“I plan to marry our family to theirs,” he said without elaborating.
She met his stare without blinking, and he knew to the second when she understood his meaning. Though her breathing came a little faster she showed no other emotion. “To Owain?” she said at last.
He nodded his head. “If you will agree. His time of mourning is done. He will want another wife for his son. And more children, as well.”
She took a slow breath, then dipped the quill in the ink and frowned down at the neatly lettered parchment. “Do you wish to add anything?”
“No.”
Josselyn watched as her uncle signed the message. Then she dated it and melted the wax so he could seal it with his signet ring. She refused to let herself react to the devastating news he’d just delivered. She refused to succumb to her fears, for she knew them to be unimportant in the greater scheme of things. But still, those fears would not go away.
Owain ap Madoc was a cruel thug, who’d been the bane
of existence for the people of Carreg Du for as long as she could recall. He was recently widowed, though, and so this should come as no surprise to her. The fact that no one would force her to wed him was beside the point. She had the freedom to turn him down. No Welsh woman could be forced to wed a man loathsome to her.
And Owain
was
loathsome to her. She knew him mainly by reputation, for she’d only laid eyes on him four times in her life. But that had sufficed. The first time had been at a harvest celebration in Carreg Du. She had been but a child and he a gangling youth, brawling with other boys. Playing cruel tricks on those younger and weaker than he. Bullying them.
The next time she’d been twelve and he’d come upon her while she was picking blueberries in Saint Cedric’s Vale. She’d not understood everything he’d said, nor comprehended his innuendos. But she’d been terrified all the same.
He’d chased her like a wolf cub chases a rabbit. Not to catch her, just to see her run.
She’d never told anyone about that day. Maybe she should have. Now she understood what he’d said—about her wanting it.
It.
Josselyn shuddered in revulsion, just to remember. He’d been a disgusting youth and had become an even worse man.
She’d seen him next at the annual horse market in Holy-well. By then he’d been married, and Josselyn had pitied the unfortunate girl. But the last time she’d seen him had been the worst. Six months ago he and a band of his henchmen had returned the body of Tomas, saying they’d found him along the narrow shore at the base of Rosecliffe, thrown to his death by the English said to be in the area. They’d behaved as if it were a goodwill gesture on their part to return the mangled, bloodied corpse.
Dewey had pretended that it was too, for there had been few men in Carreg Du that day and he had not wanted to provoke a fight with Owain’s heavily armed band. But he’d
suspected another scenario. Josselyn had overheard him saying as much to Uncle Clyde. Owain and his thugs had most likely come across Tomas on their lands, and though by law Tomas was wrong to hunt there, they’d had no cause to kill him. To murder him.
No, she need not know him personally to know he was loathsome.
But what about her duty to her family? She was her uncle’s only heir. If she did not wed while he was still strong, when he died, chaos would ensue and the Lloyds would be quick to take advantage. Added to that was the pressure of this new English threat. Her family might not be able to turn so great a force away this time.
There was the increased chance of her uncle’s death in the battles sure to come. She didn’t like to think about it, but she knew he would want to plan for his successor in advance.
But Owain ap Madoc!
She’d as lief marry an Englishman as marry such a cutthroat!
They were being watched. Rand knew it and welcomed it. Let the people of this wretched corner of Wales spy on him and relay the news to the rest of their kin. Wales had long been claimed by King Henry. Now Rand meant to make that claim a reality—and return to London in triumph.
He stood on the pinnacle of the long hill the Welsh called Carreg Du—Black Stone. He stared down the drop-off known as Rosecliffe for its tenacious roses, then swept the horizon with his eyes. Cold sea to the north and east. Cold hills to the south and west. Yet somewhere within those dark forested hills lay a hotbed of opposition. They watched and they waited and they would do everything they could to drive him out, even unite with their enemy brothers, if need be. But he would not be driven out, and though it might take years, they would eventually come to understand that fact.
Below him the camp had begun to take shape. Already the tents were being replaced by sturdy timber huts. His workers had set to their tasks on the very day they’d landed. Sir Lovell, the master builder, supervised them using stakes and flags to mark the perimeters where the castle walls would rise, the mighty inner wall first, then the far-reaching outer wall. Even the town would have a protective wall, for Rand meant to fortify his holdings well. Every citizen under his rule would know there was safety under his pennant, whether they were English or Welsh, or something in between.
