Rhuddlan (81 page)

Suddenly he could read her expression once
again and the hurt he saw there made him want to wince. He had to
look away.

“I’m leaving in the morning, Richard.” Her
voice was flat, unemotional. “I want to know if you’ll allow me to
take my son with me.”

Only a heartbeat before, he’d thought how
everything could be put right with a mere kiss. Now, it was all
over. What had happened in such a brief time?

He put his hands on his knees and pushed
himself up off the stool. He looked down on her. “Yes. If you’re
certain about this, I won’t object.”

A fortnight later, the summer heat eased
considerably and likewise most of the tension that had gripped
Rhuddlan. Longsword, again, was resigned to his losses and no
longer surly and short-tempered. Part of the reason had to do with
Teleri; she was doggedly keeping her end of her bargain and had
given him no cause for complaint. Everything was peaceful…

Too peaceful, perhaps. He felt tremendously
let-down. It seemed to him that after all the activity of the past
year, he was back where he’d started, before Rhirid, before his
baby, before Gwalaes…nothing to look forward to…

“Do you know the one thing I regret about my
settlement with Chester?” he asked Delamere as they stood together
on the edge of the practice field and watched a dozen men trade
jabs. “The three year peace.”

Delamere was surprised. “Why? You’d go
against him again? On what pretext?”

Longsword shrugged. “Something might come
up.” He saw an indulgent smile on his friend’s profile and added in
frustration, “Everything is the same, Richard! A year ago we were
probably standing in this very spot. The fighting with Rhirid, the
fighting with Chester—it changed nothing.”

At first Delamere didn’t respond, staring out
at the men vying against each other, and too late Longsword
realized that his friend would have preferred to be back where he
was a year ago, because then he’d have Olwen and his sons again.
But then he said, “Lady Teleri’s different. More kindly disposed
towards you, for some reason. I’ve even heard rumors that she
shares the same bed with you on occasion.”

Longsword flushed and scraped at the ground
with his boot. “She’s decided she wants to be married to me, after
all,” he muttered. He looked up. “But I’m not convinced of her
sincerity, Richard! She’s yet to prove it to me!”

“I would imagine a clean hall, servants who
move quickly to do your bidding and her presence at your table
every evening are solid indications of her sincerity,” Delamere
replied. “She’s trying.”

“So?” Longsword demanded.
“Has she complained that
I’m
not trying?”

“Not at all, Will! I’m just telling you what
I’ve observed.”

Longsword grunted noncomittally. He knew that
he hadn’t been trying and was a little ashamed as a result. He’d
accepted whatever she’d offered, from banal conversation to sex,
but he had yet to reciprocate and wondered if he ever would because
it would feel as if he were betraying Gwalaes. “Let’s go away,” he
said abruptly.

Delamere’s head swiveled towards him.
“What?”

“Let’s go away. Out of Rhuddlan.”

“What’s brought this on?”

“Just the two of us, Richard! God knows we
could both do without this place for a while…”

Delamere looked pensive. Longsword watched
him intently. “Where do you want to go?” he asked at length.

“Anywhere!” Longsword said eagerly. “Wherever
the king is holding court.”

“We don’t know where—”

“That’s the beauty of the thing, Richard!
We’ll have to find him and who knows how long that might take. He
might be at Westminster…in London…in Falaise…Anjou…”

Delamere grinned. “You’d have to cross the
sea, Will.”

“For once in my life, I welcome it, Richard,”
he said. “Come on, what do you say? Fitz Maurice and Teleri can
look after Rhuddlan quite capably…We can leave tomorrow…”

Delamere shifted his gaze to the practice
field but Longsword knew he wasn’t looking at anyone there. If he
saw anything, it was the image of Olwen riding away with their
son…Finally, he nodded. “All right,” he said slowly. “Let’s
go.”

Chapter 48

October, 1177

Hawarden Castle, Gwynedd

It was like Robert Bolsover and Chester
castle all over again. Once more, Haworth was the one who was
left.

He wasn’t certain how many days had passed
since Ralph de Vire’s cloak-draped corpse had come to stand before
him. He remembered little of that day, just his triumph over
Longsword and his subsequent feeling that his good fortune would
surely hold and de Vire would be the first to ride through the
gate. That honor, however, had gone to Haworth; Hugh had embraced
him in welcome, all the while thinking of de Vire, and Roger had
been speaking, trying to tell him something, but he hadn’t paid any
attention, just smiled and patted him on the back, ready to greet
the next man, to get to de Vire…He would never forget the noise
that roared through his ears when Ralph’s horse and its burden
stopped in front of him and his worst fear was stark reality.

