To Defy a King (4 page)

'Easily,' Hugh said with a hint of bravado.

'Easily enough to wager on it?' Longespee felt the familiar burst of excitement that always accompanied a gamble. He imagined himself astride the silver mare; her speed, her strength. Knowing Hugh, he'd not have tested the half of her mettle yet.

Hugh hesitated.

'Or was it just an idle boast with no proof behind it?'

Hugh's blue eyes flashed. 'It was no boast.'

'Then you'd race her?'

'I . . .'

Longespee turned at a slap on his shoulder and faced another of his half-brothers: Ralph. 'Hah, the whole family's here!' He greeted the newcomer with a heartier embrace than he had given Hugh. He could bear Ralph; indeed he enjoyed his company. The lad was younger, his admiration was obvious, and he wasn't the heir to an earldom three times the size of Longespee's.

Ralph laughed. His voice had a deep adolescent crack. 'No, there's just me and William and Hugh with our father. The others are still in Norfolk.

We've been helping Hugh hunt wolves at Settrington.'

'Catch any?'

'A male and female. They'd have started a new pack if we hadn't taken them. I've got the pelts.'

Longespee's nostrils flared. 'They stink.'

'That's what William says.'

Longespee rubbed his jaw. 'So,' he said, getting down to business, 'do you reckon your brother's mare would beat de Braose's black?'

'What, Arrow?' The youth put his hands on his hips. 'Of course she would.

There's no faster horse in England!'

'Well then, you have nothing to lose.' Longespee turned to Hugh. 'What do you say? Will you lend her to me?'

'Go on, Hugh, do it!' Ralph's grey gaze shone with enthusiasm.

'What about the hunt?' Hugh prevaricated.

'You've got other mounts, haven't you?' Longespee waved an impatient hand.

With great reluctance, Hugh handed over the reins. 'Be careful with her.'

Longespee flashed a condescending smile. 'Don't worry, I know horses. I could ride before I could walk.' He patted the mare's neck, set his foot to the stirrup and swung astride. Exhilaration warmed him as his perspective changed and he was able to look down on Hugh from a superior height -

which was appropriate and as it should be, since he was the son of a king.

He sent his herald to make the challenge and wagered five marks on the outcome.

De Braose was amused by the bet and eager to compete, although given his bulk and maturing years, he put one of his squires in the saddle. 'You're never afraid of the odds against you, Longespee, I'll say that for you,' he chuckled, his breath clouding the air. He smacked his hand against the black's solid neck, making the stallion flinch and sidle.

The King arrived, cloaked and booted, ready for the chase, and eyed the proceedings with a mingling of interest and scorn before strolling over to Longespee. 'I hazard de Braose's stallion will win.' He handed up his whip of plaited black leather. 'You'll be needing this to stand any chance.'

Hugh's heart began to thud. 'Sire, I never whip my horses, and neither does my father--'

'Then perhaps you should.' John looked contemptuous. 'Horses, dogs, women and bishops. All benefit from the lash to quicken their paces from time to time.' He waved his hand at Longespee. 'Make her fly, brother, because my lord de Braose will give you no quarter.'

Longespee reined the mare towards the castle gate in a tight turn that pulled on her mouth. Ralph sprang to his saddle and followed his half-brother at a rapid trot. Hugh swallowed a repeat warning, knowing they would think him an old woman, and instead snapped at a groom to saddle up his remount. He had to leap aside as de Braose's big black came shouldering through, sweat creaming against the line of the reins on its neck. Hugh's stomach was hollow. He wished he had left Arrow at Settrington, or stayed there himself.

There was less danger in chasing wolves.

A crowd had gathered in a field beyond Micklegate Bar and other men were wagering their swiftest horses against the main contenders. The Earl of Derby had put his squire up on a lean chestnut, and another of the King's half-brothers, Geoffrey, Archbishop of York, had sent his bay courser with a young groom astride.

Hugh chewed the inside of his mouth as the distance was measured to four furlongs and a wooden post thrust into the ground as the turning point. He thought about making Longespee dismount and riding Arrow himself, but matters had gone beyond that point; all he could do was watch and pray. He was concerned at the way Arrow was sidling, swishing her tail and dancing on her hooves under Longespee's hands. The competitive light in his half-brother's eyes, the tension in his body, worried him too.

