Knight's Honor (45 page)

When the horses could go no further they rested, eating what was left of the food they carried, drinking, and bathing their wounds in a stream. Henry and Hereford talked desultorily, but they were too tired by now to discuss any important subject. They decided only that they would press on into Chester's domain and, without taking the chance of entering any of the keeps wherein they might be trapped, camp for the night on the borders of Chester's forest hunting preserve. Neither of them had been badly hurt, but they were sore with minor cuts and bruises and some of their men were much more seriously injured. Indeed, they had already left many men behind, dead or too badly wounded to travel. A night's rest might save them from losing any more.

Elizabeth's exercise had not had the effect she had hoped for. Although she had spent the entire afternoon galloping over fields and through the woods, resisting with determination the idea that there might be another message from Roger waiting for her, the fatigue brought her no peace of mind. Useless as it was, she continued to worry, going twice to reread what Roger had written because she feared to miss some hidden instruction.

No matter how she turned the words, however, she could find nothing. Her unease continued through the night and through the next day, making her temper, never gentle, unendurable. She beat her maids until they cowered at the sight of her, threw things at the menservants, snapped at her mother-by-law, and even slapped Hereford's eldest daughter, of whom she was actually very fond. A moment later she had pulled the startled child, who had hitherto received only the gentlest treatment from her, into her arms and burst into tears.

Lady Hereford, who had been growing more and more furious, since Elizabeth had told her only of the contents of the first part of Roger's communication, looked speculatively at her daughter-by-law after that outburst and her subsequent tender fondling of the child and held her tongue. When she was able to catch them alone, she asked Elizabeth's maids certain questions, which they could not answer, because their mistress was very secretive about her bodily functions. Lady Hereford remembered that she herself had always been very irritable at the start of each of her pregnancies, and the hope that that was causing Elizabeth's unreasonable behavior permitted her to endure it. In a way this was unfortunate because it denied Elizabeth the outlet of a rousing quarrel that would have been very beneficial to her, but in the end her restlessness served her purposes better.

It was because she could not sleep and was standing by the unshuttered window that she heard the groans of metal against stone as the drawbridge was lowered. For one man alone at this time of night would that bridge go down. Elizabeth ran, snatching up a branch of candles, to wake the servants and then, abandoning the candles for a torch which the wind would not extinguish, went down the stairs and out into the bailey to greet her lord. She did not even see Henry. There was Roger, only Roger, still full-armed even to his helmet, and staggering with weariness. With a cry of thanksgiving she dropped the torch and flung her arms around him.

"Roger, Roger."

"We need food, Elizabeth, and wine, and beds above all."

"The servants are making ready. Are you all right?"

"Yes."

He would say no more, nor did he really eat, although he drank. Thoughtfully, Henry refused the offer of their room for this night and of Elizabeth's services. Lady Hereford, hurriedly awakened, went with him to be sure he would lack nothing, and Elizabeth was left to attend to her husband. She disarmed him and disrobed him herself, greedy to touch him, not having realized until this moment how great her fears for his safety had really been. Her curiosity was eating her up alive, but she could not question a man who showed her a face gray with fatigue, hollow-eyed, and with lines that she had never seen before etched into the flesh. He dozed, sitting on the bed, as she undressed him, and she had to lift his feet and roll him under the covers. Yet when she slipped in beside him, she knew he was not asleep because she could see the gleam of his open eyes.

"Go to sleep, Roger," she whispered finally. "Whatever has befallen, it is over now. You are at home."

Only for him it was not over. It was going to begin again, tomorrow or the next day at the latest. Hereford, incapable of further effort, began to tremble. He felt his wife stiffen beside him and tried to control himself, ashamed of his weakness and thinking that she was revolted by it. His body was beyond control, though, and the attempt to stop it only made the trembling worse.

