The Poisoned Serpent (27 page)

The justiciar shot a piercing look at Hugh.

Nicholas continued, “Well, Mama said that such information could be dangerous and Papa should be cautious. Papa laughed and said he knew how to take care of himself. He said he was not going to be greedy. He would only ask for enough to buy our own manor and not be dependent upon the bishop’s knight’s fee any longer.”

The room was thick with attentive silence.

The justiciar said, his voice sharp, “Did you hear your father mention the name of the man whom he was going to see?”

“My lord, at first I only heard him say ‘the sheriff…’”

A gust of wind blew through the room, as if dozens of held breaths had been let out simultaneously.

Nicholas went on, “But then he said the name ‘Richard.’ He said it several times, my lord. I thought the sheriff’s name must be Richard, but now I know that Richard is the name of the sheriff’s son. Papa must have said ‘sheriff’s son’ and I did not hear the second word.”

The benches erupted.

Holy Mother of God
, Bernard thought.
Holy Mother of God
.

The justiciar called for quiet. When silence had finally been achieved, he turned to Richard.

“Sir Richard,” he said. “What have you to say to these charges?”

Anger filled Richard’s intensely blue eyes. “What do you expect me to say, my lord?” he replied. “This
evi
dence
has been produced by children whom Lord Hugh has insidiously influenced. They would say anything he asked them to say.”

“Alan Stanham is
your
squire,” the justiciar pointed out.

“He is my squire, but Hugh chose him to be one of the mainstays of his side in the camp-ball game. Then he deliberately humiliated me in front of Alan during an arrow-shooting contest. Poor Alan.” Richard’s voice took on a note of reluctant compassion. “He has been suborned away from his true lord by a clever manipulator.”

“And what about the testimony of Nicholas Rye?”

“Perhaps you do not know this, my lord, but after the death of both their parents, Hugh took Nicholas and his sister to live with him. Poor little orphans. I imagine Nicholas is so grateful to Hugh that he would say anything Hugh asked him to.”

“That’s not true!” Nicholas said indignantly.

Richard regarded him with pity.

“I spoke the truth, my lord!” Nicholas said to the justiciar.

“My lord,” Richard said reasonably. “Hugh has long held a grudge against me. I do not know what I ever did to him to provoke it, but you may ask anyone who knows us both and you will hear that Hugh has always hated me.” He shook his head in sorrow. “But I never thought that he would carry that dislike so far as this.”

“So you deny the testimony of Alan Stanham and Nicholas Rye,” said the justiciar.

“I do, most emphatically, deny it.”

“My lord!” The voice came from behind Bernard, and he turned to see Alan standing in front of his bench.

“My lord, I believe that if you question the silversmith, he will uphold my testimony,” Alan said steadily.

Richard regarded his squire with compassion.

“These witnesses have certainly brought forward information that must be further investigated, Lord Hugh,” the justiciar said. “But the evidence is strongly suborned by the fact that I can see no reason for Sir Richard to desire the Earl of Lincoln to die.”

Hugh began to say, “I think we must—” when he was interrupted by a feminine voice from the benches.

“My Lord Chief Justiciar, I believe I might have something to add to this testimony.”

It was Elizabeth de Beauté.

The attention of the entire room riveted on the girl.

Richard stood motionless.

“Would you care to come forward, my lady?” the justiciar said.

Slowly Elizabeth came into Bernard’s view. She passed so close to him that he could have reached out and touched her mantle. Then she halted in the open space between the benches and the table where sat the chief justiciar and the sheriff. She kept a distance between herself and Richard.

“My lord,” she said in a low voice, “on the night that my father was killed, I went to my bedchamber immediately after Sir Richard Canville had left us. The single window in this room looks directly out on the front courtyard of the bishop’s guest house. The shutters were still open and I went to the window to close them. Before I did so, however, I looked out.”

She paused, and Bernard could feel the hardening of attention in the room.

“My lord, I saw my father meet Sir Richard in the courtyard and then the two of them walked around
the side of the bishop’s house and out of my sight.”

Bernard began to breathe again.

“Why did you never mention this, my lady?” the justiciar asked sternly.

