THE EARL (A HAMMER FOR PRINCES)

by Cecelia Holland

  Rohese in her high seat reached over and cracked Alys on the head with her ring. "Don't tease Stafford."

  Alys straightened away from Fulk and gave Rohese an angry look. Prince Henry laughed.

  "Lady," he said. "Tease me, I enjoy it."

  Alys smiled at him. "My lord, no one could ever tease you, you aren't pompous, like Stafford."

  Henry laughed again; his gaze remained on Alys' sleek red hair.

  Rohese's hounds were tall and narrow, with narrow muzzles and dark narrow eyes; black, brindle, red, spotted silver-grey and cream-white, they leaned against their leashes, their eyes on the forest, and their arched backs taut with expectation. Fulk looked back at the hunting lodge in the meadow. The last of the hunters were riding down from it now, to join them.

  Pembroke was walking his tall brown horse up and down past Fulk, his eyes on the prince and Alys. When he passed Fulk the third time he gave him a harsh look. Fulk gathered his reins and moved his horse closer to the hounds. None of them had known Alys was with them--they had left Highfield before dawn, and in the dark, cloaked and hooded, she had gone unnoticed. He was sure that Rohese didn't know she was here.

  "My lord," Chester shouted. He and Thierry jogged up to the rest of the hunters. "You must pardon us for holding you back, my lord."

  Henry waved to him and signed to the keeper of the hounds. The dogs were coupled in the leashes, and when they started down toward the forest they nearly pulled their handlers off their feet. Spread out over the open slope, the horsemen followed them. Fulk drifted across to the edge of the party. The sun had not yet risen above the trees, and patches of mist clung to the ground in the shade; the grass glistened with dew, but the windless air was already uncomfortably warm. Just before they reached the forest, the crickets in the grass began their high shrilling. It would be a hot day, even in the forest.

  Riding side by side, their faces turned toward each other, the prince and Alys followed close behind the hounds into the forest. Fulk eased the bow on his back. A rider loomed up beside him, and he stiffened, and his horse sensed it and shied.

  "My lord." It was Simon. "Two of Thierry's men have been here since yesterday."

  Fulk reined his horse back onto the trail. "Oh?" He started to look for Thierry and changed his mind. "Follow him, Simon." He rode into the forest, into the cooler air and the shade.

  In the threes, the hunting party drew closer together, stirrup to stirrup. All along their path, birds and animals rustled through the underbrush, startled away, and overhead the squirrels squeaked and chattered. Chester rode just ahead of Fulk, with Pembroke, but Fulk could not see Thierry and knew he was behind him. His back tingled; he felt as if he were naked.

  The dogs began to bark. "False scent," Chester cried. "It's too close." In the narrow space of the path the horse jostled back and forth, nipped and kicked out.

  "Hold your horse."

  "I am--can you not hold yours?"

  "Watch out, up there. Keep moving."

  Ahead of the confusion, the prince and Alys disappeared around a curve in the path; Fulk caught a glimpse of her red sleeve through the green branches. His horse ranged up behind Pembroke's so close the lanky brown horse skittered and pinned back its ears, and Pembroke gave him a fierce look over his shoulder. Fulk reined down. The horse fretted against his hand; he knew he was urging it, pressing it on because he wanted to get away from Thierry behind him, and he tried to relax. The dogs had quieted, only one barking now, and they rode down a steep slope toward a stream. The path widened. He moved his horse up through the crowd toward the prince. Smelling water, his horse stretched its head forward, and its ears pricked up.

  Suddenly the dogs burst into their deep-throated belling; the mob of horses bounded forward, and the dogs' handlers slipped the leashes and darted into the brush. Hunting horns sounded, ringing in the trees. Two of the dogs streaked through the water and up the far slope, yelling with each stride, and the pack followed in a long stream of ears and tails and ridged backs. Fulk's horse bolted forward.

  Horses jammed the ford over the stream; Fulk crossed above them, banged his knee on a tree trunk and galloped across the slope after the ululation of the dogs. Prince Henry was charging along almost at the heels of the pack, with Alys just behind him, and Chester racing to catch up. Fulk bent down to clear the low-hanging branches before him. The dogs veered suddenly, and the horsemen swung to follow and engulfed Fulk. With the horses galloping all around him he raced up toward the crest of the hill.

