She came at last to the place where the
stream joined the river. She climbed out and sat on a flat, wet
rock and rubbed her numb feet back to aching life. And all the
time, behind her eyes, played the dazzling vision of a
golden-haired knight in silver armor.
“That was a hero,” she whispered to herself.
“Aunt Branwen was right, the legends are not dead. There are still
heroes, and I have seen one.”
“They lost her in the woods, my lord. It was
only a girl, alone. My lord? Guy?” The squire looked in confusion
at his master, who had sheathed his sword and sat upon his horse
looking as if he were unaware of the activity around him, staring
into the trees where the girl had fled.
“I heard you, Geoffrey. Never forget, even a
lone female can be a spy. But we are fortunate. No ambush this
time.” Guy paused, the memory of dark red curls and long, shapely
legs still tantalizing his senses. “I want you to find out who that
was, Geoffrey. We can take no chances. If she was a spy, I want to
know it. If you can find her, bring her to me.”
He was interrupted by a too-familiar sound.
From the curtained litter slung between two horses came wails that
Guy knew were accompanied by copious tears. He saw the cleric
Reynaud and his nephew Thomas, who had been riding together,
approaching the litter, bent on comforting its occupant. Father
Herbert of Brittany, Isabel’s personal priest, had insisted on
accompanying her into Wales and he, too, trailed after the others
toward Isabel’s litter. The priest sat uncomfortably on his mount.
An ass riding an ass, Guy thought scornfully, and a dirty ass at
that. Like most Normans, Guy made a habit of bathing regularly.
Father Herbert did not.
Guy met Geoffrey’s glance, noting an
unmistakable twinkle in his squire’s brown eyes. In his present
mood, the sign of humor was too irritating.
“Tell Lady Isabel not to worry. There is no
danger, and we will be at Afoncaer soon,” Guy instructed. Let
Geoffrey carry the message. Squires must endure onerous duties, it
was part of their training, and he, Guy, could tolerate no more of
Isabel’s complaints.
Despite her apparent sudden acquiescence in
what she still dramatically referred to as her “exile,” Isabel had
delayed and dawdled over her packing and travel arrangements until
nearly six weeks had passed since King Henry’s command to go to
Wales. Guy’s patience had finally evaporated. He had marched into
her room one evening and arbitrarily announced that they would
depart the court at dawn two days hence, whether his sister-in-law
was prepared or not. Floods of tears and accusations of cruelty
could not move him. He had been entirely too patient and now it was
necessary to be quite clear about who was in command of his
household. On the long trek toward Wales, Isabel had alternated
between tears and periods of sullen silence. Guy cast one last
disgruntled look at the knot of men around Isabel’s litter before
signaling two of his men-at-arms to accompany him and resuming his
journey toward Afoncaer.
Their first view of the castle was
disheartening. During the uprising that had resulted in the death
of Lord Lionel three years previously, the main gate and part of
the outer wall had been torn down. It had never been repaired, and
now Guy led his party through the breach and into the outer bailey,
then along a rutted, muddy road to the second gate and the inner
bailey.
The day after King Henry had given him the
license to rebuild the castle, Guy had sent men ahead to prepare
temporary living quarters. A new, roughly made wooden hall stood at
one side of the inner bailey, a rougher wood stable and some sheds
nearby. The captain he had put in charge of these works came
forward to greet him as Guy dismounted.
“God’s teeth, John, it’s worse than I
imagined,” Guy said.
“It is that, my lord,” replied the captain,
“but we have cleared away most of the rubble and can start
rebuilding the outer wall at once. Has the architect come with
you?”
“Reynaud, yes. I think he will be a good man
for this job. Come, I’ll introduce you.” Guy turned to find the
cleric, and met instead his furious, nearly hysterical
sister-in-law. Isabel caught at his arm, the tasseled cords
fastening her cloak swinging wildly at her exaggerated gesture.
“How could you do this to me? I can’t live
here. It’s a hovel. There are obviously no amenities at all.”
“John, this is Lady Isabel, Lord Lionel’s
widow,” Guy said hastily, anxious that his captain should not
mistakenly imagine this weeping, red-eyed female was his own newly
taken wife.
