Meredith lay very still. Cats were a normal
part of the domestic scene, necessary to keep rodents away from
food supplies, and she was accustomed to those ordinary creatures.
This cat was not ordinary. In the part of Mercia where she had
lived all her life, people believed that white cats were witches’
pets, and harming one was unlucky. The people of Alfric’s village
had sometimes called Branwen a witch. Meredith shivered. The cat
watched her with a fixed gaze until Meredith nervously crossed
herself. The cat blinked but did not disappear as the devil’s
animal ought to have done, and after a moment it put its spotless
white head down on one forepaw and went to sleep. Afraid to disturb
it, Meredith looked anxiously about, hoping to find Branwen.
She was alone. The fire still burned
brightly, its light casting flickering gold across the dry, smooth
cave walls that stretched to a high dome above her. The silvery
flecks in the rock glittered. In front of Meredith and to the right
she could see daylight beyond the fold in the rock through which
she and her companions had entered the cave. On the opposite side
of the entrance, the cave stretched away into inky black
nothingness. Blackness, a cave, a strange cat. She should have been
afraid. Instead, she felt safe, though she did not know why.
The cat stood up, stretched, and stalked off
toward the cave entrance. Meredith pulled the blanket more closely
around herself and looked for a bowl and ladle. The mouthwatering
smell coming from the cauldron reminded her that she had been
hungry for days.
“You are awake.” Branwen came around the fold
of rock at the entrance. “It’s after mid-day. Here.” She found the
bowl Meredith had been looking for and served up a helping of
stew.
“There was a cat here,” Meredith said. “It
was white.”
“Yes.” Branwen did not seem the least
concerned. “It belongs to Rhys.”
“Is he a witch?”
“No.” Branwen laughed at Meredith’s concern.
“Nor am I. That is only what ignorant fools call people they do not
understand. When we lived in Lord Ranaulf’s village I was hated and
feared because I knew ways to heal and cure that the others did
not. They were beginning to look at you in the same way. It is good
that we left there, though I am sorry for what happened to Alfric.
At least he never beat me as most men beat their wives. Perhaps he
was afraid of me, too.” Branwen sighed. “Alfric should have come
with us.”
“Who is Rhys ap Daffydd? Why does he live in
the woods?”
“I told you last night, he is my cousin. He
lost his home when the Normans came. Many folk did. He has lived
here, in this cave, for many years. The Welsh are different from
the Normans in that they may not all remember the old ways, but
they respect those who do. Rhys has spent his life acquiring the
old wisdom. Our countrymen who live nearby come to Rhys for
medicine and for advice, and sometimes just to hear him speak or
sing, and they bring him gifts of bread or vegetables from their
farms, or clothing. They will not betray him to the Normans. Nor
will they betray us, if we are under his protection.”
“We will stay here,” Meredith said, feeling
the comfortable sound of the words after so much traveling. She
watched Branwen nod contentedly.
“Rhys has agreed to it,” Branwen said. “He is
growing older. I can help him in his work. Together we will teach
you all we know. Even though you are not Welsh by blood you have
the ability to learn, and when we are gone you will carry on the
ancient skills.”
Meredith did not question Branwen’s decision.
She trusted the aunt who had been like a mother to her. She would
do as Branwen wished.
She never entirely lost her awe of Rhys,
though she soon came to love him. To her youthful eyes there was
something strange and wonderful about the elderly man. He came and
went silently, often staying away from the cave for days. In his
absences, Branwen dealt with the sick or injured who came there for
aid. They accepted Branwen, at first because of Rhys, and later for
her own skills, and no one ever questioned Meredith’s position as
assistant to her elders.
Meredith eagerly learned all Branwen and Rhys
could teach her. She had a gift for healing, an instinctive
understanding of which medicine to use for each ailment, and she
used her strong, soothing hands to set broken bones or sew up
wounds, and after a few years, in spite of her youth, she, too, was
known as a healer.
Healing was not all she learned. She came to
know the forest well, and like Branwen willingly gave up eating
meat out of respect and affection for the creatures who lived in
it.
