“Have you been friends long?”
“Aye, for many years. We met on the tournament circuit and threw our lot in together, and we’ve traveled the roads together since. He was happier then, before it became obvious that—“
His hesitation made her curious. “Before what became obvious?”
“He didn’t realize at first I was the more powerful knight. Some men, less tactful than me—”
She smothered a laugh in his chest.
“—made it clear through word and deed they considered him a knight in my service.”
“Is he not?”
“Not then! How could he be in my service when I didn’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of?”
“But you always knew you would win a lordship, and he always knew he couldn’t.”
Hugh’s silence condemned Sir Lyndon’s lack of ambition.
“So he went from companion to supplicant,” Edlyn continued.
“He is not beyond redemption, I think. He was always a man of honor.”
A man of honor, Edlyn thought, who had grown bitter with the passing years as Hugh’s star shone ever brighter and his own dimmed and faded. But she kept that thought to herself as Hugh’s fingers raised her chin and his head came close to hers. She braced herself for a kiss, but he did no more than touch her lips with his.
He made no further move, and she asked, “Are we going to—”
“Nay!” He denied her swiftly and with a vigor that meant, mayhap, he wished otherwise. Then more moderately, he said, “You’re tired.”
“Well, aye, but…” When did a woman’s condition ever matter to a man? As far as she knew, all a woman had to do to pleasure a man was to be there.
“I’m sorry.” He touched her head briefly. “I know you want me, but you have worked long today. For tonight, at least, you’ll have to abjure your desires.”
A soldier can sleep anywhere, anytime, and Hugh did so, leaving Edlyn awake and unsure whether to laugh or curse.
14
It was big. Bigger than Hugh ever imagined, even in his most magnificent dreams. Castle Roxford stretched across the lush green countryside like one gigantic blot of hostile stone. The dry moat bristled with sharpened stakes pointed outward. The drawbridge, when lowered, would allow ten men to walk abreast. The gatehouse crouched around the drawbridge like a mother wolf over a vulnerable cub. Its crenelations bit the sky with gray teeth, and every inch of the outer walls had been built for ease of defense.
It was the best endowment the prince had ever given.
“I wonder if there’s a feather bed anywhere in there.”
Hugh turned his head and stared at Edlyn. A feather bed? She could look on that imposing castle and worry about a feather bed?
She rubbed her back. “I am tired of sleeping on the ground these last few nights. Not that I blame you for hurrying away from Castle Juxon, but to spend a night with a roof over my head and clean furs covering me will be pleasant.” She glanced at Hugh. “Aren’t you going to send your herald to ask for admittance?”
His herald? Did he have to? He’d taken so many castles over the years, it just seemed that announcing himself and walking in was too easy. He wanted to fight for this estate. Only in that way would he truly make it his own.
Edlyn got tired of waiting and said to Dewey, “Go up and proclaim that Hugh, earl of Roxford, has arrived to take possession of his new demesne.” Dewey hesitated and looked to Hugh, but she urged, “Hurry. Hurry, lad.”
Hugh nodded his permission, and his squire rode forward. In a voice that broke in the middle of a word, he shouted his message to the top of the wall.
The chains on the drawbridge squealed as the toothed wheel fed them out, and the wooden gate landed on the opposite side of the moat with a thump. Not a sound came from inside the walls.
“What’s wrong with them?” Edlyn wondered.
Hugh looked around at his men. Wharton, veteran of too many campaigns to count, shrugged. He’d seen everything and made no judgment now. Sir Lyndon mingled with the other experienced knights, who watched the keep with narrowed eyes. The squires and pages imitated them, even Wynkyn, who walked beside a horse rather than ride and jar his shoulder. Parkin and Allyn kept him company, and like Edlyn, they seemed bewildered by the silence that greeted them.
“They’re frightened.” Gesturing to his men to maintain their positions, Hugh urged his horse forward. “And rightly so.”
He moved toward the gate, but he watched for treachery. This was, after all, the former earl of Roxford’s primary holding. Edmund Pembridge’s family had held it since William had conquered England, and everything inside would be stamped with his possession. If one of Pembridge’s men-at-arms were more loyal to his former lord than to his king, a chance-met arrow would end the problem—if only momentarily.
Hugh crossed the drawbridge without incident. The walls of the gatehouse closed around him. It had been constructed as a corridor of death for attackers who had somehow breached the moat and shattered the drawbridge. The walls contained arrow slits where men-at-arms could safely dispatch the enemy. Murder holes through which boiling tar could be poured pocked the ceiling.
Hugh approved.
Yet the back of his neck twitched, and he wished he could see someone, anyone, from within who offered a peaceful gesture.
Then he broke out into the outer bailey. The large, open area between the outer walls and the inner walls contained an orchard, numerous gardens, and more buildings than he could guess the use of. Yet nothing moved. Nothing except…
Behind him, he heard the clatter of hooves over the drawbridge. Edlyn broke out of the gatehouse corridor and glanced around. “Where is everybody?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t want you here.”
His stern tone didn’t seem to impress her at all. “Surely you don’t expect an attack?”
“I don’t know, and until I do, I want you to remain in safety.”
