Knight's Honor (7 page)

"Then what?" He kissed her hands and she began to tremble again.

A faint glimmer of an idea illuminated Roger's mind, but it left him even more puzzled. Elizabeth had always been rather bold in her dealings with men; Hereford could distinctly remember times when her advances to him had been so open that he was rather embarrassed and a little disgusted. Now he wondered if that boldness was not bravado, as a frightened man will boast of his prowess before battle to reassure himself. But a man had to fight and Elizabeth did not have to deal with men—or did she? A girl so beautiful, so dowered, and modestly behaved in addition would have been snatched up in childhood. Perhaps her boldness had protected her well from what she feared.

"Nay," he said, very gently, "you need not answer. I will press you no further. If you like I will go and let you rest, but if you can bear it, I would like to tell you what I started to say when we first came up here." He had risen and walked out of her range of vision so that she jumped and cried out faintly when he stroked her hair. "I can see that you are really in no state to hear me, but once your father returns we will not be able to speak freely."

"I am all right," Elizabeth replied, pressing her hands to her cheeks. "I can listen."

"Good. Listen then. Gaunt and I had not been together half an hour when he proposed—straight out—that I should lead the forces of Gloucester and reorganize the rebellion."

Elizabeth had been slouched in the chair, her face turned away from the fire to keep it in shadow. Now she jerked upright and turned very quickly to face Hereford. This was greater news than she had expected.

"But what of Gloucester?"

"We, Gaunt and I, met him the next day in Bath.” Hereford turned toward the other chair and almost bumped into a small table set nearby. “Ah. Here is that food you promised me. I never heard the maid bring it in."

Neither had Elizabeth, and she spared half a thought wondering whether the woman had seen and heard anything which should not be spread all over the keep. Her attention, however, was now focused on Roger with great intensity, and the maid was only a vague unease at the back of her mind.

"I cannot understand Gloucester.” Roger’s lips twisted. “I hardly like to call him a man. I tell you, Elizabeth, he nearly flirted with me." That made Elizabeth laugh, and their eyes met briefly with understanding before Hereford, not feeling safe when their glances locked, picked up the flask on the table and poured wine. "Well, that is neither here nor there, but I swear I wish you could have seen him. He turned the rings on his fingers and looked up at me under his lashes—faugh! Yet Gaunt told me he bore himself like a man before Castle Cary and turned a very shaky thing into a decisive victory."

"Yes, yes, Roger,” Elizabeth said impatiently. “I know William well and have seen and, indeed, borne most of his tricks and ways. But what did he say about his army? For someone who says he does not talk around a subject, you seem to be having great trouble in keeping to it."

"That was all of a piece. Does a maid lead an army? He was not only willing, he was urgent with me to take his mercenaries under my command."

"Then you agreed?"

"Of course, do you think I could turn away from such an opportunity? I am not alone in this—"

"Roger,” Elizabeth interrupted, “you cannot have thought. Even if my father were to help you and you had my revenues to add to your own, you could never support that force."

Smiling, Hereford could not resist caressing her with his eyes. She was quick as a man—quicker than he had been—to add it up and come out with the right answer. "Do you take me for a fool, Elizabeth?" It was better just now to sound indignant; if he began to praise, he would also begin to kiss. "The matter of supporting the men was easily settled. I will give you the details of how it will work another time, but Gloucester will continue to pay them through my hands, and—"

"Gloucester does this for what reason?” Elizabeth interrupted again. “To honor his father's memory? Nonsense, he hated Robert's guts. Because he loves you? Roger, I do not like this. William is not that kind of man."

Hereford still smiled, but now there was a wry twist to his lips. "I do not trust him either, but it is not so bad as that. He has good reason for his generosity. He takes one half of the noble's share of the booty—when there is booty."

"One half!" Elizabeth shrieked, starting out of the chair. "You did not agree to that! It is your blood that will be spilled while he sits safe lapped in scent and silken cloth. A tenth above his costs is ample reward for his exertion."

"Now, now, Elizabeth, he does more than that. You know he is our ear at court. Moreover he takes no small risk in trusting his men to my leadership. What if I turn against him? What if I fail?"

