Rhuddlan (10 page)

Haworth was filled with immense happiness. “I
swear it, my lord. I will always do what’s right by you.”

Chapter 8

October, 1172

Chester Castle, Cheshire

Gwalaes entered the semi-dark chamber,
crossed the floor to a window and pulled back the shutters.
Sunlight flooded in. She scanned the crisp autumn sky, and turned
towards the rumpled bed. “Eleanor,” she said, “I saw Sir Miles as I
came out of Mass and he asked about you. He wanted to know if you
were all right.” The shape under the blankets didn’t move and she
went on. “I told him no, the earl had beaten you so badly that you
couldn’t get out of bed.”

Eleanor sprang up. “You didn’t!” she
protested, horrified. The other girl gazed blandly back at her.
“Gwalaes, tell me you didn’t!”

“I didn’t,” Gwalaes reluctantly conceded.
“But I wanted to! Eleanor, he was really concerned about you.
Otherwise, why ask me? Why not simply ask the earl; the two of them
stood together in the chapel.”

Eleanor sank back down into
the mattress. “What
did
you say?”

“Only that you felt ill…He wondered if you
might be pregnant, since you seem to be ill so often.”

Eleanor didn’t answer. Gwalaes threw off her
mantle and busied herself at the brazier until she had coaxed
sufficient heat to ward off the chill coming in through the window.
She cast a critical eye over the chamber. Hugh had knocked over a
stool; she picked it up. He had spilled wine on the table; she
cleaned it with a cloth. He had thrown Eleanor’s needlework against
the far wall; she bent down to retrieve it and noticed a wine stain
spoiling a large portion of it. She smoothed the piece out and
wondered if it were too late to save it. She knew Eleanor had been
putting most of her time into this work and for Hugh to be so
careless of it was just another indication of the small regard he
had for his wife.

Gwalaes hated the earl. She had found him
distasteful when she deduced that he was sleeping with Eleanor’s
brother, but ever since he’d taken to beating Eleanor, she despised
him with a heated passion. She couldn’t understand Eleanor’s own,
insipid reaction; she knew that legally and morally a man was
entitled to strike his wife, but for disobedience. Eleanor had
always done what her husband commanded; therefore, how could she
possibly be disobedient? Gwalaes suspected the earl merely enjoyed
displaying his physical superiority.

And Eleanor still refused to hear a word
against him! That was the most frustrating element in the drama.
Occasionally Gwalaes felt a little put out; she had always been a
true friend to Eleanor and considered now that her friendship was
undervalued. It was another reason to hate the earl. He was a wedge
between herself and Eleanor, and he was driving them further
apart.

There were times when she no longer returned
to the chamber after Hugh left it. To see Eleanor’s tear-stained
face and torn clothing, or the way she held an arm gingerly because
he had twisted it or rubbed her head because he had pulled her hair
and to not be permitted to speak one word of condemnation was more
than she could bear. She suspected Eleanor didn’t mind too much if
she didn’t come back afterwards. The poor girl was embarrassed.

She surveyed the spoiled tapestry again and
sighed. Perhaps a gentle scrubbing with cold water and salt would
remove the stain. But as she reached for the door, Eleanor asked
her where she was going and why.

“Don’t bother,” she said when she heard
Gwalaes’ answer. “The earl didn’t like it.”

“But you’ve been sewing on this for weeks!
Let me try—”

“I don’t want it, Gwalaes! Didn’t you hear
me?”

Gwalaes hesitated a moment and then turned
back into the chamber. She had used her time at Mass this morning
to pray for a lot of patience. She took a deep breath and tried to
sound pleasant.

“Will you come down for breakfast?” she
asked.

“No,” came the tired reply.

