The Poisoned Serpent (28 page)

They were admitted to the Inner bail, and Thomas ruthlessly elbowed his way through the crowd, demanding loudly that everyone “make way for Lady Cristen Haslin,” while Alan did his best to shield her from being jostled by the eager onlookers.

Thomas managed to secure her a good viewing place between two of the knights who were guarding the arena perimeter, and he and Alan took up a protective stance behind her.

Hugh and Bernard were standing in the corner of
the arena nearest the wall, talking quietly. Cristen looked at Hugh’s slender figure and felt her chest tighten painfully with fear.

Save him, God
, she prayed.
Please, please, God. Save him
.

There was a movement along the wall on the opposite side of the arena, and Richard ducked under the rope and entered the arena alone. As he stood there, looking out over the crowd, the wind blew a hole in the gray sky and the sun shone through, lighting Richard’s uncovered hair to gold and glinting off the polished steel of the broadsword he held in his hand. Cristen thought grimly that he looked like an archangel making ready to go into combat for the Lord.

Behind her, Cristen heard Alan’s breath catch in what sounded like a sob.

Suddenly the whole of the crowd behind them began to shift, and there came angry exclamations and curses as people were once again shoved aside. Cristen turned her head and saw a wedge of armed knights thrusting their way toward the front. In the midst of the knights walked Lady Elizabeth de Beauté. The girl had removed her wimple, and her red-gold hair shone in the sudden sunlight. She saw Cristen, and indicated to her knights that she wished to join her.

Elizabeth’s beautiful face looked tense as she took up her place beside Cristen. Cristen felt sorry for this girl, who had been forced to choose between avenging her father and a lover she adored. Richard’s betrayal must have broken her heart.

Cristen said quietly, “I think it was very brave of you to stand up and testify as you did, Lady Elizabeth. It could not have been easy.”

Elizabeth’s green eyes glittered with what could have been suppressed fury or unshed tears. Or both.

“He killed my father,” she said. “I sat there, and I listened to the testimony, and I saw it clear as day. Richard killed my father.”

“I am afraid that he did,” Cristen said with pity.

“He had dinner with me, and when he met my father in the courtyard after, he lured him into the Minster and he killed him. I saw them walk away together. I saw him lead my father to his death.”

“I am so sorry,” Cristen said gently.

“He played me for a fool,” Elizabeth said, her voice hard. “He lied to me. He told me that he loved me and I believed him. Well, I’ll wager he’s sorry now.”

Cristen stared at her in astonishment.

“I showed him,” Elizabeth said.

“Aye,” Cristen said faintly, “you certainly did.”

“If he had killed my father because he loved me, perhaps I could forgive him. But that wasn’t it at all.”

Cristen was speechless.

“Do you know how I know that?”

Cristen shook her head.

“I said I would run away with him, but he wouldn’t. Do you know what he wanted? He wanted me to beg the king to allow me to marry him. The king was very persuadable, he said. The king would not be able to deny me.” She turned to look at Cristen, and now it was quite clear that it was fury and not sorrow that shone in her magnificent eyes. “He wanted my property and he was afraid that if we ran away together, the king would confiscate my lands. It wasn’t me he wanted. It was my lands!”

Cristen said to Elizabeth, “I am afraid that the only person Sir Richard is capable of loving is himself.”

To herself she thought,
And in you he would have found a perfect match
.

The blast of a horn caught Cristen’s attention and
she turned to look at the man standing a few steps in front of where the bishop and the chief justiciar were enthroned in high-backed chairs. The herald blew another blast, to make certain he had everyone’s attention before he announced into the attentive silence:

The herald stepped back, and William Rotier ducked under the ropes and advanced to the middle of the arena. Hugh and Richard walked to join him, their unsheathed swords in their hands.

Rotier stood stoically between the combatants, a red flag raised above his head. At a sign from the bishop, he brought the flag down and stepped away, leaving the opponents facing each other.

The Judgment of God had begun.

The two men raised their swords. They looked to be an ill-matched pair as they stood in the windy sunshine taking each other’s measure.

Cristen thought that Hugh looked no more than a boy, with his light, slender frame and his black hair blowing in the stiff afternoon breeze. He moved like a boy, too, lithe and graceful, his weight perfectly balanced on the balls of his feet.

