No Dark Place

5

The morning was pleasantly warm, with only a few fleecy white clouds floating across a serene blue sky. As Hugh walked down the castle stairs with Cristen, he looked around and for the first time actually saw the outside of Somerford Castle. He had been in no condition to notice much of anything yesterday.

Somerford had obviously been built as a traditional motte and bailey castle, although it had been added to as the years had gone by. The original wooden keep had been replaced by a three-story stone structure situated on a hill that overlooked a swiftly flowing stream, which Cristen informed him led into the River Avon a few miles away. Around the top of the hill, or motte, was a ten-foot-high wall that had also probably once been made of timber but was now built of local stone. Four guards stood duty on the four sides of the wall’s sentry walk, which afforded them an excellent view of the surrounding countryside.

A sloping bridge that finished in a drawbridge led over a filled moat from the motte to the level lower ground of the bailey. Hugh walked across the bridge with Cristen, their feet, encased now in outdoor boots, making a hollow sound on the wooden planks. The dogs paced along at Cristen’s heels, as close as shadows.

Looking around, Hugh estimated that the bailey of Somerford probably covered about four acres. It contained the usual necessities of castle life: cookhouse, bakehouse, brewhouse, armory, barns and pens for cattle and horses, grooms’ living quarters, and workshops for the skilled craftsmen who served the castle.

Nigel maintained a guard of resident knights, but Hugh thought that this castle was more a home than it was a military bastion.

All that might change with the coming war.

Unlike the inner wall surrounding the motte, which was made of stone, the outer wall of the bailey was constructed of the original wood. Hugh remembered passing over the outer moat and through the bailey drawbridge yesterday. He didn’t remember anything else.

As they walked along, Cristen was greeted respectfully by each homespun clad workman they passed.

No, it was more than respectfully, Hugh corrected himself. It was fondly.

“My garden is this way,” Cristen said to him as she led the way toward a part of the bailey that was blocked off by a five-foot-high wooden fence. He trailed after her like one of her dogs as she led the way into her private domain.

The first thing that struck Hugh as he walked through the gate was the heady, aromatic fragrance of the herbs. He looked around and saw row upon row of plants, all neatly laid out one after the other. Along the far wall of the garden there grew a profusion of rosebushes that were in full bloom. He could smell their perfume mixed in with the herbs.

Adela had loved roses.

Against another wall there stood a small wooden shed.

Cristen saw him looking at it. “The shed is where I dry my herbs and make my medicinal potions.”

“You are young to be so knowledgeable,” Hugh said.

“The garden was actually started by my mother. She was interested in herbs and healing and she passed her knowledge along to me.”

She tipped her head up to smile at him. This morning she wore her hair plaited into two long braids and her sleeveless blue outer tunic was worn over a long-sleeved robe of red. It was too warm for a cloak.

“I need to boil up another cough mixture for Berta, if you don’t mind waiting,” she said.

“Of course not.” He followed her to the shed and looked inside. Dried herbs hung from the roof and shelves lined the walls. They were filled with bottles, some already filled and stoppered, some still open, waiting to be filled. A small charcoal brazier stood near the door, and there was a bench along the wall beside it.

“Pull the bench into the sun and sit down, Hugh,” she said. “This won’t take very long.”

He did as she suggested and watched her as she competently crushed some ingredients together and put them in a bottle with wine and honey.

“Most frequently I use crushed almonds and chestnut leaves for coughs,” she said. “As Berta seems to be responding well to the mixture, I won’t try to change it.”

Hugh sat in silence, feeling the warmth of the sun on his back and shoulders. The shed and the garden seemed very peaceful, and he felt some of the chapel-induced tension begin to drain away. The dogs stretched out in the sun behind him.

Cristen took tinder and flint from its place on a shelf, lit the charcoal brazier, and placed the flagon she had filled on the heat. Then she came to join him on the bench.

“Have you ever met the Earl of Wiltshire?” Hugh heard himself asking.

“Aye,” she returned. “I have met him a number of times.”

Hugh gazed fixedly at the flagon on the brazier in front of him. “Tell me,” he said, “is it true that I look like him?”