“Look.”
She pointed toward one of the outer buildings, and Hugh drew his sword as he turned.
“I saw someone peek out the door. They don’t know what to expect.”
“That makes two of us,” Hugh mumbled. He’d never claimed a castle for himself before, and his tension and uncertainty surprised him.
“If they were going to attack, they would have done it by now,” Edlyn said decisively. Going back to the opening to the gatehouse, she waved through the corridor and called, “Come on. They won’t hurt you.”
Unwillingly, Hugh grinned. He could imagine how his knights felt about a woman assuring them of their safety.
Now that she had pointed out the signs, he could see the furtive movements as the servants sought a glimpse of their new lord. With greater confidence, he moved toward the second gate. Another gatehouse protected this much smaller passage through the inner curtain wall. He had to stoop almost to his horse’s neck to enter, and when he could straighten, he almost dropped the reins.
Nothing had prepared him for the grandeur of the inner bailey. Years of tender care had created a lush vista of gardens and stables and trees, and in the middle, rising with turrets and towers on every corner, stood the keep. He’d never seen a keep like this, so great and tall, softened by the green drape of ivy that reached to the very highest stones, yet imposing enough to awe him with its majesty. Beside him he heard a shaky exhalation of breath.
“The prince must love you dearly.” Edlyn craned her neck around like a yokel visiting a cathedral. “This is even finer than George’s Cross.”
Hugh tried to suspend his awe and deal with realities. “Defense might be a problem.”
“Defense?” She stared at him. “You are taking possession of this noble estate, and you’re worried about defense?”
“I would hardly need to worry about it if it weren’t mine, would I?” he asked coolly. “There’s no way in at the ground, of course, but the stairs to the second floor look quite sturdy.”
Edlyn dro
pped her head into her hands.
“There may be a way to disconnect them from the building.” He scanned the keep some more. “There are windows, too, although not many and they’re high. Mostly it’s just the size that’s the problem. Where would I concentrate my defense?”
“I don’t know.” Edlyn’s voice became diplomatic. “Why don’t we ask them?”
A man and a woman, richly dressed, had stepped onto the second-floor landing and stood looking down at Hugh and Edlyn and the trickle of men and carts now clearing the inner gatehouse. The woman bowed her head, but the man took her by the hand and, with a whispered word, led her down the stairs.
“Who are they?” Hugh’s hostility must have transmitted itself through the reins, for his palfrey danced until a whisper of dust rose beneath its hooves.
Edlyn leaned over and patted his animal’s neck until it calmed. “The steward and his wife, I suspect. They’ve come to greet us and surrender the castle.”
She removed her riding gloves and dismounted, but Hugh did not. These people were Pembridge’s servants, the managers of this great estate, the supervisors of both house and fields.
They would have to go.
Clearly they both knew it. As they drew near, the woman fought back tears and the man clenched his jaw tightly. They weren’t young people; both were of an age to have grandchildren and probably did. The grandchildren would have to go, too. Every last relic of Pembridge would have to be wiped from the estate so Hugh could start over with his own people, loyal only to him.
“My lord.” The man’s voice trembled. “I am Burdett, the steward of Roxford, and I extend a welcome from the inhabitants of Roxford Castle.”
“Burdett.” Hugh boomed the man’s name and saw Edlyn jump. His interfering wife started to walk forward, but he placed his horse between her and the steward and effectively blocked her path. “Burdett!” he boomed again. “You have held this demesne for the traitor Edmund Pembridge, and for this act of treachery, I exile you from my lands.”
“What?” Edlyn sounded indignant.
Hugh paid her no heed. “Get out. Take your kin and get out with nothing but the clothes on your back, and be grateful I don’t hang you from the highest tree.”
Burdett lost all color, and his wife wept openly.
Edlyn said, “What?”
She spoke loudly enough this time that heads turned. The wife sucked back her tears, and Burdett craned his neck to see.
“Have you run mad?” Edlyn grabbed Hugh’s stirrup. “You can’t throw these people out!”
“I can.” Hugh backed his horse away. “I have.”
She hung on to his stirrup. “They’ll starve—or worse.”
“They served a man disloyal to our king and prince.”
“They kept their vows to him. For that they should die?”
He couldn’t believe his wife confronted him before his men and—he looked around—the bravest of the castle servants. He wanted to reach down and slap at Edlyn’s fingers until she let go, but that didn’t fit with the dignified image of the king’s justice. In what he considered a reasonable tone, he said, “I’m not sentencing them to death. If I were, they’d be swinging already. I am simply—”
“Tossing them out into the world with only the clothes on their backs and without a way to live. They’ll die, or they’ll turn outlaw.” She lowered her voice. “They’re older, and they’d be no good at it, and then they’ll die.”
“That’s not my concern.” He tried to back up his horse again.
She followed. “Look around you, Hugh. This castle is perfect. Every bit of it is well maintained, and it has to be because Burdett and his wife have worked to keep it so. It’s not the earl of Pembridge who did the labor—all he did was choose the steward, and wisely it would seem. Burdett and his wife have taken pride in Roxford Castle, a pride far beyond the usual, and they deserve a chance to prove themselves to you.”
