He would not have been so tired if Elizabeth had been here to protect him—nor so frightened either. Elizabeth would have known what to do; Elizabeth would have handled Chester; Elizabeth would have told all the right lies at all the right times to the right people. She would have left him with nothing to do but fight so that his heart could have been at peace. Hereford closed his eyes. Elizabeth would break her heart if Chester were disgraced.
The shriek of steel on stone as his sword point slipped woke Hereford just before he fell forward. He judged that he had been asleep for some time because his knees were numb from kneeling and his hands from clutching the sword hilt. It took him four tries to get to his feet, and, at that, he probably would not have made it but for a strong hand that lifted and steadied him from the right.
That would be Henry. Hereford did not dare look at Henry. Although Hereford himself was not very pious, he was usually respectful of the Church and all religious ceremony, while Henry's behavior bordered on the blasphemous. Roger knew if he turned his head, sure as he lived, Henry would begin to talk. Besides, he did not want to talk to Henry just now nor to look at him because he felt guilty. Sometime during his sleep he had made up his mind. As long as Chester made no active move against Henry, he would hold his tongue; he could not, and would not, hurt Elizabeth for a scruple of his conscience. What was the addition of one more feeling of guilt to the load of it he already carried compared with her pain? He was used to it, and she had been hurt enough by her father's ways.
Hereford glanced impatiently at the high window slits. As yet there was no sign of dawn. He should be using this time for prayer and contemplation, but the knowledge only made him smother a smile. How could a man lift his heart and mind to heaven when his feet hurt? Mayhap a saint, but saint he certainly was not. Besides, what need had he to pray to be a good knight? He was a good knight, and a better man than most. Damn Henry and Chester also. How could a man tread the path of honor when those around him … No, he would not cast the blame elsewhere and he would think no more of the matter lest his tongue betray him by accident.
The coming of the morning light brought priests to say Mass and to release the young men from their vigil. The real ceremony was only just under way. First they would have a chance to eat, then out on to the jousting field, where a platform had been raised and draped in cloth of royal purple so that King David could give Henry the buffet of knighthood clearly in all men's sight.
Hereford glanced quickly at the sky and sighed with relief. The day promised fair, which would make everything pleasant. That knightly buffet was no joke. Hereford half-expected to be knocked right off the scaffolding and was just as pleased that he would not have to land in a mud puddle.
He did not, in the event, actually fall off the platform, but his head sang for hours and when he undressed that night there was a huge bruise between his ear and his shoulder where David's mailed fist had caught him. He heard Henry laugh as he staggered and shook his head and stepped back to join his overlord while David knighted fifteen other young men.
"You ought to put on some weight, Roger. You nearly went off," Henry whispered. He had stood his ground like a rock when David struck, and although the king had doubtless tempered his blow to his nephew, it was still a feat of strength not to have reeled.
"How can I put on weight when you never allow me time to eat or sleep?" Hereford rejoined, laughing softly. "I have shed a stone, at the least, since I have returned to England."
"That was not because of my affairs," Henry said so firmly that one might have thought him serious, "that's lechery."
"Then you should be a wraith."
Henry dug his elbow into Hereford's ribs. "Have some respect for your betters. Is that the way to talk to the man to whom you are about to do homage?"
"I am only trying to protect you from the mortal sin of pride,” Hereford replied with mock mournfulness. “You should be grateful for my efforts on your behalf."
"Be quiet, madman, everybody is looking at us. You have a fine way of saving me anyhow. To preserve me from the hell-fire for pride, you send me there for lechery."
"It is because I love you so much.” Hereford batted his eyelashes at his liege lord. “At least for that we will go together."
Henry stifled a chuckle. "Likely enough, but you will get there as fast as I for the first cause as well as the second. Why not go to hell with dignity?"
"There's nothing dignified about pride. If your pride goeth before a fall and you miss your leap because you weigh as much as an ox, I'll have my turn to laugh, and the dignity of your pride will only make it funnier."
