“Then let someone else fight for me. You don’t have to be my champion.”
The amusement died, and Hugh’s face turned deadly sober. “Bernard, I want Richard dead. He is like a snake who drips his venom on everything good that he touches. He killed his brother. He killed Gilbert de Beauté and William Cobbett and John Rye. He seduced and injured Elizabeth de Beauté. And that is just the damage that we know about. I want him dead, and I am the man most likely to accomplish that. So talk to me no more about taking my place.”
There was nothing left for Bernard to say.
Forgive me, Ralf, he thought as he stared into Hugh’s dedicated face. I have done an ill job of taking care of your boy.
A feminine voice tinged with annoyance intruded. “Really, Hugh, do you always have to be so dramatic?” It was Cristen, with Nicholas at her side, come to join them.
“The Judgment of God wasn’t my idea,” Hugh protested. “It’s Richard who wants to be the center of everyone’s attention, not me.”
Cristen’s lips curved into a smile, but Bernard could see that her large brown eyes were somber.
Hugh saw it, too. “Don’t worry,” he said lightly. “I really do believe that God will be on my side this afternoon.”
“Of course He will,” she replied instantly.
“Are you really going to fight him, Hugh?” Nicholas asked in awe.
“I am,” Hugh replied.
Nicholas looked Hugh up and down, his awe turning to worry as he said the words that everyone else was thinking, “But he is so much bigger than you!”
“He may be bigger,” Hugh returned with serenity, “but I promise you that I am better.”
Nicholas smiled, as Hugh meant him to, but the worry did not leave his eyes.
“Lord Hugh.” It was the clerk who had been transcribing the trial. “My lord, the chief justiciar wishes you to come to the sheriff’s office so he may settle the terms of combat with you and Sir Richard.”
Hugh nodded and looked at Cristen. “Go back to Ralf’s house,” he told her. “I will meet you there as soon as I can.”
She nodded, and Hugh turned away to follow the clerk.
Cristen said to Bernard, “What kind of a swordsman is Richard?”
Bernard hesitated, wondering how he should answer. He looked into Cristen’s eyes and realized the impossibility of lying to this girl.
He said, “Richard is one of the finest swordsmen that I have ever seen.”
“This is what I was afraid of,” she replied gloomily.
“I tried to convince Hugh to let someone else take his place,” Bernard said, “but he wouldn’t listen.”
“He never does,” Cristen said. She looked down and encountered Nicholas’s frightened blue eyes. She hugged the child and assured him, “Don’t worry, Nicholas. With all of us praying for him, he will surely win.”
“Aye, my lady,” Nicholas responded stoutly. “I know that he will.”
Hugh was crossing the Inner bail, on his way home from his meeting with the chief justiciar, when he spied Alan Stanham standing all by himself next to the horse stockade. After a moment’s hesitation, Hugh approached the boy.
Alan’s eyes were full of blank misery as they focused on Hugh’s face.
Hugh said, “I am so very sorry, Alan.”
Alan dropped his gaze to the ground and said, his voice stifled, “How did you know that I had seen him in conversation with John Rye?”
“I didn’t know,” Hugh replied. “I just thought it was a good possibility, and I trusted you to speak the truth.”
Still staring at the ground, Alan said achingly, “I betrayed him.”
“He was never what you thought him to be, Alan,” Hugh said. “He is nothing but a brilliant facade that disguises a seething maw of raw ambition.”
Alan looked up, a heartbreakingly haunted look on his boyish face. “He was so good to me.” His voice broke, and he quickly looked downward again.
“Of course he was good to you,” Hugh replied. “You were his adoring disciple. You reflected back to him the image that he wanted to see of himself.”
Rufus was one of the horses turned out in the stockade, and now he spied Hugh and trotted over to the fence to visit.
“So it’s true, then?” Alan asked. “He really did kill the earl and John Rye?”
Hugh stroked Rufus’s soft nose. “It’s true.”
Alan’s eyes searched Hugh’s face. “But how did you know it was Richard?”
“I didn’t know right away,” Hugh replied. “I suspected him, but I also thought that William of Roumare had a strong reason to want the earl dead. And I wondered about Edgar Harding. You yourself were the one to tell me of Harding’s words when he saw de Beauté riding into the city. And then Harding let slip that he knew the earl had been stabbed in the heart. This was not common knowledge and I still don’t know how Harding came to discover it.”
A flare of color showed in Alan’s pale cheeks. He lifted his chin as if bracing himself, and confessed, “He knew because I told him.”
Hugh’s brows lifted.
As a diversion, Alan reached out to pat the crest of Rufus’s neck. “He stopped me in the Bail the morning after the murder. He asked me so many questions and…and I fear I was upset and not as discreet as I should have been…”
He shot a quick glance at Hugh, who said mildly, “Well, that is another mystery cleared up.”
“What I don’t understand is why you suspected Richard and not the sheriff,” Alan said. “The sheriff was the one most likely to be cheating on the taxes. Did you suspect Richard just because you didn’t like him?”
Hugh said gently, “I suspected Richard because I already knew that he was a killer.”
Alan’s eyes grew so large, they seemed to fill half his face. “What do you mean?”
Hugh said, “When he was twelve years old, I saw him kill his brother.”
Alan’s lips opened but no words came out. He stared at Hugh as if in a daze.
Rufus nudged Hugh, wanting his attention again, but Hugh ignored him. “Did you know that Richard once had an elder brother?”
Alan nodded once, convulsively. “Aye. I thought that he drowned.”
“So he did,” Hugh replied grimly. “I saw Richard hit him over the head and push him out of the boat. I was the only witness. To this day even Richard does not know that I was watching. The only person I ever told was Ralf, my foster father, and he commanded me to keep quiet. There was already bad blood between me and Richard and no one was likely to believe such a story coming from me.”
“He killed his brother?” Alan said blankly.
“Richard could never bear to take second place to anyone,” Hugh said.
Rufus nudged Hugh harder and Hugh once more began to stroke his pink nose.
“So that is why you hate him,” Alan said slowly.
“That is why,” Hugh agreed.
In an unsteady voice, Alan said, “I have been telling myself that he was driven to these terrible deeds by his love for Elizabeth de Beauté.”
A stableboy was leading a mare toward the stable, and Rufus flashed to instant attention, his ears pointed straight ahead.
Hugh said to Alan, “Richard Canville is driven solely by ambition and self-love. You should feel no remorse for having testified as you did, Alan. You have done the world a favor by ridding it of a monster.”
Alan swallowed. “We are not rid of him yet.”
Hugh said, “I plan to finish the job this afternoon.” He began to scratch behind Rufus’s right ear, and the stallion lowered his head in bliss.
Alan said steadily, “I shall pray for God to be with you, my lord.”
“Thank you,” Hugh replied. He took his hand away from the horse and regarded Alan’s forlorn face sympathetically. “I fear that neither of us will be overly welcome at the sheriff’s house for dinner.”
Alan managed a small chuckle. “That is what I was thinking.”
“I am meeting Lady Cristen back at my foster father’s house,” Hugh said briskly. “You had better come with me.”
A little brightness came into Alan’s eyes. “I have been wondering where I should go,” he confided. “Thank you, my lord.”