Hugh and Bess by Susan Higginbotham Read Free Book Online Page A

gathered him closer to her. Alice's ample bosom was as sweet and as comforting as his childhood nurse's had been, and soon Hugh had fallen asleep upon it just as he had on his nurse's when something had gone wrong in his small world so many years ago.
      When he awoke at last, the sun was high in the sky and Alice had left the bed. Rolling over and parting the bed curtains, he saw her sitting on a stool and glaring at his cloak, which she was brushing. “Alice?”
      “Ah, there you are. That fool page of yours had no idea of how to treat your clothes, Master Hugh. This hasn’t been properly brushed for months, I’ll wager. You’re well rid of him, I say.”
      “That's good.” He hesitated. “Thank you, Alice. For last night.”
      She smiled at him. “Sometimes only a woman will do for a man, and not in the usual way.”
      He slowly sat up and ran a hand over his throbbing head. “Once I’d heard that rumor, I suppose I knew in my heart that it was true. And I knew that if they did catch him, there’d be no hope, not after they executed my grandfather. But to die like that—” He shuddered.
      “Best not think of it, or you’ll be getting yourself in the same shape you were last night. And you’ve other things to think of now. Your own head, mainly.”
      Hugh unconsciously ran his hand along his neck. “I wonder if they’d kill me,” he said almost detachedly.
      “Why not? They killed Simon de Reading, what for no one knows except that he was loyal to your father to the end. I suppose you’ve not heard about the Earl of Arundel?” Hugh shook his head. “They beheaded him the day after your father was captured. Him and two of his followers. All he did that anyone can think of was to marry his son to your sister and get some of Mortimer's lands.”
      “Christ.” Hugh crossed himself. He slid out of bed and looked about for his clothes.
      “Shall I call a man for you? I can undress a gentleman a lot better than I can dress him.”
      “I’ve been managing on my own.” He took the newly brushed clothes that Alice handed to him and began pulling them on. From behind his shirt he asked, “I don’t know what to do. Stay here? Flee abroad?”
      “The garrison was talking over your situation last night before I came to you. Most seemed to think that you should stay right here. Even if you were to dress in borrowed clothes and hide your face, the queen's men were bribing the people around here very generously when your father and the king were hereabouts. They’d have an eye out for you, and you favor your father a great deal. You could travel by night and hide by day, I suppose, but every man around would be combing his stables for you once word got out that you were at large. Here at least you can hold them off for a time.”
      Hugh winced. “My head aches too much to follow that, but I think I agree.” He bent to retrieve the wine cup from where it had fallen the night before. Turning it in his hands as if he were reading his fortune in it, he said, “I know John de Felton will be loyal, but what will that count if the garrison deserts like my grandfather's did? Do you think they’ll stay?”
      “Only one way to find out.”
      “Even if they desert me, I’ll stay as long as I can.” Hugh looked at the doorway where his father had stood just a few weeks before, a lifetime ago. “I’ll be damned if I let the queen complete her collection of Hugh le Despensers.” He winced again as a jab of pain shot through his head. “Though I’m not sure I’d mind at the moment.”
      The garrison did not desert him. When the queen's forces arrived just hours later to seize the castle and Hugh, they found the gates shut up against them. Several times over the next few months the queen and Mortimer tried to entice the garrison with a pardon, expressly excepting Hugh's life, but they continued to resist the royal forces, even when the second Edward resigned his throne to his