Henry laughed softly. There was about as much chance of his missing his leap into the saddle of his horse without touching the stirrups as there was of his flying straight up to heaven in a fiery chariot. He had practiced that first trial of knighthood too long and too well to worry. He had no time to reply to Hereford, however, because David was stepping down to make way for his nephew to take his place.
The laughter faded from Henry's eyes, and when he mounted the small additional rise that lifted him above the men who would do him homage, his young face was very set. The mobile mouth had thinned to a hard line, the brutal jaw was thrust forward; Henry fully intended to keep every one of these men to the letter of their vows. Kingship was no light matter or empty phrase to him, and so plain was his determination and so strong the force of his presence that a hush fell over the crowd gathered to watch the ceremonies.
Hereford, the first in importance, was the first to come forward, kneel, and raise his ungloved hands to his lord. Henry took them in his in a painful grip and the two pairs of eyes, blue and gray, deadly serious, deadly earnest, locked.
"Sire, I enter into your homage and faith and become your man, by mouth and hands, and I swear and promise to keep faith and loyalty to you against all others, and to guard your rights with all my strength."
"We do promise you, Roger, Earl of Hereford, that we and our heirs will guarantee to you the lands held of us, to you and your heirs against every creature with all our power, to hold these lands in peace and quiet."
Henry bent forward slowly and kissed Hereford lingeringly upon the lips. As he straightened, Hereford rose to his feet and they broke the hand grip. The Bishop of Carlisle then came up, holding out to Hereford a magnificent reliquary. The cover, pyramid shape, had golden bas-relief on each of its four faces, depicting the Annunciation, Birth, Crucifixion, and Ascension of Christ. On the panels of front, sides, and back were other scenes from the life on earth of the Son of God. The whole was set with beautifully polished gems, sapphire, emerald, and ruby, so that it flashed and sparkled in the brilliant sunshine of late spring. Hereford laid his hands upon the casket.
"In the name of the Holy Trinity, and in reverence of these sacred relics, I, Roger, Earl of Hereford, swear that I will truly keep the oath I have taken, and always remain faithful to Henry, rightful King of England, my overlord."
The bishop stepped back, and Henry came forward again. He kissed Hereford once more and handed him a gauntlet, for the right hand, of purple-dyed leather, its back completely covered with thick plates of bright-gleaming gold.
"Wear it in honor. Protected by it, strike hard for my cause."
Hereford slipped on the glove, his eyes incandescent with enthusiasm, and curled his hand into a fist. "For Henry, for England," he cried aloud, shaking the glittering glove at heaven.
"Fiat! Fiat!" roared the crowd of assembled nobles, "so be it."
CHAPTER 15
LARGE, SOFT-LOOKING WHITE CLOUDS HUNG SUSPENDED IN A PEACOCK-BLUE sky. No high wind stirred them, nor did any breeze flutter the green leaves of the trees that bordered the garden of Hereford Castle. The sunlight-dappled shade was so still, as was the beautiful woman who sat on the grass in it, that the whole scene might well have been painted. Eventually Elizabeth's hands moved, rolling the top portion of the parchment she was reading so that she could unroll the bottom. The crackle of sound was a violen
ce upon the noon-time hush as was Elizabeth's orange dress upon the grass and the dark bole of the tree against which she leaned, but she neither saw nor heard. Her attention was concentrated upon the letter she was reading with such trembling haste that she had several times to go back and read a portion again.
She lifted her head briefly when she came to the end but unrolled the parchment again and began to read it through once more. Quite apparently part of it had been written in haste and in uncomfortable circumstances, and, no doubt, Roger had given up a brief period of rest to send it to her. Elizabeth was very much disturbed without exactly knowing why. Certainly the news was not bad.