Richard, on the other hand, was every inch a man: tall and powerful and supremely confident as he re
garded his opponent. Cristen saw his lips move as he said something to Hugh.

In reply, Hugh struck with his sword.

It happened so fast that Richard was not expecting it, and barely had time to get his own sword up to parry the blow. As it was, Hugh’s blade drew blood from Richard’s hand.

Anger showed briefly on Richard’s face, and then he struck back with the full strength of his powerful body.

Hugh parried the tremendous blow, his own sword scarcely dipping in response to the force of Richard’s stroke.

“Jesus,” Thomas said behind her. “Hugh must have wrists of steel.”

The fight went on for what seemed to Cristen an eternity. Without the protection of a shield, each man had only his sword to keep him safe, forcing the fight into a contest of thrust and parry, thrust and parry. Both men gripped their swords with two hands for maximum power, and the echo of the great blades as they fell upon each other was audible even to those packed into the Bail on the other side of the wall.

Every once in a while the combatants’ lips moved as they spoke to each other, gasping out words between the exertion of dealing out and defending against blows.

Surprisingly, the two men appeared to be evenly matched. An astonishing level of strength and power resided in Hugh’s slim body, and Richard’s superior height and weight did not give him the advantage that everyone, Richard included, had expected it to. On the other hand, Richard seemed to be fully as fast as Hugh, and Hugh’s left-handedness caused him no problem.

How could they bear it? Cristen thought. How
could their arms take such a pounding and still lift the heavy sword to strike again? How long would it be until one of them was a little too slow to parry and felt the cutting edge of that powerful blade?

She felt sick thinking what such a weapon could do if it fell on unprotected flesh.

The February day had turned cold and windy, but the two men in the arena sweated profusely. For half an hour they had remained in the center of the arena, advancing, retreating, and sidestepping within a relatively small area, neither man able to drive the other one back.

Then, before her horrified eyes, Richard escalated his attack, increasing the rhythm of his strokes, attacking Hugh’s guard with a relentless assault of powerful blows.

After a minute, Hugh slowly began to back away.

“Jesus,” Thomas said in anguish. “Hugh is tiring.”

Richard evidently had come to the same conclusion, for he began to smile. Again and again he struck at Hugh, always attacking, not giving Hugh a chance to launch a blow of his own. Again and again Hugh parried, moving back slowly but inevitably to escape the punishment of the other sword.

Step by step, Richard advanced; and step by step, Hugh retreated. Back and back and back toward the high stone wall, where Hugh would be unable to retreat any farther, where he would be trapped.

Cristen’s nails bit into her palms as she watched Hugh being driven to his death.

Help him, God. God, please help him. Do not let him die. Do not let him die
.

Next to her, Alan moaned in distress.

Thomas was muttering, “Come on, Hugh! Come on, Hugh! You can do better than this! Come on!”

The angle of the sun bathed the entire arena in a merciless light. Richard’s hair was dark with sweat and Hugh’s blue tunic was drenched. The breathing of both men was audible in the breathless silence of the packed courtyard.

They were almost at the wall. Hugh had only a few more steps before his retreat would be cut off.

Cristen saw him take a quick look behind, to ascertain just how far he had to go.

That look almost cost him his life as Richard, quick to take advantage of the momentary lapse of attention, struck with all his power. Hugh managed to get his sword up in time to protect his body, but the white sleeve of his sword arm suddenly turned scarlet.

“He’s hit!” Thomas cried in anguish.

This can’t be happening
, Cristen thought.
I can’t believe that this is happening
.

Now Hugh was at the wall. His left arm dangled at his side, useless. With his right hand he raised his sword, ready to parry Richard’s blow. Blood poured from his left sleeve and dripped on the ground. How could he possibly withstand Richard with only one arm?

Richard seemed to tower above his victim as he lifted his sword in both hands for the last time and drove it hard, drove it directly at that single, vulnerable sword arm, drove it at tendon and bone and muscle and flesh, drove it with intent to maim and then to kill.

What happened next happened so fast that it took the onlookers a full twenty seconds to realize what had occurred. As Richard drove at him, Hugh dropped his own sword and ducked under Richard’s thrust.