  The dogs were pulling ahead of them. Their musical baying faded with distance. Close underbrush and trees slowed the horses--Prince Henry swore in a high voice. Fulk's chestnut stumbled, caught itself up, and ran up alongside Chester's horse.

  Chester glanced at him. Fulk met his eyes only for an instant, but the other man's hard, piercing look made him straighten up, slowing his horse, moving out of reach. Pembroke surged up beside him, his eyes on the prince. They struggled along the last stretch of the hill to the crest, through thorny bushes and clumps of rocks.

  Before them lay a meadow. The pack was already halfway across it, running flat to the round, only their slim heads visible above the high grass. The horsemen gave a single cry. At the far end of the meadow, a stag reached the trees and vanished.

  In the middle of the meadow, the pack of dogs slowed, and half split off and raced in a wide curve through the grass. Fulk slowed his horse. The dogs that had left the main scent began to bay. He looked at the prince, who was racing after the first pack.

  Then he saw Thierry at last, coming up behind him, swerving to follow the course of the second pack of hounds, and Fulk pulled his horse around after him.

  Pembroke was going that way too, a length ahead of him, and they galloped across the curve of the dogs' path after them. The chestnut leaned on the bit, straining for more speed, and caught Pembroke's brown horse and ran head to head with it. Thierry was up there somewhere, out of sight again. The dogs bolted into the woods, and Fulk plowed through underbrush and thistles after them.

  The dogs' wild baying led them into a narrow trail overhung with branches. Through the trees, Fulk caught a glimpse of the flying bodies of the hounds; he steadied his horse. Pembroke fell behind him. A hunting horn sounded. Fulk could see nothing. The branches of the trees marked the path. He felt the horse change leads and shifted his weight in the saddle and the chestnut flung itself around a turn like a loop in the trail. A windfall loomed up before them, with young trees sprouting from its trunk. The chestnut horse stopped, throwing Fulk up onto its neck, cocked its ears, and jumped from a standstill. Fulk went over the windfall a foot above the saddle, hit his head on a branch, and came down into his saddle with a thump that jarred him to the teeth, his feet still in the stirrups. The chestnut horse bolted after the fading sound of the dogs.

  The trail twisted back and forth, crossing one stream five times within a few hundred yards, and the chestnut never slackened stride. Fulk could not see more than a few steps in front of him. He gave his horse its head and hung onto his saddle. Its nose aimed precisely at the sound of the dogs, the big chestnut flowed around the twists in the path. Fulk could hear riders behind him, but they were falling back.

  Ahead, sunlight showed through the branches; the trail opened up into another meadow, long and narrow. Fulk gathered his reins. The noise of the dogs' baying changed to shrill triumph, and he reached behind him for his bow. Back on the trail, a horn brayed.

  The dogs' belling faded, and they began to whine. Fulk sat back, snatching his horse to a halt. The dogs were milling around at the far end of the meadow, and between them and him were three men with longbows, their arrows nocked. He jerked the chestnut into a rear and threw himself sidewise into the grass.

  The arrows sang over his head. He rolled and got to his hands and knees. Under him, the earth trembled with the hoofs of horses rushing down on him. He knew one was Thierry. The forest was only a hundred feet away, and crouched over he raced for it--he had lost his bow.


  "Here," Chester shouted harshly. "Here--"

  Fulk looked up and saw a horse charging down on him, its nostrils blood red; the bit pried its jaws apart and its bleeding tongue lolled out. For an instant Fulk could not move. He saw the great forehoofs tear up chunks of turf and fling them aside, all that weight hurtling down on him, and on its back Chester with his bow. He dodged. The horse wheeled toward him, and he felt its steaming breath on his face. Chester was still shouting. Fulk could not hear what he said. He swerved, and the horse swerved to meet him, and Fulk stumbled and sprawled on his belly.

  "Hold up," Pembroke shouted. "What's going on here?"

  Fulk lay with his cheek pressed to the ground and shut his eyes, waiting for the arrow. Chester said, "He was thrown, my lord--he seems hurt."

  Pembroke had no part in it, then. Relieved, Fulk pushed himself up to his knees. Chester sat his black horse nearby, but he was looking at Pembroke, riding over toward them from the forest. The three bowmen were gone. Pembroke jogged his horse up to them. His lean face was expressionless, but his eyes flickered like a snake's tongue at Chester.

  "Fulk. Are you hurt?"