"What if the sun did not rise tomorrow?" she retorted hotly. "He risks nothing, and you know it, Roger. Your word is better than his gold. And if you did fail, what would it cost him? A year's revenues from chests already overflowing? You will belike lie dead in the field …" Her voice faltered as the sense of her words penetrated, and she pushed back her heavy hair. Hereford paused with his wine goblet halfway to his mouth, very curious as to what her reaction would be, but he was not rewarded with anything of note for she recovered at once.

"I suppose," Elizabeth continued, a little less angrily, "that Gaunt and Radnor take the other half and you have the glory remaining."

Hereford laughed in the middle of his drink, spluttered, and choked. "I say, Elizabeth, do not make me laugh when I am drinking. You should know the Gaunts better than that—and me too. They requested only that their costs be returned if possible, and that Henry, when he comes to the throne, should grant such favor as is consonant with their help to Radnor's wards. Gaunt insists, and in a way it is true enough, that they are doing nothing and deserve no reward."

"Then they are as great fools as you. Hark, the dogs. My father is returning."

"Hereford," Chester cried and started forward across the hall almost at a run, "by God, I am glad to see you."

The men embraced warmly, for although Chester was the elder by many years, their relationship was that of equals, and Hereford was not given to a display of formal ceremony.

"It is good to have you here, my boy—nay, my son—and I speak the truth of my heart when I say I am not prouder or fonder of my own blood."

"Now that," Hereford said, detaching himself from Chester but maintaining an affectionate grip on one hand, and turning to Elizabeth, "is the way a man should be greeted."

"Do not tease me, Roger," Elizabeth replied sharply, but smiling. "I will give you as good as I get."

"Do I not know it! All your daughter could say to me in greeting was that I made extra work for her. I tell you, if I was cold when I came in, she soon warmed me well with the back of her tongue."

"Roger!"

"Elizabeth!" He mocked her tone.

Chester smothered a smile. He had done well to write to Hereford and had done well to be absent when the boy arrived. "Well, Roger, you are better off than I am. I have been offered nothing to warm me—not even angry words."

"Alas," Elizabeth cried in mock dismay, "I am abandoned by all." She went to kiss her father and then with a brief curtsy left the men to themselves as she crossed the hall to order hot wine and more torches, for the daylight was fading.

"How comes it that you are not unarmed, Hereford? Was Elizabeth really in such a rage when you came that she would not attend you or do you fear treachery in my house?"

"All jesting aside, that daughter of yours is hot at hand, Rannulf, but that nor the other is why I am still armed. I had something to settle with her pertaining to our marriage and we both forgot. Truly, I have scarcely shed my mail for a day these two years so that I hardly know that I bear it."

Chester's pale blue eyes shifted around the room and returned to the earl. "So the rumors I heard were true? You are joining Gloucester's forces?"

"By the eyes and ears of Christ," Hereford burst out, "from whom did you hear? The matter was decided scarcely a week since—"

"Calm yourself, Roger, I hear most things. It is true then? I am glad. What do you plan?"

Hereford pulled gently at his right ear and ran his knuckles down along his jaw. "I need a shave," he commented with mild surprise, and then as he saw the look on Chester's face, "Sorry, I was not avoiding your question, I was thinking of Elizabeth. There really is nothing to avoid because, as yet, aside from some vague discussion with Gaunt about general matters, there are no plans. Gaunt felt, and I agreed with him, that I had better settle my private affairs first. It is too cold to fight anyway just now."

Chester narrowed his eyes. "Do you mean to tell me, Roger, that things were left hanging like that?"

"Just so." Hereford rubbed the back of his neck where the mail came above the folded hood of the tunic and irritated his skin. Chester was going to be difficult to deal with. However unreliable the man was, he was no fool at all. "I swear," Roger continued, keeping to the literal if not the actual truth, "that no further definite plan was made. Gaunt was anxious to get home—he is getting old and tires easily, and Radnor, as you no doubt know, is in Scotland. Gloucester," he made a moue of distaste, "did not seem to be interested, and I myself was a little distracted by other matters."

