Knight's Honor (44 page)

"We do promise you, Roger, Earl of Hereford, that we and our heirs will guarantee to you the lands held of us, to you and your heirs against every creature with all our power, to hold these lands in peace and quiet."

Henry bent forward slowly and kissed Hereford lingeringly upon the lips. As he straightened, Hereford rose to his feet and they broke the hand grip. The Bishop of Carlisle then came up, holding out to Hereford a magnificent reliquary. The cover, pyramid shape, had golden bas-relief on each of its four faces, depicting the Annunciation, Birth, Crucifixion, and Ascension of Christ. On the panels of front, sides, and back were other scenes from the life on earth of the Son of God. The whole was set with beautifully polished gems, sapphire, emerald, and ruby, so that it flashed and sparkled in the brilliant sunshine of late spring. Hereford laid his hands upon the casket.

"In the name of the Holy Trinity, and in reverence of these sacred relics, I,
Roger, Earl of Hereford, swear that I will truly keep the oath I have taken, and always remain faithful to Henry, rightful King of England, my overlord."

The bishop stepped back, and Henry came forward again. He kissed Hereford once more and handed him a gauntlet, for the right hand, of purple-dyed leather, its back completely covered with thick plates of bright-gleaming gold.

"Wear it in honor. Protected by it, strike hard for my cause."

Hereford slipped on the glove, his eyes incandescent with enthusiasm, and curled his hand into a fist. "For Henry, for England," he cried aloud, shaking the glittering glove at heaven.

"Fiat! Fiat!" roared the crowd of assembled nobles, "so be it."

CHAPTER 15

LARGE, SOFT-LOOKING WHITE CLOUDS HUNG SUSPENDED IN A PEACOCK-BLUE
sky. No high wind stirred them, nor did any breeze flutter the green leaves of the trees that bordered the garden of Hereford Castle. The sunlight-dappled shade was so still, as was the beautiful woman who sat on the grass in it, that the whole scene might well have been painted. Eventually Elizabeth's hands moved, rolling the top portion of the parchment she was reading so that she could unroll the bottom. The crackle of sound was a violence upon the noon-time hush as was Elizabeth's orange dress upon the grass and the dark bole of the tree against which she leaned, but she neither saw nor heard. Her attention was concentrated upon the letter she was reading with such trembling haste that she had several times to go back and read a portion again.

She lifted her head briefly when she came to the end but unrolled the parchment again and began to read it through once more. Quite apparently part of it had been written in haste and in uncomfortable circumstances, and, no doubt, Roger had given up a brief period of rest to send it to her. Elizabeth was very much disturbed without exactly knowing why. Certainly the news was not bad.

The first section of the letter concerned itself with a description of the knighting ceremony and the tourney and other celebrations which followed it. That description was broken off abruptly, as though Roger had been interrupted, and had not been able to continue. The remainder of the letter was in a cramped and uneven hand which bore evidence to the fact that it had been written on some unsteady surface, perhaps Roger's lap.

The tone of this second portion was entirely different too. They were, after all, to attack York, Roger wrote. He had intended to send only a token force against that city to draw Stephen north, but King David had promised more assistance than they expected, Chester had urged the move very strongly, and Henry had been eager to engage and show his mettle against the king. If they were successful, they could drive steadily southward while the forces in Gloucestershire turned north and Hugh Bigod pressed westward out of Norfolk.

This sounded excellent, but it was all wrong, Elizabeth thought, biting her lip. It was wrong strategically because Stephen's greatest strength was in the southeast; battle in the north could do him little real harm even if he were defeated unless he were killed or taken prisoner. On the other hand, the ravaging of the northern territories might do Henry's cause serious harm.The northern barons were mostly neutrals in the civil war, largely taken up with their struggles with the Scots. If Henry led a force of Scots against them, they would hate him if he won and despise him if he lost.

