“Is Osbert not present?” William called again.
A commotion at the back of the crowd began, men shouting, women wailing, and, to her horror, Eleanor saw four of her foresters make their way through the crowd, one leading a horse, across whose saddle a body was slung. It was Osbert, bloodied and pale. A chill ran through her. Osbert—dead? Was he dead? Had someone murdered him? If so, who—and why?
Behind her, someone cried out, “Help! Ho!” and she turned to see Agnes in a dead faint, crumpled in a heap on the ground. Anne was bending over her, fanning her with a kerchief, and her ladies were twittering over her. Poor Agnes! Her lover was gone.
“We found him in the forest,” one of his foresters cried out. “He hath been slain!”
Involuntarily, she glanced at Hugh, who was deep in conversation with one of his knights. At the sound of the commotion, he had glanced up to see the cause, and, to Eleanor’s incredulity, a look of disgust crossed Hugh’s face. Disgust? The nerve! A man was dead—her loyal servant—and Hugh had obviously no compassion! The man had not a bone of real feeling in his body! And here she had just allowed him to sweep her into a clandestine embrace—one that even just thinking about made her cheeks flame! A wave of dizziness threatened to overwhelm her at the thought of Hugh’s arms around her, pulling her closer against his body. What had she done?
Hugh’s face darkened as he surveyed the scene in front of him. Osbert—dead! He had been so sure he would be able to learn information from Osbert. By the rood! Things had come to a pretty pass. Now Eleanor would question John, no doubt, and he, himself, would have no recourse. This poaching had to end, and he did not care what he had to do to stop it. Too much hung in the balance—nay, his whole reputation was at stake, not to mention the control of his own forest. Was he already the laughingstock of all England?
Hugh called to Eleanor. “I’ll not be questioning your Osbert, now, will I, Milady? He could not even protect himself, much less your forest. Pah!” He punctuated his statement by spitting into the dust.
Fury bubbled up in Eleanor, and she stiffened her back. “Sire, this was my faithful and true servant. You must not speak disparagingly of him! He is gone, now, and you should have some compassion!”
Behind her, she could hear Agnes whimpering and snuffling, and various ladies trying to comfort her with soft words. “Oh, my Osbert, Osbert,” she could hear Agnes wailing.
Hugh had not a whit of sensibility in him, the pompous knave! How could she ever have allowed herself to kiss him with such wild abandon in the buttery? She was completely aghast at her own behavior. The memory of his hand on the small of her back! Would he forget he had done so? Could she? Would they forever remember that moment and let it haunt them, even when they were married to others? Perhaps it was nothing to Hugh, he the ladies’ man. Perhaps she was nothing but another notch in his sword hilt! Alack! She was undone.
Eleanor was insufferable, truly, to speak to him thus! Hugh snapped silently, arms folded, watching the little drama unfold around Agnes. How had he allowed himself to get carried away with Eleanor in the buttery? He could kiss any number of ladies or wag-tails, and he had to pick her! God’s bones, but she was a stubborn one.
“I will speak of him the way I wish,” he retorted. “He did not protect your forest and your game—and no doubt was in a conspiracy to commit crimes in my chase, as well. And now, I cannot question him to discover what he knew!”
“You should ask your own chief forester, John de Bretton, regarding your own chase,” Eleanor replied hotly, “since he has done such a splendid task of protecting it for you.”
At that, Eleanor heard murmuring and talking around her and in the crowd, and she looked to see that everyone’s attention had apparently moved away from Agnes and her weeping and now seemed to be fixed on her and Hugh. To cover her confusion, she got up from her chair and hurried to where the foresters were taking Osbert. They were leading the horse with its burden in front of William and were taking off their hunting caps, bowing to William and then to her. Although she was used to seeing blood in the hunt and slain stags and wounded ducks, to see her friend and servant thus murdered, blood staining his surcoat, truly made her head feel a bit faint. She clenched her hands into fists to try and maintain her composure.
“What is the meaning of this?” William asked, his lip curled disdainfully, rising from his chair, his hands on his hips, staring up at Osbert’s body slung across the horse, blood staining the saddle and dappled coat of the horse.
“Osbert, as you can see, Lord William, hath been cruelly murdered,” one of the foresters said. “He has been shot with arrows and then had his throat slit.”
The crowd murmured and muttered, some gawking and moving closer to stare at Osbert’s body. Agnes’s sobbing could still be heard above the hubbub.
“Who has done this?” William called out, glaring at the crowd. People whispered, nervously shuffling their feet, but no one spoke out.
William looked slyly at Eleanor. “Methinks your chief forester has been murdered because he was about to apprehend the poachers. Or” —William paused dramatically— “perhaps because he was privy to secret knowledge of the poachers and was in a conspiracy with them. The poachers, perhaps, were afraid that he would prattle after too much wine—or turn them in at the assize, hoping to save his own skin by denying his own part in the poaching. Who in this crowd would want him dead? Who
