Rhuddlan

by Nancy Gebel

  Chapter 7

  July, 1172

  Chester Castle, Cheshire

  At the end of July, the earl finally returned to Chester. With Roger of Haworth, he rode at the head of a somber line of horsemen underneath a cloudless blue sky which seemed to mock his mourning. Sir Miles de Gournay met him in the ward. As was their habit, Eleanor and Gwalaes observed the proceedings from their window.

  Grooms hurried forward to hold the horses as men dismounted and lead them away to the stables. Hugh had pulled off his heavy leather gloves and stood holding them tightly in one hand and slapping them absently into the other while Sir Miles spoke to him in low tones which didn’t reach to the young women. Eleanor looked at her husband’s pale, expressionless face and was startled. He had never been an emotional person but the last time she’d seen him he’d been relaxed, even laughing. Gwalaes touched her arm.

  “Every time riders come through that gate lately, someone’s missing. First it was Alan. Now, your brother.”

  Ah, that was the reason Hugh had lost his good humor. Eleanor turned away from the window, once more feeling the anger rise inside.

  He summoned her to his private chambers just before the evening meal. On the spur of the moment, she decided to change her gown, and Gwalaes brushed out her hair and re-braided it before hiding it under her linen wimple. She couldn’t have said why she was taking such care with her appearance; Hugh had certainly never commented, favorably or otherwise, on it.

  A man-at-arms gave her a short, respectful bow and pushed open the door for her and Gwalaes, and she entered her husband’s outer chamber with a little hesitancy. She was nervous; the summons was unusual. She supposed she was a little frightened of Hugh. They hadn’t been married very long and she still knew next to nothing about him, and anything she did know she had learned from Sir Miles and not from Hugh himself. He was much older than she, more worldly and so formidable with his unsmiling countenance. She wondered suddenly if he and Robert had had a falling out and he had called for her because he was going to inform her that she was being sent back to her father. Back to Oakby. She cursed Robert under her breath; he was constantly interfering in her life. How would she be able to stand the humiliation of being returned to Sir Thomas?

  The antechamber was windowless. At the two far corners were doors; one led to Hugh’s bedchamber, which she had never seen. The antechamber was small and the flames from six fat beeswax candles stuck onto two iron tripods against the whitewashed walls were enough to sufficiently illuminate it. Hugh, standing near a high-backed chair, looked up as the two girls came in. He had bathed and exchanged his riding apparel for more comfortable robes, Eleanor noted, but his face was far from relaxed. His eyes betrayed no emotion and his mouth bore the marks of tension.

  She dropped mechanically into a curtsey but before she could rise, heard him snap, “Roger, escort the countess’ servant back to her room. I want to speak to my wife alone.”

  Eleanor straightened up and glanced around, startled. Haworth was leaning against the wall half-hidden by the open door. The feeling of apprehension grew stronger, fueled by Hugh’s cold tone and Haworth’s body language. She knew the knight was Hugh’s right-hand man, but she was shocked by his casual arrogance of slouching against the wall in the presence of his master. So was Gwalaes. They stared wide-eyed at each other. And Hugh’s command…Gwalaes accompanied her everywhere but Eleanor was too awed by her husband to appeal to him now.

  She watched Gwalaes leave with Haworth. The guard on the other side of the door pulled it closed with a thud.

  “Sit down, Eleanor,” Hugh said impatiently.

  There was an uncushioned bench seat along the right wall and she sat on it obediently. Her hands twisted around each other in her lap and she dared not look up.

  She heard the sound of wine being sloshed into a cup followed by a hasty gulp. The noises were so unnatural to her normally fastidious husband that if she hadn’t seen Haworth leave, she would have thought they were coming from him. She raised her eyes slightly. Hugh was staring into the candle flame on one of the tripods and absently swirling the remainder of his wine around in the cup. He felt her glance and straightened up.

  His voice was tense. “I’m afraid I have bad news for you about your brother. There was an accident. We—Roger, Robert, a few others and I—were hunting near Avranches and unfortunately, your brother…Well, as I say, it was an accident. An unlucky shot. He died instantly.”

  At first Eleanor couldn’t understand what Hugh was trying to say, but then her mind seized on the word ‘died’. Robert was dead! She was shocked; it was almost too perfect, as if she had wished for something impossible and actually gotten it. She wondered briefly if Hugh could see the sudden jolt of guilt which rushed through her. And out. She didn’t realize she was staring blindly at him as the wheels turned in her head. She could only benefit from this misfortune.