"You have changed, Roger."

"What do you mean? I am older and I have seen some new things, but I do not think I am different from what I was."

"You swear, eh?" Chester watched the young man's face narrowly although he took only quick glances at it now and again. "I have no doubt that what you say is true, if you swear it, but I fear you tell the same kind of truth that Radnor does when he swears—half the truth with the important parts left out."

Hereford flushed, for the remark had hit home. "What more do you want me to say? I suppose that you could guess without my telling you that I expect to hear from the others so that we can meet to plan in the future. You have changed too if you now need every little thing to be explained."

"I need very little explained. I have good eyes and good ears, but I did not think to need to use pincers to get information from my son-by-marriage."

"What information do you want?" Hereford asked irritably, his voice now so loud that Elizabeth checked in the middle of the instructions she was giving and hurried back to them. "I have told you everything I know myself that you had not already heard. Do you want me to make up tales for you?"

"You have avoided mentioning Henry and what befell in France, as though the topics were sacred."

Elizabeth drew breath to speak, but caught the flicker of relief on Hereford's face and just stood listening.

"Oh, Henry." He shrugged. "There is nothing to tell."

"You have grown very cool since I last heard from you. What happened?"

"Cool toward Henry, you mean? No, not at all, but he has no part in the immediate future and my mind has been so taken up with— He will come when it is safe for him to do so, and we will be knighted together by David of Scotland. I can do homage to Henry then, as the heir to England, with perfect propriety since Stephen has not yet openly repudiated the arrangement that Henry should succeed him. That is neat, I think. I do homage to England without pledging my honor to Stephen."

The look of relief had been caught by Chester as easily as by his daughter, even though it had been quickly hidden. Nor did the slip Hereford made about his thoughts being on some immediate action go unnoticed, but Chester was too clever to press the young man when his temper was plainly on edge. He would have opportunity to discover all he wanted to know in the next few days, he thought, believing that Hereford was still too transparent and honest to be a good keeper of secrets.

Chester, however, knew nothing of the training his friend had undergone in the last two years; he was closer to right when he said Hereford had changed. He took the goblet of wine Elizabeth was holding out to him and drank, seeking a new approach.

"Do you still think Henry is the man for us? He is young. Will he be able to hold the barons of England together?"

"Hold them?" Hereford laughed. "He is likely to mash them together if they do not behave. By God's bright eyes, Rannulf, it is a man! It is a man such as we have not seen in this country since the first Henry died. Yet in all, perhaps, he is better still for, though he has the old king's fierceness and determination, he has his father's disposition. He is free completely of his mother's and grandfather's sourness. You never saw a man easier of laughter, nor more willing to laugh and talk. It is as well that I am no great talker in little things because that one's tongue is never still. You should see him. He talks in French and writes in Latin at the same time. Ay, and like as not, the other eye is on another letter or set of accounts."

"Then the young king is perfect?"

"Nay, I did not say that. Some faults he has, being a man, but they are not such as make a bad king. He has a temper—he will say anything and do anything in a rage—but the heat cools as fast as it rises, and, when cool, he is just. Also, and this he takes, without doubt, from his mother, he is close-fisted as a usurer. He does not ask for much, but what he gets and what is his, he holds hard. This matter is something we must talk over well, Father, and not carelessly or in haste. Do you be very certain you know what is yours and what more you wish to have of him before he comes. Then write it all down, and many copies also so that if one be lost there will be others. Be sure you have written one grant for what is already your own, another for what you desire from him. When he comes, make him sign every copy and take one for himself—you understand?"

"I understand well, Roger, thank you for the warning. But should I not approach him now to prove my good intentions?"

"No. Join him when you are needed and make your bargain. He will hold to that much, but if you think that anything will influence Henry beyond that bargain, you are mistaken.
 
I know that one. Be you friend or foe, he will ever be a king first. I tell you that if I did not care for the well-doing of the land as a whole more than for my personal profit I would have none of him. There is more to be had out of Stephen. As a man I love Henry, and he me, I believe, but he would see me hanged or in hell for that matter, for a breach of his command as quickly as he would so treat his most ardent enemy."