Daughter of Time: A Time Travel Romance (14 page)

“
I did realize that,” I
said. “But—”

Goronwy didn’t let me
finish. “It might be better if you stayed inside. It’s Boots’ job
to see to the obedience of the men—whether they are his own
men-at-arms or another’s.”

“
I understand,” I said,
and I guessed I did. To obey one’s superior, to place oneself in
line in the social strata, was the natural order of things in the
thirteenth century. I wasn’t too sure about it for myself, however,
obedience never having been my strong suit, as my relationship with
Trev could attest.

“
We’ll be here a few
days,” Goronwy said. “The weather is due to turn
colder.”

“
Thank you, sir,” I
said.

Goronwy waited, watching
me. At first I didn’t know what he was waiting for, and then I
realized he meant I was to start obeying
now
.

I picked up Anna and we
went inside. But there wasn’t anything to do. Within a few hours
boredom set in to the point that my back teeth ached with it. My
Welsh wasn’t as good as Angharad seemed to think, especially in the
hall when it was crowded with people and the general noise drowned
out individual sounds. During daylight hours, few men stayed there,
as they rode on patrol (or hunted to feed us) most of the day and
returned, sweaty and hungry as dusk fell. They’d not found any sign
of Humphrey’s former companions, nor any clue as to what had
happened at the village.

“
Or what has become of
Owain,” Goronwy said over dinner. “The man is a well-heeled snake,
much like his father.”

“
No,” Llywelyn said, “his
father is much more predictable. He wants land and power and fights
me for it. Owain appears to do what he does out of
spite.”

“
Or arrogance,” said
Hywel.

“
And leaves others to pay
the price,” Goronwy said, with a glance at Humphrey. They’d been
speaking in Welsh and Humphrey gave no indication that he could
understand. Like me, however, he probably understood more than he
could speak.

“
I will speak to Owain’s
father of it the next time I see him,” Llywelyn said, “but that
might not be for some time.”

“
He can come to Brecon,”
Goronwy said. “He will hate the time spent away from his lands and
view it wasted, but it will do him well to see you exert your
authority in a tangible way.”

“
What Gruffydd needs to do
is keep a tighter rein on his rule—and on his heir, if he expects
to keep hold of what he has,” Llywelyn said.

I was pretty sure that
Gruffydd wouldn’t be too pleased to hear that either.

* * * * *

The days passed, one much
the same as the next, which was kind of remarkable in itself, given
where and with whom I was. It wasn’t that life was the same as at
home—not in the slightest—but Anna and I fell into a routine, just
as we had at home: get up, dress, eat, play with a toy or two, eat
again, sleep. The worst thing was that I had no books to read,
either to her or for me, and I was going to have to do something
about that if we stayed here much longer.

Perhaps of most immediate
concern to me—and the most disconcerting—was that Llywelyn and I
slept together every night and spoke of the events of the day, but
he never touched me, not even a repeat of that fierce kiss from the
first morning at Criccieth. I hadn’t a clue why, didn’t dare ask,
and was reluctant to admit to myself, even for one second, that
I
wanted
him to
kiss me. He was just so . . .
damn
compelling
, and I found myself watching
him during the day, waiting for him to come to bed before I myself
could sleep, and measuring the tempo of the day by what he was
doing.

Given the disconnect
between my twentieth century reality and his thirteenth century
life, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what was happening between him
and me; which is why Angharad’s comments the morning of the fourth
day at the manor proved so enlightening.

“
You’ve started your
courses, then,” Angharad said.

“
Excuse me?” I asked, and
then twisted around. She showed me the blood on my
nightgown.

“
Oh,” I said,
nonplussed.

“
I’ll inform the Prince.
Where are your cloths?”

My what? You’ll do
what?
“You’re going to tell
Llywelyn?”

Angharad gave me a look
that clearly said
how can you be so
clueless?
“He has to know,” she
said.

“
Why?”

Angharad let out a
forceful burst of air that told me she didn’t want to explain this.
Since I wasn’t getting it, I couldn’t help her. Finally, she took
the plunge. “He must know if any child you carry is
his.”

I gaped at her, at a loss
for words. Llywelyn wasn’t being thoughtful or romantic. He hadn’t
touched me because he was worried I could be pregnant by someone
else and pass the child off as his. The color rose in my face,
along with my temper and I was marshalling some kind of horrified
response when Angharad cut into my thoughts to explain further and
make me reconsider.

“
The Prince has no
children, you see,” she said.

“
No sons, you mean,” I
said, getting a grip on reason. “No heir.”

“
No,” Angharad said. “He
has no children at all. No one knows why. The physicians cannot
provide an answer for him. The people whisper that it is a curse
against him; that he is bewitched, or he has a traitor among his
household who poisons the womb of all the women who’ve lain with
him.”

Angharad nodded, almost
talking to herself rather than to me. “That’s why he hasn’t
married, and why the women have become fewer and far between in
recent years. Each one must belong to him alone, so that any child
she bears must be conclusively his, or no one will believe it. His
childlessness has gone on too long and is known by too many people.
Even King Henry has been known to mention it, thankful as he is for
his own son, Edward.”

“
Llywelyn hasn’t said
anything to me . . .” I stopped again, my brain refusing to
function properly.

Angharad patted my hand.
“You’re so fortunate,” she said. “Perhaps you will be the lucky
one.”

Holy crap!
And then I thought again and realized that he
assumed I knew all about this. Just like he assumed I wouldn’t fear
him when he told me at Criccieth that he was the Prince of Wales.
He was a forty year old Prince who had no heir, and the entire
world mocked him for it.