  "No," Fulk said. He got to his feet. Chester was watching him, his fist clenched on his thigh. Fulk had dirt in his mouth, and he spat it out.

  "What happened?" Pembroke said.

  Fulk took two running steps and leapt at Chester; Chester whirled his horse, but Fulk caught him by the belt and hung against the horse's side, and it reared and spun on its hocks. Fulk struggled to pull himself up behind Chester. Something sharp struck his hand, three hard strokes, and he let go and fell back into the grass. Chester galloped off across the meadow. Fulk knelt in the grass, cradling his bleeding hand, the fingers slashed to the bone.

  Pembroke seized him roughly by the shoulder and turned him around. "Are you mad? Have you lost your mind? Here." He pulled out Fulk's shirt tail and cut it off with his dagger. "After the ride you led us through those trees you deserve to be thrown." He wrapped the cloth around Fulk's fingers, and it turned sodden crimson at once.

  "I wasn't thrown," Fulk said. "Where's Thierry?"

  "I haven't seen Thierry. Where is the deer? Will you tell me what happened?"

  "Chester tried to kill me," Fulk said. "The deer's where the dogs are."

  "From what I saw you just tried to kill Chester." Pembroke pulled off his coat and took his own shirt and hacked it up for a bandage. "You need a bloodletting to get this humor out of you."

  "Gilbert," Fulk shouted, "he tried to kill me. He had bowmen here--" He leapt up, bandages streaming from his hand, and ran in short dashes over the grass. "Here, and here--" He kicked at the arrows in the grass. "See them? See them? They killed Rannulf--see?" He tore an arrow out of the earth and threw it at Pembroke.

  Pembroke knelt, staring at him, his mouth open. Fulk's shoulders drooped; all the strength ebbed from his body, and he looked down at his wounded hand, overwhelmed.

  "Stay here." Pembroke mounted his horse and galloped across the meadow to the pack of dogs. Fulk's horse was calmly grazing along the edge of the forest, but Fulk could not find strength enough to walk over to him. He stood and wrapped the cloth around his fingers, tied knots in the bandage with his teeth, and watched the blood soak through. Chester could have killed him when Fulk jumped at him, even with Pembroke there. Chester must have panicked. Fulk thought, How fortunate I am. Pembroke trotted his horse across the meadow to Fulk's chestnut, bent from his saddle to reach its rein, and rode back toward Fulk, leading the chestnut at a walk.

  "It's a doe, or part of one, anyway, it's been dead at least a day," Pembroke said. "We can question the gamekeepers at the lodge. Chester must have found out that we would likely start a deer crossing that stream so early in the morning, and dragged the doe across this area to split us up. It should never have worked. Prince Henry might have followed this scent and not you--what would they have done?"

  Fulk shook his head. "Called it poachers. Tried again some other way." He leaned against his horse a moment and mounted.

  "You said they killed Rannulf."

  "I have no evidence."

  "There's no evidence here you could set before the prince. Chester would say you were thrown and when he came to help you, you turned on him. Everybody knows you've been strange since Rannulf died."

  "I'm not putting it before the prince."

  Pembroke stared at him a moment. "We can't hide your hands. We should hide the deer, just in case."

  Fulk lifted his reins. "I forgot the Clares have some experience with hunting accidents."

  Pembroke laughed. They rode down to the carcass and chased the dogs away from it; the pack had eaten much of it and when they dragged it away from the place it had lain, a swarm of flies rose up out of the raw flesh; the grass was slimed and matted.

  "We could let the dogs eat it," Pembroke said.

  Fulk shook his head. "No, you're right--if the prince learns too much, this could get messy." He took one foreleg of the carcass and Pembroke took the remaining hindleg and they dragged it back out of the meadow, under the trees. Fulk's hand hurt in a steady throb but he would not stop until Pembroke stopped and they hauled the deer far back into the forest and walked back to their horses.

  "Listen," Pembroke said.

  A hunting horn sounded, far away to the north. Fulk untied his reins from the tree. "That's back toward the lodge."

  Pembroke nodded. He mounted his horse and turned it toward the sound of the horn, which blasted again, twice more, and stopped. "It's the lodge's horn. Let's go."