  “Would you like a cup of wine?” Hugh asked carefully, even gently, apparently misinterpreting her silence for horror. “I’m not very good at putting things prettily, I’m afraid,” he continued when she shook her head dumbly. “I’ve obviously startled you and I’m sorry. It was a terrible shock to me, too. The last few weeks have been hell. I wanted to do everything properly. I took Robert back to Oakby.”

  “Oh—my father!” Eleanor breathed, putting a hand over her mouth.

  “Yes, to say he was upset would be an understatement,” Hugh said. “In fact, he was almost irrational.” He looked away with some embarrassment, into the flickering flames of the candles. “You should know that he accused me of murdering Robert. He practically threw me out of Oakby in his rage.”

  “He loved Robert,” Eleanor said matter-of-factly. “Robert was his whole life.”

  “I know…But I loved him, too, not only as a brother by marriage but as a dear friend, and to be so accused…” Hugh shook his head angrily. He appealed suddenly to his wife with a pained expression. He had shed his cloak of aloofness and was inviting her to console him, believing that she had cared for her brother as he did, for he was genuinely grieved and once Sir Thomas had driven him out of Oakby there was no one at all to whom he could speak about Robert. He turned to Eleanor in despair and if she had been more mature or more astute, she might have recognized his appeal and from then on their marriage might have been, at least, a congenial success.

  But Eleanor had ceased to look at him. She was wildly happy but struggling, out of politeness to his friendship with Robert, not to show it. A hunting accident, ha! she thought. More like her avenging angel had finally come to her rescue. Gwalaes would be saddened, of course, but she preferred Alan d’Arques now, anyway; she’d get over it in no time. Sir Thomas had been punished for ignoring her for all her life and reneging on his promise to give her to the abbey. Now she was his only heir—what a laugh: the girl he had never wanted. As for her husband, no longer would he mope around waiting for Robert Bolsover to arrive. Now he had no excuse not to be a husband to her…She couldn’t help it—a tiny, triumphant smile creased her lips.

  Hugh, who had been watching her hopefully, saw it. He frowned briefly in confusion but then he realized his judgment had been wrong. His eyes became cold and expressionless and he put his cup down on the table very deliberately. It was as though all his vulnerability shriveled up inside him. It was replaced by rage. He knew in a few moments he would start lashing out. He turned his back on Eleanor and in a clipped, abrupt voice dismissed her from his rooms.

  Chester was his pride and his joy, and whenever he was in residence he felt at his most comfortable and usually let slip his austere demeanor. But not this time. There wasn’t any familiar corner into which he could glance and not see the lingering ghost of Robert Bolsover. They had lived and loved here together from the time they’d left Oakby after making the arrangements for Hugh to marry Eleanor until the actual wedding five months later. Afterwards, Robert had gone to join the king in Ireland, but when he finally left the king’s service he’d returned not t
o Oakby or to one of his own manors, but to Chester. To Hugh. Only a few months…The brief space of time the earl had had with Robert Bolsover made him feel his loss even more keenly.

  Days passed, but brought Hugh no relief. He was either morose or violently angry. After a week and a half, Sir Miles ceased consulting him on matters of formality. The servants dared not look him in the face—he’d practically thrown one poor fellow halfway across the hall when the man had had the wretched luck to be laughing at some joke as Hugh had walked by him. Roger of Haworth was the only person who would voluntarily intrude on the earl’s grief and even he came away looking abnormally pale and humble. Mealtimes had become dismal affairs. Hugh would suffer no music or loud conversation. Most of the knights’ wives went home.

  He drank and considered his bad luck. Robert’s death had prompted a self-examination of his life. For all his wealth and power Hugh felt he had little personal consequence. As a peer of the realm he ought to have been one of the king’s right-hand people, yet Henry preferred the advice of his own chosen few, some of whom weren’t even knights! Obviously, although he’d never done anything contrary to the law of the land, Henry didn’t trust him. And what of the disputed earldoms? Henry refused to hear his plea. It made Hugh livid. He probably paid more in taxes and knight service than any other baron in England, yet the king refused to hear him!

  His mother, Maud, a formidable woman of some fifty years who was, like the king, a grandchild of Henry I, badgered him regularly about the status of the earldoms. Every year one of her messengers appeared at his gate with a letter accusing him of laziness and spinelessness in having not yet obtained what his father had been promised. He knew all the words by heart now; the damned letters were all the same.

  Robert had been the one bright light in his life, so of course fate had snatched him away just so Hugh would be denied even the least amount of happiness. Can’t have the great earl of Chester enjoying anything! Hugh gripped his wine cup so tightly that it bent slightly under the pressure. He raised his arm and hurled the cup at the wall. A red splash of wine trickled down the whitewash.