Once again he had misjudged Elizabeth. Her tension was due only to doubt as to what she should do. Was it better to pretend she noticed nothing? Should she try to soothe him? Did he wish to speak or be silent? The minutes passed slowly and he became no easier. Elizabeth could now feel him gasping for breath in the intervals between the fits of shivering. It was painful that he would not turn to her for comfort even in this extremity, but Elizabeth's pride had taken so many blows of late that this one scarcely affected her from a selfish point of view at all. She could only think that what Roger was doing must be unendurable to him; it would be better for him to be angry with her than to go on like this, and she turned on her side and put her arms around him.

"What is it, Roger? Please let me help you."

He could not answer, but he pressed himself, cold as ice, against her comforting warmth. For Elizabeth it was enough; her heart pounded so with triumph that she thought he would hear it, and she tightened her arms fiercely and protectively about him. The security of that embrace released Hereford's tears—tears of fury and of shamed pride—and when the storm was over he gave Elizabeth a final token of trust by falling asleep at once. Eventually Elizabeth slept too, but not well, for her husband's every sound or movement woke her, and his sleep, although deep, was not easy. Toward morning she started awake anxiously once more to find that this time Hereford was sleeping no longer.

"Do you feel better, Roger?"

"Yes. I am sorry to have acted the fool last night. I was tired."

Elizabeth caught his eyes and held his gaze steadily. "That is nothing to be sorry for. Any man, even you, may be overburdened. I wish I might be of help—but I do not blame you for mistrusting me. I have given you little reason to confide in my judgment. Only I am so strong and so eager, and there is nothing for me to do or to think of. You know, Roger, I am not used to this life of idleness, and the devil breeds work for idle hands."

"You must be patient, Elizabeth. It has been in my mind to give this keep into your management. It was a mistake for me to think that you would not wish to be troubled with the simple duties of living, but I have no time …" His voice drifted off uncertainly. "So much is happening," he added more firmly. "You must wait until my duties are over—one way or another."

"Will you tell me nothing? Not even what is past? Surely my knowledge of that could do no harm."

"Nay, Elizabeth, I will tell you anything you wish to know. Only there is little enough that will make pleasant hearing for you."

"Were you defeated at York? I knew from your letter that there would be trouble, but— Wait, let me fetch my salves. You can say what you will while I dress your hurts."

"No," he sighed, "we were not defeated. We never came to blows." He lay quietly allowing her to wash him and rub ointments into the raw spots on his body, wincing now and again but soothed by her attentions. "The worst of it was the running. I do not like to run, and we came in haste and fear, fighting off ambushes all the way from York. Aside from that shame and some men, we lost little. I never planned to try for York—what gain would that be to us? I only wanted to draw Stephen away from his son. This we have accomplished. The profit, if any, is that Henry will listen more closely and trust my judgment better. I knew we could not do it and said so; he called me a coward." Hereford's mouth twisted. "That was sweet hearing on my overlord's lips."

"He was angry, Roger. You yourself told me he will say anything in a rage. No man could mean that of you. There must have been more than that to distress you."

"Ay, there was," Hereford answered bitterly, tired of being pressed for information that he was trying to conceal only to spare her pain. "What will you do, Elizabeth, if your father and I come to blows? To whom will you cling?"

"Oh, my God!" she cried, dropping a pot, which broke and splattered the rug with grease. "He has been firm so long. This is a cruel way to try my loyalty if it be not true."

"If you do not wish to have to make that choice, and you have the skill to bend your father's mind, you had better do so." Hereford was already a little ashamed of the harsh way he had introduced the subject, but an idea had crossed his mind that was an answer to two problems at once. "Elizabeth, setting aside your father's good, are you faithful to me?"

"I would I were a man and could do you homage," she said passionately. "I swear I would fulfill that pledge, letter and spirit. What can a woman do to show her faith?"

"You are more a man than some that bear the name." An odd look crossed Hereford's face as he contemplated doing something very strange, something that would make him the butt of jest the length and breadth of England if it became known. He was considering, in all seriousness, accepting the oath of homage from Elizabeth. She would hold by that, he believed, against all ties, even those of love, for he mistakenly thought that her pride was stronger than her affection. "Bring me my sword," he said finally, "and my right gauntlet."