The first section of the letter concerned itself with a description of the knighting ceremony and the tourney and other celebrations which followed it. That description was broken off abruptly, as though Roger had been interrupted, and had not been able to continue. The remainder of the letter was in a cramped and uneven hand which bore evidence to the fact that it had been written on some unsteady surface, perhaps Roger's lap.
The tone of this second portion was entirely different too. They were, after all, to attack York, Roger wrote. He had intended to send only a token force against that city to draw Stephen north, but King David had promised more assistance than they expected, Chester had urged the move very strongly, and Henry had been eager to engage and show his mettle against the king. If they were successful, they could drive steadily southward while the forces in Gloucestershire turned north and Hugh Bigod pressed westward out of Norfolk.
This sounded excellent, but it was all wrong, Elizabeth thought, biting her lip. It was wrong strategically because Stephen's greatest strength was in the southeast; battle in the north could do him little real harm even if he were defeated unless he were killed or taken prisoner. On the other hand, the ravaging of the northern territories might do Henry's cause serious harm.The northern barons were mostly neutrals in the civil war, largely taken up with their struggles with the Scots. If Henry led a force of Scots against them, they would hate him if he won and despise him if he lost.
The plan was wrong politically, too, because the taking of Stephen and the reduction of the country to misery—a plain result of the strategy described—was not Henry's aim, according to what Roger had told her originally. Eustace was the one who had to be prisoner, Eustace or Maud, so that Stephen who was kind, affectionate, and not strong-minded could be bargained with. For the sake of his wife or child, both of whom he loved passionately, he might well be willing to name Henry his heir before a convocation of the barons or even, for a high enough price, relinquish the throne. But Stephen could never be induced to yield to save himself. Although the king might be a fool, he was not in the least a coward, and he cared really very little for the welfare of the country at large; no concern for its ravaging would move him.
Worst of all, though, was the wrongness of the whole letter. It should never have been written. It was not like Roger to write about such matters at all nor to take the desperate chance of sending a courier abroad with such information. Moreover, considering that he had not parted from her on the highest terms of confidence it was even less likely for him to send such a letter.
Elizabeth wrinkled her brow and left off reading to stare into space. If Roger had been driven to write to her to ease his heart, he must have no one to whom he could talk. If he needed to ease his heart about such matters at all, he must have been very unhappy about the plans, even though the letter itself contained no word of complaint or disapproval. Elizabeth sighed. She could understand that Roger would be dissatisfied with the changes made in his well-thought-out arrangements, but she could see no obvious reasons for an oppression of the spirits so strong.
Something beyond the surface difficulties was troubling Roger, but Elizabeth could not guess what, and she was tense and uneasy. Still, to sit and fret could not profit either her or her husband. She went first to her chamber to conceal her letter and change her orange silk bliaut and cream-colored tunic for hardier garments of linen. Then she went to the mews for her hawk. A few hours of hard riding after her merlin was likely to calm her.
Her husband was also riding hard, but he was anything but calmed by it. He and Henry with the men they had personally brought were playing a desperate game of hide-and-go-seek with parties of Stephen's knights sent to ambush them. The attack on York had proved a fiasco, as Hereford had feared.
Stephen had been warned well in advance, of course. Roger had planned that, because originally the attack was to be a feint to draw the king north. He had told Henry of that warning, told David, told Chester—they would not listen. Stephen was dilatory, they replied, he would not arrive in time and the city would be theirs without trouble. Roger had told them too that Stephen might already be well north of London with forces gathered because of his encounter at Nottingham. To that they replied that they were strong enough to defeat the king whatever forces he brought. Desperately Hereford had cried out—no longer caring whether he offended David or not—that to bring Scots into the northern provinces of England would drive every baron there into Stephen's camp. David had been offended, Chester had laughed, and Henry had lost his temper and called Hereford a coward.
