Meanwhile Lord Radnor had come up behind his wife. He pushed her braids apart and kissed the nape of her neck. Leah bent her head forward to accommodate him, the warmth of his lips flooding her until she thought her bones would melt. Vaguely, a last coherent thought before her whole being was taken up by her physical response was that it did not matter what a woman thought within herself. She had no power to enforce her will because she could not even remain angry under the male touch.
Unconscious of the pain he had caused her, Radnor slid his hands under Leah's arms to cup her breasts and pull her back against his body. Through her clothes and his Leah could feel him quiver with desire, and she sighed, so dizzy she would have fallen if not for his supporting arms.
Suddenly he let her go, pushed her behind him viciously, and turned so swiftly that the thrust of his hip threw her to her knees. Fifteen years of guarding his life and others from sudden death made for sharp ears even when all of his senses were concentrated elsewhere. The soft click of a door latch had often enough been the only warning he had of an enemy's approach, and Radnor had responded to it instantaneously.
"Hell and damnation!" he roared. "Is there no time when those cursed women of yours do not come creeping in and out of your room?"
Alison backed out with a cry of terror, but her place was instantly taken by Hereford, his beautiful skin bright red with wrath, his eyes the blue of a flame too hot to burn red.
"Yesterday you were dying—dying were you? Would it not have been kinder to speak the truth and say you would be bothered with me no more or that I was too dangerous to know or not important enough to know."
"Hereford, wait!" Lord Radnor glanced distractedly from his wife, still on her knees and leaning her head against the window ledge, to the young man who was just disappearing through the antechamber.
"Go," Leah gasped, "go after him. I am unhurt."
"Stop him!" Radnor called from the head of the stairs, knowing he could never get down them in time and desiring nothing less than a chase through the streets of London. "Hold him unhurt, curse you," he shouted to the men-at-arms as they fell upon Hereford. "If he bears one bruise or one scratch, I'll tear the man who did it limb from limb."
Radnor came down the steps as quickly as possible, watching approvingly the beating Hereford was handing out to the men who restrained him, but forbore, in fear of their master, from striking back.
"Hereford, Hereford," he cried, "let me speak."
He had reached the group and was about to speak with or without permission, but for several moments he was silent, listening with awed approval to the startling string of obscenities his fair young friend was mouthing. They were something exceptional even in his wide experience. When Hereford began to repeat himself, Radnor laughed, but seeing no other way to quiet him he enveloped him in his own arms. Cain grunted with pain as Hereford lashed out and strained to get loose.
"Roger," he said firmly, "if you put those broken ribs of mine through my lungs, I swear I will come back from the grave and haunt you."
The earl relaxed the pressure he was exerting immediately. "I cannot believe there is anything more we have to say to each other," he gasped furiously.
"Only come upstairs again where we may be private," Cain replied in a low voice. "If you so desire, I will go down on my knees and beg your pardon, but not before my men. It would be very bad for them. Let me explain what befell and why you were not told. You can be angry after the explanation as well as before it if you insist on being angry. If I let you go, will you come?"
"Very well," Hereford said sullenly, "but if you want me up there, get rid of that lying little bitch you married. I have had enough of watching her paw you."
Lord Radnor's expression grew rigid for a moment, but Hereford was too important to his present plans for him to display his jealousy or to take offence at anything he said or did.
"You are heated," Cain said slowly, "and I will let that pass, although it is no way to speak of my wife. You may have cause to be angry, but not with her. Nonetheless I would show how much in earnest I am to please you, and if you insist, Leah can wait in the antechamber until our talk is finished."
"No, I do not insist," Hereford snarled. "If you can no longer think what to say unless she hangs on you, let it be as you will. I expect any day to see you take suck."