Elizabeth raised a hand to touch her wimple. “I did not think it had any bearing on my father’s murder, my lord. You must realize that this meeting occurred almost a full hour before my father’s body was found.”

Hugh said matter-of-factly, “And now you know that your father was probably killed very shortly after the time you saw him with Sir Richard.”

Elizabeth’s eyes were intensely green. She had not once looked at Richard, and she did not do so now. “Aye.”

“Did you ever mention to Sir Richard that you had witnessed this meeting?” the justiciar asked.

“I did, my lord.”

Bernard found himself physically straining forward, and forced himself to relax. Elizabeth continued, “Sir Richard told me that my father had said he was going to the Minster to pray. Of course, I thought that he had gone to the Minster in response to the false summons of Bernard Radvers.”

“You never suspected Sir Richard of complicity in this matter?”

Color flushed into Elizabeth’s face and suddenly she seemed very young. “I did not, my lord.”

The justiciar’s voice softened. “Is there any particular reason for you to have shown so much faith in Sir Richard?”

“I was going to marry him,” Elizabeth replied.

A moan came from Lady Sybil. The sheriff, who had been staring at his hands folded on top of the table, jerked his head up and looked at his son.

Richard stood like a statue.

“I thought, my lady,” Hugh said delicately, “that you were going to marry
me
.”

Elizabeth, still carefully refraining from looking at Richard, spoke to Hugh. “That is what my father wanted me to do, but I was going to refuse the match. I had promised to marry Richard.”

“May I ask when this attachment between you and Sir Richard developed, my lady?” Hugh asked.

His voice was quiet, almost intimate, the sort of tone he would have used in the coziness of a family solar. Elizabeth visibly relaxed in reponse and began to talk more easily.

“Richard used to come to Beauté to visit one of our knights who was a friend of his. That is how I got to know him. We were on the brink of asking my father if he would allow us to marry when he made that agreement with Lord Guy for me to marry you.”

“You must have found such news disconcerting,” Hugh said sympathetically.

“I did,” she replied. “I told my father about my love for Richard and asked if we might marry. He was very angry. He said I would marry the man he chose for me and that man was not Richard Canville, it was Hugh de Leon.”

“Did you tell this to Richard?”

“Of course. But I promised him that I would not wed you, that even if my father forced me to the altar, I would not make the vows.”

Her chin lifted as she said these words and her voice rang with pride. For a moment, she looked like a woman, not a girl.

“Did Richard believe you?”

“I thought he did. Now I am not so certain. Listening to this evidence today, I feared…” Her voice ran out.

“What do you fear, Lady Elizabeth?”

Elizabeth whispered. “I am afraid that Richard killed my father because he stood in the way of our marriage.”

Pandemonium erupted in the courtroom.

“That is not true,” Richard said, his deep voice clearly audible over the tumult.

At last Elizabeth looked at him. “I don’t think you ever loved me. All you wanted was to be the next Earl of Lincoln!”

“Elizabeth,” Richard said, his voice like a caress. “That is not so. You know that I love you.”

“I don’t think I know anything about you at all, Richard,” Elizabeth replied bitterly.

A small silence fell while the two erstwhile lovers stared at each other.

The chief justiciar spoke. “We have heard compelling evidence against you today, Sir Richard,” he said sternly. “More than I believe can be attributed to Lord Hugh’s acting against you out of malice.”

“Let us put it to the proof, then,” Richard said. Color burned high in his face, and he laughed. “Are you willing to do that, Hugh? Are you willing to face me in a trial by combat?”

Behind him, Bernard heard Cristen give a little cry and then quickly stifle it.

“It would be my pleasure,” Hugh replied.

Richard looked at the chief justiciar. “I am weary of listening to these malicious charges against me, my lord.” His voice, clear as a bell, resounded throughout the cavernous room. “I demand a Judgment of God.”

A
Judgment of God. Trial by combat. Two men fighting each other until death proved which one heaven found guilty. This was one of the most ancient tests for justice, and its validity was recognized by both Church and State.