He was briefly distracted as his father arrived in the company of several Bigod retainers.

'What's happening?' Roger cocked his head towards the milling men and horses.

Hugh told him. His father's expression remained unchanged, but Hugh sensed his displeasure. 'I should have refused,' he said.

The Earl nodded. 'You should, but you will know better next time. Learn from this - both of yourself and of other men. William Longespee covets that which is best. He has a soldier's courage and a gambler's heart - and that is why Ralph loves him as he does.'

Riders and horses clustered at the start of the impromptu course, eight in all by now, their mounts prancing and eager, the riders fretting the reins and casting intimidating glances at each other. De Braose's black snapped and lashed out at all who came near. Someone quipped that the horse was not unlike de Braose's acerbic wife, if somewhat less ridden. There was ribbing too for Hugh's mare amid remarks about untrammelled virginity. Longespee laughed aloud. Hugh forced a smile, although he had never felt less like smiling in his life. He felt queasy as he watched Longespee pull on Arrow's ears and slap her sweating neck with all the intimacy of an owner.

A starting line had been marked across the grass with floor sand from the King's chamber and the horses jostled and milled behind it. A herald arrived bearing a horn, set it to his lips and blew the away with gusto. As if flung from a catapult, mounts and men hurtled over the line. Clods churned and flew, showering the onlookers. Hugh followed Arrow's surging white rump and the banner of her silver tail. Briefly she was hemmed in by a sea of bay, chestnut and black, but soon edged in front and sped away from them like a wind-blown cloud.

'He's riding her too hard.' Hugh craned on tiptoe as the horses disappeared from sight. 'He should be pacing her; she'll be caught!' Hearing the strain in his own voice, he collected himself, aware that people were watching him.

As heir to the Earldom of Norfolk, he had a duty to appear strong before his peers, especially when speculation was rife concerning the Marshal alliance.

A man who showed weakness over a horse was a man who might be weak in other areas.

The rapid drumming of hoofbeats vibrated through his boot soles. Ralph was yelling in a voice like a raw knife blade: 'They're winning! They're winning! Come on, girl, fly like the wind!'

Arrow was indeed still leading as the horses hurtled back towards the starting line, but with each stride, de Braose's black was gaining ground, and so was the Archbishop's bay. The mare was galloping hard, but that first spark had been spent on the outward journey and now she was straining and under pressure.

'Go on!' Ralph roared, punching the air. 'Go on!'

Arrow's ears were pressed against her skull as she lunged for the next stride and the next, while the black closed her down on the right and the bay on the left. A length, half a length, a head. Longespee raised his arm and the whip came down once and again and the mare almost flattened herself to the ground in a final burst of speed that brought her over the sand line a head and shoulders in front of the other two. Still galloping, still carried forward by her momentum, she stumbled, pitched and went down, mane over tail, legs thrashing. Longespee rolled clear, staying down and curled up as the rest of the horses thundered past. Uttering a howl of denial, Hugh ran out to the mare and fell to his knees at her side. Scarlet rivulets streamed from her nostrils and although she was still breathing, and struggling to rise, he knew he was looking at a dead horse.

Longespee lurched to his feet and staggered across the churned grass to the dying mare. 'Christ,' he gasped, ashen-faced, and wiped his hand across his mouth. 'Dear Christ.'

Hugh didn't hear him. He was watching the light go from Arrow's eyes and the shuddering of her limbs as the effort to rise became death throes. Her blood flowed hot against his folded knees. Leaning over her, he cupped her cheek and rubbed the coronet of hair starring her forehead.

Her last breath fluttered out and her limbs ceased to twitch. Hugh felt his own blood congeal. People crowded round, looking, exclaiming, drawn to the tragedy and the spectacle. William de Braose arrived, stared for a moment with curling lip, and then shoved a heavy pouch into Longespee's hand.

'Count yourself fortunate that the line wasn't ten yards further,' he growled.

'No good having a fast horse if it's going to drop dead under you.' With a single, scornful glance over his shoulder, he stalked off in the direction of his sweating stallion.

Rage flickered through Hugh's numbness like a jag of lightning. He lurched to his feet, the hem of his blue tunic blotched with Arrow's blood. 'You used the whip,' he accused Longespee in a fury-clogged voice.

