Meredith pulled herself out of Thomas’s
sheltering embrace. She squared her shoulders and took a deep
breath.
“Clean it yourself,” she said. “You made
it.”
Isabel uttered a startled gasp as Meredith
went out the rear door to the bailey. The January cold caught at
her. She was chilled within a few moments except for the spot where
Isabel had hit her. She heard Thomas call out to her, but she did
not answer him. She paid attention to nothing but the
still-stinging pain in her cheek. Wanting above all else to get
away from the great hall, she ran from it, straight across the
bailey to the tower keep.
It was too cold in mid-winter to lay stones,
so work on the tower had stopped until spring. There was no one
near the structure. Meredith made her way up the spiral stairs to
the lord’s chamber at the top. A crude temporary roof had been
installed to keep the snow and rain out during the winter, and the
window alcoves, completed by summer’s end, had been shuttered.
Meredith threw open a shutter and sat down on the dusty stone
window seat at one side of a recess. She rubbed at her cheek. She
had had enough. She could endure no more of Isabel’s petty
tyranny.
“Meredith?” Guy stood at the chamber
entrance. She had not heard him climbing the stairs. “Thomas told
me what happened. I thought you might be here.” He crossed the room
to her, and put out one large, strong hand to tilt her head upward
so he could look directly into her face. He gently touched the spot
where Isabel’s hand had struck her.
“That bitch,” he grated. “How I’d like to
send her away and never see her again. If only the king had not
commanded me to keep her here at Afoncaer. You must be cold.”
He sat down beside Meredith, wrapping them
both into his thick woolen cloak, pulling her back against the
warmth of his broad chest. She felt his chin rubbing against the
hair at her temple where her scarf had come loose. She let herself
relax for just a moment, taking intense pleasure in his masculine
strength, before she said what she had to say.
“I must leave Afoncaer, my lord.”
“No.” His arms tightened. “I cannot let you
go.”
“I cannot remain, not after today.” She moved
out of the circle of his arms, out of the warmth of his enveloping
cloak. “I am meant to be a healer. I will gladly serve my patients
in whatever way I can, but I cannot, I will not, be a servant to
Lady Isabel any longer. She says I am much too proud to be a good
lady’s maid and she is right. I should never have come here.”
“Meredith.” He caught her face between his
hands and put his lips close to hers. “Don’t leave.”
“I must.” She tried to make a joke, hoping by
that means to ease the pain in her heart. “It can’t really matter
to you. You don’t like women. We are all a pack of nagging,
extravagant whiners.”
“Not you.” He would not release her. He drew
her back into his arms as he spoke. His mouth was entirely too
close to hers. Her heart began to pound with slow, aching beats.
“You are like no woman I have ever known before, sweet and gentle,
and good and proud, too.”
“Yes, my lord Guy, I am too proud for a
villein. Too proud to stay here. There is nothing for me to do but
return to Rhys and Branwen.” She knew if they remained as they were
for one moment more he would kiss her and hold her closer still,
and then she would never be able to leave him. She forced herself
to stand up and walk to the middle of the room. The chill she felt
had nothing to do with her lack of a cloak.
“I will go at once,” she said, “before it
gets dark.”
“I can make you stay,” he told her. She knew
he spoke the truth. By Norman law he owned her, as he owned
everyone and everything that was part of Afoncaer, and he could
prevent her going if he wished.
“Will you, my lord?”
He got up and faced her, the light through
the open shutter streaking across his troubled face. She watched
him shake his head slowly, and thought her heart would break.
“No,” he told her. “Not against your will.
You are free to go.”
She headed for the stairs, unable to speak
any more. The chill had reached her heart and was now sinking into
her very bones, into every part of her being. It got worse with
each step away from him.
“You will need a cloak, Meredith. Go to the
bailey gate and wait there. I’ll send Thomas to you.”
She heard him on the steps behind her. She
went around and around, down the spiral and then out of the tower
and across the inner bailey. She dared not look back.
Thomas insisted on accompanying Meredith.
