Maud was of the same opinion and reinforced Gloucester's complaint. She had never really approved of Pembroke's notion of purchasing an endless stream of challengers for the joust. It was far too obvious a plan for her taste, leading to just the suspicion that Lord William had voiced. She was annoyed with Pembroke for trying to make too sure. That weaseling caution would ruin all! Her plans were laid for the melee, and although it was good to have Radnor tired from jousting, to tire him too much might make him withdraw from the big battle.
Oddly enough the person most displeased by Gloucester's intervention was Radnor. There had been nothing in the jousting that he could put his finger on, no man that he could pick as bought. Now he would need to continue to fight, taking the far greater chance that Pembroke's assassins would be successful under cover of the melee. He did not know why Stephen stopped the jousting, but he cursed the king under his breath when his protests that he was not tired and would like to continue were set aside as mere polite denials.
By the time he reached the much-stained tent that served as his shelter on campaigns, the exhilaration that had sustained him during the jousting was dead and he was depressed by the notion that fate was against him. Silently he removed his helmet and unlaced his mail hood. Leah was there waiting, pale and quiet, but perfectly calm. She pushed back the hood and dried his face and hair, which were soaked with sweat.
"I have dry undergarments for you, my lord, will you change?"
"To soak them anew? No. Only bring me something to eat and drink. I am faint with hunger and parched with dust."
He kept flexing his hands and rubbing his arms to relieve their numbness. Beaufort was right—men got tired. If only Leah would remain calm and not weep. Cain bit his lips. If she wept, he could not bear it. His talk with Giles had crystallized his fears for Leah's future and now he could not rid his mind of the image of her cowed, beaten into submissive negation, screaming with terror and pain. It was impossible to admit any longer that she might be willing, might show the same affection and warmth to someone else. At this point his passion for her had reached such proportions that he would have turned on her and killed her rather than believe she would accept another man.
Leah set food before him and he forced himself to eat. He knew that if he did not think about something else, he would die through his own inability to fight. If only he could contrive to scrape through this alive and take prisoner some of his attackers. Then he would have a weapon to use against his enemies. He would have a weapon that would save him from future plots of this kind by Maud because he could threaten to expose her to Stephen or to the neutral barons if she tried to harm him again. The same weapon could be employed to free Chester and Hereford because he could force Maud to urge Stephen to make peace with them. Radnor thrust aside his food and stood up, pulling the mail hood over his head again. Very gently Leah pushed away his hands and laced it herself.
Her face was turned up to Cain's so that she could see what she was doing and, slowly and very gravely, she smiled at him. "Do not fear for me, my lord. You will be preserved to me here, or I will follow very quickly wherever you go."
He had no voice and no heart to protest. It might be safest and best for her, if that was what she truly desired. He drew her close and he kissed her, her eyes, her forehead, her cheeks, her fingertips, but he kissed her as if he had parted from her already and caressed only a tender memory. After that neither spoke, neither smiled; there was no reason to speak or smile.
Chapter 17
The sun, as Lord Radnor stepped out of the gloom of his tent, cast light on both eyes and soul. It was only another battle, only that, no more. Hundreds of times, thousands perhaps, a whole army had seemed to seek his single life. Surely he knew every trick that could be played and a counter-trick for it. Surely, prepared as he was with knowledge of the treachery planned, he could save himself. He began to turn back to speak reassurance to his wife, and Beaufort called to him sharply.
"My lord, the trumpets have sounded once already. Why do you turn away?"
It did not matter. Leah would not believe him anyway, and very soon she would have him back safe. The field, made ready for the melee, stirred Lord Radnor's blood too. Before him as he rode were ranks and ranks of men, all in armor that glinted and sparkled in the sun. The great destriers snorted and stamped, raising dust from the drought-parched earth and causing the brilliant pennons blazoned with the colors of the great houses of England to quiver and flap in the breezeless air. There were the gold and red of Norfolk, the red, blue, and gold of Leicester, and on the opposite side the red and gold of Warwick dazzled the eyes. Between the colors of Hereford and Chester there was a space that would be filled by Radnor's own black and gold. Shields still thrown over shoulders repeated the color scheme, and above all other sounds rose the buzz of excited voices as friend called advice and jest to friend across the field.