Rhys was a natural teacher. He had traveled
to far-distant lands in his youth, had seen and done much before
returning to his homeland. He spoke several languages. He had
yearned for a willing pupil, and now he had found one. He began
instructing Meredith as he had once taught Branwen. She absorbed it
all.
“But not French,” Branwen said. “I won’t have
Meredith learning that cursed language.”
“It is the Normans you dislike, not their
words,” Rhys said in his quiet way. “Meredith will need to know
French, and so will you. The Normans are here, Branwen. They will
not go away. It is easier to deal with them if you speak their
language.”
Branwen gave in to Rhys, as she usually did,
and the French lessons continued, and now Branwen learned, too.
Reynaud
Despite Rhys’s assurances and Meredith’s
comfortable sense of safety, their situation was not completely
secure. The year before Meredith and Branwen arrived at Rhys’s
cave, King William Rufus had made a vain second attempt to conquer
all of Wales, and then had vented his frustration at his failure by
laying waste a large portion of the countryside. When he finally
withdrew into England again, he left several of his henchmen behind
on the border to strengthen Norman fortifications in those few
areas he had managed to take from the Welsh. Lionel of Adderbury
was created Baron of Afoncaer and ordered to rebuild the burned-out
wooden structure into a strong stone fortress.
Unwilling to use the income from his vast
estates in England to finance the work, Lord Lionel had imposed
heavy exactions on the Welsh who lived on his lands. He had brought
with him a group of dispossessed Saxon peasants to settle in the
village outside his castle walls, and these foreigners, exempt from
Lionel’s taxes and much favored by him, created chronic problems
with the native folk. The specter of revolt hung over Lord Lionel’s
domain. When Lionel, returning from a trip to Normandy that had
ended in a violent quarrel with the king, tightened his grip and
increased taxes even more, the Welsh believed they had no choice
left. The execution, at Lionel’s order, of a popular young leader
provided the final spark to set Welsh defiance ablaze.
In mid July of the year of Our Lord 1100, a
small band of determined Welsh rebels killed many of the despised
Saxon settlers, stormed the castle, pulled down part of the
uncompleted stone outer wall to get inside, and then murdered both
Lord Lionel and his chief engineer. As though appalled at their own
actions, the rebels vanished into the forests, never to be
found.
Those who lived near Afoncaer but had not
taken part in the violence waited in terror for the inevitable
royal reprisal. It never came. It was several weeks before they
learned why.
On August second of that year, William Rufus,
the wicked king, hated and feared and loathed, died, mysteriously
slain by an arrow while hunting in the New Forest. Killed on
Thursday afternoon and no one punished for it, the rumors said, and
buried in haste on Friday morning. On the following Sunday, Henry,
the first of that name, and by all accounts innocent of any part in
his older brother’s death, had been consecrated king at
Westminster. No one knew what to expect from the new king. It was
fervently hoped he would be better than the last one.
A year passed and no more king’s men came to
Afoncaer. People began to relax their concern, some even forgot
about the revolt. Life went on. A second year passed, and now
Meredith was seventeen years old, devoted to her healing work,
content to live with Aunt Branwen and old Rhys, and only
occasionally aware of an odd stirring of need, an unexplained
longing for something, she knew not what. Since she had no friends
of her own age, she put it down to loneliness, which in part it
was, and applied herself more seriously to learning all she could
of the healing arts.
And then, after so much time, came a fresh
set of rumors. A new lord had been chosen to come to Afoncaer, to
finish rebuilding the castle, and to restore the English king’s
peace and justice. The Welsh, knowing what that meant, began to
hide the few treasures Lord Lionel had left them.
Late July, AD 1100
Isabel received the news of Lionel’s death
calmly.
“My lady,” Father Herbert said when the
king’s messenger was gone, “You must be brave. It is not as though
you and he…as though he were…that is, I know how much you have
suffered.”
“He was my husband,” Isabel said, rising from
her chair by the hearth. Around her the empty space of the great
hall of Adderbury echoed; the scrape of the chair moving backward
across the stone floor sounded unnaturally loud to her shocked
senses. “He was … he was Lionel.”