The plan was wrong politically, too, because the taking of Stephen and the reduction of the country to misery—a plain result of the strategy described—was not Henry's aim, according to what Roger had told her originally. Eustace was the one who had to be prisoner, Eustace or Maud, so that Stephen who was kind, affectionate, and not strong-minded could be bargained with. For the sake of his wife or child, both of whom he loved passionately, he might well be willing to name Henry his heir before a convocation of the barons or even, for a high enough price, relinquish the throne. But Stephen could never be induced to yield to save himself.
 
Although the king might be a fool, he was not in the least a coward, and he cared really very little for the welfare of the country at large; no concern for its ravaging would move him.

Worst of all, though, was the wrongness of the whole letter. It should never have been written. It was not like Roger to write about such matters at all nor to take the desperate chance of sending a courier abroad with such information. Moreover, considering that he had not parted from her on the highest terms of confidence it was even less likely for him to send such a letter.

Elizabeth wrinkled her brow and left off reading to stare into space. If Roger had been driven to write to her to ease his heart, he must have no one to whom he could talk. If he needed to ease his heart about such matters at all, he
must have been very unhappy about the plans, even though the letter itself contained no word of complaint or disapproval. Elizabeth sighed. She could understand that Roger would be dissatisfied with the changes made in his well-thought-out arrangements, but she could see no obvious reasons for an oppression of the spirits so strong.

Something beyond the surface difficulties was troubling Roger, but Elizabeth could not guess what, and she was tense and uneasy. Still, to sit and fret could not profit either her or her husband. She went first to her chamber to conceal her letter and change her orange silk bliaut and cream-colored tunic for hardier garments of linen. Then she went to the mews for her hawk. A few hours of hard riding after her merlin was likely to calm her.

Her husband was also riding hard, but he was anything but calmed by it. He and Henry with the men they had personally brought were playing a desperate game of hide-and-go-seek with parties of Stephen's knights sent to ambush them. The attack on York had proved a fiasco, as Hereford had feared.

Stephen had been warned well in advance, of course. Roger had planned that, because originally the attack was to be a feint to draw the king north. He had told Henry of that warning, told David, told Chester—they would not listen. Stephen was dilatory, they replied, he would not arrive in time and the city would be theirs without trouble. Roger had told them too that Stephen might already be well north of London with forces gathered because of his encounter at Nottingham. To that they replied that they were strong enough to defeat the king whatever forces he brought. Desperately Hereford had cried out—no longer caring whether he offended David or not—that to bring Scots into the northern provinces of England would drive every baron there into Stephen's camp. David had been offended, Chester had laughed, and Henry had lost his temper and called Hereford a coward.

Several days later, Henry had apologized handsomely, but the damage had been done and there was nothing left to do but run. When the size of Stephen's army, ready and waiting for them, had become apparent, as did the truth of Hereford's prediction about the feeling of the men of
 
the northern border against the Scots, David's forces had melted away. Chester lost his desire for battle, too, when he realized that Stephen had arrived in time. In his present mood Chester had no intention of literally coming to blows with the king.

In the recriminations that had flown about before the forces separated, Hereford took no part. He had been warned by God more than oncein Burford, by Chester's vacillation, and by his own constant misgivings. He had chosen his path in spite of those warnings, and was following it, perhaps to his own destruction. Thus far, however, his prayers had been answered for it was no failure of his own strength or courage or planning that was bringing disaster upon them. He had no complaint to make.

Strangely, with each encounter that left them more weary, more bloody and battered, and with fewer men, Hereford's spirits rose again. He was neither happy nor confident, nor did he believe he would be again until this affair was over, but he was no longer utterly hopeless either. Perhaps, he had been thinking, only the hour they had chosen was wrong because surely some power beyond their own strength was preserving them.Time after time they lost their way in that unfamiliar country, and often they found their road again only to see behind them the gleam of shields and spears of a force of Stephen's men large enough to have overwhelmed them. Time after time they encountered bands of Stephen's knights, but those bands were always either unprepared to fight at the moment or small enough to be beaten off.

"There are saints, I have been told, who take care of fools and madmen," Henry grunted after one of these meetings, wiping the blood off his sword before sheathing it. The victims of their latest encounter either lying in the road behind them or fleeing away. "No doubt, since I qualify under both names, they are watching me with especial tenderness. What I cannot understand is why they are guarding you so carefully, Roger."