Once combat had been called for, and accepted, the chief justiciar decreed that it must be accomplished that very afternoon, as he had business back in London and could not afford to be delayed. He announced the dismissal of the witnesses and requested Richard and Hugh to attend him in the sheriff’s office immediately. Then he departed. Gervase and Richard went out behind him.

The discharged witnesses did not leave the armory hall right away, but clustered in small groups, buzzing with excitement and casting speculative looks at Bernard and Hugh, who stood together in front of the justiciar’s table, talking intently.

“Let
me
be the one to fight Richard,” Bernard was saying to his young advocate. “I am the one who has been accused. I am the logical man to oppose him.”

Hugh looked amused. “Bernard, you are only just
arisen from your sickbed. You are hardly in condition to oppose Richard.”

“Then let someone else fight for me. You don’t have to be my champion.”

The amusement died, and Hugh’s face turned deadly sober. “Bernard, I want Richard dead. He is like a snake who drips his venom on everything good that he touches. He killed his brother. He killed Gilbert de Beauté and William Cobbett and John Rye. He seduced and injured Elizabeth de Beauté. And that is just the damage that we
know
about. I want him dead, and I am the man most likely to accomplish that. So talk to me no more about taking my place.”

There was nothing left for Bernard to say.

Forgive me, Ralf
, he thought as he stared into Hugh’s dedicated face.
I have done an ill job of taking care of your boy
.

A feminine voice tinged with annoyance intruded. “Really, Hugh, do you always have to be so dramatic?” It was Cristen, with Nicholas at her side, come to join them.

“The Judgment of God wasn’t my idea,” Hugh protested. “It’s Richard who wants to be the center of everyone’s attention, not me.”

Cristen’s lips curved into a smile, but Bernard could see that her large brown eyes were somber.

Hugh saw it, too. “Don’t worry,” he said lightly. “I really do believe that God will be on my side this afternoon.”

“Of course He will,” she replied instantly.

“Are you really going to
fight
him, Hugh?” Nicholas asked in awe.

“I am,” Hugh replied.

Nicholas looked Hugh up and down, his awe turning to worry as he said the words that everyone else
was thinking, “But he is so much bigger than you!”

“He may be bigger,” Hugh returned with serenity, “but I promise you that I am better.”

Nicholas smiled, as Hugh meant him to, but the worry did not leave his eyes.

“Lord Hugh.” It was the clerk who had been transcribing the trial. “My lord, the chief justiciar wishes you to come to the sheriff’s office so he may settle the terms of combat with you and Sir Richard.”

Hugh nodded and looked at Cristen. “Go back to Ralf’s house,” he told her. “I will meet you there as soon as I can.”

She nodded, and Hugh turned away to follow the clerk.

Cristen said to Bernard, “What kind of a swordsman is Richard?”

Bernard hesitated, wondering how he should answer. He looked into Cristen’s eyes and realized the impossibility of lying to this girl.

He said, “Richard is one of the finest swordsmen that I have ever seen.”

“This is what I was afraid of,” she replied gloomily.

“I tried to convince Hugh to let someone else take his place,” Bernard said, “but he wouldn’t listen.”

“He never does,” Cristen said. She looked down and encountered Nicholas’s frightened blue eyes. She hugged the child and assured him, “Don’t worry, Nicholas. With all of us praying for him, he will surely win.”

“Aye, my lady,” Nicholas responded stoutly. “I know that he will.”

Hugh was crossing the Inner bail, on his way home from his meeting with the chief justiciar, when he spied Alan Stanham standing all by himself next to the
horse stockade. After a moment’s hesitation, Hugh approached the boy.

Alan’s eyes were full of blank misery as they focused on Hugh’s face.

Hugh said, “I am so very sorry, Alan.”

Alan dropped his gaze to the ground and said, his voice stifled, “How did you know that I had seen him in conversation with John Rye?”

“I didn’t know,” Hugh replied. “I just thought it was a good possibility, and I trusted you to speak the truth.”

Still staring at the ground, Alan said achingly, “I betrayed him.”

“He was never what you thought him to be, Alan,” Hugh said. “He is nothing but a brilliant facade that disguises a seething maw of raw ambition.”