She could think of nothing more to say about
him. She recalled the first time she had seen him, how handsome he
had been, her dreamed-about, soon-to-be husband, and the foolish
young girl’s fantasies she had thought he would make come true. If
only he had been the knight she had dreamed of. She had no tears
for the bloated, foolish sycophant he had become, the man who had
tried to rule the king by flattery and corruption and had been
thwarted, whose ambition had reached to high rank and failed. Poor
Lionel. Not one tear would fall.
“He was buried at an abbey in Wales?” She
watched Father Herbert nod assent to her question.
“Llangwilym Abbey, an hour or two away from
Afoncaer. His body was taken there, or so the messenger said. My
lady, I am not at all surprised you do not remember what the man
told us. The shock of such news, so unexpected…”
“Oh, I remember well enough, Father. So,
William wants me at court, does he? Without even giving me time to
mourn. He wants Adderbury, Father Herbert, and Afoncaer, too. All
are his now, by his own laws, and I … I belong to King William
also. What will become of me now?”
“I will go with you, my lady,” the priest
volunteered. “I will not leave you alone.”
“And I shall be glad of your support. Would
you find Joan and send her to me? I should give her instructions
for the packing.” It wasn’t only the orders for Joan. She wanted to
be rid of him, just for a while. He meant well, but he could drive
her mad with his concern for her and his constant talking. She
needed to think.
Guy should have been here but he was far
away, storming the walls of Jerusalem most likely, and she was left
alone to deal with a half-mad king who hated her. And Thomas –
thank heaven Lionel had sent Thomas to Prince Henry. The boy had
been gone a year. She scarcely missed him. His absence was one less
responsibility on her shoulders now.
She knew she was entitled to a third of
Lionel’s estate. Would William try to marry her off at once to
another of his dear, intimate friends, using her portion as dowry
and claiming a huge marriage fee from her new husband? He had done
it before, to women she had known. William would pay her back for
what little influence she had held over Lionel, for the small
concern Lionel had shown for her, by finding her the most
unsuitable and unattractive second husband he could. Someone cruel
or old and sickly, who would insist that she not go to court but
rather stay with him in some moldering fortress far from
civilization and gaiety. William would enjoy seeing that happen to
her.
Well, there was nothing for it but to go to
Winchester and meet William, and see what he planned. Joan
appeared, and Isabel began listing on her fingers the gowns she
wanted to take.
She set out from Adderbury on Wednesday,
August first, traveling as slowly as possible, wanting to avoid the
meeting with William as long as she could. She planned to drag the
trip out for four days, arriving in late evening so William would
not see her until morning, when she was rested. She would claim
grief as an excuse for taking so long.
Her party reached the outskirts of Oxford
early on Friday afternoon. The captain of her little band of guards
had ridden ahead to find suitable lodgings for them, but he came
galloping back to her, his horse’s hooves kicking up a spray of mud
from the road.
“He comes too quickly. Something’s amiss,”
Father Herbert said, reining in his mule and looking pale and
nervous.
Isabel rode bravely forward. When he was
closer, she could see by her man’s face it was excitement and
surprise that animated him, not fear.
“My lady,” the captain shouted while he was
still some distance away, “the king is dead.” He drew up beside her
and began to relate the circumstances of William’s mysterious
death.
Isabel heard the murmurs around her as her
traveling companions clustered close and took in the news. She saw
Father Herbert and several others cross themselves. She was too
numb to do anything but stare back at her guard as he spoke.
“It is a sign,” Father Herbert intoned
solemnly, “a sign from heaven. The wicked shall perish from the
earth unshriven.” He crossed himself again.
“Be quiet, please,” Isabel admonished him.
“Let us hear what else there is to tell. Captain, where is Prince
Henry? Is he safe?” Something very like fear now clutched at
Isabel’s heart both for Henry, the youngest and best of the
Conqueror’s sons, and for Thomas, his page, her own golden-haired
child, of whom it was said Prince Henry was fond.