'Only the once.' Longespee drew shallow breaths, one hand pressed to his ribs. 'God's life, she died because she wasn't sound, not because I struck her. It could have happened at any time. Better now than in the midst of a hunt or a battle campaign.'

The excuses shattered Hugh's control and he seized Longespee by the throat.

'You rode her to death!' he sobbed, his voice breaking. 'Her blood is on your hands!' But the blood was on his own, rimmed around his fingernails, staining the creases in his knuckles.

His father dragged him off Longespee and put his bulk between them.

'Enough! Whatever has to be said and done, let us not make it more of a spectacle than it already is.'

White-faced, clearly in pain, Longespee responded with a stiff nod. Hugh clenched his body, squeezing down upon his own raw anger.

'I shall recompense you for your loss,' Longespee offered. 'I'll buy you another courser - one that is sound of wind and limb this time.'

Hugh bared his teeth. 'I want none of you. I would not take silver from your hand even if I were starving and destitute. That horse was worth more to me than money - but you wouldn't understand that!'

Longespee said nothing, although his expression implied that he thought Hugh a fool to harbour sentiments over an animal. There was reproach too that his offer was being rejected with such bad grace.

The King arrived. Someone had retrieved his whip from where it had fallen as Longespee rolled clear from the stricken horse, and now John gripped it in his hand. 'A bad business.' He shook his head. 'My condolences, Bigod.

Your mare had a turn of speed, but speed is not everything.' He gave Roger and Hugh a pointed look. 'You need to look to your bloodlines, and have a care to how you breed your next generation.'

'Sire, thank you for your concern and your advice,' Roger replied in a neutral tone. 'Be assured I will take it to heart. No bloodline is immune to failure.'

John looked sourly amused. 'Indeed not, my lord.' As he started to turn away, he directed a look over his shoulder at Longespee. 'You have leave to use my chamber while I am gone should you need succour for your injuries.'

Longespee shook his head. 'Thank you, sire, but I will join the hunt.'

'As you wish. Your devotion is commendable - if foolhardy. ' John tapped Longespee's arm lightly with the whip and took his leave.

With the King gone, Longespee handed the pouch containing the five marks to Roger, who did not refuse it. 'I regret what happened,' he said, breathing in shallow bursts, 'but the horse would have foundered sooner or later.'

'So you have said already, and so I accept,' Roger replied impassively. Hugh couldn't bring himself to speak because, unlike his father, he didn't accept it at all.

Longespee managed a bow before walking gingerly towards his own courser. Ralph, who had been watching wide-eyed on the edge of the fracas, hastily fetched the horse to the mounting block. By the time Longespee gained the saddle and gathered the reins he was white and sweating, but resolute.

As the hunt rode out, grooms from the Bigod household fetched ropes to drag the mare away. Hugh eyed the bag in his father's hand with revulsion.

'It's blood money,' he said, his throat working. 'He gives us silver from the wager that cost the life of my mare and he thinks his debt is paid, but I tell you this, sire, I will never lend or give him anything of mine again, and that is a vow unto the grave.'

4

Caversham, March 1204

Mahelt darted her future husband a look through her lashes as he slipped a ring of plaited gold on to her heart finger. Three months ago, he had held her hand and danced with her at the Christmas feast in Canterbury. Now the gesture was part of a ceremony as binding as marriage itself. Hugh's manner was serious, lacking the light exuberance he had possessed before. This time she was strongly aware of being in the company of a grown man with whom she had nothing in common beyond their mutual status and the obligation of performing a family duty.

Mahelt pressed her lips together and tried to ignore the fear uncoiling in her stomach. It wasn't as if she had to go and live with him right now. This was just a promise for later. All she had to do was make her responses, just like the progression of steps in a dance. She made herself look at him properly.

His eyes were a summer sea-blue and a brief smile lit in them as they met hers, giving her a glimpse of the humour she remembered from the Christmas court. Reassured, Mahelt smiled a reply before looking down again in modest decorum.

From Caversham's chapel, the company repaired to the hall and a feast to honour the betrothal. Hugh's mother enveloped Mahelt in a sweet-scented embrace and welcomed her to the family. Hugh's father was expansive with satisfaction and reminded her of a cockerel with fluffed-up feathers. As usual he wore a magnificent hat, red today and adorned with curling plumes.