Hugh and Bess

by Susan Higginbotham

  “Christ, man! How drunk were you?”

  “Not much at all, not enough to make an excuse of it. Just acting like a tom fool.” He drummed his finger on a ledge. “Now I wonder if I’ll even have a wife to come home to.”

  “You will, Hugh. She can’t hold one night against you, surely.”

  “You might be underestimating my Bess.” Hugh half smiled. “But aside from that, I keep thinking, what if the girl just can’t abide me? What if it's a marriage like poor Isabel's to Arundel, or like Mother's cousin Joan of Bar to the Earl of Surrey, or like our grandfather Gilbert de Clare's marriage to that Alice de Lusignan?” He eyed the ships again and lowered his voice. “Except that in those marriages the loathing was mutual, and I’ve come to love Bess, Edward. Much as I loved Emma, I love Bess more.” Hugh shook his head. “Jesus, I’m rattling on, aren’t I?”

  “It will come aright, Hugh. I’m certain of it. Bess is a sweet girl. She's young, that's all, barely out of childhood, really. I was lucky that Anne was ripe for marriage when I met her.” He smiled. “She's so beautiful. I still can’t believe that she chose to have me for a husband.”

  “I can’t believe it either,” Hugh said, relieved to be falling back into this joshing mode, for taking advice from his younger brother had been rather unnerving. Still, Edward had cheered him a little. “Shall we wager whether your Anne will deliver yet another boy to the world?”

  From high atop the castle there came shouts, followed by a peal of bells. The door banged open, and Gilbert ran inside. “They’ve spotted ships! English ones.”

  Entering the chamber at Hanley Castle where she and Hugh did business, Bess stared furiously at Hugh's chamberlain. There with him was Emma, eyes cast down, standing next to one of Emma's own manservants. “You told me that Lady Welles's man needed to see me urgently about an estate matter. You did not tell me that his whore of a mistress would be present. If I could dismiss you, I would.”

  “My lady, please do not blame your lord's man. I begged him to deceive you. Only allow me to see you for a short time, and I will never trouble you again.”

  “Very well.” Bess waved her hand, and the relieved chamberlain hurried from the room, followed apace by Emma's man. Bess narrowed her eyes at Emma. “You can clear up something for me, in any case. Had you and Hugh been bedding together under my nose ever since I married him?”

  “No. All was at an end until that night you found us. I will swear to it on the Host.”

  “He had a lover before he married, I have heard. That was you?”

  “Yes. For many years.”

  “And that was why you wanted to come into our household. To be near him.”

  “You know that is not true. I came against my better judgment because you invited me and I liked you. And he consented to my coming against his better judgment because it was something you were set on and because he wanted to make you happy. He never intended to hurt you.”

  “So concerned was he with my feelings that he spent the night with you.” Bess was having a hard time preserving her hauteur. Her lip wobbled.

  “Only when you refused to lie with him as his wife. You hurt him to the very bone with that.”

  “He told you so?”

  “No. I knew it. He’d been hoping for so much when he came to your chamber that night—I could tell from his face when he walked in. Good Lord, Bess! I doubt he had been with anyone since we parted before your marriage. When he walked out of your chamber he looked like a beaten dog. I followed him; I couldn’t bear to see him look so miserable. I followed him to his chamber. All he would say was, ‘She hates me, Emma, and always will. I’ve tried my best and there's nothing more I can do.’ I put my hand on his shoulder to comfort him and nature took its course.”

  Bess said, “I didn’t mean to be unkind! But he was tipsy—”

  “And why do you think that was? Has it never occurred to you that he might have been nervous about approaching you?”

  “I don’t know! But it wasn’t just that. I was tired and my head hurt. And my monthly course was coming on to boot. If he’d only been patient.”

  “He has been patient. And since he fell in love with you it has been harder for him.”

  “In love with me?”

  “Bess, I have known Hugh since we were children. I was his lover when you were still a little child. I told him when he and I parted that he was falling in love with you, and I was right. It is not in his nature to live with a pretty young woman day after day and not to love her. Have you never noticed the looks he gives you?”

  Bess shook her head.

  “Then you are foolish and inattentive. Every time he sits at table with you, he looks at you as if he were a lovesick boy. His eyes follow you across the room, wherever you go. He can’t stop admiring you.” She waved her hand at Bess in her rich robes and elaborate headdress. “Look at yourself! He's tried so hard to please you; he's given you everything you ask him for. And what have you given him in return?”

  Tears were falling silently down Bess's face. She wiped them with her sleeve and said, “I did not mean to hurt him, Emma. Truly I did not. I—like him. But I was tired— and scared.”

  “Scared?”

  “Joan said it hurt.”

  Emma shook her head pityingly. “Bess, Hugh took my maidenhead and it hurt not a whit. True, I was older than you and far less shy of him. But you have nothing to dread with Hugh. He would not be rough with you, ever. He cherishes you. Trust me.”

  Bess's spirit began to return. “I would have found that out, perhaps, if you had not been in his bed.”

