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was working for someone else?” Hugh said.
    “I do.”
    “And whom do you suspect?”
    Nigel replied by posing another question. “Who is the one who gained the most by the death of Lord Roger and the disappearance of his only son and heir?”
    “Guy,” Bernard said emphatically. He pounded his fist once upon the table. “By God, you suspect that Guy was behind the death of his brother!”
    “Nor am I the only one to have harbored such a thought,” Nigel said grimly.
    “There was no proof?” Bernard demanded. “No way of connecting this Walter Crespin to Guy?”
    Nigel’s smile held no humor. “Walter was conveniently dead, and it is not possible to question a dead man.”
    The two men looked at each other around the still figure of Hugh.
    Bernard said, “Walter’s body was returned, but not the body of the boy?”
    “That is right. Although I am certain that he was meant to be killed as well, evidently he found some means of getting away.”
    At this, both knights fixed their eyes upon Hugh.
    His beautiful face wore the still, reserved, utterly unapproachable expression that Bernard had always dreaded to see.
    “A very interesting thesis,” Hugh said. “It is a pity that you have no proof.”
    “You wear my proof upon your face,” Nigel told him grimly. “No one who sees you can doubt who you are.”
    A muscle flickered along Hugh’s jawbone.
    “What do you propose I do?” he asked in the same cool voice as before. “Make an appointment to see my supposed uncle and ask him to recognize me as his long-lost nephew?”
    Nigel’s aristocratic nostrils pinched together with insult. “I am not so foolhardy as that.”
    Hugh’s cold eyes looked at him. “What do you want me to do, then?” he repeated.
    “Come with me to the king,” Nigel replied. “If Stephen will recognize your claim, then you will have the legitimacy you need to challenge Guy.”
    Once more Hugh raised a skeptical eyebrow. “I rather think that King Stephen will require more proof of my identity than the assurance of one of Guy’s discontented vassals that I look like the dead heir.”
    Anger flashed across Nigel’s face, but before he could reply, Bernard cut in.
    “The lad is right. There must be more voices than yours to represent his claim to the king.”
    Nigel set his jaw. “Then he must go to see his mother. If I was able to recognize him so immediately, she will be even quicker to do so.”
    The two men were so involved with each other that neither of them noticed the way Hugh had frozen at Nigel’s words.
    “His mother is still alive?” Bernard asked incredulously. “Why didn’t you mention this earlier? Where is she?”
    “In the Benedictine convent in Worcester,” Nigel replied. “It is where she has resided since the death of her husband and the loss of her son.” Nigel turned to Hugh and said emotionally, “She will be overjoyed to see you, lad.”
    The eyes he encountered were as bleak and cold as the North Sea in January.
    “No,” Hugh said.
    Nigel’s head snapped up. “What do you mean, no ? Are you saying that you won’t go to see your mother?”
    “She is not my mother,” Hugh said. “And I won’t see her.”
    The two older men stared at him in astonishment.
    Hugh stood up. “Why makes you so certain that my loyalty is pledged to Stephen?” he demanded of Nigel Haslin.
    Nigel’s voice became louder. “You fought for him at the Battle of the Standard!”
    “I followed my foster father to the Standard, as was my duty. But Ralf is dead now.”
    Nigel leaped to his feet so that he loomed over Hugh. “You cannot seriously be thinking of declaring for the empress?”
    “Stephen once swore allegiance to her,” Hugh pointed out calmly.
    “We all did!” Nigel cried. “Her father, the old king, forced us to.”
    Hugh shrugged.
    “You cannot declare for the empress, lad,” Bernard said. He too had gotten to his feet. “Ralf was Stephen’s man. He had his manors of Stephen. You cannot