An aghast intake of breath came from the onlookers. Why would Hugh give up his sword?

Then, to everyone’s astonishment, Richard’s sword clattered from his hand, and he fell to the ground.

And Hugh stood up.

“
Jesus
,” Thomas said.

“What happened?” Alan cried. “How did Hugh do that?”

It was Cristen who answered in a shaky voice, “I believe he must have used Thomas’s nice long dagger.”

R
ichard Canville was dead. God had spoken. The murder of the Earl of Lincoln was requited.

So pronounced Lord Richard Basset, Chief Justiciar of England, as Hugh stood before him head bowed, black hair hanging in sweat-drenched strands, left arm slowly dripping blood into the packed-dirt footing of the Inner bail.

The Bishop of Lincoln concurred with this judgment, saying in a stern voice to Bernard, who stood beside Hugh, “Bernard Radvers, you are a free man.” Then, on a more kindly note, he recommended that Hugh have someone see to his arm.

Hugh nodded and turned and blinked as Thomas put an authoritative hand on his good arm. “Lady Cristen will take care of your arm,” he said. “Come with me.”

The silent crowd parted to allow Hugh through, Thomas on one side of him and Bernard on the other. Now that the excitement of the combat was over, the townsfolk were just beginning to take in the significance of what had happened.

Richard Canville had murdered the Earl of Lincoln.

It didn’t seem possible.

But it had to be true. God had spoken.

Still speechless, groups of people began to filter out through the east gate to join those clustered on the other side of the wall.

Bernard said to Thomas, “This bleeding must be staunched immediately.”

Then they saw Cristen approaching with a roll of bandage in her hands.

“Let me see that arm,” she said to Hugh, gesturing to Bernard to step out of her way. She placed the bandage right over Hugh’s sleeve. “I’m just going to bind it now. I’ll clean it and sew it when the bleeding stops.”

“How nice,” he said. They were the first words he had spoken since Richard fell.

Cristen began to wrap the roll of linen around his arm. He winced once when she tightened it, but otherwise he stood stoically and did not speak.

“All right,” she said when she had finished. She looked into Hugh’s pain-darkened eyes. “The castle or Ralf’s house?”

“Ralf’s,” he replied, and she nodded and turned to Thomas.

“He can’t walk that long way. Get Rufus.”

Thomas turned and ran to the stockade.

“Alan,” Cristen said. “Help Thomas.”

Alan raced toward the stockade as well, leaving Hugh alone with Bernard, who was bracing him with an arm around his waist, and Cristen, who was regarding him somberly.

“You took a dangerous chance,” she said.

He managed a fleeting smile. “There are some advantages to being smaller.”

“Did you deliberately let him drive you back to the wall?” Bernard demanded.

“Mmm. In his enthusiasm to crush me with his sword, Richard appeared to have forgotten all about the daggers.” Hugh’s words were clipped, as if he were expending as little energy as possible to form them. “But I hadn’t. And I can use my right hand as well as my left.”

He swayed slightly, and Bernard tightened his grip.

“Here comes Rufus,” Cristen said briskly.

The white stallion was led up to Hugh and Alan held the bridle while Thomas and Bernard lifted Hugh onto the horse’s unsaddled back.

“Lead on,” Bernard commanded Alan, who began to gently lead Rufus forward. Thomas and Bernard walked on either side of Hugh to hold him upright.

“I can stay on Rufus by myself,” Hugh protested with annoyance.

“We are not in the least interested in your opinion,” Cristen informed him in the same brisk tone as before.

“Oh,” Hugh said. His voice sounded meek, but there was a brief glint of amusement in his eyes.

At Ralf’s house they were greeted by an ecstatic Nicholas and Iseult. Cristen issued a few short, crisp orders, and Hugh found himself being guided upstairs to his old bedroom by Bernard and Thomas. He sat on a chest by the window and impassively awaited his fate.

She arrived shortly, followed by Mabel carrying a tray that held a water jug, a bowl, more linen bandage, a scissors, a needle, thread, and an ointment jar. Hugh eyed these items warily.

Mabel put down the tray on the chest next to him,
and Cristen drew up a stool and sat down. “This will hurt,” she warned him.

His arm was already on fire with pain and he was feeling sick and dizzy. “Really?” he managed to say.