“There are more people about now than when
you left the cave last autumn,” he said. “There are all those
men-at-arms who came to Afoncaer with Walter and Brian, and new
settlers for the town. It isn’t as easy as it used to be to slip
into the forest unnoticed, and I don’t want anyone to stop you on
your way. I will go with you and protect you, Lady Meredith.”
Meredith could not help smiling. Thomas, at
his mother’s behest, had called her simply Meredith while she was
Lady Isabel’s servant. Now that she was free and they were away
from the castle she was again Lady Meredith to him, and once more
he fancied himself her knight and protector.
Thomas had brought more than her cloak. Her
clothes and her few other belongings had been folded into a bundle.
There was a large basket packed with bread and cheese and butter,
and two flasks of wine. Remembering Branwen’s plea for food the
last time she had seen her, Meredith did not refuse the food, nor
did she ask if it had been Guy’s idea or Thomas’s, She suspected
Joan of sending along her personal things.
It was only a little past mid-day, but the
winter sun was already low as they reached the forest. It slanted
through the bare tree branches, making patterns on the snow-covered
ground, but providing little warmth. By the time she and Thomas
finally reached the cave, Meredith thought she would never be warm
again.
“Come to the fire, both of you,” Rhys
invited. Meredith thought he looked like a wisp of grey smoke, he
was so thin and frail. When he raised one hand to beckon to them,
she half expected to see the firelight shine through his
insubstantial flesh.
“Here, Lady Branwen.” Thomas offered her the
basket of food he had been carrying. Meredith noticed her aunt did
not hesitate to accept it. Indeed, there was such ease between
Thomas and Branwen that Meredith was certain the boy still managed
to make regular visits to the cave. Having delivered his gifts,
Thomas sat down close to Rhys. Gwyn the cat ran to him to be
petted, rubbing her sleek white head against his stroking
fingers.
“Has Lady Isabel’s new maid finally arrived?
Is that why you’ve come home?” Branwen asked. Meredith turned her
head as she reached out her hands to the fire. She heard Branwen
catch her breath and knew her aunt had seen her swollen cheek. “Who
did that?”
“Later, please.” Meredith’s voice was barely
a murmur. She inclined her head slightly toward Thomas, who was
talking to Rhys, and Branwen nodded, understanding in her eyes.
Thomas stayed only long enough to warm
himself.
“It grows dark so early,” he said. “I’ll try
to come again tomorrow or the next day.” He picked up the empty
basket and left.
“Now,” Branwen ordered, “tell me what Norman
has dared to strike you.”
Meredith explained.
“It’s just the sort of thing I would have
expected,” Branwen said. “You should never have gone to live at the
castle. I warned you about the Normans.”
“I’m home now.” Meredith had taken Thomas’s
place next to Rhys. Forgetting for a moment how fragile he had
become, she leaned her head against his shoulder as she used to do
when she was small, and felt his arm around her, his hand stroking
her forehead, comforting her. “Teach me all you know, Rhys. I am a
healer and I will never be a servant again. I want to go back to my
life’s true work.”
Meredith put aside the green woolen gown she
had worn at Afoncaer, folding it up with the other clothes she had
acquired while there, and once more donned a loosely belted grey
robe. She spent her days working with Rhys, trying to absorb all he
knew of the ancient healing arts. He had more than enough time to
teach her. Few people came to them for help any more. Afoncaer was
fast becoming the focus of life for those who lived in Lord Guy’s
domain, even those who claimed to hate the Normans. In this
borderland between England and Wales, loyalties were often divided
and people lived in great insecurity. More and more folk, farmers
and artisans alike, recognizing the justice and fairness of Lord
Guy’s rule and his indisputable strength, were resettling, either
in the new town or just outside its walls.
“It won’t last long,” Branwen said
scornfully. “They think they’ll be safe, putting themselves under
Baron Guy’s protection. They don’t stop to think what will happen
to them should he go to war or if he’s attacked by someone jealous
of his growing power. And just wait until those poor fools discover
how little a barber and a priest can do to help when they are sick.
They’ll come back. I am glad you are here with us again, Meredith.
You belong here.”