Several days later, Henry had apologized handsomely, but the damage had been done and there was nothing left to do but run. When the size of Stephen's army, ready and waiting for them, had become apparent, as did the truth of Hereford's prediction about the feeling of the men of the northern border against the Scots, David's forces had melted away. Chester lost his desire for battle, too, when he realized that Stephen had arrived in time. In his present mood Chester had no intention of literally coming to blows with the king.
In the recriminations that had flown about before the forces separated, Hereford took no part. He had been warned by God more than oncein Burford, by Chester's vacillation, and by his own constant misgivings. He had chosen his path in spite of those warnings, and was following it, perhaps to his own destruction. Thus far, however, his prayers had been answered for it was no failure of his own strength or courage or planning that was bringing disaster upon them. He had no complaint to make.
Strangely, with each encounter that left them more weary, more bloody and battered, and with fewer men, Hereford's spirits rose again. He was neither happy nor confident, nor did he believe he would be again until this affair was over, but he was no longer utterly hopeless either. Perhaps, he had been thinking, only the hour they had chosen was wrong because surely some power beyond their own strength was preserving them.Time after time they lost their way in that unfamiliar country, and often they found their road again only to see behind them the gleam of shields and spears of a force of Stephen's men large enough to have overwhelmed them. Time after time they encountered bands of Stephen's knights, but those bands were always either unprepared to fight at the moment or small enough to be beaten off.
"There are saints, I have been told, who take care of fools and madmen," Henry grunted after one of these meetings, wiping the blood off his sword before sheathing it. The victims of their latest encounter either lying in the road behind them or fleeing away. "No doubt, since I qualify under both names, they are watching me with especial tenderness. What I cannot understand is why they are guarding you so carefully, Roger."
"Have I not clung to you through all, my lord?" Hereford replied with mixed humor and spite. "Does that not qualify me also?"
Henry laughed. Apparently his liege man was completely reconciled to him. Until now Roger had been rather coolly polite, always a bad sign with Hereford, who usually demonstrated his affection for his overlord with a freedom of speech and manner that amounted to rudeness.
"That was a foul blow,” Henry said. “Do you know where the devil we are?"
"Yes, praise Christ. At least, I think so. If those saints will only attend to us a little longer, we will be on Chester's land some hours after dark."
Eyes narrowing a little, Henry gave his companion an attentive and questionin
g look. "You believe it safe to stop at Chester?"
"No," Hereford replied flatly. Then, urged by love against conscience, he mitigated the statement. "It is safe to stop nowhere that we may not command the castlefolk to fight for us. But from Chester on, nearly all the barons are opposed to Stephen, more or less, and will give his troops no aid, comfort, or information. Some might even attack Stephen’s men for reasons of their own. And I know every stone, rill and twig on every path. If need be, I can lead you through Chester's forests. From there we will be safe. At Hereford we may stop and rest for a day or two."
"Why not stand and defend ourselves? The keep is strong and the people loyal, as I have seen."
"Defend ourselves?" Hereford's eyes widened and his jaw dropped with shock. He studied Henry's face anxiously, but the expression was unreadable. "I have no lust to tear my lands apart without cause. I never knew you to be so fainthearted before. There is an army waiting for me in the south, and thither will I go as fast as I may, not to defend myself but to attack so that Stephen must defend himself. There is no profit in defense. Courage, my lord. Our plans are not awry, for we have done perforce at last what I intended at first. I will lay my head that Eustace will be in the south by the time we come there so that in the end we have lost nothing but a little blood and a few days' time."
Henry was silent for a moment, staring at Hereford. "You are true as steel, Roger,” he said. “Nor am I become so fainthearted as you think. I did but seek to know something, but I have had no answer and so I will ask you outright. Of what are you afraid?"
"Afraid? I?"
"Ay. You have dreams I would not wish to share. Your laughter is stilled except when you remember to try for it, and your spirit is so oppressed that you walk about all that part of the nights you do not spend tossing and groaning. I have waited long for you to speak of your own will. Now I ask you—what do you know that I do not?"
Knight's Honor Page 34