Numb with surprise, Elizabeth did as she was told, although she had not the vaguest notion of what was coming next, for the idea that Roger would take up her offer never crossed her mind. It was easier to believe that he wanted the sword to kill her with, for what fault she could not imagine except that possibly the burdens he bore had driven him mad … but why the glove? She was distastefully aware, not of fear, but of little things that did not matter, of the damp stickiness of the leather which a bad cut on Roger's right forearm had soaked with blood that had not dried, of her bare foot slipping in the grease on the rug, and of the frightful red marks on Roger's alabaster skin as he stood to receive her.

"You have offered to do me homage, Elizabeth. I think enough of your pride, strength, and courage to accept that offer, but before I go further, I bid you think. If you swear to me as a man, I will hold you to your word as a man. I will no longer regard your swerving from your duty to me as a woman's weakness."

This was what Elizabeth had striven for all her life. This was more even than her father's confidence had ever offered her. She should have been overwhelmed with joy and satisfaction at the successful culmination of her struggle for independence. Instead— "What does that mean?" Elizabeth asked, terrified. "Will you have me to wife no longer?"

Momentarily Hereford's expression softened. "Nay, my heart, I love the woman in you too much to abandon it for any cause. I mean that if I ask a man's duty of you, you may not say me nay for a woman's reasons, because you are angry with me for not yielding you some trinket or privilege or because as a husband I have forbidden you some friend or activity. Do you understand?"

"I think so."

"Do you want time to consider? We will rest here one or two more nights. You have a little time."

"No," she answered faintly, "there is nothing to consider. You may have my faith any way you want it. I will be your 'man' as well as your woman."

To an observer the scene might well have had humorous aspects. In
the faint grayish light of early dawn, a man, naked as the day he was born, stood above a kneeling woman whose loosened hair flowing to the ground betokened her intimate relationship to him. Yet he spoke to her as to a male vassal, and his mouth when he took and received the kiss of peace was hard, his lips having none of the softness of the lover's.

In the end he held out his sword to her—there were holy relics in the pommel, and the hilt formed a cross—and she rose, laid her hands upon it, and swore. Last of all he gave her his bloody glove as a token of the new bond between them, and a final hard kiss. To the participants in the ceremony, however, there was nothing humorous at all in the circumstances. Both were completely in earnest; Hereford as determined to hold his wife to her oath as any other vassal, and Elizabeth, frightened because in the moment of the fulfillment of her ambition she realized that she did not desire this type of relationship with her husband, still determined to strive to her uttermost to live up to this honor so seldom granted to a woman even in private.

"Fiat," Hereford said, then sighed and stepped back to sit down on the bed and draw the covers around himself. "Now, Liza, I have work for you."

"Oh, Roger, wait! I am afraid."

"What?" Surprised for a moment, Hereford laughed and reached out to pull his wife into his arms. "If ever I learn to understand you, I will surely be the wisest of all men. You meddle in my affairs constantly, usually without my knowledge or consent, but when I am about to ask you to do just that, you tremble and grow pale and say you are afraid. Have I ever been so harsh to you or so unreasonable that you should be afraid of me or anything I would ask of you?"

"You were different before. I am not afraid when you are like this, but I know now why Walter fears you and why your men obey you so absolutely."

"A nice case I would be in if I needed to seat all my vassals in my lap and caress them to reassure them that I desire only their good." Hereford's mouth was soft then, his lips sweetly curved. "More especially if I felt toward them as I do to you, nothing would ever be done, for I could never keep my mind upon the work in hand. I always thought it was because women could not bear arms that they were not held in vassalage, but now I see that there are other dangers in the situation." He laughed, amused by the idea of the havoc that would be created if women were generally granted vassalage. "Well, Elizabeth, we always do everything backwards, why stop now. It is growing light, I am in desperate need of time, and I have much to tell you, so—let us make love."