stubborn, and there was not time enough left now to wear him down.

"I swear to you by the True God, by His Holy Mother, and by all the blessed saints that I will marry you to Roger of Hereford though all hell should bar the way. What ails you, Elizabeth? You have passed four and twenty summers. You are already too old for any but a widower or a madman like Hereford to desire. Where will you find another offer like this one? What single fault can you find in Roger of Hereford?"

"You will drag me to the church!" Elizabeth spat, her eyes blazing like a vicious cat's as she avoided her father's questions and stabbed at what she knew would hurt him most. "You could not summon strength enough to make a toad obey you. You will run weeping to Roger and offer him more money. He, indeed, might drag me all unwilling for a high enough price. If he got enough money, he would think he could win this accursed war single-handed." She gasped a moment, then caught her breath. "Do not tremble so. I will make no protest, but not through fear of you. I have given my promise and I will keep it. I know it is too late to retract."

Chester, who had started to flush at his daughter's words, suddenly began to laugh instead. "So that is where the steel galls, eh? Nay, my pretty, you need not fear that Hereford covets your dower. You know what offers he made. He would have taken you empty-handed, I think, had I insisted that was the only way." Chester came up to Elizabeth and attempted to stroke her hair but she pulled angrily away. "Come, child, the boy only did his duty. He could come no sooner. His honor is engaged with Henry of Anjou's cause and he is young and cleaves greatly to his given word."

"Ay. At least that I will gain from a change of masters. I need not fear that he will be forsworn with every breath of rumor that blows."

That really hurt. Chester cast one reproachful glance at his daughter and turned to leave. He was a weak man and often broke his word, but he was no coward and was driven first one way and then another by ambition and dreams of glory, not by fear. His daughter's insinuation that he was attempting to avoid danger truly distressed him because he felt that if she believed that of him everyone else also would. Elizabeth had not meant to go so far; she fully returned her father's affection, and, although she was by no means averse to tormenting him to get her way, she had not meant to hurt him needlessly.

"Father, wait," Elizabeth cried, jumping up and running after him. "I did not mean that. Oh, my accursed tongue! You know I did not mean it. I have always agreed with you in what you have done. If you have been at fault, have I not been so too?" Chester stopped, and Elizabeth curtsied deep before him and kissed his hand. "Dear Papa, forgive me. I do not know what ails me. I am so cross I hardly know how to bear myself."