To his great relief, she dismissed Bernard and Thomas before she went to work, cutting away sleeve and bandage to expose the long ugly gash in his forearm.

“Can you make a fist, Hugh?” she asked.

Resolutely ignoring the pain it caused, he closed his fingers into a fist.

“Good.” Relief sounded in her voice. “Nothing vital is severed.”

“That is good news.”

Cautiously he moved his head from side to side. It had begun to ache shortly after the duel, and now there was a tight band of pain around the base of his skull.

It’s just because of the wound
, he told himself firmly.
It’s not a headache
.

Cristen said, “The first thing I am going to do is clean it.”

Hugh stared at the corner of his bed and maintained a resolute silence as she washed his injury with warm water and soap. He made no sound all the time it took her to stitch the edges of the wound together and to anoint it with an ointment of centaury.

As she worked on his arm, the band of pain around his skull kept getting fiercer, and he could no longer ignore the fact that he was getting a headache.

Blood of Christ!
he thought, half in anger and half in despair.
Will I never be free of this crippling ailment?

Cristen was bandaging his arm once more.

He felt the pain begin to move into his forehead.

“Cristen,” he said. “Do you have any of your betony elixir with you?”

She looked at him and knew instantly what was the matter. “Aye,” she said. “I’ll get it.”

She stood and instructed her assistant, “Thank you for your help, Mabel. You may take the tray down to the kitchen.”

The door closed behind the girl. “Another headache?” Cristen asked.

“So it seems,” he said.

“Oh, Hugh.” Her voice ached with compassion. Then, more matter-of-factly, “Let me get you out of these filthy clothes and into bed. Then I will get the elixir for you.”

“All right.”

His lips formed the words but scarcely any sound came out.

Cristen had kept her scissors, and took care of his sweat-stained tunic and shirt by simply cutting them from top to bottom and sliding them off of his shoulders. Then she easily slipped his hose off his legs and feet. Once she had him stripped to his drawers, Hugh got under the blankets, which she had turned down for him.

By now the pain in his head was a furnace of agony.

Cristen pulled his blankets over him. “I’ll be right back,” she said.

He rested his head against his pillow, shut his eyes, and tried to think of something else beside the agony in his head.

Time passed.

“Hugh.”

It was Cristen again, the only person he could bear to have near him at such a time.

“The betony has never relieved you that much,” she said. “Let me give you some poppy juice instead. It will help the pain and perhaps put you to sleep.”

He squinted up into her large brown eyes. Cristen knew what she was doing, he thought. She would never give him anything that could harm him.

“All right,” he said and pushed himself up on his good elbow to drink from the cup she was holding out.

He lay back down and closed his eyes. His stomach began to churn.

He opened his eyes. “I need a basin.”

She had one ready, and held it for him as he vomited up the stew he had eaten for dinner.

The pounding in his head was sheer anguish. How could he endure hours more of this?

He felt her take his hand.

Time passed with excruciating slowness.

Then, slowly, the sharp edge of the pain began to dull. His head still throbbed, but it was not as unbearable as it had been.

“It is feeling a little better,” he said to her.

“Good.”

He was actually feeling sleepy. His stomach heaved again, but he forced it down.

Breathe
, he thought.
Think about breathing. In and out, in and out, in and out
…

Suddenly he felt a strange humming sensation along all of his nerve endings. Then nothing.

He woke in the middle of the night. His mouth tasted terrible and his brain felt sluggish. His arm still hurt but the pain in his head was gone.

“Hugh?”

A shaded candle was burning and he saw her sitting in a chair next to his bed.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said. His tongue felt thick and the words were hard to pronounce.

“Is the headache gone?”

“Aye. But my brain feels soggy.”

She smiled. “The aftereffect of the poppy juice, I’m afraid. Would you like some water?”

“Please.”

She brought him a cup and he finished it thirstily.

“How much poppy juice did you give me?” he demanded.

“A bit.”

“Even my arm doesn’t feel too bad.”

“Good.” She gave him more water and he drained the second cup.

“It’s after midnight,” she informed him. “Go back to sleep. Your brain will be back to normal in the morning.”

If Cristen said it would be so, then it would be so. He closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

When he awoke in the morning he was alone. His mouth still tasted terrible, but his head was clear.

