Free Knight's Honor by Roberta Gellis Page A

she had gotten along fine without him for two years when she knew he was inaccessible but now could not live a day without his presence.
    Two other letters were perused in silence, the first brought only a mild look of consideration to his face, but the second brought a steadily darkening expression. Elizabeth watched her betrothed with silent concern, unwilling to question him before her father, but Chester was not so nice.
    "Well, what is it, Roger? What makes you look so black?"
    "I have sufficient cause," Hereford snarled. "Here, read this." He passed along the second letter, which Chester saw bore the royal seal. Elizabeth looked anxiously from one man to another as her father's brows also contracted with anger and Hereford, catching her eye, motioned impatiently that she too might read.
    Chester passed her the parchment to finish since she had been reading over his shoulder but he looked at Hereford. "How did Stephen know you were back? How dare he address you in such terms?"
    "How dare he?" Hereford nearly choked with the rage which had been rising steadily as he considered what he had read. "Because he is safe behind his walls." He sprang to his feet, nearly weeping with frustration. "Oh, God, I will make him eat those words. I will send him back his 'legitimate offspring' piece by piece—first his ears, then his eyes—" He struck the chessboard between himself and Chester a blow that brought blood to his knuckles and sent the pieces flying all over the room.
    The bishop, just entering, hurried across to the raging man. "Gently, my son. How often have I said that this is a game of the devil's invention. See how it makes enemies of father and son."
    Hereford strode off across the hall, incapable of reply, pounding his fist into his open palm. Chester too was in no mood for a discussion with the man of God and turned away angrily. It was left to Elizabeth to enlighten him.
    "It was not the game, Father." Her eyes flashed, bold and yellow as a she-wolf’s. "See, only see the way our king—may the Lord smite him for his presumption—takes upon himself authority over the Church of God." Elizabeth was angry, but as her pride was less than the men's her rage was less overwhelming and she saw a way to turn this threatened setback to an advantage. "Look," she cried, handing the bishop the letter, "see how he sets his authority higher than God's. He forbids Lord Hereford and myself to marry. My father has granted his consent; the Church acknowledges that we are outside the bonds of consanguinity and through your sacred hands has given its consent, and I am willing. Is not wedlock a sacrament of the Church? How dare King Stephen interfere in a sacrament of God?"
    "My daughter, let me read," the bishop protested, but Elizabeth's aim was already accomplished. The prelate, as jealous of his rights as any temporal lord, had been predisposed by her introduction to think of Stephen's prohibition as an infringement of his spiritual authority. He passed lightly over the point that Stephen was Hereford's overlord, although this was not technically true because Hereford had never done homage to him, and therefore did have a right to forbid the marriage, and moved on to consideration of a matter that was clearly within his realm.
    "This is nonsense. If you are not consanguineous and are married by an ordained priest, neither of you having a previous spouse living, your children must be legitimate and must inherit your lands. No king can deny that right to a man's children. He cannot even deny it to the children of a serf, so how much less right must he have over the children of a free lord of the land. Perhaps for other causes," the bishop hedged, thinking that possibly he had gone too far, "a king may sequester estates, but not on the grounds of legitimacy if the parents are properly married."
    "Yes," Elizabeth said, her bosom heaving, "but what priest would have courage to marry us in the face of this prohibition?"
    Chester shifted