He withdrew from society at Hawarden. He
didn’t care what was happening; he didn’t care who was giving the
orders. Haworth was the only one who dared to see him but what he
reported during those visits Hugh couldn’t have repeated.

The days grew thankfully shorter. He spent
more time in bed, sleeping fitfully and drifting in and out of
terrifying nightmares. Despite his welcome of the long nights, he
discovered he needed to have his chambers lit at all times…he had
the expensive tapestries removed and the grey walls whitewashed so
that the light from his lamps reverberated four-fold…

Roger brought him his meals and although he
was never very hungry, he ate what he could because the man looked
so stricken and solicitous it would have been rude not to. As he
ate, Haworth would chatter on and on, tunelessly; the words rarely
penetrating the fog around his mind…Poor Haworth; he always tried
so hard, but then, that was part of the problem.

Once or twice, Hugh felt sharper. He would
attempt to pay attention to Haworth’s blathering about some war or
other, nodding as if he understood his captain’s difficulties. He
may have even responded; he didn’t remember.

And then one day, in the midst of his forced
cheerful, inane talk, Haworth suddenly stopped. Hugh only noticed
because Haworth’s voice was loud. He glanced up to find his man
staring at him, his expression worried and fearful. This was also
puzzling because Haworth’s face was generally so dour, Hugh had
long ago imagined any other emotion was impossible.

“My lord,” Haworth said in a low voice, “do
you wish to reproach me…” He paused but Hugh merely frowned, not
understanding the question. He swallowed. “Do you wish to reproach
me over Sir Ralph’s death?”

To hear the words out loud was as bad a shock
as seeing the corpse. For a moment, Hugh could do nothing more than
stare stupidly at Haworth.

“You have every right, of course, my lord,”
Haworth continued quickly, as if anticipating an explosion and
wishing to explain his side of the story before it happened. “You
sent me on a mission and I failed. We were caught unaware by
the—”

“I don’t understand,” Hugh interrupted. “Why
should I reproach you? Did I ask you to save his life? Was it you
who killed him?”

Haworth was horrified. “My lord, no!
Never!”

“Then why should I reproach you?” he
repeated.

“You asked me to find him—”

“I remember what I said, Roger. I asked you
to find him and you evidently did. Too late, but that wasn’t your
fault.” He turned his head to look into the flames of the small
blaze in the brazier. The weather had grown chillier as the days
had shortened but it seemed to him that he was always cold lately
and when he wasn’t lying in bed, he sat in front of the fire. “I
reproach myself…” he whispered.

“My lord, why?”

Hugh glanced at him and the ghost of a smile
appeared briefly on his face. “You sound genuinely outraged, Roger.
Are you just being polite or do you honestly not realize?”

“Not realize what, my lord?”

“You argued against confrontation with the
Bastard, didn’t you? You wanted to go after Gruffudd, instead. But
I insisted on revenge and because of it, Ralph is dead. It’s not
your fault, it’s not the fault of the Welsh or even of William
Longsword. It’s my fault alone. That poor boy…” He rubbed his hands
over his eyes and then shook his head as if trying to toss out the
bitter thoughts and looked squarely at Haworth. The blue eyes were
sharp with anger. “I reproach myself,” he repeated firmly. “Some
days I rage against myself, Roger; I berate myself, I curse my
vanity, I punch the walls and other days, I—” he broke off abruptly
and closed his eyes. His voice dropped. “Other days, I plot my
death.”

Haworth rushed to his side and dropped onto
his knees by his chair. “My lord, you shouldn’t talk like this! It
isn’t right! It’s a sin!”

Hugh smiled wryly, reflexively. “It’s a sin
only if you actually do it, Roger.” He reached out and put his hand
on Haworth’s shoulder. “Never fear; I won’t.”

“Please let me help you, my lord,” Haworth
said in a low, fervent voice. “I’ll do anything, I swear it!
Whatever you want! I’ve helped you before…”

Hugh dropped his hand and turned his face
away, feeling suddenly flushed. The room was stifling and it was
hard to breathe…Was it always going to be like this? Was it always
Haworth who’d be there to pick up the pieces and put his life back
together after every tragedy? He wasn’t certain which was worse:
the terrible events of the last few years or Haworth’s unfailing
presence.