Leah heard that as they were coming in and blushed hotly. Such a view of her affectionate behavior to Cain had never occurred to her, and she was shocked. She blamed herself for never having looked past her own pleasure in caressing him before his friends. The idea that her husband should have corrected her she dismissed. She knew him well enough now to understand that if he were satisfied he was arrogant enough to care little or nothing about what anyone else thought.
Turning on her the frown that he really wished to bestow upon Hereford, Cain snapped, "Leah, go busy yourself with your maids and your work. I want this room to myself for a time."
She lifted her head, her color fading. Perhaps it was true that she had made a mistake in making her lord look foolish, but it was her right to be reprimanded privately. Besides, this was her chamber. Under the circumstances it was comprehensible that Cain should wish to display his authority, but Leah was still a little sore from the earlier discussion with Giles and she felt that he could have phrased what he had to say differently. She dropped a deep curtsy, a thing she had not done since they were married except as a joke, and deliberately lifted her lids to show the hurt eyes filled with tears.
Cain had no time to give a sign of weakening because the other soft heart melted first. Hereford was much woman-ridden at home, two sisters and a mother frequently making him a victim of their tears. In the beginning he had sworn time and again that he would be firm, but experience had brought him wisdom and by now he accepted defeat gracefully.
"Do not weep, madam," he said hastily, "there is no need for you to go. I do not suppose there is anything that Lady Radnor does not already know that you have to tell me," he added, very neatly placing the blame for the incident on Cain's innocent head.
"It is your choice, Hereford," Radnor replied, trying and failing to put the shoe on the foot it really fit. "Of my affairs it is true that there is nothing she does not know."
Wine in large silver goblets, cool and sweet, did as much to calm Roger of Hereford as Radnor's explanations. Indeed, the only time he showed any interest was in Cain's comment that Maud would now try to seize Leah.
"She tried once before, thinking to wed her to a man of her own choice if I died. Now that I have escaped that trap she will try harder. She knows I love the wench," Cain said, smiling at Leah, "and Maud believes she could make me dance to her piping if she held Leah hostage. Truly, it is the only weapon good enough to use against the tale told by the prisoners you hold for me."
"Maud tried to seize Leah before the tourney?" Cain nodded and a look of enlightenment mixed strangely with both relief and apprehension came into Hereford's face. "Well, I will be strapped and tied! Listen. I received a note from Elizabeth Chester telling me not to take a lady into my house. You may suppose I did not take that kindly for—for reasons of my own, but Elizabeth must have been trying to give me warning that I should not try to protect Leah because Maud would look in my house first. Good Lord, this is horrible! When I last spoke with her, I—" He closed his eyes wearing a sick expression.
"You did not tell Elizabeth of Chester that your women were your affair and not hers—Roger, you could not have been so stupid." Radnor's voice was hushed with a combination of humor and horror.
Hereford swallowed nervously and nodded. "She will cut out my liver and eat it—heaven help me. I—I had better go at once and make my peace with her."
Radnor shuddered eloquently. "Can you? You are a braver man than I, Hereford. If I were you, I would take a trip, a long trip, even go on crusade. It might be that in ten years' time she will no longer be wishing to drink your blood. A long, dangerous voyage would be— By God's ten toes, you are
going to take a long trip."
Leah, listening, wondered what sort of woman it was that could make two grown men turn pale. Apparently Elizabeth Chester had that power, for here were two of the finest knights in England looking at each other with despairing eyes. Lady Elizabeth, no doubt, would never be thought of as a brood mare or ordered out of her own solar. Yet Elizabeth did not seem so different from other women. She was beautiful, gay, and her tongue could be very sharp, but Leah had used sharp words once and they had cost her a beating. What defence was a tongue against a heavy hand?
Leah's nature was yielding and she had a desperate need to be loved. She did not understand the force of hatred a certain type of woman could send forth, or how that cold force could numb a man even while he struck so that the blows gave no satisfaction. Leah was afraid of pain; it was inconceivable to her that one could fight back against it physically returning blow for blow. Furthermore, although she knew that Cain was different from her father, she still did not realize that her father was in the minority among men, that most men preferred to live in peace if not in affection with their wives, and that long periods of semi-isolation in a keep with a sharp-tongued woman could finally wear down even a strong-armed man. Cain touched her with his goblet and she started, her attention returning to the men's talk.