“My lady.” Captain John bowed low. “We had no
idea a lady was coming with Lord Guy. There are no real women’s
quarters here as yet, but there is an area at one end of the hall
that can easily be made into a bower for you and your serving
women. I’ll see to it at once.”
“Thank you.” Isabel sniffed, somewhat
mollified. “I’m glad there is someone here who understands what is
due a lady of noble breeding.” She cast an angry sidelong glance at
Guy to be sure her point was well understood.
“You will, of course,” Captain John continued
tactfully, “want to give both me and the architect your ideas about
those parts of the castle that are the lady’s domain: the women’s
quarters, the kitchen and laundry, the baths, perhaps a private
garden for yourself and your attendants. I am most anxious to hear
your opinion about the location of the chapel. How fortunate we are
to have you here to advise us, rough men that we are.”
“I do have a few ideas.” Isabel placed her
hand on John’s outstretched wrist and graciously allowed him to
lead her toward the hall. Her son, Thomas, in his position of page,
followed close behind, and Father Herbert behind Thomas. Reynaud
joined Guy, and together they brought up the rear of this
procession.
“My man missed his calling.” Guy inclined his
head toward Captain John. “He should have gone into the church. He
could easily have become Pope.”
A low chuckle from the usually serious
Reynaud surprised him.
“If he is as skillful in dealing with the
workers, both local and imported, as he is with Lady Isabel, we
will be fortunate indeed,” said Reynaud in his slightly pedantic
way. “I have heard the Welsh never really submit to Norman rule but
continually find ways to subvert our intentions, as they did here,
under Lord Lionel.”
“We will stop any attempt at revolt, Reynaud,
beginning with the outer fortifications. You and I and John will
meet together this evening to discuss the plans for rebuilding. Use
your time until then to investigate the site thoroughly. You will
need to know everything about it before you put pen and ruler to
parchment.”
“My lord, I am well aware of my duties.”
Reynaud’s quiet voice held a rebuke.
“Perhaps I am overeager,” Guy said, marveling
that he felt it necessary to explain himself to this cleric. “I did
not mean to offend you. Unlike some barons, I do not despise those
who can read and write, I admire them. I have tried to write and I
can’t do it, except for just my name. So I know how hard it is to
learn. I need you, Reynaud, to draw up the plans for my castle and
to direct the reconstruction. And you need me to protect you while
you do the only work that matters to you: building. Let us work
together without quarreling.”
“Agreed, my lord.” Reynaud, his pale eyes
holding a startled look, as though he wondered how Guy had so
quickly detected the one creative urge that directed his existence,
followed his new master into the wooden hall.
“Aunt Branwen.” Meredith flung her arms
around Branwen’s still-slender waist. “The most wonderful thing has
happened. I have seen a knight. He was glorious, all glittery and
silver. He has golden hair. The sun came out and shone on him. I
can’t tell you how beautiful he was.”
“No Norman is beautiful.” Branwen pursed her
lips and pulled out of Meredith’s embrace. “And all Normans bring
trouble with them. Now that they have come back, there will be no
fair treatment for the folk who live near Afoncaer. We should leave
here, move further into Wales, but we can’t go. Rhys is ill.”
“What’s wrong? Branwen, tell me.” Meredith
noticed for the first time that her aunt was stirring an
odd-smelling brew in a small pot. The fumes were bitter, the liquid
a viscous green that bubbled and plopped and bubbled again as
Branwen threw a handful of small branches on the fire, making it
blaze until the flames seared the sides of the cauldron. “Where is
Rhys?”
“I’m here. I can still walk.” Leaning heavily
on his staff, Rhys emerged from the shadows of the vast underground
chamber that lay beyond the outer cavern they used for living
quarters.
Meredith knew Rhys kept his most precious
medicines in the cool darkness of the inner cave. She had helped
him often enough, and she remembered where each item was stored.
She watched as Rhys handed a glass vial to Branwen, who added
precisely three drops of the contents to her pot before returning
the vial to Rhys. A cloud of smoke rose from the pot, the acrid
fumes stinging Meredith’s eyes.
“What is it you are making, aunt? I’ve never
seen that mixture before.”
