“I – I – how did you find this place?”
Meredith stammered.
“By following Thomas, of course,” he said. “I
am a good hunter. I seldom lose my quarry.”
“Uncle Guy, please tell her I didn’t break my
word,” Thomas begged.
“I just did, Tom.”
“Why should I believe either of you?”
Meredith was trembling so hard she thought she would fall. She was
alarmed, because now the Normans knew where she and Rhys and
Branwen lived, and frightened for what might – no, what surely
would – happen to them all, but she was happy, too, with a wild,
singing joy that raced through every nerve at his presence. No one
else she had ever known had made her feel this way, not even Rhys,
when she had thought he was a wizard. What was it that this Norman
lord did to her, what in heaven’s name was this feeling? She wanted
above all things to touch him, to feel bone and muscle and warmth.
She half lifted her hand, then remembered he was the enemy, and her
hand fell to her side. She felt hopelessness wash over her.
“Please,” she said, thinking of Rhys and
Branwen, “we mean no harm to you or anyone else. We take nothing
from you, my lord.”
“Not even when you poach my game?”
“We do not eat meat. We live on roots and
nuts and berries, and the milk and cheese and vegetables the folk
here bring us in return for our healing skills.”
“The cattle from which the villeins get that
milk and cheese belong to me. The forest and all that is in it
belongs to me. Including you.”
“I belong to no one. Rhys and Branwen and I
are all free.”
“Then you are the only free people in
England. Everyone else belongs to someone or something.” He came
two steps nearer to her. Meredith wanted to run and hide, as Gwyn
had done when this overpowering Norman entered the cave, but she
could not move.
“You are free,” she said.
“I belong to King Henry, whose orders I am
sworn to obey.”
“The Welsh are free.”
“Ah, yes, the Welsh.” He smiled.
“You will never conquer them.” It was a proud
statement of fact.
“We shall see.” He took another step, and
suddenly he was so close he was nearly touching her. Meredith
looked back at him, marveling at the rugged beauty of his face. The
scar on the left side of his jaw only accented his fine features.
She wondered how it would feel to run her fingertips along the line
of that jaw, to brush back the golden hair from his brow, to hold
his head against her bosom.
“What are you called?”
“I am Meredith.”
“A Welsh name. But you are not Welsh by the
look of you.”
“No.” She would not tell him what she was,
for she was ashamed of her parentage.
“Well, Meredith, do you admit to practicing
the old ways?” His voice was not challenging, but instead gentle
and friendly. She gave the answer she and Rhys and Branwen always
made when questioned.
“We are healers. We mean no harm to
anyone.”
“What you are doing is against the laws the
Conqueror made. And by living here you trespass on my domain.” The
friendly tone of his quiet voice did not change as he spoke these
words.
“Then we will leave.” Meredith did not know
how she would manage it, but there must be some way to convince
Rhys and Branwen to move elsewhere for safety.
“You may not leave my lands without my
permission. That is the law.” Still that quiet voice, and her anger
flared with unreasonable intensity.
“I care nothing for your laws, Norman!”
“That is all too obvious, since you are
breaking so many of them.”
“Uncle Guy.” Meredith’s attention had been so
fixed upon the handsome man before her that she had forgotten
Thomas. His childish voice startled her. “Lady Meredith has done me
a kind service. In fact, she saved my life. Could you not, in
return, allow her and her companions to live here so long as they
wish?”
“Lady Meredith? Kind service?” Guy stared at
his nephew in astonishment.
“It is a matter of knightly honor,” Thomas
told him.
“God’s Holy Teeth, boy, who has been filling
your head with such nonsense?”
“It’s not nonsense, Uncle Guy. I learned it
at court. A knight’s solemn vow is unbreakable; he holds all women
in reverence and he fights only on the side of right and
justice.”
“Really? Then who do you suppose are the
knights who fight on the other side?” At the look on Thomas’s face,
Guy stopped. He remembered when he, too, had been as young and
innocent of the world as Thomas was now. He would not be the one to
tell the boy that knightly vows were all too often broken, that
reverence for women applied only to certain highborn ladies,
leaving the rest of womankind open to the brutal assaults of
callous men. Guy had never cared for that sort of thing himself. He
would rather woo even the lowliest tavern wench until she came
willingly to his bed, and for this attitude he had sometimes been
called less than manly by his rougher companions-in-arms.
