Hugh held up a hand to quiet the crowd. “And the accusation that I was behind the poaching?” he asked John. “Why thus?”
“’Twas so the Lady Eleanor would not want you to wed her sister Mary, but would agree to her marrying the French count, to cement William’s alliances” John admitted.
Mary and Eleanor exchanged quick glances, and Eleanor took Mary’s hand and squeezed it in reassurance. William was such a wretched toad! She could never marry him. Now, perhaps, she would be free to refuse him—both for her own marriage and for Mary’s proposed betrothal. Not even the King would mind her refusal, with these accusations cast on William’s motives and character, would he?
Slowly and deliberately, Hugh turned to face William. “What have you to say, sire?” he asked. “No proof? Why would John de Bretton make up such a fanciful tale? It appears to me that his words have merit—there are too many coincidences that fit, methinks, for these accusations to be made from whole cloth.”
William straightened up in his chair, but, Eleanor noticed, his pot belly still slung over his belt. “’Tis all nothing but a lie,” he blustered. “John lies because he thinks to save his own skin.”
“He is not saving his own skin—he will hang for what he admitted,” Hugh said, harshly. He slammed his fist in his other palm. “Why else would he speak, if it were not true?”
“It cannot be proven,” William answered weakly, his fingers drumming on the arms of the chair.
“Pah!” Hugh spit into the dust. “I challenge you again to a duel. You have attacked my honor and are a murderer. Perhaps a duel will bring out the truth.”
“Nay, nay,” William whined. “No duel. It is done. Osbert is dead, and we have the poacher’s confession—and ‘tis your own chief forester. Look to your own forest!”
What a piece of offal William was! Hugh thought in disgust. Such a web of lies and deceit William had thought to construct, and all the while, trapping such innocents as Mary and Eleanor in its workings. Eleanor—married to that pig! He could not countenance it. And Mary, Mary, who obviously did not want to wed either Hugh himself or the French count, but to wed this Henry…both women were to be William’s pawns. Then—for William to cast aspersions on Hugh’s own honor and blacken his reputation with the King of England for his own greed and aggrandizement—William was not worth the air he breathed in and out through his foul mouth.
Hugh let William’s words die into a deafening silence. All eyes were on Hugh, and he stared at William unblinkingly. Slowly, he walked to William and drew out his dagger.
The crowd gasped, and a woman screamed. Eleanor clenched her hands so tightly she was sure her palms would bleed. Frozen, she watched Hugh hold his dagger to William’s neck for a long moment, so close to his flesh that it must have nicked him. William’s face drained of color, but he dared not move. She could hear him draw rasping breaths, in and out, in and out.
“Nay, I do agree,” Hugh snorted, withdrawing his dagger, leaving a small spot of blood on William’s neck. “You shall not engage me in a duel,” Hugh said, wiping the blade on his thigh, “for you are not worth staining my dagger with your pitiable blood.” He spit onto the bailey floor. “King Edward shall be apprised of these events and I am sure he will see fit to award me your forest of Strathcombe, since you are unable to manage your own forest without poaching in it. Nay, he may even see fit to award me all of Strathcombe, as a prize for my having brought murderers and poachers to justice—and for not sullying my steel with the blood of swine.”
Some of the onlookers cheered and others laughed. William’s face reddened. He stood up, abruptly.
“Then, Lord Hugh, I assume you will see to the hanging of this criminal and the others he colluded with?” William asked, with what seemed to Eleanor a large show of false courage. “I must away to Litchfield, for more important matters await my words.” Without a backward glance, he nodded to his knights and hurriedly climbed the steps into the castle, dabbing at his neck, where, no doubt, Hugh’s blade had stung him.
Hugh motioned to his own knights, who swiftly bound John and began taking him away, out of the bailey, as he moaned and complained loudly, stumbling through the crowd.
“And see to ‘t he confesses the names of those he made poach for him, as well,” he called to his men. “Find the proper measures to help him loose his tongue.”
“It shall be done and with pleasure,” one of them replied, and they laughed.
“I declare this assize ended,” Hugh announced to the crowd. “Go back to your homes and your fields and see that you uphold the King’s law in all things.”
A few men cheered again, and the throng dispersed, talking and laughing as they cleared the castle courtyard.
Along with Mary, Eleanor watched them go. Rising from her chair, she turned to make her way to the steps leading to the Great Hall. She had lost track of where Hugh was and could not see his broad shoulders through the crowd of knights and servants streaming up the stairs into the castle.
Her heart pounded. How greatly had the events of the last hour in the assize changed her life? Arrogant, supercilious Hugh had indeed had a change of heart? He must have truly listened to her, because he had obviously taken Agnes’s word at its face value and judged it as truth. He had challenged William to a duel in front of everyone to prove William was behind Osbert’s murder and the poaching. It appeared that Hugh no longer thought she was dissembling to protect Osbert,