"I am?" Hereford was replying, coldness returning to his voice. "Because you order it, Radnor? Because you wish to be rid of me? Do you think because you rule Wales you can rule me also?"
"For God's sake, Hereford, you begin to sound like Pembroke. I do not wish to be rid of you nor, in spite of what you think, have I the faintest desire to rule anything but my own lands—I have trouble enough with those. I wish you to go because it is essential to the cause we both wish well. Come, sit down again. We can make use of your trouble with the king, I hope. You, like everyone else, have heard that Henry of Anjou is expected, but you have not heard some very important matters regarding this."
"Of course I have heard. Why do you think Chester and I involved ourselves in that insane effort to dispose of Stephen? Do you think we wanted the throne for ourselves?"
"What you say shows that you do not know what I do."
"I suppose I was not secure enough to tell. You suspected that I would run to Stephen for blood money?" The bitter sarcasm, the incandescent eyes told how deep the hurt had gone.
"Roger, I am sorry, but at that time you were not safe." The earl got to his feet with an outraged gasp. "Sit down! It was your honor I feared, not any tendency to dishonor in you. Think! You were bound by oaths to Pembroke and Chester. Would it not have been your duty to tell your oathbound comrades what you heard? You would willingly do no harm, I know, but Chester is sometimes not very wise and Pembroke is a plain traitor to both sides."
Hereford took the goblet that Leah pressed into his hand and resumed his seat, his hot color returning to normal. "I cannot gainsay you. You are even kind not to say that I too am not very wise."
"You are perhaps a little hasty, but time will amend that. Nay, do not look so crestfallen. I trust you for all of that as far as any man can trust another, as you will hear if you will only listen. The most important thing you do not know is that Henry's coming, although urged by his mad mother, suits no one, not even herself. The court is in terror of whom he will bring and who will join him, but there is no support for him at all. Neither Matilda, nor Gloucester, nor Arundel will give him a man or a mil. Chester is in prison and you alone cannot withstand the might of the king. The time is not ripe. Henry must go home, and quickly, before Maud finds a way to capture him or men like Lincoln and, forgive me, your own brother Walter, use this as an excuse for more rapine, arson, and raid. One way alone we have benefited. Leah, where did Giles set those letters? Ah, thank you, my love. Here, read this."
Radnor tightened his robe, which had fallen open and made a gesture of eating to Leah, who went to give orders for a meal to be brought up. Cain closed his eyes, waiting without impatience for Hereford who read very slowly from little practice to finish perusing the rather complicated documents.
"This is something, Radnor, if it is, as you say, true that we cannot bring Stephen to battle and win."
"It is true, and you know it or you would be arguing with me. Therefore, when Henry arrives, someone must go posthaste to him, someone he will be willing to trust. Philip and I were to undertake that journey. Philip … Philip must undertake another, even longer journey all too soon, I fear." Cain swallowed hard, paused, refocused his eyes upon Hereford's face, and continued briskly. "I can go, and will if I must, but I think it more essential that I remain here to see if I can free Chester."
"You want me to ride west?"
"I do."
"But I have seen the boy only once. He will not remember me."
Cain smiled encouragingly. "He will remember your father; he will have Robert of Gloucester's word to your good faith and good will; he will have my letters supporting your embassy; and he will have these letters of Stephen's, which I will entrust to you."
"Is it not more my duty to see to Chester?"
"What can you do for him? Will the king or queen even receive you, much the less listen to anything you have to say about him?"
"I suppose not, but to leave …. Would it not seem as if I were running away and abandoning him?"