He grimaced at that thought. In between. Henry had cautioned him that a generation of children born of Welsh mothers to English fathers could as easily turn against him as fight for him. But it was not that generation that concerned him now. His men would need wives. Come the next winter, they would need the warm comfort of women in their beds. He needed to keep his men content and women were his best tool for that. Once wed, his men would be tied to this land as firmly as he now was.
Unlike them, however, he would not be tied to these lands by a woman. It was ambition that tied him here, and then only temporarily. He’d spent the whole of his life fighting for the right to own lands of his own, besides the past nine years fighting Henry’s wars. Now that he had those lands, however, he faced another sort of battle.
He’d had the long months of winter to consider his situation, and as he’d assembled men and supplies, he’d also assembled his thoughts. He’d not wanted lands in Wales. But that’s what he’d been granted. Now he meant to make them his—only he did not want to waste either time or effort in the process. While he was prepared to take the land by force if need be, he knew it would be faster to wage peace. But he meant to wage that peace with a powerful hand, and he meant to win.
Once the lands of northern Wales were secure for England, Henry and his advisors would be forced to acknowledge
Rand’s ever-increasing influence. He would make his way back to London, an even more powerful baron than before. But there was still the matter of a wife well connected to English politics. He would have to address that matter as soon as possible.
A call drew his attention, and as he watched, his burly captain, Osborn de Vere, clambered up the dark, frozen hill.
“The ship is unloaded. They sail back to England on the next tide.”
“Alan has his orders, I take it.”
“He does. He will return with the carpenters and stonemasons, and the rest of the food stores.”
The man paused, but Rand knew what he would say next. Five years Osborn had guarded his back, and Rand had guarded his. Their thoughts had become finely attuned in the process. But that did not mean they always agreed. Rand spoke before Osborn could. “Jasper remains in England.”
Osborn’s eyes narrowed and his jaw jutted forward. “The hills of Wales are more likely to make a man of your brother than mincing around Henry’s court. Even Jasper knows that.”
“He wants the adventure with none of the responsibility,” Rand retorted. “You know my feelings on this, and so does he. Until he can negotiate the twisted byways of the court and survive in that pit of vipers, he is no more than a green lad, and of no use to me. Once he has mastered Henry’s court, he can come here, and I’ll return to England. But enough of that,” Rand continued. “What word from Sir Lovell?”
Osborn wisely abandoned the subject of Rand’s younger brother. He grunted. “Faith, but I’d never have believed so mild a man could be such a taskmaster. Already his crew has marked the wall locations. The diggers have begun their tasks and two wells are being bored, one for the castle and one for the new town, just beyond the castle walls. The site is just as he had drawn out—the half-moat, the sheer cliffs.
The quarry site.” Osborn stared around him. “’Tis hard to imagine a castle rising up in this very place.”
But it was not hard for Rand to imagine. He was a man who believed in setting goals: hard goals, impossible goals. So far he’d achieved them all. All but one. He’d never heard his father acknowledge his success. And now he never would. His father had died content in the belief that his heir, his eldest son, John, was the best of the lot. Randulf he had fostered to a cruel man, a man guaranteed to beat the wildness from his middle son. Jasper he’d intended for the Church. Only John had he gifted with his attention.
But Rand had defeated his foster parent’s attempts to beat him into an obedient soldier, and Jasper had thrown off the shackles of holy life. As for John, he was a drunken fool who had collapsed when their father died.
Rand took a deep breath of the icy air, not fooled by every evidence of winter. Spring was near and with it would come the challenges of raising the castle defenses and appeasing an angry and suspicious populace.
“The walls will rise slowly, but they
will
rise,” he told Osborn. “Meanwhile, we must eat. Never doubt for a minute that the key to our triumph here lies in the success of our crops.”
“We’ve marked out the best fields, and once the thaw is certain, we’ll begin breaking up the land. But it seems we have a problem.”
“A problem?”
Osborn grimaced. “There’s a man—if indeed you can call him such. A queer fellow, twisted and deformed. The diggers had worked their way around to that pagan altar—or whatever that pile of rocks is—when this apparition came up, right out of the stones. Scared them out of their skins. Now they won’t go anywhere near the place.”
“What of the cripple?”