Alan looked up, a heartbreakingly haunted look on his boyish face. “He was so good to me.” His voice broke, and he quickly looked downward again.

“Of course he was good to you,” Hugh replied. “You were his adoring disciple. You reflected back to him the image that he wanted to see of himself.”

Rufus was one of the horses turned out in the stockade, and now he spied Hugh and trotted over to the fence to visit.

“So it’s true, then?” Alan asked. “He really did kill the earl and John Rye?”

Hugh stroked Rufus’s soft nose. “It’s true.”

Alan’s eyes searched Hugh’s face. “But how did you know it was Richard?”

“I didn’t know right away,” Hugh replied. “I suspected him, but I also thought that William of Roumare had a strong reason to want the earl dead. And I wondered about Edgar Harding. You yourself were the one to tell me of Harding’s words when he
saw de Beauté riding into the city. And then Harding let slip that he knew the earl had been stabbed in the heart. This was not common knowledge and I still don’t know how Harding came to discover it.”

A flare of color showed in Alan’s pale cheeks. He lifted his chin as if bracing himself, and confessed, “He knew because I told him.”

Hugh’s brows lifted.

As a diversion, Alan reached out to pat the crest of Rufus’s neck. “He stopped me in the Bail the morning after the murder. He asked me so many questions and…and I fear I was upset and not as discreet as I should have been…”

He shot a quick glance at Hugh, who said mildly, “Well, that is another mystery cleared up.”

“What I don’t understand is why you suspected Richard and not the sheriff,” Alan said. “The sheriff was the one most likely to be cheating on the taxes. Did you suspect Richard just because you didn’t like him?”

Hugh said gently, “I suspected Richard because I already knew that he was a killer.”

Alan’s eyes grew so large, they seemed to fill half his face. “What do you mean?”

Hugh said, “When he was twelve years old, I saw him kill his brother.”

Alan’s lips opened but no words came out. He stared at Hugh as if in a daze.

Rufus nudged Hugh, wanting his attention again, but Hugh ignored him. “Did you know that Richard once had an elder brother?”

Alan nodded once, convulsively. “Aye. I thought that he drowned.”

“So he did,” Hugh replied grimly. “I saw Richard hit
him over the head and push him out of the boat. I was the only witness. To this day even Richard does not know that I was watching. The only person I ever told was Ralf, my foster father, and he commanded me to keep quiet. There was already bad blood between me and Richard and no one was likely to believe such a story coming from me.”

“He killed his brother?” Alan said blankly.

“Richard could never bear to take second place to anyone,” Hugh said.

Rufus nudged Hugh harder and Hugh once more began to stroke his pink nose.

“So that is why you hate him,” Alan said slowly.

“That is why,” Hugh agreed.

In an unsteady voice, Alan said, “I have been telling myself that he was driven to these terrible deeds by his love for Elizabeth de Beauté.”

A stableboy was leading a mare toward the stable, and Rufus flashed to instant attention, his ears pointed straight ahead.

Hugh said to Alan, “Richard Canville is driven solely by ambition and self-love. You should feel no remorse for having testified as you did, Alan. You have done the world a favor by ridding it of a monster.”

Alan swallowed. “We are not rid of him yet.”

Hugh said, “I plan to finish the job this afternoon.” He began to scratch behind Rufus’s right ear, and the stallion lowered his head in bliss.

Alan said steadily, “I shall pray for God to be with you, my lord.”

“Thank you,” Hugh replied. He took his hand away from the horse and regarded Alan’s forlorn face sympathetically. “I fear that neither of us will be overly welcome at the sheriff’s house for dinner.”

Alan managed a small chuckle. “That is what I was thinking.”

“I am meeting Lady Cristen back at my foster father’s house,” Hugh said briskly. “You had better come with me.”

A little brightness came into Alan’s eyes. “I have been wondering where I should go,” he confided. “Thank you, my lord.”

“Benjamin will be glad to see you,” Hugh said, and Alan actually laughed.

The whole of the household was gathered in the solar of Ralf’s town house when Hugh and Alan walked in.

Thomas was the first to speak, demanding imperatively, “What are the terms of the combat, Hugh? Do you fight on horseback or on foot?”

