Chapter 16
February, 1177
Stroud Manor, Oxfordshire
Haworth found Hugh standing motionless in front of the unshuttered window. The temperature of the chamber was freezing; the heat thrown off by the modest fire in the brazier couldn’t compete against the raw wind pouring in opposite it. The earl was wearing only linen drawers. Haworth was shocked to see how much weight he’d lost in the month since the king had released him.
Hugh remained still as if he hadn’t heard the quiet knock and the door swing open, staring through the open window at the frost-tipped fields of Stroud’s demesne, arms crossed over his bare chest. He was not a tall man and once he’d reached his mid-twenties had found it more and more difficult to keep his weight down. The mostly inactive years at Falaise had not helped matters. But now Haworth could plainly see the outline of his shoulder blades and the absence of the roll of fat that used to encircle his waist. He had been watching the earl very closely after hearing the king’s verdict and knew he was drinking more and eating next to nothing. Although he ached inwardly with every fiber of his being, he hadn’t the slightest idea what to do or say to Hugh to help him through this time. It was worse, much worse than when that damned Bolsover had died. Haworth feared for his sanity.
And now the man was standing almost naked before winter’s icy breath! What were they doing at Stroud, anyway? Hugh hadn’t seen his mother since he’d been formally invested as earl of Chester on his eighteenth birthday. As far as Haworth knew, he hated her. Why, then, had he insisted on making this stop?
The earl had traveled the entire distance to Stroud in almost total silence. Haworth, never a fancy conversationalist, hadn’t known how to cajole him into speech. Because of unfavorable weather they weren’t able to cross to England as soon as they’d galloped into Barfleur and were forced to seek rooms at a small, common inn close to the port. It would have been less expensive and more comfortable if they’d taken refuge at the royal castle nearby but Hugh had dismissed the idea in a short, clipped tone which Haworth had dared not challenge. He’d similarly refused his captain’s hesitant offer to hire half a dozen men for a proper bodyguard. Instead they’d spent the weeks waiting for the tide to turn and the winds to die anonymously and on their own.
“My lord—” Haworth began, but his voice was strangely low and Hugh seemed not to have heard it. He cleared his throat and spoke louder. “My lord!”
Finally Hugh turned around. There were black circles under his eyes from having little sleep since leaving Falaise and a month’s growth of reddish-brown beard on his chin. That and the clear morning light gave the earl a haggard appearance which Haworth found unbearable to behold and he had to fight an urge to fall at Hugh’s feet and beg to know the words or actions that might miraculously banish his anguish.
Instead he averted his eyes, staring at the ground. “My lord, I was informed that the countess awaits you in the hall.”
“I’m sure she wishes she were still countess, Roger,” Hugh said with a thin, humorless smile. “But she isn’t, thank God.”
“I’m sorry, my lord; that was how her steward referred to her.”
“Doesn’t matter. Why don’t you tell the both of them I’ll join them when I’ve dressed?” In no apparent hurry, Hugh turned his back on Haworth and returned his attention to the window.
After a pause, Haworth quietly closed the door and took a few steps forward until he was in the middle of the chamber. It was a small room and almost as austere as a monk’s cell, he thought with distaste as he looked around; a bed, a brazier, a table holding a wash basin and a splintering wooden chest were the only furnishings. The dowager countess was quite a wealthy woman and Haworth couldn’t believe that she was unable to provide something a bit more lavish than this for an important guest, even if he did happen to be her son.
Hugh hadn’t moved. Haworth came up next to him, reached out to grasp the wooden shutters and pulled them to securely.
“Why did you do that?” Hugh asked him, frowning.
“Because it’s colder than a tomb in here and you’re wearing next to nothing,” Haworth said calmly.
“I don’t care.”
“Can I help you dress, my lord?”
Hugh’s frown deepened. “What’s wrong with you? We’re alone, Roger! Stop calling me ‘my lord’!” He went to the unmade bed and sat on it. “Anyway, I don’t want any breakfast.”