“Eleanor, it’s beautiful
outside. You need fresh air. You’ve hardly left this room in three
months.” She stood over the bed, but there was no response. Eleanor
had buried herself in the blankets, curled up into a small ellipse.
She bit her lip. “Eleanor…” she said in a pleading whisper.
“Eleanor, he’s killing you…can’t you see that? You can’t let him do
it. We can leave here, Eleanor. We can go back to Oakby. Now that
your brother’s gone, your father
has
to take you in. Or maybe we could go to the king.
We can find the king and beg him to help us, Eleanor! I’ve heard it
said his relations with the earl are none too friendly…Or Wales. We
could go to Wales, Eleanor! We speak—” She broke off when she saw
that the shape under the blankets had started shaking. Gently she
pulled back the covers. Eleanor was weeping silently, but shook her
head.

“No,” she said.

“But Eleanor, why not? Just tell me why not.
He’s insane! He takes pleasure in hurting you! He won’t stop until
he kills you!”

Eleanor sat up quickly. She sniffled and
tears shone on her cheeks but her face was suddenly full of fury.
“Don’t say such things, Gwalaes! It’s not true! It’s not true!”

“Yes, it
is
, Eleanor! But we can leave
him!”

“Get out of here, Gwalaes! I don’t want to
hear any more!”

Gwalaes opened her mouth to protest once
more, but the malevolent look on Eleanor’s face stopped her. She
glared back, and then swung around and left the room, slamming the
door shut behind her. Eleanor stared after her dully. Fresh tears
rolled down her face.

“You’ve gotten better,” Haworth said
approvingly.

Hugh was breathing hard. “Don’t you think
I’ve had enough practice these past months?” he wheezed.

“Yes, but it’s more than that. You’re more
confident. You attack where once you would have been content to
defend.”

Hugh stuck his sword into his belt and bent
over, hands on the fronts of his thighs, to catch his breath. “I’m
certainly paying the price for it!” he complained. “Perhaps I was
smarter to let my foes come to me!”

A squire ran up with a skin
of water, and as he drank he decided that Haworth had put it
exactly right: he
was
more confident. The last three months had witnessed his
transformation from self-doubter to man in charge of his own
destiny. He felt more sure of himself now than at any other time in
his life.

He slung the skin back at the boy and brushed
some dust off his sleeve. During the swordplay he had been knocked
to the ground, but instead of rolling over to avoid his adversary’s
downward thrust, he had quickly and without conscious thought
heaved his heavy sword up and backwards with all his might,
catching the other man’s weapon in mid-descent and harmlessly
sweeping it away. His opponent had been thrown off balance by this
blow, giving Hugh the opportunity to spring to his feet and finish
him off with a knee in his chest. Now two new combatants had
entered the ring. Hugh watched them with a critical eye, his wind
recovered. At one point he glanced over a few yards away and noted
with satisfaction that his former adversary was still panting from
exertion.

“Have you any idea where Young Henry’s two
messengers are?” he asked Haworth.

The other man shook his head. “I saw them
last in the hall at breakfast.”

“They were told to have my reply within three
days…Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Obviously they’re on some kind
of schedule. Does that mean there’s something already planned?”

“If we were in Avranches, we’d know more,”
Haworth said without thinking.

Hugh looked sharply at him. “I’m not going
back to Avranches until I can’t possibly avoid it!” he snapped.
“Anyway, the king’s still in Normandy. Unless Young Henry has a
dozen or so powerful allies behind him, I don’t think he’s got the
nerve to start anything now.”

Two nights earlier, a pair of riders had
arrived at the gatehouse, demanding entrance in the name of the
Young King and brandishing a carefully wrapped, folded parchment
with an impressive seal. Sir Miles had read out the letter to a
private assembly of Hugh, Haworth and half a dozen other knights,
some of them vassals of the earl, whom Hugh was used to calling
when seeking advice. The message from the Young King, while not
couched in overt language, was nonetheless clear: if it came to war
between him and his father, could he rely on the support of the
disgruntled earl of Chester?

