Knight's Honor Read Free Page B

him. That is senseless."
    "I suppose worse might happen to Stephen than deposition."
    "So you kill him. Eustace is a man now and has showed himself a fine fighter. Maud is no weaker or stupider than two years since. There is even a second son approaching manhood, and Constance may well give Eustace an heir. Will you slay them all?"
    "If needful."
    Gaunt laughed harshly. "Nay, Roger, your words are hard but I know you well. I might bring myself to it, but you and even my own son could not. The women would weep and thereby save themselves, and neither of you could bring yourselves to touch a hair on a babe's head. Men are soft these days."
    Lord Hereford moved restlessly, kicking pettishly at a stool nearby. "Then what do we do, wait longer? Two long years have already—"
    "No. Would I ask you to lead Gloucester's army if we planned to do nothing but wait? In the spring we will begin what was planned long ago. You will prick Stephen here, Hugh Bigod will raise Norfolk against him, Arundel in the south, King David in the north. Between this and that, he will have neither rest nor peace, and all our efforts together will be bent on taking Eustace."
    "Eustace? Why not Stephen?"
    "Because Stephen is the king.   You know he is a brave man, no fear for himself could make him renounce the throne and, even if we could force him to do so, or if we stooped to infamy and killed him, Eustace might succeed him. Stephen, however, is brave only for himself.   He is a man first and a king later—and that is why he is of no worth as a king. If we take the son and threaten him with that—the cub is precious to him as I have seen myself—then I think we will have him.   Between the pain of constant fighting, rushing now north, now south, now east, now west, and the agony of losing that child, dearer than life to him, I think he will be glad to give us the crown for Henry and return to Blois. We will pay him well to leave us in peace. I do not think he has had much pleasure in his kingship. It will be worth his while to forswear the throne. The rest will be up to Henry."
    Gaunt signed suddenly, remembering he was tired. He was always tired now, even in the morning, when he woke from a good night’s sleep.   Damn Stephen and burn him. If only the plague would take that entire family, Gaunt thought with half his mind, he could lie down and rest.   Threescore years and one was too old for these hard times. That was an age for peace, for sitting by the fire and watching your grandchildren—although as yet he had only one. The other half of the duke's brain considered Hereford, who had not yet replied to his reasoning.
    The young man had walked toward the immense fire and held his hands out toward it, unconscious of the pain the heat caused him.   The Earl of Gaunt's proposal had thrown him off balance and he had accepted it on the crest of an imaginative wave of enthusiasm in which he had envisioned himself at the head of Gloucester's armies sweeping Henry to the throne. The subsequent conversation had brought him back to earth with a thud. But Roger of Hereford, in the stage of flux between early manhood and full maturity, knew that he was still too excited to think clearly.
    "Perhaps you are right," he said slowly. "I do not know. I cannot think just now. You and that son of yours could always talk rings around me. I only know that I like direct action best. These elaborate plans fall by their own weight, and so many men involved in separate action tend to think, each one, that his own merit is slighted. Such things often come to naught."
    The old man shrugged. "You need not answer now. There is time enough. You should settle all personal matters first, Roger. It is not well to start a war with a divided mind. Some time before February we must all meet. If we can agree, then you should be ready to join Gloucester's forces by midFebruary. You will need at least a month to get to know your men, and I hope we can go into action after the