“But you haven’t eaten since mid-morning yesterday, my lord,” Haworth protested.
Hugh shrugged indifferently.
There was a heap of clothing on the floor, dumped where Hugh had stripped off before collapsing into bed half-drunk the night before. Haworth muttered to himself. The chit who’d come in to light the brazier only a few hours ago should have picked it all up and arranged it neatly on the table or the chest. He bent down to do the job himself, shaking each piece out and draping it over his arm. He looked at Hugh and held out a long-sleeved linen tunic.
The earl hesitated and then took the garment reluctantly. “I’ve been trying to decide which is worse, Roger,” he said, pulling the tunic over his head. “What the king did or having to tell her.” He took the proffered surcoat, sleeveless and of finely woven wool and put that on as well, and stood so that Haworth could kneel before him and adjust the clothing until it fell to mid-calf. He sat again and put on thick woolen stockings and finally his boots, which he deftly laced, the crisscrosses of leather reaching almost to his knees.
“Without a doubt the first one, my lord!” Haworth said fervently.
The earl snorted. “I’m not so sure. Do you know, the story goes that after my father’s death she paid Henry handsomely for the right not to remarry even though she was still a young woman and wealthy? It was always my belief, however, that her reputation for a vicious tongue made it impossible for Henry to find someone to take her on.”
“Then why have we come here? You’re in no fit condition for this…”
A brief smile flickered across Hugh’s mouth. “She’s probably wondering the same thing, Roger. But I had to come. The king’s judgment is something she must know and I’d rather she heard it straight from me and not twisted up by one of her spies,” he said. He rose and lifted his arms. Haworth wrapped a long leather belt around his waist and threaded the loose end into a kind of knot so it wouldn’t slip free. “I suppose I’d better take the sword, Roger,” he said with a grim expression. “Who knows what she’ll do when I tell her…”
By the time Hugh descended the stairs to the hall breakfast was over, which suited him fine. He had no desire for a public meeting with his mother. Her steward was waiting for him and directed him to the solar but not before looking askance at his bearded face. Haworth had offered to shave him but he’d thought the procedure too bothersome. He’d gotten used to the beard and if it served the purpose of annoying his mother then all the better.
He couldn’t have predicted his reaction upon seeing her. For the past month he’d felt so completely numb inside that it seemed no emotion would ever penetrate his mind again. But the closer he and Haworth had drawn to Stroud, the tighter the knot of apprehension and fear in his stomach had become until it had overwhelmed even the deadness. He hated her and knew she despised him but he needed allies now and with her familial connections, she was a strong one.
For some reason, perhaps because he’d always half-suspected there was something unnatural about her, he was surprised at the changes twelve years had wrought. Fifty-one she was, he calculated rapidly; the hair not hidden by her veil was mostly grey and her face had lost the smooth skin of youth and gained wrinkles in its place. She sat stiffly upright on a cushioned bench seat beneath a large, oil-clothed covered window which permitted a dim yellow light to enter the room. One thing had not changed. Her bitter, unsmiling countenance.
A thousand memories flashed through his head when he saw her. Mostly she reminded him of the brief time he’d had with his father. Hugh had greatly loved and admired Earl Ranulf, a charming, w
ild man who’d always lavished attention on Hugh when he wasn’t out fighting for his personal interests during the devastating war between Henry and his uncle Stephen. By contrast, Maud was argumentative and insufferably superior. She had resented her husband’s indifference to the political situation and never passed up the opportunity to tell him so in the most disparaging terms. She was the daughter of the earl of Gloucester and believed that Ranulf should have supported her father’s, and hence Henry’s, faction in the war. But Chester had cared less for politics than for building up his own power and increasing his lands. He’d switched his considerable allegiance from one side to the other depending on who offered him the better deal and seemed able to back it up, and had occasionally taken advantage of the confusion wrought by the war to launch some private battle. He’d finally been persuaded to take Henry’s side in earnest when he was promised the earldoms he had coveted for so long, those of Stafford and Lincoln.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t lived long enough to see his dream fulfilled, dying the year before Henry had come to the throne. And then, although Maud had petitioned on behalf of her six-year-old son, the king never seemed to get around to making a formal investure. Instead, Hugh was placed in wardship and sent off to a royal castle to learn arms and Maud herself retired to her dower land in Gloucestershire. But the dowager countess had refused to let the matter of the earldoms die a quiet death. She wrote to Henry with annoying regularity and when Hugh came of age she made it clear what she expected of him.