She answered matter-of-factly, “You have his eyes, Hugh, but the rest of his features are heavier than yours, more massive.”

He continued to stare at the flagon. “Your father thinks I am the boy who was kidnapped from the castle thirteen years ago.”

He did not know why he was talking to this girl like this, but for some reason he felt comfortable with her.

“I know,” she said.

At last he turned to look at her. “Why did he invite me here, Cristen? What does he hope to gain by it?”

She smoothed her hands along the fine blue wool of her outer tunic. “Justice, I think,” she answered. “My father has always thought that Guy was behind his brother’s death. It has angered him to see a man whom he regarded as a murderer sitting in Lord Roger’s place.”

“Your father thought highly of Lord Roger?”

She smiled. “All the world thought highly of Lord Roger. He was a great crusader, you know.”

“No,” Hugh replied slowly. “I didn’t know.”

“Father has always thought it particularly shameful that such a man should be murdered in his own chapel.”

Hugh’s eyes narrowed. “Your father also wants an earl who will pledge Wiltshire to Stephen, and I told him that I was not sure that I could do that.”

“Why not?” Cristen asked curiously. “Are you an adherent of the empress?”

Hugh shrugged. “I know little about the empress, but I think that her brother, Robert of Gloucester, would be a better king than Stephen.”

“My father thinks Robert of Gloucester is a good man also,” Cristen said agreeably. “But Gloucester is a bastard and so cannot be king. He is supporting the right of his half-sister and her son.”

Hugh stretched his legs in front of him and didn’t reply.

“What don’t you like about Stephen?” Cristen asked.

Her voice was merely interested.

Hugh stared at his boots and replied, “He is indecisive, and at this point in time what England desperately needs is a king who is strong. Stephen needs to stop this rebellion before it starts, and he is not doing the right things to accomplish that end.”

“He has taken all the castles that rebelled against him,” Cristen pointed out.

“He has not taken Bristol and he needs to take Bristol. As soon as Gloucester returns from Normandy, he will make Bristol his headquarters, and Stephen cannot afford to give him that kind of advantage. Once Gloucester is established in Bristol, all of those castles that Stephen has taken will fall once more to the empress.”

Cristen moved her foot back and forth on the dirt floor. It was a very small foot, Hugh noticed, and the boot she wore was scuffed.

Behind them one of the dogs began to snore.

“My father says that Stephen is very gallant,” Cristen said.

Hugh returned grimly, “What we need at the moment is a king who is ruthless, not gallant.”

“Ruthless is an ugly word.”

“Civil war is even uglier. It is the little people who will be hurt the worst by such a war, the very people whom the king has sworn to defend.”

Cristen sighed. “It always seems to be the little people who get hurt.”

“Unfortunately,” Hugh said.

The snoring behind them stopped as the dog shifted position.

Cristen said, “My father said that Gloucester and the empress will be coming to England any day now and that Stephen has posted troops at all the main ports to repulse them.”

“They won’t try to land at any of the main ports,” Hugh said. “Gloucester is too clever for that.”

Cristen got up to go and check on her potion. Evidently she judged it not yet ready, for she left it on the brazier and returned to the bench. She folded her hands in her lap and Hugh noticed that the tips of her fingers were stained with green from the leaves she had crushed.

“Where do you think they will land?” she asked curiously.

“It could be any of several places. Arundel, perhaps. Matilda’s stepmother, Adeliza, holds the castle there.”

“I don’t like to think about it,” Cristen confessed. “The whole idea of war is frightening.”

“Aye,” Hugh said somberly. “It is.”

A comfortable silence fell between them. On the brazier the liquid in the flagon began to bubble.

Hugh inhaled the warm, herb-scented air.

“I don’t know why I agreed to come here,” he said slowly. “I have been thinking ever since I left home that I must be mad.”

“Not mad,” Cristen said. “Just confused, I imagine. It’s a little overwhelming to be suddenly told you might be somebody else. And I think it’s only natural to want to find out if it might be true.”

She got up and went to take the flagon off the brazier, using a thick cloth to shield her hand from the bottle’s heat.

He watched her for a while in silence.

Then, “Did your father tell you that I can’t remember anything of my first seven years?” he asked.