“Uncle Guy, you can return Lady Meredith’s
kindness if you will.” Thomas’s lower lip was trembling.
Guy did not want to hurt the boy, and yet he
had. But he could make amends. He looked at Meredith. She stood
before him cloaked in natural dignity, too proud to beg for herself
or her friends. Dear God, she was beautiful, lovelier than the
finest court lady. Dark red curls had come loose from her braids,
making a halo around her head, emphasizing her delicate features.
Her eyes were silver-grey as the softest clouds. Her well-rounded
figure was not hidden at all by the shapeless grey robe she wore,
her tiny waist only accentuated by the coarse, plaited rope that
served for a belt. She was small, coming barely to his shoulder,
and she had slender, graceful hands. Too slender for a villein’s
brat, too fine and lovely altogether. He wondered who she really
was, and who had had the fathering of her.
Out of the corner of his eye Guy saw a white
cat slide out of the darkness of the inner cave. The animal sat
down and turned its blue eyes upon him.
“Uncle Guy?” Thomas was tugging at his
sleeve. “Are you ill? Why don’t you speak?”
“Not ill, only thinking.” Guy looked at
Meredith again. He could not keep his eyes away from her lovely
face, but he was eerily aware of the cat still staring at him. He
knew in this part of Britain the common folk believed cats could
charm the winds. Although Guy held no such belief himself, he
wondered if the exquisite girl before him did. “Meredith, I command
you to tell me exactly what you and your friends do here.”
The answer came not from Meredith, but from
directly behind Guy’s shoulder.
“We do nothing that could bring harm to any
living being,” Rhys said. “What are you doing here, young man? Who
are you, and by what right do you question any of us?”
Guy’s first impulse was to cross himself
several times, but then he recognized there was no evil in the
elderly man, nor in the small, dark woman who stood protectively by
his side with one hand on the jeweled hilt of a tiny dagger. Guy
stopped his right hand in mid-gesture, and placing it on his chest
and bowing, he told Rhys his name and title. He noticed that Thomas
looked frightened, glancing from Rhys to his uncle and back again,
and he guessed that Thomas feared his reaction to these strange
people would be the same as Father Herbert’s would have been.
“We have some ale, a gift from a friend,”
Rhys said. “We will gladly share it with you, sir.”
Guy thanked him, and a moment later Meredith
handed him a wooden cup. Rhys sat down on a boulder and looked
unblinkingly at Guy. Thomas came to stand beside the old man. Rhys
put one hand on Thomas’s shoulder and the cat inserted itself
snugly between man and boy.
Rhys reminded Guy of a hermit he had once
visited in the Holy Land. Recollection of that time and place
flooded in upon Guy’s consciousness. Goodness flowed out of Rhys in
the same way it had flowed from the hermit, but Rhys had a
different quality about him, a sense of something more ancient and
unknowable. Guy shook his head and stared into his cup of ale,
wondering what Meredith had put in it. Then, deliberately, he drank
it down. Rhys chuckled, and Guy knew the old man had understood his
thoughts.
“I would like to know who you are and from
where you come,” Guy said to Rhys, and Rhys told him the story
Meredith had heard many times before of the first Norman invasions
of Wales, ending with the words, “I am a healer.”
“Not a Christian, I think,” Guy said.
“No, I am not. I keep to the old ways.”
“I have known Saracens and even Jews who were
good and honest men, and Christians who were not,” Guy said.
“Saracens? Then you have been to the Holy
Land?” When Guy nodded, Rhys added, “But you do not wear the
crusader’s cross on your tunic.”
“I am not worthy. I saw things done by
crusaders and did things under orders from my superiors that left
me sickened. I cannot believe our Gentle Lord wants us to treat
other men, even non-Christians, so cruelly. The bloodshed and
horror we inflicted, not just on fighting men who expect such
treatment, but on women and children, too, were so repulsive to me,
the corruption and greed of our leaders so great, that I was
relieved to receive King Henry’s order to return to England.” Guy
stopped, surprised at himself. “You are a remarkable man, Rhys, to
make me talk like this. I don’t usually speak so freely to
strangers. I seldom say so much to friends.”