  Emma winced. “True.” She sighed. “I have been harsh with you, haven’t I? We were all three at fault, me most of all. I could have refused him and did not. I should have tried to mediate between you.”

  Bess's tears started to fall afresh. “And now everything is ruined. Isn’t it?”

  “No. He came to your chamber that morning, didn’t he?”

  “Yes, and he was cold to me. I was hateful to him.”

  “Still, he could not bring himself to go without saying good-bye.” Emma smiled at Bess. “He loves you, Bess. He will be back, and you will be waiting for him. And then the two of you can start afresh. What happened between him and me will never happen again.” She said after an awkward pause, “I came only to explain what we did, and ask for your forgiveness. I hope I have received it, for this has been weighing on my mind. With your permission, I shall take my leave now.”

  “Please don’t. Please come back to my household.”

  “Bess?”

  “You are not to blame. I pushed Hugh into your bed.” She stared at her feet. “And I have missed you these past weeks. We had become friends.”

  Emma smiled wryly. “Me into his bed, to be precise.” Her expression turned serious. “I have repaid your friendship ill, I fear. But, Bess, if that is how you feel, I should be honored to return. I had been happy in your household, and I have missed you very much too.” She patted Bess's hand. “But my stay will be short, because I will leave for good when Hugh returns. With you being a true wife to him then, he will want no other woman, but it is better for all that I go, I think. Perhaps I will let him find a husband for me as he offered.”

  “Then it is settled. Now let me find Hugh's chamberlain and thank him for his role in this before he decides to take service elsewhere.”

  “A good idea. But first I wish you would take something from me.” She opened the purse that hung from her belt and extracted the ring that Bess had tossed at her at Cardiff. “I have kept this since we parted, hoping that someday I could restore it to you.”

  Bess slipped it onto her finger. “I threw away the one you returned to me.”

  “I cannot blame you.”

  “And then I retrieved it, and put it with the little things I cherish, because I couldn’t bear to see it gone for good. I will return it to you shortly.” Bess smiled. “I am afraid it has a dent in it, though.”

  “Good. It will re
mind me always to be on my best behavior.”

  They embraced. Then Bess drew back and turned pale. “Emma?”

  “Yes, dear?”

  “What if Hugh does not come back? What if something hap—”

  Emma wrapped her arms around Bess. “We must pray hard, the two of us and everyone else here, that he stays safe and well. And if God is merciful, He will heed our prayers.”

  In the months to come, when the nightmares that had plagued Hugh in his younger days had come back in full force, Hugh would wake, catch his breath, and then take his mind back slowly over the weeks that passed from August 18, 1342, when the Earl of Northampton's fleet arrived at Brest, to September 30, 1342. Somewhere in his mind, he supposed, was the hope that perhaps he was remembering something wrong and that the day had not happened as he remembered it at all.

  Once in Brest that August day, the Earl of Northampton's fleet had made short work of the port's besiegers. The crews of the Genoese ships, trapped between the English ships and Brest Castle's garrison, fled, leaving the earl and his men to set the deserted vessels afire. The French troops on the land, seeing the approach of well over two hundred ships and assuming that they carried an army far larger than their own, retreated.

  Hugh and his men joined Northampton's army, which proceeded toward the town of Morlaix. When they arrived there on September 3, they tried to take the town, but its defenders would not budge. So Hugh's men, so recently besieged themselves, became the besiegers now, alongside the earl's troops.

  The Count of Blois, however, had his own plans for Morlaix. Hoping to trap Northampton's men with his army on one side and the walls of Morlaix on the other, he had moved his troops close to Lanmeur when Northampton, getting word of Blois's intentions, lifted the siege and moved in Blois's direction. Having found a spot to Northampton's liking, between a road and a thick woods, the English troops awaited battle there, using their time well by digging a trench and then concealing it with greenery. The covered trench was a trick that had been played on the English at the terrible battle of Bannockburn, and although few of the men at Morlaix were old enough to have fought there, they had grown up listening to the rueful recollections of their fathers and grandfathers and had determined not to repeat their mistakes.

  Then they waited for the French to arrive, which they did the next morning, September 30. Northampton's men, knights and common soldiers alike, were on foot. Watching the three columns of French troops approaching, Hugh realized that the three thousand English troops were outnumbered, though how badly was anyone's guess. Four to one? Three to one? A mere two to one? Hugh could not tell, and as much confidence as he had in the abilities of his able cousin Northampton, and even in his own, he was nonetheless grateful that there had been time for confession that morning. Yet as the first column of men approached on foot, they were forced back by a stream of English arrows. So soon had the French been stopped in their tracks that it appeared that none of them had even discovered the concealed trench. There followed a seemingly endless pause for consultation between Blois and his leaders that the unscathed English filled with nervous jokes. “What the hell are they doing?” Edward asked.

  “Drawing a map showing every brothel within the vicinity,” Hugh speculated.

  “That's the type of assault they’re best suited for,” said Talbot.