“It’s not possible.” He jerked the reins and wheeled the horse away.
The stirrup jerked out of her hand, and she balled her fingers and cradled them as if he’d hurt her. But she came after him, her features alight with a flame. “Don’t tell me it’s not possible. You’re the lord. Anything is possible for you.”
Angered in his turn, he snapped, “The prince expects a swift demonstration of justice.”
“You sit on your horse in all your glory and you revel in your ultimate power.” She stared at him as if he were an unusually large form of vermin. “In all your years of fighting, you have never contemplated anything but victory. But the world is littered with knights who never contemplated anything but victory, and just because they lost a leg or an eye, they’re reduced to begging on the streets. The graveyards are full of stewards who served their masters faithfully only to have their masters abandon them. Is that justice?”
“What do you want? Did you want me to change the way of the world?” He forgot about his men and the watching servants. He forgot about everything but Edlyn and her simple notions. “And while I’m at it, I could make the sun rise in the west and the tides run once a day.”
“I want justice!”
“The prince decides what justice is!”
“The prince.” She said it in the kind of voice a priest used to speak of Satan. “The prince’s justice had its way with me. I’ve sat in the dirt outside my home and hated the intruder who threw me out. I’ve watched over my children in the wilderness and feared for their lives. I’ve wondered if I would have to turn outlaw or prostitute to feed them on the trek to the abbey. I’ve begged for a crumb and humbled myself for a blanket. I’ve felt the prince’s justice, and it didn’t feel just to me.”
Hugh didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what to think, except that he’d been stupid beyond all belief. Edlyn was being stubborn and maddening because she’d faced the same trial the steward and his wife now faced. He could dismiss womanly compassion—as he had with the outlaws who had kidnapped her—but this was personal.
Yet the prince expected Hugh to do his duty thoroughly.
He looked at Edlyn’s set, furious face.
The prince was fighting far away and she was here, and she could make his life hell forever.
He dismounted slowly, giving her a moment to think about her insolence. He walked toward her, his step measured.
She didn’t retreat. She just glared at him through those witchy eyes.
He took her hand. He looked at it. A fingernail had been torn back, and the skin on the insides of her fingers had been scraped away when he’d jerked the stirrup from her. She hadn’t cried and tried to get her way by making him feel guilty. She’d made him mad and tried to make him feel compassion. Well, he didn’t. He didn’t care about Burdett and his wife, but he did care about his comfort. And…well…he cared about Edlyn.
How odd to realize how little he valued the worship knights and squires lavished on him, yet he wanted Edlyn to think well of him. He wanted her to worship him as everyone else did, only Edlyn didn’t care about his fighting skills, and fighting was the only thing he knew.
“It shall be as you wish, my lady.” He kept his voice low. “I give you Burdett the steward and his wife to run my estate.”
A smile broke across her mutinous face, and she sprang to hug him.
He stopped her with a grip on her arms. “But lady, should they betray us, I will take the payment out of your hide.”
She still grinned even though he held her away. “I’m not a fool, Hugh. I know how to read and balance books. If they’ve been cheating, I’ll know immediately, and you can throw them out. And if they try to cheat us”—her chin firmed—“they’ll only do it once.”
He believed her, and he felt a little better. Now if only he could keep this from the prince…
“Good people,” he announced. “I yield to my wife’s plea of compassion and will allow Burdett the steward and his wife to remain until they prove their worth.”
Burdett’s wife collapsed into
Burdett’s arms. Burdett tried to speak but couldn’t be heard for the cheering of the servants.
“They like them,” Edlyn said. “Tis a good sign.”
Burdett’s wife broke away from her husband, ran toward Hugh, and flung herself at his feet. “My lord, my lord! I thank you.” She grabbed his boot and kissed it. “God will bless your generosity. I will pray for your body and your soul every day. We will never betray you. Never.”
15
“Neda kissed your boot.”
“Aye.”
“That’s disgusting.”
Hugh stopped and considered. “I rather liked it.”
“You would.” Edlyn clearly loathed the idea, but Hugh grinned.
He and Edlyn had been following the steward and his wife about the keep for hours, smiling, nodding, and all the while Edlyn had been bubbling with indignation. He’d been glad to let her. She deserved it after that scene outside. But at last she could contain herself no longer, and her ire had burst forth.
She deserved that, too, and he mocked her. “You’re just angry because she didn’t kiss your boot.”
“I didn’t want her to kiss my boot!”
“My lady?” Neda stopped when she realized they had fallen behind.
Hugh glared at Neda, but when she shrank back, he pasted a smile on his face. He resisted showing his chagrin at bowing to Edlyn’s demands, but he had to needle her.
Burdett hurried to them. “Is there a problem, my lord and lady?”
The steward and his wife were going to have to learn not to interfere before he’d extracted his full revenge.
“I think my lady said something.” Neda’s voice trembled with worry.
Edlyn patted Neda’s hand. “Nothing of importance. Pray continue the tour.”
The steward and his wife exchanged miserable glances, then the steward nodded and Neda held the next door open. “This is the buttery.”