  The worst of it was there wasn’t anyone else around him who cared that Bolsover was dead. Even Roger…He knew he’d treated loyal Roger shamefully when Robert had been alive. He’d felt guilty at times but then he’d catch Bolsover’s smile or sly wink and any thought of Roger had evaporated like smoke into air. Roger was trying hard to be sympathetic about the death, but Hugh knew it was just an act. Still, he was grateful for the attempt. No one else was doing as much.

  That included his wife. Hadn’t she cared for her own brother? They hadn’t spoken since the day he’d told her about Robert’s death. He knew she sensed his anger and was frightened of sparking it into violent display, but the knowledge, instead of shaming him, incensed him further. He had never particularly liked her. The few times he’d been able to bring himself to her bed, she’d been clumsy and unimaginative. Even before the tragedy she’d tiptoed around him. Such behavior annoyed him.

  After a while, all Hugh’s anguish and despair and feelings of worthlessness concentrated themselves into a hard ball of fury which sat like lead in his stomach and threatened to erupt at the slightest provocation. It was easier to be angry than it was to be morose. People understood anger better whereas they never knew how to deal with grief. He got drunk, went down to the practice field and galloped a horse at the quintain or took his sword and slashed and hacked at an unlucky opponent until he had to fall back from exhaustion. His arms and legs ached and he collected a number of impressive bruises, but at least he was able to sleep at night.

  There came a week when heavy rain forced him to remain indoors for several days. By suppertime of the third day, he was pacing his antechamber like a caged wildcat and snarling at anyone who looked at him the wrong way. At the table, Eleanor avoided his eye. Suddenly, he felt all the impotent anger of the past three days well up in him—against her. As he cut meat for himself, he saw her hand reach for the salt and imagined his knife marring her pale, unblemished skin. He pictured her in his mind, reaching for her throat with his rough hands, squeezing her neck…Why hadn’t it been she who had died? Of what use was she to him? She couldn’t give him what her brother had, and she had yet to realize her only possible value: making him heirs. It was another mockery of his life, wasn’t it, that he was stuck for eternity with the wrong side of the triangle?

  She knew he was thinking about her. He could tell because she had suddenly lost her appetite. He must have been staring at her out of the corner of his eye. At that moment he truly hated her.

  He thought again about her childlessness. If he had to suffer her presence, the least she could do in grateful return was get herself pregnant! How many times was he going to have to endure sleeping with her? God, every time Miles de Gournay visited his wife at their manor she seemed to have a child nine months later!

  He retired to his chambers after supper. He knew he was dangerously drunk and he didn’t want his men to see him in such a state. He wondered briefly where Haworth was but almost immediately his mind returned to Eleanor. The chit! Prancing around like the queen of the castle when she ought to be ashamed that she wasn’t with child. The ugly thoughts of violence returned and this time he couldn’t control them. He swung out of his room and went down one flight of stairs to her chambers. The door was closed but not latched and he heard voices behind it. Without knocking, he pushed it in with such force that it banged into the wall and shuddered.

  The rain had made the summer air chilly and Eleanor sat on a stool before a glowing brazier. Gwalaes was standing behind her, combing out her long brown hair. They both looked up and froze when they saw Hugh on the threshold, his body swaying just a little but his eyes focused and glaring.

  Eleanor rose quickly to her feet. “My lord,” she started but Hugh angrily interrupted her.

  “Get rid of her!” he snapped. Eleanor and Gwalaes exchanged a surprised glance. “Yes, her!” Neither girl moved and he took a step in their direction. “Have you lost your ears!” he shouted. “I told you to get rid of her!”

  Eleanor turned to her friend. “Gwalaes, please leave,” she said calmly.

  “Eleanor, no!”

  But Hugh wasn’t waiting any longer. With an oath, he grabbed Gwalaes by her arm, pulled her forward and shoved her through the door, which he slammed closed on her face and latched. Then he swung around on his wife.

  Eleanor was confused by Hugh’s unaccustomed behavior but she had no reason to fear him and she stood by the brazier with her face composed and her arms down by her sides. The lack of reaction bothered Hugh. Bolsover was dead but she was alive and she dared to stand before him as if everything were all right. He loathed her. He regarded her as the physical symbol of all his mourning and suffering, of the tension of the past few months, of his self-doubt, of his need to lash out and ease his own pain by inflicting it on someone else, of all that was wrong in his life…She stood there so innocent of his simmering transgressions while he—he waited for the spark to come and set him off.

  She began to wilt under his relentless stare. “Is something wrong, my lord?” she asked tentatively.