Radnor stopped behind Hereford. "Roger."
The young earl backed his horse with a frown. "If you must talk, be brief and look cross. There is a court rumor that we are at odds, which is good for us both right now."
"I will be brief. There will be, I think, a little trouble. If you hear me call for help, catch me a few of the carrion crows who will be attacking me and hold them safe. You might do well to conceal them quickly lest their masters win them back, and when you have them, put them to the question for me."
Hereford's face which had been flushed with excitement went dead white. So that was what Pembroke had been hinting at. "I will hold them full hard and question them most straitly," he said furiously.
"Ay, but I want them alive and talking when you are finished. Do not lose your head, Hereford, whatever happens."
The signal given, the lines of knights crashed together. The fighting at first was eager but not hard, and mixed with the cries and grunts of pain there were good-natured calls of, "There's for you." "Does that taste good, my buck?" "Watch, there's a horse down."
Sir Harry, a little to the left and behind Lord Radnor, had still not made up his mind. At present it was not necessary, since his master was cleaving the usual open space around himself with his tremendous reach. Beaufort did notice that the men before Hereford and Chester were holding their ground with every ounce of strength and skill, while those opposing Lord Radnor were giving way remarkably easily. Radnor saw it too, saw that he was faced with the problem of breaking through the opposing line or retreating to find new opponents.
For a few seconds it was an agonizing decision; life and Leah tugged at him so strongly that he flashed a single glance backward to the safety of Chester's and Hereford's troops. Cain knew they would fight with him and for him, that he would be safe surrounded by their men. Unfortunately he knew also that every stroke they gave to defend him would hack away the chance he had to ensure their future freedom by capturing the assassins Maud and Pembroke had paid to kill him. With a violent thrust, Radnor disabled the last man opposing him and broke through, wheeling his horse as if to charge back and begin again.
There was, however, no way back now. All at once Radnor and Beaufort, who had been carried in the wake of his lord in his indecisiveness, were surrounded. The temper of the group opposing them had changed also. They drew closer, and instead of opposing single man to single man, the slashes and thrusts of a dozen swords at once took on a new deadly character. Plainly these men were fighting in earnest; there was no implication whatever in their behavior that they wished Radnor to yield as a prisoner for the sake of horse and armour ransom.
Radnor, now, was fighting in earnest too. One man went down with a choking cry as Radnor's sword caught him between neck and shoulder. Another toppled without a sound except for the clang and crunch as the same blade bit through helmet, hood, and brain. To Radnor's left a third fell away, his sword arm dangling uselessly, crushed by a blow from the edge of the black and gold shield. The lift of that shield was dangerous, however, and blood began to dye the red surcoat from a thrust that missed piercing Radnor's ribs and instead tore through mail and flesh at the waist. If his lord felt the thrust, he gave no sign, and Sir Harry, fighting well enough to protect himself but by no means at the peak of his ability, had time to wonder if the man was entirely human.
Now there were only seven men left in the group that separated Radnor from his friends, and a cry went up from these that was no known battle cry of any house engaged on the field. From several places knights disengaged hurriedly, sometimes from nearly successful encounters, and came to swell the ranks of the attackers.
Of one thing Sir Harry became increasingly sure, that the weasel-faced man had neither been jesting nor speaking more than the truth. Still he hung undecided, his instinct driving him one way and his self-interest another. It was instinct, perhaps, that made him ward off a blow that would have severed Radnor's right leg, but his reason began to back his instinct as man after man fell to Radnor's attack. His lord was tireless, and admiration and enthusiasm began to stimulate him so that he fought harder, accounting in quick succession for a knight in green and gold and one in blue and silver.