Osborn blew out a frustrated breath. “He’s sitting on top of the bloody altar. Won’t budge from the spot.”
“So have him removed,” Rand said, working hard to
keep a straight face. Though his captain feared no man who came at him with a weapon, he had a superstitious bent. Rand knew that a twisted and deformed man was bound to raise dread in Osborn’s bosom.
“Have him removed? And who’s to do the removing?”
“I take it you’re not volunteering.”
Osborn made a quick sign of the cross. “Not bloody likely.”
“Is he bigger than you?”
“No.”
“Has he mightier weapons?”
“He’s got the devil with him, is what he’s got! Satan himself. Gibbering in his heathen tongue then spoutin’ the holy words of the priests!”
That drew Rand up short. “He speaks Latin?”
“Aye. And curses us in both French and English,” Osborn answered. “As I said, ’tis the devil at work in him.”
Rand turned for the pile of rocks, the pagan altar they’d all assumed it to be. A crippled man who spoke four languages? Either Osborn had tapped one of the wine kegs or he was losing his mind.
Or else this land was as possessed of faeries and wizards and conjurers as idle gossips would have it.
But the faeries had best be forewarned and the wizards and conjurers had better beat a hasty retreat. For Randulf Fitz Hugh had arrived and he claimed these lands, in his own name and in the name of Henry, King of England.
Off to his right his red wolf pennant fluttered above their encampment. Before very long it would fly from the ramparts of a mighty fortress. No amount of superstition would prevent him from reaching his goal.
T
he one thing Osborn had neglected to tell Rand was that the man was a dwarf, not quite the height of a very small woman. Otherwise he had described the curious creature very well.
The fellow sat on a flat rock balanced on five boulders that protruded from the frozen earth. The ground beneath the flat rock was scooped away, creating a sort of small, dark cave, too low-ceilinged for a man to stand upright in, but ideal for a deformed dwarf.
Rand halted before the rock and met the odd creature’s placid gaze. He was not afraid, Rand noted. That alone earned him a modicum of respect. But no more. Rand nodded at him. “I am Randulf Fitz Hugh.”
One side of the man’s face lifted in a smile. One of the eyes focused on Rand. “I am Newlin,” he answered in perfect French.
“Are your Latin, Welsh, and English as good as your French?”
“My Latin is better than most,” he answered, or so Rand translated from the holy language and hoped he was right.
“My English is also good,” the man continued. “But my Welsh …” He finished by rattling off a sentence of which the only word Rand recognized was
Cymru,
the Welsh word for Wales. Rand had tried to learn the fundamentals
of the Welsh native tongue during the months of his preparation for his journey here. Notwithstanding the king’s order that the language of court be the language of the land, it was more practical to converse in the language of the people he was set to rule. But it was clear his brief lessons had left some gaping holes in his knowledge.
He addressed the man in French. “You are a native of this area?”
“I am the bard of Carreg Du. I have lived here forever.”
“Where precisely is your home?”
He gestured with his good hand. “This
domen
sometimes provides my shelter. Other times the trees.”
“What of the village of Carreg Du? It lies less than two miles south. Do you never live among your people?”
The twisted little man gave Rand a twisted sort of smile. “I am among my people. The people of the trees. Why have you abandoned your people?”
Rand studied the bard. His body might be twisted and misshapen, but it was clear his mind had not suffered an equivalent misfortune. “Like you, I also am among my people. I come to make my home here. To build a castle that will protect all who choose to live in peace. In peace,” he reiterated.
“In peace.” The bard’s colorless eyes looked off in disparate directions, yet Rand knew the man watched him closely. “You English have never been wont to come to Wales in peace.”
Rand crossed his arms over his chest. “That is a subject I would discuss with Clyde ap Llewelyn. Can you take a message to him?”
The bard began to rock back and forth, just a small motion but Rand noticed. “Aye,” Newlin answered. “When would you meet, and where?”
“Here.” Rand laid one hand on the flat slab the bard sat upon. “This is a holy place, I take it.”
“A
domen
. A burial vault.”
“A burial vault. And you live in it?”
“Sometimes.”
Rand nodded, though he did not understand a man who lay down upon the bones of other men. “If they will come, we can talk.”
“Of peace?” the bard asked.