  He laughed harshly, not quite drunk enough to be blind to the irony in the question. Everything was wrong! “How long have we been married, my dear wife?” he said.

  She considered. “A bit longer than ten months, my lord.”

  “So long, eh? And why haven’t you yet conceived?”

  The words were growled and Eleanor’s face suddenly transformed from placid to nervous. She stammered, “I—I don’t know, my lord.”

  Hugh took a few steps in her direction, which seemed to further unnerve her. She moved slightly backwards. “You don’t know!” he snapped. “Is there something wrong—with you? Are you barren? Did I get a bad bargain?”

  “No, my lord!” she protested. He was still advancing on her, in a slow and almost menacing manner, and she retreated until she felt the wall at her back. “Perhaps
we haven’t been trying often enough!” she said desperately.

  There was finally fear in her eyes. For the first time since Bolsover’s death, he felt as if he were in control of the situation. “Are you telling me it’s my fault?” he demanded. “Any one of the sluts in the kitchens can conceive on one shot! Why are you any different?”

  “I don’t know! I’m sure it’s not your fault!”

  “Then it’s yours! I’m an important man! I must have heirs!”

  “I know, my lord—”

  “If you can’t give them to me, I’ll put you aside and find someone who will!”

  “But you can’t do that!” she objected, momentarily forgetting his rage.

  “I can do whatever I please!” he shouted.

  “But we’re married! You can’t put me aside—”

  He backhanded her across the face and she screamed, as much from surprise as pain. Outside, Gwalaes pounded on the door and anxiously called out her name.

  They were close now; Eleanor with her back to the wall and Hugh only inches from her face. Tears welled in her eyes as she stared accusingly at him, still uncertain of his motives and not quite believing he had hit her. He grabbed her shoulders and pushed her hard into the wall. She cried out involuntarily.

  “I can do whatever I please,” he repeated harshly. “Perhaps a little accident…a fall down the stairs…or a sudden illness…Perhaps it needn’t even look like an accident. Who’s to know? I’m an earl, a respected man. Who will challenge me?”

  She realized he was in deadly earnest. He was gripping her shoulders so tightly she thought he would break her bones—and he was threatening to do much worse. She could see the contempt in his blue eyes and wondered fleetingly why it was there. Amazing how the mind could be so detached while every nerve in the body was bracing itself for an assault. Since she was tall, they were almost equal in height, but she felt as helpless under his glaring scrutiny as a mouse between the paws of a cat.

  “Please,” she said.

  Gwalaes continued to bang on the door, shouting out Eleanor’s name over and over. The noise bounced around Hugh’s head, angering him to such an extent that he suddenly wrenched Eleanor from the wall and shoved her across the room with all his might. She stumbled and fell onto the floor in a heap.

  “Tell her to shut up!” he demanded. “Tell her to shut up or I swear to God I’ll kill her! Tell her!”

  His face was red with exertion and rage. Eleanor scrambled to the door on her knees and tearfully begged Gwalaes to leave. She could hear the other girl crying as well, pleading to be let in to help her. Eleanor looked back to see Hugh bearing furiously down on her and she screamed at Gwalaes to go away. “The noise is inciting him!” she cried. “Go, Gwalaes! Go away, please!”

  Hugh grabbed a fistful of Eleanor’s long hair and hauled her to her feet by it. “It’s you who are inciting me! I can’t stand to look at you! You’ve been nothing but bad luck since you came here! Why Robert? Why not you? You’re not the one I want! You can’t even give me children!”

  “Please, let me try—”

  “Try? I don’t want attempts, I want heirs!” He pushed her up against the wall again and regarded her weeping face with distaste. “You’re nothing much to look at, are you? Robert was so beautiful. And clever. I only married you because he wanted it. I would have done anything for him…” He trailed off, seemingly lost in thought. Suddenly he frowned at her. “You didn’t like him at all, did you? He was a good man, your brother, and you hated him. Isn’t that right? You’re glad he’s dead!” He shook her violently. “Can’t you answer? Or is what I’m saying the truth?” She tried to protest but he overrode her. “Your father’s as graceless as you but at least he had the decency to feel the tragedy of Robert’s death. Now he’s left with the one he never wanted!” He banged her shoulder into the wall and she cried out again. “And so am I!”

