Hugh pressed his advantage. He had the fool exactly where he wanted him. Agnes’s testimony, William’s earlier conniving to accuse John, and now John’s craven expression and reluctance to speak convinced him there was more to the story—and he was going to ferret it out.
“You did nothing because you—you—were responsible for the poaching and thus knew you did not need to kill Osbert—until he discovered that you and your men were the miscreants! You broke the Law of the Forest—and you murdered Osbert le Fraunceys to conceal your deeds!” Hugh roared.
Eleanor snapped to attention in her chair, and next to her, she heard Mary’s muffled exclamation. She reached for Mary’s hand and grasped it tightly. Behind her, she heard Agnes’s sobbing break out again.
The crowd broke out into loud exclamations and shouts.
“Murderer!” cried a knight.
“Slavey!” called out one of the kitchen boys.
“Pig’s offal!” a peasant shouted.
“Nay! Nay!” John protested, wringing his cap in his hands.
“You shall hang for this!” Hugh threatened, getting up from his chair and advancing on John.
What? Was Hugh going to bring about justice for Osbert’s death? Was John indeed Osbert’s murderer—and the conspirator behind the poachings? Eleanor caught her breath. Had Hugh believed Agnes’s confession after all? Did that mean he believed Eleanor innocent of any wrongdoing concerning Osbert, as well? She must have squeezed Mary’s hand harder, for Mary squeaked in protest, and Eleanor patted her, apologetically.
Dear God in heaven, she prayed silently, let Hugh triumph! Let this be the answer to the poaching and to Osbert’s murder! Hugh had the mettle and the courage to force this to a conclusion, did he not? He was so much more a man than William—and certainly more than Edgar had been. Nay, she had never met a man such as Hugh.
A sudden wave of longing swept through her, shaking her to her core, and she shut her eyes for a moment. She had to gain control of herself, she scolded herself silently She could not have these feelings that took her breath away about a man who wanted to wed her sister—and a man who had denigrated her honor and embarrassed and shamed her, even if now it seemed perhaps he had come to believe her.
John visibly trembled, his whole body shaking, and he backed away from Hugh, who strode toward him purposefully. “Nay, sire, nay!” John cried out.
Hugh grabbed John by the collar. “You have broken your word, you swine, and you shall die a horrible and painful death for your greed and disloyalty!”
John tried to wrench himself free of Hugh’s grasp, but managed only to choke himself further. “’Twas not only I,” he blurted out in a strangled voice.
Shoving John backwards, Hugh threatened, “Speak, then, or you die in a miserable death alone, you cur! I shall see to it, myself.”
John raised his shaking arm and pointed at William with a trembling finger. “I acted on his orders—William of Litchfield. What was I to do? He told me he would kill me if I did not do as he commanded me—the poaching, the murder—all!”
For an instant, quiet reigned in the bailey, as if everything and everyone were frozen in time, and then a cacophony of sound burst into the air as the onlookers began shouting and yelling. John backed even further away from Hugh, his shoulders hunched and head down.
Eleanor gasped and jumped to her feet, but Mary grabbed her arm, pulling her back down. William? William was behind everything? Eleanor’s heart raced and her head felt light. Was this true?
Hugh wheeled on William, who was gripping the arms of his chair. “You? You?” Hugh snarled at him. “You conspired to poach in my forest? My forest? You bribed my own chief forester—and murdered the Strathcombe chief forester?” Hugh raised his hands, spreading his fingers apart, shaking them emphatically at William. “By these ten bones, you shall pay for this!” he announced.
Hugh turned to look at everyone in the bailey, and a sudden silence fell again. Eleanor could hear a few feet shuffling as people jockeyed to get a better view of the proceedings, but no one spoke. Her own heart hammered in her chest and thoughts flew through her mind at lightning speed.
“William of Litchfield, in the presence of all assembled here, I hereby challenge you to a duel!” Hugh called out, hands on his hips, glaring at the crowd.
“Nay,” William croaked from behind him. “I’ll not fight you. I have done nothing wrong and you cannot prove it.”
Again, the crowd began shouting and calling out.
“Blackguard!”
“Swine’s head!”
“He should hang!”
“Hah!” Hugh snorted. “I thought as much,” he tossed over his shoulder to William. He advanced on John again, who was sniveling and wiping his nose on his sleeve. “We’ll get to the bottom of this. Why did William want you to poach? Why has he done this deed that he so roundly denies?”
John’s eyes almost rolled back in his head, most probably from fear, Eleanor observed. Hugh was indeed a fearsome opponent, and John had no recourse. She shivered a bit in the fading sunlight.
“William said—he said—he needed to discredit you and your forest management so the King would award him your forest. ‘Twas greed,” John said, his words tumbling out, “and then, when Osbert discovered that I was the one poaching with a band of brigands, William commanded me to kill him, before he arrested me and my men.”
“But why would William also poach in his own forest—that of Strathcombe?” Hugh asked, folding his arms across his chest and staring at John. “Why not only Wykeham?”
“So it would appear that Osbert was the conspirator, because many would think so. It is always easiest to poach in one’s own forest, knowing when foresters would be on patrol, and thus having control. William also wanted to wed the Lady Eleanor, and if she could not manage her own forests, which she could not, because of the poaching, ‘twould make a stronger argument for her to marry him.”
A wave of nausea