“Of peace.” Rand did not expect them to agree to the sort of peace he envisioned. Still, his position was strong. Clyde ap Llewelyn had no surviving sons to succeed him. That was one of the few bits of information Henry had provided to him. If the aging Clyde did not name a strong successor before he died, there would either be a struggle among the remaining men of the village for dominance, or another, stronger village would take them over. It had ever been so among the warring Welsh.
But if Rand could prevent the people of Carreg Du from allying themselves with any other families, he would have no significant trouble with them. And though they might despise him, his greater strength would keep them peaceful enough. It was all he wanted or expected from them.
“I will tell them,” Newlin agreed.
Rand stepped back then stopped. “One more thing. I would learn your language. Welsh.
Cymraeg
,” he added. “Will you teach me?”
Newlin looked away, up toward the summit of Rosecliffe. He continued to stare at it and once again began his peculiar rocking. “I cannot. But there is another …” He trailed off. “Perhaps there is another.”
“But I
have
to go.” Josselyn met her uncle’s disapproving glare with a frown of her own. “I have as much right as anyone.”
“I’ll not bring a woman into an enemy camp. Think on it, girl! A hundred armed men, every one of them itching for satisfaction from their enemy. No. I’ll not allow it.”
Josselyn expelled a sharp breath, but she was not about to give up. She tried another tack. “Have you had a reply from Madoc ap Lloyd?”
He stared at her, meeting her unblinking gaze with one equally steady. “No. I will tell you when I do.”
“Why?”
A frown deepened the creases in his brow. “Because his answer and your future are tied together—” He broke off when her expression turned smug, and his frown became a scowl. “’Tis not the same thing.”
“But it is! My lands. My future. Besides,” she added, “my French is far better than Dewey’s, and—”
“Nay! You’ll not be going!” He slammed his fist down on the table and Josselyn jumped as high as did the dishes that sat on it.
“Please, Jossy,” her aunt whispered from her seat in the corner. “Please be reasonable.”
If not for her aunt Nessie, Josselyn would have confronted her uncle again, if only to prove she could rouse his seldom-seen temper. How dare he treat her like a child when she was the one he meant to barter to Owain! If she was central to that plan, why could she not be an observer in this one?
But now was not the time to press her point. She forced herself to be civil. “Very well,” she muttered. But as she stalked from the hall, her mind spun. She would be with the others when they marched into the English encampment. She would see her enemies firsthand and gauge their strengths and weaknesses. For she must be absolutely certain that marrying Owain was the only way to drive the English out.
God help her if she wed Owain yet lost her family’s lands all the same!
They met the next afternoon, though the leaden sky gave the winter day the feel of dusk. Had Newlin known that would happen? He must have, Josselyn decided, for although the bard was nowhere to be seen, the
domen
was lit by a circle of torches that cast long, eerie shadows across the site.
Had the druids of old used the ancient
domen
in just this way? Did their spirits visit it still?
A shiver of unease marked its way down Josselyn’s spine. Despite the leather tunic she wore, she was chilled by the spooky atmosphere Newlin had created. No doubt he meant to intimidate the English invaders with visions of this haunted, holy spot. Unfortunately her countrymen were equally intimidated. Even she, who should know better, was not entirely unaffected.
She followed them at a distance. Though she’d dressed as a village youth, she knew they would soon notice a stranger. She was counting on their preoccupation to aid her deception.
Her uncle halted a little beyond the reach of the torchlight, and at his signal, Dewey faced the large group of their followers. Josselyn crept nearer and cautiously slipped into the shadow cast by one tall, burly fellow.
“We come in peace, merely to talk,” Dewey said, repeating the words Clyde had spoken before they’d set out for Rosecliffe. “Be alert. Stay on the ready. But keep your weapons sheathed unless ordered otherwise.”
“What if they unsheathe their weapons first?” Dulas, the tanner, asked.
Josselyn’s Uncle Clyde turned to face his men. “Defend yourself, of course. But do not be too ready to attack. That decision is mine to make.”
“We ought to wipe them out, skewer every last one o’ the bastards,” the youth next to Josselyn muttered. “What d’ye say?” He elbowed her sharply.
Josselyn grunted at the unexpected blow, and it was all she could do not to double over. “Skewer the bastards,” she echoed. She shot the gangly fellow a baleful glare, only to find him staring curiously at her. “Say. Who are you?” he demanded to know, lowering his brows in a suspicious frown.