“My lord, perhaps if you were to lead us
tomorrow…” Haworth suggested tentatively. “It will do you good to
get out and back to business. You’ve already lost most of the color
you had this summer…And the men will be pleased to see you.”

For a moment, the span of time a heavy cloud
cover might break apart to reveal a brief, blazing, hopeful glimpse
of the bright sun, he was actually tempted to accept. But a picture
of how injured Ralph de Vire’s face might look if he were to
associate with Roger of Haworth so soon after the former’s death,
darkened his mind and he slowly shook his head. “I don’t think so,
Roger,” he said. “I don’t want to get in your way.”

“You wouldn’t! My lord, you haven’t been on a
horse in nearly a month!”

Hugh smiled indifferently, the malaise
reclaiming him. The rest of Haworth’s pleas and exhortations
sounded like some distant, indistinct rumbling to which he paid no
further attention. Instead, he focused again on the fire. The
prophetic words Eleanor had uttered when he’d accused her of
carrying a bastard’s bastard came suddenly to him. She’d promised
him he would pay dearly for every wrong he’d done her. But it
seemed Hell wasn’t waiting until he died for its due.

Haworth claimed that every order he gave came
directly from the earl. It wasn’t that he thought the men wouldn’t
do his bidding without this veneer of authority, he simply believed
that an outward display of Hugh’s interest in their activities
would keep up their morale and stifle the continually sprouting
rumors about his ill-health. He was convinced that the ruse worked.
Privately, however, he worried about the earl’s state of mind. He
didn’t know how many more disasters Hugh could weather; each one
seemed to leave him more vulnerable to the next. Even during the
dark months after Robert Bolsover’s death, Hugh had never mentioned
suicide, nor had he shut himself away in his chambers. Or perhaps
Ralph de Vire had had more charm than Haworth had believed. While
another man might have been jealous of de Vire’s lingering
presence, the idea never crossed Haworth’s unimaginative mind.
After all, de Vire was dead and he was alive. Eventually Hugh would
recover his senses and he’d find Haworth, loyal, steady and
patient, right where he’d left him.

As the days, then weeks, passed with no
apparent change in the earl’s behavior, Haworth began to
acknowledge a nobler side in what he’d done. He didn’t understand
how Hugh could have formed so deep an attachment with de Vire in a
relatively short time and considered such an irrational occurrence
proof that the affair had been an example of dangerous obsession
and that he’d been right to eliminate it before serious harm had
been done.

Hugh received periodic letters from his
mother informing him of his daughter’s progress, which was
apparently steady, but even these failed to spark his interest. He
had never seen the girl and therefore could take no pleasure in her
activities. The dowager countess’ obvious enjoyment of the company
of her grandchild did have one benefit to him, apart from sparing
him the necessity of finding another home for the girl: there were
no further complaints about his inability to regain the lost
earldoms. Haworth was glad of this one small favor. He was always
present when the messenger read the letters aloud to Hugh, who
would not stir himself even to read them himself, and ready to shut
the man up if the contents drifted toward the old and overly
familiar criticisms.

The feast of Christmas was, curiously enough
given the circumstances, a pleasant time. It was almost as if the
inhabitants of Hawarden had forgotten all about their lord, who by
now had not been seen by most of them in four months. The steward,
on Haworth’s instructions, had arranged for musicians and
entertainers to be sent over from Chester, new clothing was
distributed, the castle scrubbed and whitewashed and everyone
lingered at the table. All was done in the earl’s name.

Haworth discovered he had an aptitude for
administration and something more—he enjoyed it. Soldiers or
laborers would come to him with petitions and quarrels and
dutifully he would relate them all to Hugh. Hugh’s lack of
response, however, meant that Haworth would have to make the
decisions himself, although he passed them off as Hugh’s, and after
a short time he found he was comfortable with this role. He had
always done Hugh’s bidding—indeed, had never wanted to do anything
else—but he’d certainly been with the earl long enough to have
learned how to confront most situations. What he lacked in
imagination and quick-wittedness, he made up with fairness and
common sense. Despite his unsmiling demeanor, he’d always been
respected by the garrison; by the end of the year, he was
well-regarded by everyone at Hawarden.