  He had barely finished speaking when a mass of horsemen stampeded toward the English. For a moment, it seemed that all the digging, all the careful disguising with vegetation and twigs had been in vain; then at last, there were cries, curses, whinnies as one horse after another fell into the trench and as more men were shoved forward by the press of the forces behind them.

  And then a group of French soldiers, perhaps two hundred in all, somehow evaded the trench and charged, straight toward Hugh's men. Hugh's archers were ready for them, holding their barrage of arrows until the French were well within killing range. Then they let them fly. The field by Hugh was a chaos of dying horses and dying men, yet some of the French pushed through and slashed at Hugh's men, who paid them back in kind. Hugh groaned as one of his knights, fighting hand to hand with a man he’d unhorsed, fell, but he soon had the satisfaction of dispatching his own opponent, then another, before Northampton's reserves streamed in, surrounding the French soldiers.

  Then the sounds of fighting ceased. There were only the moans of the injured, the pants of the English gasping for breath, the orders barked out to the French prisoners. Hugh raised his helm and looked around. Most of the bodies fallen around him were French. Only the one English knight lay dead. Two squires bent over him, obscuring the surcoat that he wore over his armor. Then one turned. “Sir Hugh! It's your—”

  Edward.

  Hugh leaned on his sword, feeling the same sick sensation he had experienced when he heard Felton's news at Caerphilly Castle sixteen years before. Beside him, he heard Richard Talbot curse, then whisper a hasty prayer.

  A trumpet sounded. Hugh realized for the first time that he had been wounded in the leg, but he noted the pain with the same detachment as he did everything else as he limped over to Northampton. “We’ve killed our fair share, but there's still a bloody lot of them left, and still more than us,” the earl said. “We’ve few arrows and little time to retrieve the ones we’ve shot. We’d be suicidal to stay out there. Agreed?”

  Every captain, Hugh included, nodded.

  “Then we’ll retreat, back into those woods. Men facing in every direction. If they follow, they’ll have us facing toward them from all sides with our swords.”

  “Like a hedgehog,” said Hugh.

  Northampton snorted. “Good one, Hugh.” He cleared his throat. “You lost a knight?”

  “His brother Sir Edward,” Talbot answered for him.

  “Whoresons,” said Northampton. His own brother Edward, his twin, had drowned during a Scottish campaign eight years before. “I’m sorry, Hugh.”

  Hugh nodded. He did not trust himself to speak again.

  Yet when he walked away from Northampton he heard himself giving orders anew, just as if this were any other battle. He and the rest of Northampton's men retreated into the forest as planned, leaving the field strewn with corpses, Edward's among them.

  Blois's men tried to penetrate the forest but, as Northampton had predicted, had no luck and finally retreated, turning back the way they had come. The English had won in a sense, it seemed, though they by now were too famished and exhausted to enjoy the outcome by whatever name it was called. They drew back to the town of Morlaix.

  They had encamped and rounded up some semblance of food when the supply wagons they had left behind them rumbled into the camp, bearing wounded men and, in the last wagon, Edward's body. Hugh, standing by Edward's squire and Gilbert, gazed down at the brother to whom he’d been closest, trying not to look at the wound to the temple, inflicted by a mace, that mercifully must have killed Edward almost instantly. As Hugh bowed his head, trying to summon a prayer but unable to think of any words but curses, the squire gently tugged at a fine cord around Edward's neck. “His lady will be wanting this, my lord.”

  He handed Hugh a silk pouch, sewn to the cord. Nothing appeared to be in the pouch, so light was it, but Hugh opened it anyway and pulled out a thick strand of curly, golden hair, undoubtedly Anne's. It was knotted by a thread to three finer strands of hair, presumably the boys’. “He wore it whenever he fought.”

  “For good luck, I suppose?”

  “Why, yes, my lord.”

  Edward's squire evidently possessed as little sense of the ironic as Edward had himself. Hugh smiled. “Thank you.” Then he went to his tent, where he put his head in his hands and wept until he could weep no more.

  The king himself arrived in Brittany several weeks later. Northampton and his men had moved to Brest, where the king and his men joined them.

  Among the men who had sailed with the king was William de Montacute. With Edward's death, Hugh's marital woes had been pushed far from his mind, and he did not
even remember until he and William were standing side by side that William, who was less than a decade older than Hugh, was his father-in-law. Having recalled this fact to his memory, Hugh then asked about Bess, but in a tone so perfunctory that William might have taken offense had he not known that Hugh had lost a brother three weeks before. “She's doing well,” William assured him.

  “Is she with your lady wife, do you know?”

  “No. She said she would stay on your estates.”

  This surprised Hugh, who had assumed that Bess would take the first opportunity to get off the Despenser estates that she could. “I hope it doesn’t get lonely for her,” he said politely, though in his present mood, he hardly cared what happened to the insolent little wench, especially when he compared her to the wife who had loved his brother Edward so well. Probably Bess thought that the wrong Despenser brother had been killed at Morlaix, a sentiment with which Hugh was not very far from concurring.