"What does it matter what it seems?" Radnor snapped. "You are conscious of your own honor. What does it matter what the brutes and fools think? Two other matters of importance can be seen to at the same time. The prisoners you hold for me must be conveyed to Painscastle. From Wales they may well make a lever long enough and strong enough to lift the weight of prison from Chester as well as ensure my well-doing."
"That I can see. The story would make pretty hearing at council and the queen will be most anxious to keep it from getting there. But should the men not be kept here where they can be produced at need?"
Lord Radnor shifted in his chair and gestured towards the food that had been placed before them by Leah. He was a little unsure of how to introduce his next plan to Hereford. What he was about to suggest would go greatly against that fiery young man's grain. To be truthful it went against his own, but he was more practiced in the arts of expediency. Good food and good wine were, fortunately, very calming to the hottest of tempers. Both were provided here in plenty and Radnor meant to use them. When he spoke again, his utterance was somewhat impeded by a full mouth, but his meaning was clear.
"I do not intend to bring them into council. I intend to threaten Maud with the revelation of their tale so that she will be induced to convince Stephen to release Chester. So far, it is all well, but Chester has committed treason, and after swearing to be faithful to Stephen too. Even Maud could not move her husband without some punishment for Chester and some gain for them. I am going to propose that Chester yield certain keeps in return for his freedom, and I hope that you will undertake to convince the barons who have done homage to Chester that this is necessary."
"No!"
It was a long, long argument. Candles were lighted and another meal served before Hereford had been talked around to agreement, even though he readily admitted that the particular castles Radnor wished yielded were of little or no value to Chester. Most of them were deep in areas sympathetic to Stephen and were strategically useless because they were counterbalanced by other keeps that were in the king's control. Others were only technically Chester's, being so far from his major holdings and his major interest that they virtually ruled themselves. Of these Stephen would have a choice, but it would matter little what he chose.
Neither the keeps themselves nor the additional fine that Radnor proposed to offer was what disturbed Hereford. It was the principle of submission that stuck in his craw. Again and again he returned to the notion that if Radnor could only discover where Chester was being kept, he would summon Chester's vassals and his own to free him by force.
"Roger, for the fiftieth time, I beg you to have some sense. What is the use of the va
ssals fighting when the leader is already taken? If too much resistance is shown, Chester might have an accident in prison—a fatal accident."
Kindling again, Hereford slammed down his wine goblet. "I say we go wrong about this. We should fight. A man has certain rights. If Stephen cannot be brought to honor these, then I say that he, not we, should die. Henry, you say, is coming. Let us drive Stephen out then and worry about freeing Chester later."
Lord Radnor was too tired now to meet heat with heat. "Who is to drive Stephen out? You alone? I have told you, again and again, that this is the wrong time for war. Even if we were ready, which we are not," he said with bitter intensity, "what profit would we have from setting a boy of fifteen on the throne?"
"I was little more when I took the lands of Hereford under my hand. Did I so ill?"
"Nay, Roger, you did well, but Hereford is not all of England with its bitter hatreds bred by so many years of war. The vassals wished to test you, perhaps, to see whether you were worthy to lead them, but in love for your father and respect for your own strong ways, they were half disposed from the beginning to accept you. You miss the very point of the argument and that is that it is not Stephen who is at fault. Largely it is those around him who do the evil and they would be no better counselors to the young Henry." Suddenly Radnor let his head drop into his hands. "Hereford, I can talk no more. I am so tired I feel faint. Go home and come back tomorrow."
He yawned and scratched his head. "I suppose the rumor that we have quarreled has been killed by your running over here every day when I was hurt, so now it is safe for you to come openly and inquire about my health." Another yawn, as though the admission that he was tired had broken the resistance he had put up so long against sleep. "Anyway, I think the worst of this hiding and whispering is over." He received Hereford's kiss with still another yawn and patted the younger man's shoulder affectionately. "It seems to me that I did not get so sleepy when I was your age."
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