Knight's Honor Read Free

The tree-trunk thick, iron-bound door was already open and they went into the great hall lit by the windows in their deep embrasures and the two great blazes of fire, one at each end.
    Both men gave their furred cloaks to attentive servants but stopped at a respectable distance from the fire because the heat, although pleasant in one respect, was agonizing as their chilblained hands and feet thawed out. They were too accustomed to this form of discomfort, however, to comment upon it, and as soon as more servants had brought hot spiced wine to drink, Hereford spoke a trifle impatiently.
    "Well, my lord, now that we are private, what news? What word you sent to France was so ambiguous that we could not make head nor tail of it. I was hard put to keep Henry quiet—harder since I must admit that I was not overhappy myself."
    "What did you want me to say?” Gaunt growled. “You know how everything has gone against us. Robert of Gloucester died two months after you left England, and with him the organized resistance in the south died. In the beginning we had some hope that William might come into his own with both his father and his brother Philip gone. He did win that brilliant battle at Castle Cary against Henry de Tracy, as you heard, but that hope did not live long." The old man spat contemptuously on the floor. "He found the effort too great. He is back among his women, his boys, his perfumes, and his jewels."
    "No surprise to me. I never liked that family for all your trust in them, my lord. I grant you Robert was a great man, but the sons—and William was worst of all. A man who could stomach the de Caldoets as vassals—"
    "Nay, Roger, do not put that on William. Hugh was hanged and Ralph driven out as soon as an excuse could be found to be rid of them. No man may drive a vassal off his land without reason, no matter how foul that vassal is, and you know it. Philip was all right too. A man cannot help dying. Besides, this discussion is neither here nor there. If Gloucester is done, they are done. William. I must say, has not turned against us. He will do what he can in the old way; he only will not fight. The troops of Gloucester lie still for want of a leader. I was almost tempted to tell Cain—I even approached him on leading them—but you know how he is about his oath of homage. He will keep it to the letter, and before I forced him to something so much against his heart and will, I bethought me that there was one among us almost as well suited to the task and who had never given a personal oath of fealty to King Stephen."
    "Who?” Hereford snapped. “Who would the troops of Gloucester obey besides yourself or Lord Radnor? Chester is no man for a task with a steady purpose; Lincoln would use them only for personal gain; Norfolk—"
    "What of Hereford?"
    "Me?" The one word exploded out of the young man and was followed by a dead silence.
    Gaunt rubbed his itching, burning hands against each other wishing vaguely that he was at home, where his daughter-by-marriage would hasten to make him comfortable. He pulled his mind back to the work in hand, his keen eyes following the young earl who had turned his back and paced away. Would he jump at it, Gaunt wondered? Hereford was so young, and this was a tremendous responsibility.
    Then Gaunt's eyes narrowed; it was not Hereford who was young, it was he who was old. Hereford had been earl since sixteen, when his father had died in a hunting accident in 1143. He had later won his right to his position by staying alive and free at the disastrous battle of Faringdon. Hereford had won his name as a fighting man there too, helping to hold the walls as long as practical and, when the men of the castle decided to surrender, he and a small band of faithful troops had hacked their way through the entire opposing army so that he might bring his name at least out of that catastrophe uncaptured and unransomed. Nonetheless, Gaunt mistrusted Hereford's ability to maintain a fixed purpose