Josselyn was saved answering when Dewey, her uncle, and Bower, another lieutenant, advanced on the well-lit
domen
. At once Josselyn slipped away from the other youth to circle around the onlookers to get a better view. Three Englishmen also advanced into the circle, and Josselyn immediately forgot about the suspicious youth, her uncle’s orders, and even the heavy warrior garb she wore. The tall, broad-shouldered Englishman stood opposite the
domen
from her uncle, along with two other fierce-looking fellows. The short, red-bearded fellow she’d noticed before was nowhere in sight, unless he was among the milling crowd of Englishmen who watched, as the Welshmen did, from a slight distance away.
Josselyn studied her enemies. Though there were numerous warriors among them, knights in their mail and foot soldiers in leather, there were also others, men who served another purpose, like the red-bearded man. Her heart began to thud with dread. They were here to build a castle. She was convinced of it.
Ten years ago the English had come with their warhorses and weapons to defeat the Welsh. She had lost her parents to them, and so many others as well in those wars. Still, they had prevailed over the English, and ultimately sent them away in defeat.
But Josselyn was not comforted by that knowledge. Her gaze returned to the tall leader of the invaders. This English lord was smarter than those others had been. He came quietly. Rather than attack and take over their village, he meant to build a strong base of his own. Instead of stealing food from the Welsh, he brought his own supplies and his own workers.
He meant to build a fortress here, a castle that could support itself, and which the Welsh would not be able to breach.
Her hands tightened into fists. They must be stopped!
She studied him with narrowed gaze. He would not be easily defeated. Not this man. He seemed to come in peace, but he was nonetheless a man of war, for though he wore neither helm nor the armor and mail common to his men,
there was something in his bearing that bespoke a ruthless warrior. Something in his calm expression and confident stance.
Josselyn tried to analyze just what it was. He was not overtly threatening, yet she felt threatened. But not precisely in a way she understood. She squinted across the gloomy afternoon, studying him, trying to understand why her heart had begun to pound so rapidly when all he did was stand there, staring at her uncle.
Then he spoke and her palms began to sweat.
“Welcome, Clyde ap Llewelyn. Welcome all of you from Carreg Du. I am Randulf Fitz Hugh, and I plan to make my home among you.”
Dewey translated in a voice loud enough to carry back to them. Josselyn wondered why he did not also translate the rumbling timbre of the man’s voice, the confident choice of words, the distressing aura of command he cast with that slow measured statement.
Nor did Dewey comment on the shape of the Englishman’s lips—
She drew herself up with a gasp. The shape of his lips? With an effort she tore her gaze away from the English lord and glanced around warily. Her countrymen scowled at the man’s gall. Welcoming them to their own lands! Meanwhile, she had been distracted by the shape of his lips.
Furious at the impertinent clod for diverting her so, Josselyn concentrated on him again, searching for flaws. He was too tall, very nearly a giant. And his face was scarred, once on his cheek and again on his brow. His nose was too prominent, too proud. His eyes too dark.
She huffed in righteous indignation. He had the look of a blackguard, a man with no conscience, no mercy. She’d been right the first time.
And yet when he turned his head slightly, the torchlight gleamed off his raven-dark hair, giving it the look of silk. For one ludicrous moment, Josselyn wondered if it felt as soft and sleek as it appeared.
Thankfully, her uncle’s harsh response put an end to her perverse thoughts. “The welcome is ours to give, not yours.”
The English lord—Randulf Fitz Hugh, she remembered his name—met her uncle’s belligerent glare with a mild expression. “I accept your welcome then. These lands are claimed by Henry, king of all Britain, including Wales. I come here as his steward to protect both the land and the people who reside upon it.”
“We need no protection, least of all protection provided by you,” Clyde responded in steely tones. Around Josselyn her Welsh countrymen shifted restlessly, feeling nervously for the hilts of their daggers and short swords, reassuring themselves by the presence of their weapons. Mercifully, however, they did not draw them out for battle.
It suddenly occurred to her that should a battle break out, she was at a severe disadvantage, having neither the size, strength, nor skill of the men around her. Still, she had no intention of leaving. She needed to gauge the seriousness of the English presence here. She needed to decide if it warranted her marrying the awful Owain ap Madoc.