“You will see it often enough from now on,”
Rhys assured her, “and learn to make it, too. It’s for the pain
around my heart. I am very old, Meredith, and medicine or not I
will die before too many more years have passed.” Rhys sat down on
a smooth boulder, flexing the fingers of his left hand. He tucked
the vial into the folds of his grey woolen robe and then began to
massage his left arm and shoulder, while the white cat rubbed
itself against his ankles as if to offer comfort. Rhys’s face was
pale, his lips a purplish-blue.
He spoke only the truth, Meredith realized.
When she and Branwen had first come to his cave five years before,
and she a mere girl of twelve, she had thought Rhys was ancient. As
she had grown to respect and then to love him, she had forgotten
his age. His mind was young and full of wondrous knowledge to
satisfy her curiosity, and that was all that mattered to her.
She knew how old he was. He had lived for
seventy summers, an incredible age. Rhys had been a middle-aged man
of thirty-five when William the Conqueror had come to Wales with
his Norman army, and he had lived through the later depredations of
the Conqueror’s son, William Rufus, but he would not live much
longer.
The shapeless form of inevitable change cast
its shadow over the bright vision Meredith had seen earlier. The
new Lord of Afoncaer, handsome and glittery though he was, would
bring change, too. The harshness of Norman rule would fall upon
them all, and this once-safe cave might no longer be a secure
place.
Still, she could not forget the knight. His
blue eyes haunted her. There was sadness in them, she was sure. He
had thick eyebrows, darker than his golden hair. His mouth was
delicately chiseled, almost sensitive. Surely a man with a mouth
like that could not be cruel. It was only after he had seen her
that his lips had compressed into a tight, straight line, an
arrogant sneer. Her heart beat harder with remembered terror as she
recalled how he had ridden at her, sword drawn, ready to kill her.
And yet – those eyes, that mouth. She had to see him again.
She knew she ought to stay away from
Afoncaer. It was unwise to go anywhere near the Normans. Two slow
weeks passed while Meredith fought her unreasonable desire. She
stayed close to the cave, helped Branwen to nurse Rhys, and
listened to the gossip of the folk who came to ask for Branwen’s
herbal cures.
The Normans, she was told, had wasted no time
conscripting local men into work crews to help the English masons
who had come into Wales with the new baron. They had set about
rebuilding the outer wall at once. Another group of men had been
ordered to dig the unfinished moat deeper and wider. The Lord of
Afoncaer insisted the workmen must be well fed, and had provided
shoes for a few Welsh who owned none, a most unusual gesture for a
Norman. There must be some trick to it. Everyone knew Normans could
not be trusted.
The lord of Afoncaer, the gossips said, had a
squire, a pleasant enough fellow with an apparently endless supply
of ale, who had been asking questions about a red-haired wench,
seen and admired by Lord Guy.
“You are the only red-haired girl I know of,”
said the woman who provided Meredith with this piece of
information. “I can imagine what that brutish lord wants with you.
If you are wise, Meredith, you will stay well away from
Afoncaer.”
“She’s right, you know,” Branwen said after
the woman had left. “No one knows better than I how the Normans
treat conquered women.”
“How did they treat you, Aunt Branwen? What
did they do to you?”
“I was a noblewoman once, long ago. Remember
your own mother, child, and go nowhere near that cursed
castle.”
Meredith said nothing. She could not promise
what Branwen wanted and she could not tell Branwen that every
night, just before she fell asleep, she saw in her mind again the
face of a man with blue eyes and golden hair.
“They say she is a healing woman, my lord,”
Geoffrey reported, “who cures with herbs and magic. She lives in a
cave hidden deep in the woods with another woman, also a healer,
and a wise old man, who may be a wizard.”
Guy laughed.
“A wizard, friend squire, is any person who
knows more than you know yourself.” Guy watched Reynaud’s lips
tighten as Father Herbert gasped and crossed himself at this
flippant response. Guy sensed Reynaud’s reaction to Geoffrey’s
information had been much the same as his own. He decided to test
the silent cleric. “Well, what do you say, my builder? Shall I take
an army and attack these people’s cave?”