"Have I not clung to you through all, my lord?" Hereford replied with mixed humor and spite. "Does that not qualify me also?"

Henry laughed. Apparently his liege man was completely reconciled to him. Until now Roger had been rather coolly polite, always a bad sign with Hereford, who usually demonstrated his affection for his overlord with a freedom of speech and manner that amounted to rudeness.

"That was a foul blow,” Henry said. “Do you know where the devil we are?"

"Yes, praise Christ. At least, I think so. If those saints will only attend to us a little longer, we will be on Chester's land some hours after dark."

Eyes narrowing a little, Henry gave his companion an attentive and questioning look. "You believe it safe to stop at Chester?"

"No," Hereford replied flatly. Then, urged by love against conscience, he mitigated the statement. "It is safe to stop nowhere that we may not command the castlefolk to fight for us. But from Chester on, nearly all the barons are opposed to Stephen, more or less, and will give his troops no aid, comfort, or information. Some might even attack Stephen’s men for reasons of their own. And I know every stone, rill and twig on every path. If need be, I can lead you through Chester's forests. From there we will be safe. At Hereford we may stop and rest for a day or two."

"Why not stand and defend ourselves? The keep is strong and the people loyal, as I have seen."

"Defend ourselves?" Hereford's eyes widened and his jaw dropped with shock. He studied Henry's face anxiously, but the expression was unreadable. "I have no lust to tear my lands apart without cause. I never knew you to be so fainthearted before. There is an army waiting for me in the south, and thither will I go as fast as I may, not to defend myself but to attack so that Stephen must defend
himself.
There is no profit in defense. Courage, my lord. Our plans are not awry, for we have done perforce at last what I intended at first. I will lay my head that Eustace will be in the south by the time we come there so that in the end we have lost nothing but a little blood and a few days' time."

Henry was silent for a moment, staring at Hereford. "You are true as steel, Roger,” he said. “Nor am I become so fainthearted as you think. I did but seek to know something, but I have had no answer and so I will ask you outright. Of what are you afraid?"

"Afraid? I?"

"Ay. You have dreams I would not wish to share. Your laughter is stilled except when you remember to try for it, and your spirit is so oppressed that you walk about all that part of the nights you do not spend tossing and groaning. I have waited long for you to speak of your own will. Now I ask you—what do you know that I do not?"

Henry's eyes held his, and even if he had been able to look away, Hereford was a very poor liar. "I know two things, my lord. One I cannot tell you; the other I will not. Neither, I believe, can have an effect upon what we are about to do."

"What do you mean, you cannot and will not?" Henry's voice was quiet, but a flush began to rise under the freckled tan.

"What I said. If you believe me true, you must believe I would hide nothing from you that I thought could be amended by your knowledge." That was true enough. Chester had yet made no move and was presently no danger to them. Henry could do nothing now about Chester’s vacillation except be more angry with him. Besides, Hereford was fairly sure that Henry had a good notion of what was going on without being told. Concerning his personal feeling of futility and frustration, what could he say? Very possibly the warnings concerned him alone or were the fancies of a sick mind. It would be foolish and might be dangerous to infect Henry with the same defeatist ideas.

"I do believe you to be true," Henry was saying. "I am not questioning your loyalty, you idiot, I am offering to share your troubles." He shifted the reins to his left hand and extended his right to Hereford with a warm gesture of sympathy.

It was too much. The struggle to conceal and suppress his fears had gone on too long. Right or wrong, here was a sympathetic ear to listen to him and a high courage to support him. Hereford opened his mouth to unburden himself, lifting his eyes to the horizon so that he would not need to look at Henry and perhaps see his overlord astonished and contemptuous of his weakness.

"'Ware! Arms!" he cried instead. A flash of gleaming metal from behind the trees at a bend in the road had stopped his glance. Once more accident, fate, or a beneficent power had saved them, and by the time they won free, all thought of their previous conversation had passed from their minds.