Rotier bowed to her and turned to go.
Bernard stood and said, “I’ll go back to the castle with you.”
The two men went out together.
Thomas said gloomily, “Sir Nigel is going to murder me.”
“Nonsense,” Cristen said briskly.
“Why would Sir Nigel want to murder you?” Nicholas asked curiously.
Hugh stood up. “I suppose I really can’t return to the sheriff’s house, but I wish I weren’t staying here.”
“It doesn’t matter now,” Cristen said.
He looked somberly at her small, tense face.
“All that matters now,” she said, “is that you convince the king.”
28
It was precisely two hours past noon when Stephen, King of England, entered his city of Lincoln. He came as a triumphant war leader, having, by judicious use of his feudal army and his paid mercenaries, put to rout the rebels in Cornwall.
Most of the king’s feudal troops had returned home, and he was accompanied to Lincoln by his Flemish mercenaries and their captain, William of Ypres. Also riding in the king’s train were the Earl of Wiltshire and the Earl of Cambridge, two powerful men bent on increasing their ascendancy by acquiring the additional honor of Earl of Lincoln.
A worried Sir Nigel Haslin accompanied his outraged overlord, Lord Guy. Nigel was grimly determined to rescue his daughter from her own folly and remove her to the safety of Somerford.
Stephen took up residence in Lincoln Castle while most of his troops quartered themselves outside the city walls. The king had expected to be greeted by the sheriff, but was met instead by Lord Richard Basset. Over a late afternoon dinner, his chief justiciar apprised him of the situation in Lincoln.
The king was not happy with the justiciar’s news. Stephen wanted to bask in the glory of his triumph in Cornwall, not listen to tales about more betrayals.
God knows, the king thought irritably, he had had few enough victories to celebrate since his cousin Matilda had landed in England and raised war against him. Now, at last, he had achieved a clear-cut success in Cornwall, and what happened afterward?
The minute he set foot out of Cornwall, he had been met by two of his most powerful and dangerous earls, both of whom demanded the same thing: the lordship of the murdered Earl of Lincoln. Now he had to hear how the Sheriff of Lincoln, whom he had trusted, had been cheating him out of the tax money he needed to pay his troops. Not to mention the fact that the sheriff’s son, one of the most promising young men in the kingdom, had been found guilty of murder.
Stephen was weary of situations where, no matter what he did, he could not win. If only he could trust his English nobles, he might be able to rely upon a feudal army to prosecute the English war and so use the money he was expending on the Flemings to fight Matilda’s husband in Normandy. But he could not trust his nobles. Most of them were no more than jackals, caring little who sat upon the throne as long as they could expand their own power base and increase their own wealth.
A perfect example of his perpetual quandary was the situation he found himself in at the moment, with two of his most powerful barons pressuring him to award them the lordship of Lincoln. To choose one was to alienate the other. And Stephen could not afford for either man to take his extensive holdings and his immense feudal army over to Gloucester and Matilda.
The king was not in a good mood as he finished his dinner, and he regarded with disfavor the men who sat with him at the table. The chief justiciar and William of Ypres had a place on either side of him. They were flanked by the Earls of Wiltshire and of Cambridge. At one end of the table sat Sir Nigel Haslin, the man who had so ably led Wiltshire’s contingent in Cornwall. The king had heard some gossip about Sir Nigel’s being in search of a runaway daughter. Finally, at the other end of the table, sat the man who was representing the disgraced sheriff-the very man, it seemed, who had just been acquitted of murdering Gilbert de Beauté.
With the exception of William of Ypres, it was not a group that the king found overly congenial. Nor was he at all pleased when a servant approached him with a request that he grant an audience to Lord Hugh de Leon when the meal had finished.
The king knew what Lord Hugh wanted-to wed the de Beauté heiress, whose lands would give the de Leons control of the whole middle of the kingdom. Lord Guy had been pestering Stephen on the subject ever since he had joined the king’s retinue.
The king was fed up with the lot of them. Suddenly, as he scowled at the knight in front of him, he decided how he would handle this powder keg of a situation. He would give the heiress to the de Leons and the earldom to Roumare. Both hounds would get a piece of the bone. They would neither of them be satisfied, but they should have enough to keep them from selling their allegiance to Gloucester.
Stephen was irritated enough to want to make things as uncomfortable as he could for all these greedy barons. “Tell Lord Hugh he may approach me now,” he said.
He would deny this importunate boy the honor of a private audience, would force him to ask for his favor in public, the king thought sourly as he took a drink of ale and leaned back in his chair. He remembered Hugh from their one previous meeting, and thought that it would be pleasant to see that annoyingly self-possessed young man shaken a little.
There was only the single long table set in the dining room this afternoon. Daylight came in through the open window, but the table was lighted by candles as well. Behind each of the seven men who were dining stood a server to present the food and pour the wine and offer finger bowl and napkin as needed.
There had not been a great deal of talk during the meal, but even that died away as the slender, black-haired figure of Lord Hugh de Leon entered the room and approached the king.
Stephen looked into the fine-boned face and startling light eyes of Roger de Leon’s son.
“Your Grace,” Hugh said, and went down on one knee.
Stephen could see the bulk of a bandage under the sleeve of his left arm. “You wish to have audience with me,” the king said. “I grant your request.”
It irritated Stephen that nothing on Hugh’s grave face indicated any discomfort at being forced to speak in front of an audience. The king had not given him leave to rise, so Hugh remained on one knee as he said, “Your Grace, I have come to offer you my allegiance. I am ready to swear my personal faith to you and, once I am Earl of Wiltshire, I will pledge the loyalty of all that I have power over to your person and your cause.”
There was stunned silence in the room.
Then Lord Guy of Wiltshire said in an angry voice, “He already owes you his allegiance, Your Grace! He pledged it when you recognized him as my heir. There is no need for this extravagant show.”
Still on his knee, Hugh replied calmly, “You pledged my faith for me, Uncle. I never swore an oath myself.”
Stephen thought back over the events of the last few months and realized that what Hugh had said was true. What was the boy trying to do? the king wondered with a mixture of anger and bewilderment.
The answer came to him almost immediately. Hugh was trying to bribe the king into giving him the de Beauté girl in return for an oath of allegiance.
Stephen, who had just decided that he would indeed give Elizabeth to Hugh, abruptly changed his mind. He did not like having his hand forced, particularly by a cub who was younger than his own son.
Young Hugh had just overplayed his hand and lost himself an heiress, the king thought grimly.
“I believed your uncle’s pledge of your loyalty, Lord Hugh,” the king said coldly. “That is why I granted you status as his heir. Have you by chance come to ask me for something else?”