And she had also made it clear, over the past twelve years, that she was disappointed with his failure. She was staring intently at him now and he just knew that was what was going through her mind. God, he hated her! There had never been anything remotely maternal about her. She had despised her husband because he was a mere earl and her grandfather had been Henry I. She despised her son because she considered him incompetent. Ranulf had been the only one who’d ever been able to handle her but that had been because he’d never taken her seriously. He’d laughed at her or ignored her as suited him. Hugh wasn’t capable of such detachment—and suffered for it.
Maud didn’t bother to tilt her cheek for a prefunctory kiss of greeting and Hugh didn’t even pretend he’d thought about giving her one. He closed the heavy door to the solar and stood with his back almost against it, steeled himself and waited for her to speak first.
After looking him up and down, she said critically, “You haven’t aged well.”
“I did just spend the last three and a half years as an unwilling guest of the king, my lady,” Hugh answered levelly.
His mother frowned at the title. She preferred ‘Countess’ but Hugh had never indulged her. “Yes…the war. What were you thinking?”
“You know what I was thinking. Getting my earldoms. The Young King promised them to me.”
Maud sniffed. “And you believed him!”
Her tone was so scornful that Hugh felt the anger surge up in him. His decision to rebel against Henry had not been made lightly, but she was making it sound as though he had been persuaded by nothing more than glittering promises that any fool ought to have known were hopeless. “Well, Henry never showed the slightest interest in even discussing the matter!” he retorted.
“And now he certainly never will!” she snapped back. “I’m surprised you came to see me after such a humiliating episode! What do you want? Did you think a few feminine words would soften the king’s heart? Would sway him? There’s only one person in the world who can sway him now that his precious Becket is dead and that’s his son. So don’t waste your breath on me! Not that I would help you even if I could. I can’t understand how you could have done something so idiotic!” She paused abruptly as though a sudden thought had struck her outraged mind. “Just why have you come? Why did the king release you? And with no retinue…” Her sharp eyes narrowed. “You haven’t done the dishonorable thing and escaped, have you?”
“No, my lady. Do you mean to tell me that I arrived before your spies?”
His mother ignored the question. “Then you were released. I’d heard Henry was magnanimous in his victory. You’re lucky. I had expected death or perhaps exile for you.”
“And I’m sure you would have considered either one just punishment and not been too upset.”
“Certainly I would have been upset. You have yet to beget an heir, Hugh. Do you think I want to see the one earldom you have got pass to the Crown?” She sighed and with her thin hands smoothed down the skirt of her gown and plucked at an out of place thread on the fabric. “Well, now you’re back you’ll have to marry again and soon. Get yourself an heir or two before the Young King decides to revolt again and dangles a carrot before your eyes.”
Obviously she knew all about Eleanor’s untimely demise. He’d often suspected a correspondence between his mother and his steward at Chester; she would like to keep up on his affairs just so she could berate him if she felt he was doing something wrong. He wondered sourly what vestige of honor had prevented de Gournay from telling her about her son’s incipient betrayal of the king in 1173.
“I will find you a suitable wife,” she was saying. “Look what happened when it was left up to you.”
“That marriage was approved by the king—”
“A no one! The daughter of a penniless knight! The earl of Chester needs a mate of similar standing.”