Meredith, watching and listening, thought she
understood part of the reason for the sadness she had sensed in
Guy. This was no ordinary Norman, cold-hearted and indifferent to
the pain of others. This was a man worthy of her love. Rhys
comprehended Guy’s special quality, too, she thought. His next
words proved that.
“You are a most unusual Norman,” Rhys said,
and Guy felt oddly comforted, as the shameful memories of the siege
of Jerusalem and its aftermath faded into the back of his mind
where he was usually able to keep them firmly locked. Now Guy
looked at Branwen and Meredith.
“How did these women come to be with you,
Rhys?” Guy asked.
“They must speak for themselves. Branwen,
what will you say?”
“My husband died,” Branwen said. “I do not
know where we lived, only that I was turned out of my home, and
Meredith and I walked until we met Rhys, by accident. He gave us
shelter and we have remained here ever since.”
Meredith wondered if Guy could detect how
much of Branwen’s story was lies, or that she had left out most of
it.
“What of you?” he asked, looking at
Meredith.
“Meredith was a child, not much older than
Thomas,” Branwen said quickly. “She probably remembers nothing of
her life before we came here.”
“Let Meredith speak for herself,” Rhys chided
gently.
“I would change nothing Branwen has said,”
Meredith told Guy, “except to add that all I want is to be a
healer. Nothing you or anyone else can do will stop me. I will be a
healer until I die. I don’t care if I do break the law. There is no
one else to help the people who live here, only Rhys and Branwen
and me.”
“There is a barber-surgeon at Afoncaer.”
Branwen snorted in derision.
“Much good a Norman surgeon will do for a
Welshman in need,” she said. “We have to take care of ourselves,
and if you try to stop us, there will be trouble, I can tell you
that.”
“Do you threaten me, Branwen?”
“You heard me, Norman.”
Guy’s eyes narrowed at her tone. There was a
short, tense silence before he answered her.
“Branwen, I agree with what you say. You may
tell your fellow countrymen that so long as they cause no problems
in the building of my castle, so long as my rightful share of crops
and livestock is rendered to me on time, I will not interfere with
Welsh customs. Have you heard any complaints about treatment of the
workers at Afoncaer?”
“They say you are fair,” Branwen admitted,
“that you only require two days a week for the building and two
days for your crops, so there is time enough for each man to work
his own land. But they do not like it that you are building a
castle here at all.”
“I appreciate that, but you must understand I
am following my king’s orders. And,” Guy added, “if I am destroyed
as was my brother Lionel, another lord will be sent to Afoncaer,
and another and another, until the castle is built. It will be
built, Branwen, and each lord who comes here will be harsher than
the one before. Tell that to your fellow countrymen.”
“I will. Now, what of us?” Branwen seemed to
have no fear at all when facing this powerful baron.
“You are all trespassing on my land. But you
did rescue my nephew. In gratitude, I grant you use of this cave,
and since you say you eat no meat, I give you freedom to take
whatever plants you need, within reason of course, and Thomas and I
will both swear to reveal the location of your cave to no one. You
have Thomas’s word for it,” Guy added with great seriousness, “that
a knight never breaks his vows. You, in return, will take no
animals from my forest, you will do nothing that might interfere in
any way with hunting parties from the castle, and should I ever
have need of your healing skills at Afoncaer, you will come at
once.”
“I can easily agree to all of that,” Rhys
said. “Branwen? Meredith?”
“Agreed,” Branwen said, with something like
respect creeping into her voice.
“Yes,” Meredith whispered.
“Well, Thomas,” Guy rose. “We should go
now.”
“May I come again?” Thomas asked Rhys.
“If you are more careful not to be followed,”
Rhys told him. “The next person at your back may not be so
understanding as your uncle.”
“I will be careful,” Thomas promised. He
bowed to each of the women. “Goodbye, Lady Branwen. Goodbye, Lady
Meredith.”