Radnor thrust and drew, but his blade was stuck in bone and mail and the dying victim fell forward almost into his lap, flooding his gauntlet with slippery blood. It was just as well, because in trying to free his weapon Radnor dropped his shield slightly, and a sword slid over its edge. The slash came right through mail and spine, severing the head of the dead man from his shoulders, and even after the head rolled clear across the bow of Radnor's saddle the sword continued downward cutting Cain's left leg above the knee.
Little by little, in spite of all the opposition could do, Lord Radnor and Sir Harry were winning back to their friends. Beaufort's breath was coming in painful gasps, his sword arm ached with the ferocity of its use, and the burning pain of several new wounds maddened him, but none of these things could still the exultation in his heart. They would make it! He would not need to make the dreadful choice! "Into the valley of the shadow of death. Into the valley of the shadow of death." Over and over the phrase repeated itself in his mind like a rising paean of victory.
At that instant, Radnor's horse reared and screamed, split open from chest to groin. The beast went down, taking Radnor with him, tangling him in the now hanging entrails, and threatening to disable him completely with convulsively flailing hooves. In a single smooth movement, Radnor cut the stallion's throat and beat back the thrusts of several mounted men. Now was the moment of decision. Sir Harry could push his way through the ring of attackers and yield Radnor his own horse, the act that honor demanded, or he could pretend that it was impossible for him to break through to his lord. He raised his sword, wrenched with the agony of indecision because the man was worth dying for but life was sweet, and then, as his eyes took in what had happened in those few seconds of doubt they bulged with horror. There were foot soldiers on the field of mounted knights!
From some place of concealment on the edge of the crowd, footmen had appeared, and Lord Radnor had disappeared under their onslaught. All thought of self-interest gone, Beaufort howled the Gaunt battle cry again and again and began to hack his way through the mounted attackers. Why he called for help and why he fought he did not know; he knew only that, although he had done many things of which he was not proud in the past, he could not live with the memory of this shame.
He had no hope of saving Radnor. Nothing could live under that mass of striking men even though it did seem as if the mound heaved from time to time and muffled cries came from it. It did not matter. Dead or alive he would have his master's body out of that heap or be dead himself. When a new band of horsemen rode down upon him, Beaufort did not even look up to attempt to protect himself. He had no interest in anything except the bloody mound of men on the ground, and nothing existed but the regular rise and fall of his sword arm.
Hereford and Chester had both been enjoying their own battles. No one had been seriously hurt; no one had been taken prisoner of their men; and they had four members of the opposing party as prisoners to their credit. Long experience had taught them to leave Radnor to his own very efficient devices, and what with his mild success and the violence with which the opposition was defending itself even Hereford was not troubled by his friend's disappearance until he heard the note of Beaufort's cry. Since there was not another man of Gaunt's on the field, that cry could not be meant to marshal forces; it could only be a desperate appeal for help.
As men with a single mind, Hereford and Chester broke off their personal combat and organized their own forces. They met with surprisingly little resistance as they beat their way towards Beaufort's voice because Maud's men were not only sure their work was done but were appalled by the method used to accomplish it; they were only too willing to go. Hereford was not equally willing, however, and a group of knights who fought under his banner were told to engage and hold fast at least some of the retreating mounted group.
"Treachery!" Hereford screamed at the top of his lungs when he saw the bloody, heaving mass that Beaufort was striking at. "Treachery and murder. Take them alive for witness."
While Chester's men and his own dismounted to follow orders, Hereford wrenched his horse around and arrived wild-eyed before the lodges in which Stephen sat.
"I will bring charge against you, Stephen of Blois," he called, his words broken by sobs. "I will bring charge against you before your council that you did willfully try to murder or permit the murder of one of your faithful subjects. There are foot soldiers on the field of mounted knights. They have broached Lord Radnor's horse and dishonorably brought him down. Call off your curs, or I will shout your foul deeds to the high heavens until you stop my mouth with blood and earth also."