“Aye,” she said. Her back was to him as she carefully placed the hot flagon on a tile that stood next to the brazier. Her braids were bound by scarlet ribbons that matched her undertunic. The nape of her neck looked as tender as a child’s.

“Have you ever heard of such a thing before?”

She turned around to face him. “Many people have little memory of their early childhood.”

He didn’t reply, just regarded her steadily.

“You must have remembered that your name was Hugh,” she said.

“Perhaps it wasn’t. Perhaps it was something else. Perhaps I am not this Hugh de Leon after all.”

“There is always that possibility,” she agreed.

Her large brown eyes were luminous as she regarded him.

“I think you need to find out,” she said. “I think that’s why you came here.”

His face was bleak. “I think perhaps you are right.”

Nigel stood in front of the blacksmith’s hut holding the lead line of a large brown stallion, his eyes on Hugh and his daughter as they crossed the bailey together. As he watched, Cristen glanced up at the boy next to her and said something. Hugh flashed her a smile in response.

Nigel stared in amazement at that brilliant, youthful look and shook his head.

Cristen was working her magic again.

His daughter was another reason that Nigel would be happy to see Lord Guy replaced as Earl of Wiltshire. Three times in the last two years Guy had proposed matches for Cristen and three times Nigel had refused them.

All of Guy’s choices had been men at least twenty years older than Cristen. More importantly, they had been men whom Nigel did not like, men who were Guy’s followers, whom Guy had wanted to reward with the desirable honor of Somerford.

Cristen was seventeen and she should be wed, but she was his only child and Nigel was not going to hand her over, along with her dowry of Somerford, to a man he did not trust.

It was not always easy these days to find a suitable match for a daughter. Because of the Norman custom that decreed that all of a family’s holdings be passed down to the eldest son, it was only the eldest son in a family who was eligible to marry. Penniless younger sons usually remained bachelors. This left a limited number of potential husbands for the daughters of the nobility, and competition was fierce. The convents were filled with girls whose families had not been able to give them a good enough dowry to purchase a husband.

But Cristen would eventually have Somerford, so Nigel knew he should have little trouble finding a husband for her. The trouble lay in securing the agreement of his overlord, Guy, to Nigel’s choice.

If Hugh became Earl of Wiltshire, he would owe his position to Nigel. Under such circumstances, Nigel didn’t think that Hugh would object to Nigel’s choice of a husband for his daughter.

Cristen had seen him and now she changed course and began to walk in his direction. Hugh and the dogs followed her lead.

The forge was going and the sound of the smith’s hammer rang out in the warm summer air. Nigel’s favorite horse was being shod this morning and he had come to see that the shoeing went well. Byrony had been becoming increasingly more difficult for the blacksmith to handle.

As Cristen and Hugh came up to the forge, the big, dark brown stallion snorted and aimed a kick right at the smith’s head.

With a sharp curse, the smith leaped out of the way.

“Oh dear,” Cristen said. “Is Byrony up to his tricks again?”

“He hates getting shoes, especially on his hind feet,” Nigel said. He looked at Hugh. “He’s been this way ever since I bought him and it seems that every time we shoe him he gets worse.”

Hugh watched for a few minutes as the blacksmith picked up Byrony’s off hind and tried to hammer in another nail.

The horse kicked out again.

Again the blacksmith leaped out of the way and cursed.

“You’re holding his foot too high and it’s hurting him,” Hugh said quietly.

The blacksmith, a stocky man wearing a leather apron, looked at Hugh truculently. “I been shoeing horses for fifteen years and more. I’m holding his foot like I always do.”

“He is probably more sensitive than other horses, and he is not willing to suffer,” Hugh said. “You need to work with him differently.”

The blacksmith glared at Hugh.

Nigel said, “What do you suggest?”

“If I were you, I would begin by getting him used to having his feet picked up without pain,” Hugh said. “Just lift them slightly for one or two seconds when you bring him back to his stable after a ride. Praise him. Give him a treat. Gradually you should be able to increase the amount of time he will allow you to hold them. Just be careful you don’t lift them too high.”

Nigel frowned skeptically.

