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looked around, his mouth pursed with exaggerated awe. “Well, well … I see you’ve dispatched many a man to hell this day. And with your usual thoroughness.”
    Raine looked around him as well. He saw a field littered with riven shields, broken lances, and corpses. He felt no satisfaction over his victory. The Welsh had been sorely outnumbered and no match against his crossbows and mailed knights. Their leader had been a fool. “At least they died on the field of honor,” he said to Hugh. “And not a cow’s death in their own beds.”
    He saw Hugh’s frown and allowed a lazy smile to curl his own lips. He had said it just to goad his brother, who thought himself a coward because he rode terrified into every battle. Hugh hadn’t yet learned that every other man out there was also scared enough to piss in his braies. In truth, Raine thought, he would sell his own soul for the chance to die an easy death in a bed. But he wanted it tobe
his
bed. Not in some lice-ridden tavern or among the rushes of another man’s hall. At the thought, his gaze shifted up to the mist-veiled keep.
    Hugh stepped in front of him. His brother’s expressive mouth bore a bright smile, but his voice held a honeyed malice. “I believe I owe you my thanks, Raine, for winning me this castle from the accursed Welsh. But then my gratitude is hardly enough for you, now is it? I forget you fight for profit, not honor.”
    The shock Raine felt didn’t show on his face, but Hugh’s words had been like a mailed fist in his gut. He’d never expected that his brother would put in a claim of Rhuddlan. It was such a paltry bit of land compared to the hundreds of commotes Hugh already ruled.
And it is mine, damn it,
Raine thought. He had taken it, and now it was
his.
    “Name your reward,” Hugh was saying. “A new destrier? But how about a white one this time—black is
so
unfashionable. Or what say you to a new coat of mail?” He flicked his fingers against Raine’s hauberk. “This one is beginning to get that battered look.”
    Raine said nothing; he didn’t even blink. He knew why Hugh was doing this. His brother had always had the knack for discovering the things Raine wanted most and then ensuring that they were denied to him. Hugh would go after the Honor of Rhuddlan for no other reason than to keep Raine from having it.
    Hugh’s smile had faltered. “Didn’t you hear me, Raine? I said I was going to claim Rhuddlan of the king.”
    “I heard you. I was just wondering what you would do with it,” Raine said, imbuing his voice with boredom. “I thought you found Wales dreary.”
    Either he failed, or perhaps his brother simply knew him too well. Hugh’s eyes opened wide with exaggerated surprise. “Oh, Raine … surely you didn’t think
you
would be allowed to keep such a valuable fief as Rhuddlan for yourself?”
    Raine continued to stare blankly at his brother until Hugh’s eyes were the first to shift away. But he couldn’t help saying, “Why don’t we let the king decide,” though he knew well that whatever Hugh asked for, the king would feel compelled to grant to him. The Earl of Chester was too powerful a baron for Henry to offend.
    Hugh knew it too. His smile was dazzling. “Oh, by all means, we shall let the king decide. He has summoned you, by the way. That’s why I’m here. Our good King Henry is about to engage that wicked Welsh chieftain in a rather nasty battle, and he has asked for the presence of his best and bravest knight. That’s what you’re best at, isn’t it—being brave? You needn’t worry though. I shall take good care of Rhuddlan in your place.”
    A bowman suddenly lurched between them, waving a burning firebrand in Hugh’s face. The earl recoiled violently, stumbling backward and nearly falling on his butt in the mud. He put a hand to his forehead and to Raine’s amusement a horrified look crossed his brother’s face as he realized his hair had been singed.
    “Get out of my way, you