Hugh supposed this invitation to rebellion
had been issued not only to him. There were quite a few disgruntled
barons around who felt their hereditary powers were being unfairly
and effectively curtailed by the heavy hand of Henry II and his
administrators. Even the Church had been threatened; wasn’t that
the reason Thomas Becket had fled to the king of France? Six years
earlier the king had called for written notification from all his
vassals of all those men who held knight’s fees from them in the
time of Henry I’s reign and now. The passage of thirty years and
the confusion of the civil war inspired by King Stephen’s reign had
created a disparity in the two figures. The number of the enfeoffed
had increased dramatically. Since all fief-holders owed their
allegiance first to the king and second to their lords, the results
of the survey promised Henry a new, untapped source of revenue.
Previously, such revenues from unlisted knight’s fees had merely
been pocketed by the barons.

Hugh had more reason than most to view
Henry’s activities with apprehension. The king’s writ did not run
in Cheshire. Hugh was the maker and arbiter of the law in this part
of the Welsh march. All revenues of the shire came to him and were
not passed along to the king. This practice of private government
along the borders had been born of necessity back in the days when
England was newly taken and strong arms were needed to fight off
the Scots and the Welsh. In return for their policing, the marcher
lords were given more freedom and over the years their border
earldoms had grown almost into autonomous states. But now it was an
outdated situation and a strong king such as Henry was constantly
looking for some way to chip away at it.

In the almost twenty years of his reign,
Henry II had proven that he was an efficient, shrewd monarch with
his own best interests at heart. He had brought back a degree of
law and order to England that had been missing for some time. While
it was a relief to most to live under a strong king, there was that
faction of men who saw in the stability of government a decline of
their own power, and in the swift execution of justice a hindrance
of their own law.

“I’d say the Young King has backing that he
hasn’t even got to look for,” Haworth said. “Obviously, there’s his
father-in-law, the king of France. But there’s also the king of
Scotland, the earl of Leicester, the earl of Norfolk, almost all
the barons in Aquitaine and Brittany, and perhaps even the princes
of Wales.” He paused, frowning slightly as he mulled over his
words. With an air of sudden realization, he added, “In fact, Henry
would be hard put to win a war against his son because he’d be
facing rebellion from every direction.”

Hugh snorted. “Henry
pére
has the devil’s own
luck. That would only even out the odds.”

A cheer went up from the ring; another match
had ended. Two men staggered to the sideline, one trying to stanch
with his hand the oozing of blood from a gash on his thigh and the
other sporting a rapidly blackening eye.

“Then you’ll answer ‘no’ to the letter?”

“I didn’t say that,” Hugh said. “But I need
more than three days to think it over. I need to determine who
among my tenants will stand with me and allegiance to the king be
damned, and who will not. I think my answer will reflect polite
interest but no commitment—for the time being. Right now,” he said,
his voice hardening as something in the distance caught his eye, “I
have trouble of a different sort.”

Haworth followed his gaze and saw the
countess and her companion walking across the ward towards the
chapel. “I thought all was well between you and your wife.”

“It’s a mystery to me why she isn’t yet
pregnant, Roger. Just one or two heirs and then I can be rid of
her.”

“You try often enough,” Haworth said as if
sheer probability was sufficient for ensuring conception.

Hugh gave him a sly look. “Not jealous, are
you?”

“Of a woman?” Haworth’s sudden laugh sounded
like a harsh cough.

“She’s in that damned church
for hours every day. I asked her once what the hell she was doing
in there for so long and she told me she was praying to have a
child to please me. I told her obviously she was lying since she
continued to fail to conceive. I said she was probably
praying
not
to have
a child but that I would get one out of her one way or
another.”

“I don’t see what’s so difficult about it,”
Haworth commented. “Women do it all the time.”

“She was probably a bad bargain. I might ask
my mother to start inquiring about an annulment. Get rid of her—and
that sour-faced bitch she brought with her. She’s never liked me
and I’ve never liked her lack of respect for me.” He remembered
Bolsover advising him to leave Gwalaes at Oakby. ‘She’s Eleanor’s
crutch,’ Bolsover had said. ‘She protects Eleanor as if Eleanor
were a child. I think it’s time Eleanor’s been weaned, don’t you?’
The memory made Hugh smile bitterly. The Bolsovers had certainly
wreaked havoc in his life for the past year and a half. He thought
he was tired of it. Perhaps this overture from the Young King
heralded a fresh beginning.