  ELEVEN

  The horn blew three more blasts before they reached the lodge. When they rode out from under the trees, the noon sun clubbed them; its dazzling light made Fulk blink. Thierry and Simon d’Ivry were sitting their horses before the lodge gate, and the prince’s horse stood riderless neat them. Other horses were tied inside the lodge’s wall.

  Thierry turned and saw Fulk, and he seemed to start. Pembroke rode up past Fulk, reined in, and, smiling, said something to Thierry Fulk could not hear. Thierry did not answer; his jaw tightened. Pembroke drew his horse off to one side.

  Chester and two Angevins came out of the trees and galloped up over the meadow toward them. Fulk rode over to Thierry.

  “What happened?”

  Thierry’s yellow eyes were expressionless. “A messenger came from the Bishop of Winchester. Prince Eustace is dead.”

  Fulk grunted. He kicked his horse over toward Pembroke’s and dismounted. One of the gamekeepers brought him a cup of tepid water, and he drank it. Pembroke was loosening his horse’s girths. The bitter odor of sweat lay in the air; Fulk’s nose itched from it.

  “Prince Eustace is dead,” Fulk said. “Did you hear it?”

  Pembroke nodded. “De Lous told me. The king is willing to accept terms.” He lifted his saddle up off his horse’s back so that the air could get under it.

  Fulk’s horse scratched its head on his shoulder, and Fulk braced himself against it. Pembroke sat on his heels with his back against the lodge wall. The door into the lodge itself was closed, and the Angevin de Lous stood guard over it. Fulk draped his arm over his horse’s neck, trying to look unexcited. He wondered where Alys was; her horse stood just inside the gate, chewing on the wooden wall.

  “My lord,” Chester cried. “Gilbert.” He walked up to Pembroke and bent to whisper in his ear. Pembroke gave no sign he was listening, or that he had ever seen him come.

  Chester straightened; Pembroke said nothing, and after a moment looked up at Chester, impassive. Chester turned on his heel and went away.

  The door of the lodge banged open, and the Angevin stepped aside. Prince Henry came out, with a stranger just behind him. He crossed the courtyard at a fast walk, arms swinging, and stopped by the gate. His face was taut and bright.

  “We’ll go straight back to Stamford. I’ll send to Highfield and have our men go back without us. Where is my horse?”

  A groom led up a fresh horse for him, and
Henry mounted. Fulk climbed into his saddle. Alys had come to the door of the lodge; Henry saw her, and with his eyes on her spoke in a high, young voice to the groom, asking him the swiftest way to Stamford. Pembroke and the other lords of the hunting party were gathering behind the prince, and Fulk went to join them, but before he reached them Henry turned and beckoned to him.

  “Will you take her back to Stamford?” he said. “The Lady Alys. She knows you, she is accustomed to you.”

  “I should not,” Fulk said, “for the Lady Rohese’s sake.”

  Henry smiled. “Oh, but for my sake, you will, won’t you, Stafford.” He raised his left hand a little, backed his horse, and rode around Fulk. The other lords followed him, all in a clump.

  Alys was walking from the lodge to the gate. Fulk dismounted. He knew there was no need for him to go back to Stamford so quickly—Leicester was there, ahead of them all, and Leicester dealt with such things more shrewdly than Fulk. Yet he strained to go, to be there. Alys came up to him, still wearing her page’s hose and coat.

  “I’m sorry to burden you, my lord,” she said. “I shall not hold you back. We may go whenever you wish.”

  Fulk looked over at Simon d’Ivry, lingering by the wall, and signed to him to bring Alys’s horse. “There’s no need to hurry, my lady. Nothing will happen until tomorrow anyway.”

  “What does it mean? Will he be king?”

  Her hair was spilling out of her cap in great red loops. Her eyes shone. Fulk said, “There was little question he would be king. The problem was when. Here’s your horse, lady.”

  She turned, lifting her arms to take hold of her saddle. Simon held the horse’s bridle, and Fulk made a cup of his hands for her knee and lifted her up onto her horse’s back. Simon ran for his own horse. Fulk picked up his reins and mounted his chestnut, and before his right foot had found the stirrup, Alys was loping down the meadow, after the prince, toward Stamford.

  She tried to keep up; her hair came loose from her cap and without slowing her horse she gathered it and tucked it back up again, and she never asked to stop. But her little gelding could not match the pace of the great horses of the men, and the prince’s party pulled farther ahead of them, while Fulk and Simon held their horses down so that they would not outrun her.