But it was not the same as it had once been.
The cave, formerly a warm, safe home to Meredith, now seemed small
and cramped, the life they lived in it hard and without any
comfort.
Meredith knew the change was in herself. She
had been beguiled by the ease and luxury with which, even in
temporary quarters, Lady Isabel had surrounded herself, by silken
fabrics and silver drinking cups, fur-lined cloaks and highly
spiced foods. She had even learned to eat meat, a fact she did not
reveal to her present companions. Most of all, most dangerous of
all, she had been charmed by the daily presence of the baron of
Afoncaer, a presence that fed the golden flame in her bosom that
had been lit the first day she had ever seen him. She knew that
fire would never be extinguished, but how lonely, how cold she was,
separated from him. The pleasure of seeing and perhaps speaking to
him was now denied her, and all she knew of him was the occasional
report carried by Thomas on his infrequent visits to the cave.
“I’m not as free as I once was,” Thomas said
to her one day. “Geoffrey and Brian have me practicing with my
weapons and riding every day, and Walter always has some task for
me to do. I don’t like Walter very much. And now the new falcons
have been trained and Uncle Guy says he will hunt more often, and I
must go with him. Hunting parties will come into the forest,
Meredith. You and Branwen should be careful to stay away from them.
Uncle Guy won’t let them come here; he’ll keep his promise to leave
all of you undisturbed. I’m glad Rhys seldom leaves the cave,
though I’m sorry he’s not well.”
“He will be better when spring comes,”
Branwen spoke up. “Warm weather is easier for him than cold
winter.”
Meredith was not so certain Rhys would
recover. Having been separated from him for more than four months,
she could see clearly how fragile he had become. She supposed
Branwen, who had been with Rhys every day, had not noticed his
gradual decline. About Rhys, Meredith felt a sense of urgency that
never left her. She wanted to learn all she could from him while
there was yet time, and she knew his time was growing short.
“If you keep working and learning as you have
been doing,” Rhys told her, “you will easily surpass me in skill
long before you are my age. You already know nearly as much as
Branwen. You have a natural talent, Meredith. Do not neglect this
calling. It is what you are meant to do.”
“I will never stop healing, no matter what
happens,” she promised, reminding herself for the hundredth time
that she must cease thinking of Guy. She had not seen him since
leaving the castle. One part of her heart knew it was better thus,
but another part wanted, yearned, ached, to see him and hear his
voice. However hard she tried to dismiss his image from her mind,
his face was the last thing she saw each night before she slept.
She toiled through longer and longer days, trying to forget him
through work.
Rhys did seem more comfortable when warmer
weather came. There was color in his face and he moved with greater
ease, not rubbing at his left shoulder and arm so much. Branwen
steadfastly insisted her medicine was working and that Rhys would
recover completely in time.
Meredith doubted this, but she encouraged
Rhys to leave the cave and walk about without tiring himself. She
accompanied him on a short walk one afternoon. They reached a sunny
clearing, and Rhys had just sat down on a smooth, flat rock, when
Thomas appeared.
“I was going to the cave to visit you,”
Thomas said. “Rhys, you look much better.”
“Come sit beside me,” Rhys invited. “We
haven’t seen you for more than a week.” Rhys stopped speaking
suddenly as a black-clad figure, sword in hand, came crashing into
the clearing behind Thomas.
“Brian,” Thomas cried, running toward the man
and placing himself between Brian and Rhys. “You’ve been following
me.”
“Indeed I have, lad. This part of the forest
is forbidden, Father Herbert says, because wizards live here, yet I
see you come here all too often.”
“You have no right to follow me,” Thomas
declared angrily.
“No?” Brian put out his free hand and moved
Thomas’s slight form aside, brandishing his gleaming, silver-blue
sword in the other. “Who are these people, if humans they be? If
you folk mean any harm to my young lord here, I’ll – Meredith? What
are you doing here?”
“This is where I live, Brian,” Meredith said
softly. “There is no danger to Thomas. Put away your sword.”
“And this creature?” Brian pointed the blade
at Rhys, advancing a few purposeful steps toward him.