His arm hurt, but the pain was negligible compared to the pain of a headache.

Cristen had left him a pitcher of water and a cup. He got out of bed and drank the entire contents of the pitcher, which made him feel much better.

He was regarding his pile of torn clothes when his bedroom door opened slightly and Alan Stanham peeked in. When he saw that Hugh was up, he opened the door farther and said, “How are you feeling, Lord Hugh? Would you like me to help you dress?”

“I would,” Hugh replied, “if I had anything to dress in.”

Alan carried Adela’s old wooden wash tub into the room. “I went around to the sheriff’s house earlier and asked one of the kitchen boys to pack up your clothing for me,” he said. “I’ll bring it to you after you have bathed.”

“Alan,” Hugh said appreciatively. “You are a gem of a squire.”

Alan looked bleak. “A squire who has lost his lord,” he said.

Hugh flicked him a look, but did not reply.

After his bath, Hugh dressed in clean clothes and went downstairs to break his fast.

He was only just beginning to realize that his long conflict with Richard was over. Richard the brilliant athlete, the charming lover, the deadly friend—Richard was dead.

He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and listened.

She was in the kitchen.

Hugh made his way to the back of the house.

She was stirring something in the big pot that hung over the fire, and her head was already turned in his direction when he came in. Her skin, delicately flushed from the heat of the fire, looked beautiful, set off by the plain gold tunic she wore over her dark green undertunic.

They looked at each other.

Nicholas and Iseult had been sitting on one of the kitchen benches next to Bernard, and as soon as they saw Hugh, both children jumped up and ran over to him.

Iseult regarded the bandage on his arm with huge blue eyes.

“Does it hurt, Hugh?” she asked.

“It’s not too bad.”

She slipped her hand confidingly into his good one and smiled up at him.

“I won’t be able to help you with your braids for a while, I’m afraid,” he told her.

Iseult gave him a sunny smile. “That’s all right. Cristen helped me. She is good at making braids.”

Nicholas snorted to indicate his impatience with this foolish conversation. “I wish I could have seen the fight yesterday,” he said. “I wish I could have seen you kill Sir Richard.” His tone was indignant. Obviously he felt that he had been deprived of something that was his due.

“He murdered my father,” Nicholas went on. “If I were old enough I would have killed him myself.”

“I’m sure you would have,” Hugh said gravely. “I hope you don’t mind too much that I did it for you.”

“I don’t mind at all,” Nicholas said. “What I mind is not being allowed to watch!”

“Iseult could not watch, and she could not be left alone,” Hugh said.

Nicholas scowled. “Having a sister is nothing but a nuisance.”

“Well, it’s just as much of a nuisance having a brother,
I
think,” Iseult retorted.

They glared at each other.

Cristen said serenely, “The porridge is ready. Who wants to eat?”

Food proved to be a wondrous diversion. Both children helped to carry bowls of porridge into the solar, and everyone sat down around the table to eat it.

Hugh knew it was for his sake that Cristen had cooked this meal instead of the usual ale and bread, and he ate hungrily. The porridge wiped out the last of the bad taste that the poppy juice had left in his mouth.

“There is one thing I don’t understand,” Bernard said, his eyes on Hugh. “Why did Richard think it was necessary to kill de Beauté when he had Elizabeth’s promise that she would defy her father and refuse to
marry you? All along we thought that his motive was to hide the tax cheat, but it seems he knew nothing about that.” He shook his head in bewilderment. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“I wondered the same thing,” Hugh said. “We had a little time to chat while we were hacking away at each other yesterday, so I asked him for the answer.”

He scraped the last bit of porridge out of his bowl and ate it. Then he looked up, a distinctly sardonic look on his face. “It seems that Richard was afraid I would charm Elizabeth into changing her mind. He was determined to keep me from marrying her, no matter the cost.”

Everyone stared at Hugh.

“That makes sense,” Bernard said slowly.

At that moment, someone knocked upon the front door. Alan went to see who it was, and returned with William Rotier.

“My lord,” Rotier said to Hugh. “We have just received news that I think you will wish to hear.”

Hugh waited.

“An hour ago a messenger brought word to the castle that the king is on his way to Lincoln and will be here this very afternoon.”