“Why not try it?” Hugh said. “You have nothing to lose. The way you are going now, you soon won’t be able to get a shoe on him at all.”

“Hugh is right, Father,” Cristen said. She rubbed Byrony’s soft nose. “Poor fellow,” she said. “Is Giles hurting you?”

The horse snorted, as if he agreed.

“Not as much as he is hurting me, my lady,” the blacksmith said gloomily.

“The more you fight with him over this, the more frightened and defensive he will become,” Hugh said.

“I suppose it’s worth a try,” Nigel conceded. “He’s a good horse, but he will be useless to me if he can’t be shod.”

“If you want, I will work with him,” Hugh said. “I have always gotten along well with horses.”

“Very well,” Nigel said after a minute. “Thank you, Hugh.”

“Shall I finish this shoe, Sir Nigel?” the blacksmith asked. “There’s only the one more nail to put in.”

“Aye, finish it, but try not to lift his leg so high.”

“Aye, Sir Nigel,” the blacksmith returned even more gloomily than before.

By the time Giles finally managed to get the last shoe on Byrony, it was time for dinner. Nigel, Cristen, and Hugh left the blacksmith’s hut and began to walk toward the bridge that connected the bailey to the castle.

“This afternoon I thought I would show you some of the farms that belong to Somerford,” Nigel said to Hugh as they crossed the last part of the bridge, the drawbridge. The two men were walking side by side. Cristen was behind them with her dogs.

“That would be enjoyable,” Hugh replied courteously.

“And tomorrow morning I will conduct a knightly practice session, which I hope you will join,” Nigel went on. “We have been working hard for the last few weeks to prepare for the tournament.”

Hugh’s chin lifted. “Tournament?” he said. “What tournament are you talking about? Tournaments have been outlawed in England for years.”

“Well, strictly speaking, it is not a tournament at all, although in many ways it mimics one,” Nigel returned. “It is held every year at Chippenham Castle by Earl Guy in conjunction with the fair put on by the town in honor of their local saint.”

The guards on the inner wall were changing. The men who had just been relieved of duty were descending the steps from the sentry walk to the courtyard.

Hugh said, “Surely you do not expect me to accompany you to this tournament?”

“Why not?” Nigel replied. “It will be the perfect opportunity for you to see your old home.”

They stepped off the drawbridge onto the hard-packed dirt of the courtyard.

Hugh was frowning.

“You can go to Chippenham as part of my retinue of knights,” Nigel said reasonably. “There will be no reason for you to stand out from the others. It is a perfect opportunity for you to see the earl and to judge for yourself whether or not I have exaggerated your resemblance to him. It will also give you a chance to visit the castle where you spent the first seven years of your life.”

Hugh did not reply.

“You have nothing to lose and everything to gain,” Nigel said.

Still Hugh said nothing.

Cristen moved up to walk beside him.

“I have to go, too,” she said with resignation. “Lord Guy likes to have ladies present to admire all the manly exhibitions.”

A corner of Hugh’s mouth twitched with amusement.

“You don’t sound as if you approve of these ‘manly exhibitions,’” he said.

“Everyone sweats so much,” Cristen said.

Hugh’s mouth twitched again.

She added, “And the festivities in the castle hall tend to get rather boisterous.”

“Guy’s hall is well known for its debauchery,” Nigel said disapprovingly. “He keeps a large household and there is always much gaming and intemperance. Chippenham was a very different place under the old earl. Roger was an austere, ascetic man. The two of them may look alike, but temperamentally no brothers could be more different.”

“Cristen told me earlier that Earl Roger had been on crusade,” Hugh said. “I did not know that.”

Nigel sighed with faint exasperation. “It is the greatest pity that this present generation has forgotten the names of all the great men who retook Jerusalem for the church. Let me tell you, Hugh, that Roger de Leon, your father, was the one who first breached the gates of the holy city. He was a living legend among his own generation.”

“I see,” Hugh said. His face was closed and still.

“The last time we were at Chippenham, Father had to rescue me from the unwelcome embrace of a very large, very drunken knight,” Cristen said. “This year, you can look after me as well, Hugh.”

He smiled down at her. “I should be glad to,” he said.