Hugh shot a quick look at Richard that made Alan’s blood run cold. Then, without saying anything more, he turned and went through the door to his bedroom.
Alan went to Richard and poured him some more wine.
21
To Alan’s great relief, Richard appeared to have returned to his normal self as the members of the sheriff’s household gathered the following morning to break their fast.
“I think I owe you an apology,” he said to Hugh with charming diffidence. “I drank too much last night and I remember saying some things that were rather objectionable.”
Hugh took a drink from his ale cup. “Think nothing of it, Richard,” he replied, placing the cup on the table.
Richard went resolutely on. “At any rate, I apologize.” His blue eyes were rueful. “I should never drink more than two cups of wine. Whenever I do, I tend to say things that I don’t mean.”
Alan, who knew how difficult it must be for Richard to apologize to Hugh, was immensely proud of his lord’s grace.
“Really?” Hugh returned, somehow managing to make the single word sound like an insult. “Wine has just the opposite effect on most people.”
Alan grimly restrained an impulse to smash Hugh across one of his elegant cheekbones.
At this moment, Gervase joined them at the table. He lifted his napkin, shook it out, and looked at his son.
“You were drunk last night, Richard.”
His tone was perfectly neutral, but the expression on his face was grave.
“I know, Father. I know.” Richard returned regretfully. “I have just finished apololgizing to Hugh and now I will apologize to you. If I said anything to upset you, I didn’t mean it.”
Alan poured ale into Gervase’s cup.
“Well, you certainly weren’t alone in your inebriated state,” the sheriff remarked as he lifted his cup to take a drink. “We made ten arrests at the Nettle last night.”
As they ate, Gervase related the story of the brawl that had finally closed down the Nettle. Alan listened to the tone of the sheriff’s voice and tried to figure out what else might be wrong. Surely the brawl had not been bad enough to cause the sheriff to sound so grim.
When he had finished eating, Hugh stood up and announced that he was leaving immediately for Linsay Manor.
“Linsay?” Richard said with a frown. “Why are you going to Linsay?”
Hugh looked at Richard, his face expressionless. “Someone has to tell John Rye’s family that he is dead.”
For a long moment, Richard didn’t reply. Then, “Why don’t you take Alan with you?”
Alan had not been expecting any such suggestion. He stared at his lord as if he had gone mad. Last night Richard had been angry that Alan had played the camp-ball game on Hugh’s side, yet this morning here he was, throwing his squire into Hugh’s company.
Alan didn’t understand.
“Why?” Hugh said, the insulting note once more in his voice.
“You will probably have to bring Rye’s wife and children back to Lincoln with you,” Richard replied calmly. “I think you might very well welcome some assistance with that chore.”
To Alan’s surprise, Hugh’s gray eyes glimmered with sudden amusement.
“How thoughtful of you, Richard,” he said gently. “Very well, Alan may come with me.”
He turned to the squire. “I am leaving within the quarter-hour.”
“Aye, my lord,” Alan replied stoically, thinking that he would have to change into boots and spurs and get one of the horses ready in record time.
Minutes later, when Alan arrived at the stable booted and spurred and wearing the warm green woolen mantle that Richard had given to him, he found Richard holding his already saddled horse.
“Alan,” Richard said gravely as the squire came up to him. “I want you to keep a close eye upon Hugh today. Watch who he talks to at Linsay. Will you do that for me?”
Enlightenment struck Alan. So that is why he wanted me to accompany Hugh.
He answered Richard in a steady voice. “Aye, my lord. I will keep careful watch on him.”
Alan’s spirits soared in the radiance of Richard’s approving smile.
“I have one quick stop to make before we leave Lincoln,” Hugh said as they walked their horses out onto the Strait.
Alan nodded, certain Hugh would be going to see Lady Cristen. He was surprised, therefore, when they stopped only a short way up the Strait and Hugh dismounted, gave Alan his reins to hold, and went up to an old wooden house with yellow shutters. He knocked on the door.
After a long wait, the door was opened by an elderly woman. Hugh said something to her, then he disappeared inside. When he came out again several minutes later, his face was grave but unrevealing. He took Rufus’s reins back from Alan, mounted, and turned once more up the street.
The ride to Linsay was silent. Alan knew his place well enough not to initiate conversation, and Hugh appeared to be sunk in his own thoughts. It wasn’t until the high wooden fence of Linsay appeared in the distance that he surfaced.
The stockade door was closed. Hugh shouted out his name and asked for entrance, but no one answered.
The cloudy gray sky looked down on a Linsay that was apparently deserted.
Hugh muttered a curse under his breath and dismounted. He led Rufus to the door and tried to open it.
It was locked.
“It seems that Lady Rye and her children are not here, my lord,” Alan ventured timidly.
Hugh didn’t reply. He just opened his saddlebag and took out a long coil of rope. He told Rufus to stand and then, under Alan’s fascinated eyes, he looped the rope around one of the points of the stockade fence. He then proceeded to climb up the wall. Alan watched with interest as he disappeared over the top.
A minute later, the door to the manor was unlocked from the inside and Hugh reappeared. He pushed the door open wide, reclaimed Rufus, and rode into the deserted courtyard of Linsay. Alan followed close behind.
Alan looked at the empty yard, at the apparently uninhabited servants’ huts, at the forsaken stables, and felt a shiver run up and down his spine.
Suddenly the sound of a dog barking cut through the eerie silence. It seemed to come from the stable at the far end of the yard.
Hugh rode Rufus to the stable, dismounted, and opened the door. An enormous light brown mastiff rushed out at him, ears pinned back, barking ferociously. Alan quickly unsheathed his dagger, reached to go to Hugh’s assistance, but Hugh didn’t even flinch.
“Benjamin,” Hugh said conversationally. “No need to be so noisy, fellow. I’m a friend.”
Alan was enormously surprised to see the dog stop short and prick his ears forward at the sound of Hugh’s voice. The barking stopped.
Hugh reached out his hand and the dog sniffed it. Hugh patted the dog’s massive head. Benjamin rubbed against his hand.
“Good fellow,” Hugh said. “What is happening here, eh? Where are Nicholas and Iseult?”
He walked into the stable, followed by Benjamin, then reappeared almost immediately. “The dog has a full dish of water,” he reported. “Someone must be looking after him.”
“There is someone now,” Alan said, his eyes caught by movement near the manor house.
It was a moment before he realized that it was two dark-haired children he was seeing. They were walking hand in hand, stiff-backed and wary, toward the stable. They must have heard the dog barking, he thought.
Hugh stepped forward from the shadow of the stable doorway into the light.
“Hugh!” A high, piercing child’s shriek split the air. “Nicholas, it’s Hugh!”
At that, both children ran full-tilt across the courtyard. Under Alan’s amazed eyes, they hurled themselves against Hugh, who somehow managed not to stagger under the combined assault.
“I knew you would come,” the little girl said over and over. “I knew it. I knew it.” She clasped her arms around Hugh’s legs, pressed her face into his stomach. The boy, a sturdy youngster of about eight, did not cling to Hugh, Alan noted, but stood very close.