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

young son and all hope of resistance seemed futile. Hugh often wondered what had kept the garrison so loyal. Had it been regard for Felton or merely an abhorrence of seeing a man as young as he die on the scaffold? Or had it been respect for Hugh himself? Whatever their reasons, it was the men of the garrison who allowed him to hold out until mid-March, when the nominal king offered yet another pardon. This time, Hugh was promised that his own life would be spared. Knowing that no better offer would be forthcoming and that even these men's loyalty had its limits, he surrendered Caerphilly Castle and watched in its great hall, under guard, as Felton and the rest of those who had stayed true to him filed outside to freedom. Even a tearful Alice was with them, having left Hugh a pile of clean, crisp linen shirts to remember her by.
      Then they were all gone, and just Hugh and his captors were left at Caerphilly. The commander of the besieging forces, William la Zouche, had treated Hugh kindly and considerately when taking him into custody, but not all of his men were so well disposed toward him, Hugh found when Zouche left the room. “Take a look around you, Despenser,” said one of the guards as they prepared to lead Hugh to the far-off chamber in which he would be kept as the crown's prisoner. He was a young man, not much older than Hugh, and he had the look that Hugh would come to know well over the next few years: the appearance of someone who had realized that he was free to treat Hugh just as he pleased. The guard waved to encompass the splendor of the great hall. “You might never see this again, you know.”
      Hugh looked up at the corbel of his father and felt the ache in his chest that had never quite left it since the news had come. “If only he’d known,” he said. “He could have spared himself the investment.”
      The guard glared. “Think you’re amusing, Despenser? Shut your trap.”
      So began the next four years of his life.
      iii
     
     
      June 1341: Hanley Castle
     
     
      HUGH SAT UP IN BED AND, AS USUAL, LOOKED AROUND him before arising. Though it had been nearly ten years since he had been the crown's prisoner, he still felt the need every morning to check his surroundings to assure himself that he was a free man. The need was even more compelling on occasions like this one, when he’d awakened from one of his bad dreams. They all ended the same way, with the sight of what he’d been spared in life: his father hanging naked in the air before he was cut down, castrated, disemboweled, beheaded, and quartered. Then the queen's men came for Hugh himself with their noose.
    He took a couple of deep breaths, reminding himself that all this was in the past and that he had nothing to fear. His own life was a good one. He was healthy, rich, and still relatively young, with no great sins on his head. He had led men in battle with success and was on reasonably good terms with the king, though they would never be intimates; in any case, his father had been so close to his king that this would probably have to suffice for whole generations of Despensers. He had no enemies, personal ones at least; if—or, to be more accurate, when—he died, it might be violently at the thrust of a French or a Scottish sword, but it would be an honorable death in battle, the death of a knight.
      And what was he doing thinking of death anyway, when he was quite content, except for one thing?
      He lay back again, taking more comfort in his surroundings. There was his familiar carved bed with the coverlet of material his mother had chosen for him. There was the pleasant feel of fine linen sheets against his bare skin; in prison, he’d always slept fully clothed, feeling too vulnerable and often too cold to do without his garments. If he parted the heavy bed curtains that matched the coverlet, he would see he was in his familiar chamber at Hanley Castle, overlooking the River Severn. Stretched out by the