Yet I knew, and now he
knew because I’d told him, that he did have at least one child with
a wife he had yet to find. I didn’t know how that changed anything,
but maybe it would relieve some of the pressure on him to produce a
child
now.
Of
course, the child was a girl and his wife died giving birth to her.
I thought back to our conversation.
Yeah,
I’d mentioned that.

I had less than a week to
figure out what I was going to do about this, if anything, and how
I was going to respond to Llywelyn, when and if he asked for more
from me than friendship. I gazed at the wall above Angharad’s head
as she got my clothes together. Going home never seemed less
possible and more necessary.

We’d awoken that morning
to snow—a lot of it—and only a handful of men stood sentry or left
the gatehouse.
It wasn’t so cold in our bedroom I could see
my breath, but these rooms were hard to heat in winter, and unless
you were standing right next to the fire, they were often chilly.
Since Llywelyn’s bedrooms were always large, the fireplace tended
to do a poor job.

Nobody was allowed to go
anywhere and Llywelyn’s questions about the ambush remained
unanswered. From what I gathered, the assumption was that if we
couldn’t see anything in this weather, nobody else could either.
But by that afternoon, I was thoroughly sick of myself and everyone
else.

Anna and I hid in a corner
of the great hall, Anna playing with a doll Angharad had given her.
I was beginning to think that learning to sew might be a viable
option—appalling notion that it was. To stave off such dreadful
thoughts, I began to look through the wooden boxes that were
positioned along the wall opposite the fireplace.

Most were full of clothing
and blankets but I opened one to find a set of musical instruments,
which included a simple flute, a tambourine, a small drum, and,
unbelievably, a six-string guitar. Learning guitar had been my
small musical defiance when every other girl played the flute or
the clarinet, and my eventual answer to the symphonic hell that was
middle school band. I hadn’t know they had guitars in the Middle
Ages.

I pulled it out and one of
the strings twanged. Instantly, the hall fell into such a complete
silence, you’d have thought they’d never heard an instrument
before. I straightened and found every face turned towards me,
looking expectant.

Goronwy spoke from his
seat by the fire. “Can you play that?”

“
I . . . I think so,” I
said. “It needs tuning.”

“
We’ll wait,” he
said.

Huh.
My fingers slipped on the strings, sweaty from nerves.
Thankfully for me, since there was no way I’d have been comfortable
playing with him there, Llywelyn was absent, probably laboring in
his office. Goronwy brought a stool for me to sit on and I plucked
through the strings. They hadn’t been tuned to the standard ‘E A D
G B E,’ but I fiddled with them a bit and finally got them right.
It seemed likely that my playing would be totally different from
what the men were used to, but I didn’t actually know. The
man-at-arms who doubled as a bard had died at the Gap and except
for some drunken bellowing after dinner, no one had sung since we’d
been at the manor.

As I tuned the guitar, my
stomach roiled because every one the songs I could think of was in
English—or rather, American. Plus, I didn’t think R.E.M. was going
to go over well with this crowd.

I met Goronwy’s eyes. “Are
you sure about this?” I said, my voice low. The men had returned to
their conversations while I tuned the guitar, but I could feel
their glances as they waited for me to get ready.

He nodded. “Please play
for us,” he said. “We will enjoy whatever you feel like singing.
Take your time.”

I allowed myself a
relaxing breath and thought again. I did know some folk music;
maybe a few simple songs would do to start. It only took one strum
for the hall to quiet, and another for everyone’s heads to turn to
me again. From the interest in the men’s faces, I knew I had my
audience.

“
Three score and ten, boys and men were lost from Grimsby
Town
. . .”

Since the Welsh were
morbid a lot of the time, I hoped an English sailing song was
appropriate and the sentiment carried, even if nobody but me
understood the lyrics and it had been written six hundred years
from now. With the second time through the chorus, the men began to
nod their heads and keep time with their feet. When I finished that
song, I went on to a jig, a ballad, two drinking songs and a couple
of anti-English Irish folk songs which everyone would have
appreciated if they’d understood the words. I was willing to bet
there were plenty of anti-English Welsh folk songs I could learn to
play later.

A servant brought me a cup
of water and I stopped playing to drink it—and to give myself time
to come up with something else.

“
More!” Someone at one of
the tables shouted, followed by a chorus from several others and
some nodding of heads.

I looked over the rim of
the cup at Goronwy, who now had Anna on his lap with a rattle she’d
been shaking to an approximation of the beat.

“
Please,” Goronwy
said.

“
Okay,” I said. “Tell me
when to stop.”

“
We won’t,” he said. But
he was smiling when he said it.

I strummed another chord,
and with it, remembered that I did know one Welsh ballad. I had no
idea what the words actually meant, but Mom was always humming it.
I gave Goronwy an assessing look, had a moment’s panic that the
song had something to do with Llywelyn’s death, and launched into
it:

Afallen peren per
ychageu.
Puwaur maur weirrauc enwauc invev.
In diffrin machavuy merchyrdit crev.
Gorvolet y gimry goruaur gadev.

To my astonishment, I’d
barely finished the first line before the men began to join in.
Their pronunciation was different from mine and I still had no idea
of the meaning of the words they were singing, but when I hesitated
at the end of the first verse, Goronwy twirled his finger, telling
me to keep going. So I went around again. And again. The song was
about, from the bit I could translate, apples, and somewhere there
in the first verse, a pig.

In the middle of the third
verse, Llywelyn appeared in the doorway. His eyes met mine from all
the way across the hall, and though my fingers still played, they
stiffened. Still the men sang. Llywelyn tipped his head and
smiled.

The song came to an end
and my fingers came off the strings. In the silence that followed,
Llywelyn moved closer, his footsteps ringing hollowly on the wood
floor, and came to rest with one shoulder propped against the wall
a few feet away from where I sat.