He smiled brittlely and shifted position against the door. “I now have the reputation of a rebel.”
“No matter; you’re a wealthy man, you’re an earl and you’ve got a patrimony which goes back to the Conquest.” She waved her hand dismissively. “You’d be surprised how quickly past indiscretions are forgotten when there’s so much to be gained.”
“Yes, the king gave me back my lands,” Hugh said. “He gave me back all the honors that come to me from my estates. But what he didn’t give back was my castle. Chester. He’s keeping the castle for himself.”
He’d tried to say it calmly, as if to imply it wasn’t the most devastating punishment the king could have devised, but when he spoke the words came out tight and hoarse as though they’d been stuck in his heart and had had to be forced through his mouth. All castles were property of the king, Henry had pronounced at the meeting of the council—and that’s how it had always been. Castles couldn’t be raised without permission of the king. The king had the right to destroy any castle as he saw fit. Under the lawless rule of Stephen, earls and knights had built castles to defend themselves against or take advantage of the chaos of the time. But unless sanctioned by the king such fortresses were illegal. A man, a handful of knights and a secure castle to run to could bode ill for a stable government. Leicester’s two castles, one in England and the other in Normandy, and Chester’s castle were, and had always been, royal property. Now the two earls were no longer permitted to live in them and castellans were to be appointed by the king to oversee them and protect the king’s interests in the regions around them.
Hugh had been stunned by the declaration. The castle at Chester was his one oasis of happiness and now it was taken away from him with a mere pronouncement.
Color suffused Maud’s face. She half rose in her seat before sinking down again with an unladylike plop. Hugh didn’t like the way she was staring at him. For an instant he wondered why he’d felt he should give her this news in person; yes, it would have been cowardly to have merely sent her a letter but infinitely less uncomfortable.
“No,” she said in a low voice, as if talking to herself. “No, he can’t do that. Chester is not his castle; it never was! The king has no power in the Cheshire march! Henry has no right to that castle!” Her eyes suddenly focused on Hugh, angry and accusing. “This is your fault! Your stupid, ill-conceived decision to rebel against the king caused this! How could you do it? One foolhardy turn and you’ve lost everything! Small wonder your wife was deranged! It’s just as well you’ve no children—what do you have to give to them now except a legacy of disgrace? That castle has belonged to the ear
ls of Chester since the Conquest but you’ve changed that now, haven’t you? Haven’t you? I can’t believe you’re my son! Would that I had had a daughter instead—she would have been of more use to me than you! With her wealth, I might have married her off to a king and brought some honor back to this pitiful family!”
The tirade continued for several more minutes until Maud was forced to stop so that she might take a breath. She ordered Hugh to leave and send her steward in to her. When he opened the door he discovered the man was already there on the other side and had obviously heard everything.
Haworth was still in his chamber when Hugh, tight-lipped and whitefaced, entered it. But the burly knight noticed immediately that there was a purpose in his master’s manner which had been missing for the past month.
“Is it all right, my lord?” he asked tentatively.
Hugh had gone to the table where Haworth had a cup of weak wine ready for him. He took it up but didn’t drink, swirling the wine around instead. He glanced at his captain with a wry smile. “You mean you don’t know? God, I thought everyone within ten miles heard the bitch.”
“What did she say to you?” Haworth demanded in an angry voice.
“A lot. I can’t remember all of it. But I do recall that she implied my wife lost her wits and wandered into the forest and to her death because she couldn’t endure the humiliation brought on her by my support of the Young King. However, she will do the decent thing and find me another one.” Hugh gave a short, humorless laugh. He looked down into cup and then set it again, contents untouched, on the table. “Then she told me to get out of Stroud and never come back.”
Haworth nodded. “Fine. I’m ready now.”
“And so am I,” Hugh said. “I’m ready now to go to Cheshire.” He rubbed his chin. “Perhaps I should have a shave first.”