“On foot,” Hugh replied.

Thomas swore. On horseback, Hugh would have the advantage. He and Rufus were so in tune with each other that they functioned as a single unit. No matter how splendid Richard’s black mount may be, Thomas knew he would not be the match of Rufus.

“You should have demanded horses,” he said grimly.

“The chief justiciar is anxious to get back to London,” Hugh said. “He wants this combat ended as quickly as possible.”

“And so no horses,” Cristen said.

“And so no horses…and no armor, either, I’m afraid.”

“What! No armor? Is he mad?”

The indignant exclamation came from Thomas.

Cristen merely turned white. “You can’t wear your mail coat?” she asked.

Hugh shook his head. “No mail, no helmet, no shield. Just a sword and a dagger.”

This was stunning news. A duel such as the one Richard had called for was usually fought by two fully armed men. With the mail protection, it could take the great broadswords almost a full day to so hack and tear and rip at the mail that a man would finally go down with a mortal wound.

Cristen said steadily, “You have God on your side. You will win.”

He gave her a brilliant smile.

“Can you wear a leather jerkin?” Thomas asked practically.

“My understanding was that the less protection we have, the happier the chief justiciar will be,” Hugh said drily. “In fact, I got the distinct impression that he would be delighted if he somehow managed to rid the world of both of us.”

“Well, that is not going to happen,” Cristen said. “I won’t stand for it.”

Hugh looked at her.

“You should eat something,” she said.

“All right.”

Her brow furrowed in thought. “A bowl of stew, I think. Just enough to give you strength, not enough to weigh you down.”

He nodded docilely.

“Come with me to the kitchen,” she commanded.

“I will check over your weapons,” Thomas said. “And I think you should use my dagger. Its blade is longer than yours, Hugh.”

“Very well,” Hugh said.

“Mabel, will you take the children upstairs, please?” Cristen said.

Nicholas opened his mouth to protest, and found himself skewered by a pair of level gray eyes. “Do as Lady Cristen asks,” Hugh said.

Nicholas responded to that look in the same way everyone else did. He obeyed.

“Alan,” Cristen said. “Perhaps you could help Thomas with Hugh’s gear.”

“Of course, my lady,” Alan responded, glad to be given a task that included him in the group.

In less than a minute, Hugh and Cristen were alone in the solar. He held out his arms and she moved into them.

“I have to do this,” he said. He pressed his mouth against her hair and she could feel his lips move.

“I know you do,” she said. “I hate it, but I know you do.”

“I will be all right,” he said. “For all his touted brilliance with a sword, Richard has a flaw, and I know how to exploit it.”

“What is his flaw?” Her face was pressed into his shoulder and her words sounded muffled.

“The same one that he evinces in every other area of his life. He thinks he is invincible.”

She didn’t reply.

He put his hands on her shoulders and held her away from him. “Don’t worry, my love. Richard has called for a Judgment of God, and that is what he is going to get. I am merely God’s chosen instrument.”

“I know that you are, Hugh,” she replied gravely. “I have always known that you are.”

The duel was to be held in the Inner bail, within a rectangular area that William Rotier, acting as marshal in place of the sheriff, decreed should be marked off on
three sides by rope. The fourth side was the stone wall that separated the space from the Bail.

Chairs for the chief justiciar and the bishop were placed along one of the short roped-off sides. The presence of the bishop was necessary since a Judgment of God was viewed as an ecclesiastical matter as well as one of civil justice.

A line of knights from the castle guard stood behind the ropes to keep the onlookers from spilling into the dueling area. They were also charged with the duty of keeping the combatants from getting out.

Word had spread through the town like fire in a drought, and it seemed that most of Lincoln had poured into the castle to watch the fight. Most of the citizens were refused entrance to the Inner bail, and had to content themselves with remaining outside the wall, where they could only strain to hear the sound of the broadswords clashing and wait to find out who had won.

Thomas had been horrified when he realized that Cristen meant to view the fight, but nothing he said could persuade her to remain at home. Hugh had left earlier, so it was left to Thomas and Alan to escort her to the castle.