  Without warning he released her and stepped away. She collapsed onto the floor, sobbing with confusion and pain, and he stared at her unseeingly while he collected his breath. He felt strangely exhilarated. It was a relief to finally speak his feelings about Robert out loud and tell her what he thought of her. All the insecurity and the belief in his unimportance that had plagued him for some time had suddenly vanished. He was finally in control; at last he was the master…Eleanor recaptured his attention; she had stopped sobbing and the silence tore him away from his musings. He looked at her and hated her. It wasn’t right, he thought, that he should be the only one to suffer because of Robert Bolsover’s death. He bent down, roughly seized her forearm and dragged her to her bed. She shrieked but he barely heard her. He pushed her face down into the mattress and fumbled with his robes. She screamed again when his body hit hers but her fear and pain only spurred him on. His last coherent thought before the rage and sensation obliterated everything else was that he wanted her to hurt as much as he hurt.

  Gwalaes was waiting in the shadows when Hugh finally emerged from his wife’s chamber but he didn’t see her. He went up the stairs to his own rooms. Haworth was there; he’d been lounging on the bench in the antechamber but jumped to his feet when Hugh came in. Hugh, who couldn’t remember calling him, gave him a puzzled nod.

  “Your wife’s chit fetched me, my lord,” Haworth explained. “Hysterical she was, screaming that you were killing the lady. She assumed I would break down the door and drag you away. I decided to wait here, if you needed anything.”

  Hugh crossed the room to the side table and served himself from the decanter. “I’m glad you did,” he said. He swallowed his wine in three long gulps and poured another cup. “I feel strangely omnipotent tonight, Roger. I feel I’ve put everything straight.”

  “So you did kill her, then?”

  Hugh laughed and Haworth smiled, happy to see the earl in an easier mood. The tension of the last few weeks seemed to have left him. “Sit down,” Hugh said, and Haworth obediently returned to the bench and stretched his thick legs out before him, crossed at the ankles. Hugh brought him a cup and filled it from the decanter. “I haven’t killed her; I’ve decided to give her another chance.”

  “That’s very generous of you…”

  “Is it? I think I just can’t be bothered finding another one. What’s the saying? ‘Better the devil you know…’?” He swallowed more wine and said abruptly, “I’m afraid I haven’t been very generous with you lately, Roger. You’ve been my only comfort. I know I’ve behaved badly towards you.” He put his hand on Haworth’s shoulder.

  Haworth wasn’t used to emotional compliments. He stared at the floor. “You never have,” he muttered with embarrassment, but he was pleased and covered Hugh’s hand with his own.

  Now that it was in the open, Hugh wanted to explain what he could. “This thing with Bolsover—I never meant for it to come between us,” he said. “I can’t properly describe the effect he had on me. I just wanted to be with him. All the time. I don’t quite understand it now.”

  “He only wanted money from you!” Haworth burst out, indignant on Hugh’s behalf and unable to contain himself any longer. “Manors and mercenaries! Wealth and status!”

  Hugh was silent. Then, in a calm voice, he said, “I knew it.”

  Haworth looked up with astonishment. “You did?”

  “Of course.” Hugh shrugged. “I’m not an imbecile, Roger. I suppose I was so besotted, I was willing to pay his price.”

  “That’s not love, my lord!”

  Hugh sighed. He moved away from Haworth’s side and fell into his great chair, suddenly tired. “The thought had occurred to me that the relationship couldn’t have gone on much longer. It was exhausting, Roger. I was so eager to please him, I tried to stay a step ahead of him, anticipating what he might want so that I could give it to him without hearing him ask me for it and knowing, knowing, Roger, what our relationship was truly based on.”

  “I’m sorry, my lord,” Haworth said softly.

  Hugh looked at him. “I know you are. Because you care abou
t me. Bolsover never did…I’ll tell you something—it’s almost a relief he’s gone. Even though I would have been too stupid to realize it at the time, it would have killed me if you had gotten fed up and left me because of this association with Bolsover.”

  Haworth was visibly moved by the admission. He crossed the room to Hugh and fell on his knees before him. “Never, my lord, never!” he swore fervently. “You know I would sooner die than betray you!”

  “Thank you, Roger.” He looked down on Haworth’s bent head. So unlike Bolsover’s, even in such a little matter as hair. Haworth’s was dark and coarse while Bolsover’s had been fair and soft. But, he thought, it was also hair that couldn’t be easily blown awry or tousled; it was tough and true, like the heart beating beneath it. He owed this man everything. Haworth was the only person in the world upon whom he could rely absolutely and without a second’s hesitation. It was Haworth who had been at his side from the very beginning—how could he have dared to risk losing him over someone as shallow as Robert Bolsover? “Roger…” he said softly. Haworth looked up into his eyes. “I hope to God it will never happen again but if it does…well, you must bring me to my senses straight away. Please. Don’t let me make a fool of myself again. Swear it.”

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