“You’ve done me a great service, bringing her here,” a familiar voice said in Josselyn’s ear.
“She needs the coin,” Josselyn replied offhandedly. She sidled away from him, disconcerted by his nearness and the husky quality of his voice.
“As, I gather, do you. Today I would learn the trees and creatures of the forest.”
“Very well.” She removed the length of toweling she’d tied about her waist and set it aside. “I shall leave you and Odo to manage the rest,” she told Gladys in Welsh. “Don’t leave for the village until I return.”
Gladys gave her a long, steady look. “Be wary of him,” she replied, indicating Randulf Fitz Hugh. “He wants more from you than merely to learn our language.”
It was Josselyn’s turn to duck her head and turn away. He might want more, but he would not get it. Still, to have someone else express her fears out loud made his threat so much more potent. Though she was still warm from her work, she snatched up her cloak and flung it around her shoulders.
“Derwen,”
she said, pointing out the solitary oak that
stood just beyond the stout wall the English were building.
“Hebog,”
she said, gesturing at a falcon that was startled away from the tree when they drew too near.
“Slow down,” Fitz Hugh ordered when she would have continued down the hill. “There’s no need to hurry. You’ve worked hard; you deserve a rest. Besides,” he added, patting his stomach. “I devoured more of your delicious stew than I should have. Come, stroll with me a while, Josselyn.”
Stroll with me a while.
Like the signal bells in the village, alarm sounded an immediate warning in Josselyn’s head. Stroll with me. Lovers strolled, not enemies.
“I do not stroll.
Mynd araf fi nag
,” she translated for him. She hesitated only a moment before continuing. “I will not pretend a friendliness I do not feel, Fitz Hugh. It would be best if we both understand that.”
He studied her, his hands on his hips. “You make too much of my suggestion, Josselyn. Perhaps you do not completely understand the meaning of the word ‘stroll.’ It means ‘to walk slowly.’”
“I know what it means.”
“Then walk more slowly.”
Josselyn stared uneasily at him. Then she started forward again, albeit at an easier pace. But her heart pounded even more rapidly than before.
“Why don’t you point out what you wish to learn,” she suggested as they angled toward the strip of wildwood that sheltered the river from view.
“What I wish to learn,” he echoed. She felt his gaze upon her, but she kept her eyes fixed on the path before them.
“What I want to learn,” he repeated as she braced herself to repel an untoward solicitation from him. “Is how I can best maintain peace with my Welsh neighbors.”
She hadn’t expected that, and for a moment Josselyn’s
mind was blank. Maintain peace? “Go back whence you came,” she blurted out.
He gave a humorless chuckle. “I hope that is not your only suggestion.”
“If you seek to gain my support, you waste both your time and mine. I will teach you to speak
Cymraeg
, but I will not abandon my people.”
“I do not ask that you abandon your people. I wish only to live here in peace with the Welsh. Is that so difficult a thing?”
“The Welsh and English have never managed well together.”
“You and I manage well together.”
“Only because you are a man and I a woman …” She trailed off, unsettled by the vast implications of those few words. She’d meant to imply that two men would not get along so easily.
“Yes,” he said, coming to a halt. “I
am
a man and you
are
a woman.”
In the dappled shade of the bare sycamore trees they faced one another. The forest was still, not yet alive with the noisy exuberance of spring. But Josselyn was deafened by the blood roaring in her ears. This was not supposed to happen! She was not supposed to react to him this way.
“I … I …” She closed her mouth with a snap and tried to compose her thoughts. But it was hard with his eyes moving over her like a caress, gathering her up as if she were his to possess. “I am a translator, your teacher. That is why we get along. Were I a man, a soldier of
Cymru
, we would not be so peaceable.”
“Mayhap I should press my suit with the women of Carreg Du.”
“All of them?” she sputtered, aghast with the quick image of him passing that heated glance over every woman of her village, plying every woman she knew with his husky voice and seductive words.
“My men will need wives,” he answered. “They will
want families. In that regard we English are no different from you Welsh.”
Wives. Families. Josselyn realized abruptly how foolish her thoughts had been. He meant women for all his men, not just him. “You would have your men seek Welsh wives?”
“I would. How would their Welsh fathers respond to that?”
Josselyn shook her head. Was he serious? “’Tis not so much the fathers as the women you must convince. We Welsh do not force our women to marry against their wishes.”
“I’ve heard as much. But surely there are those fathers who pressure their daughters to marry as
they
wish, to make the alliances
they
desire.”
Josselyn thought of the pressures on her to wed Owain ap Madoc and it brought her up abruptly. This was not a subject she wished to discuss with an Englishman. Especially not this Englishman.
She turned onto the path once more, acutely aware that he trailed her closely. “Welshwomen are every bit as loyal as Welshmen. They will not take up with your English workers.”
“But they will take my English coins. As Gladys does. As you do.”
They had reached the river’s edge. Josselyn turned to face him, composed now, staunch in her ability to resist him. “We will take your coin,” she admitted. “But that is all. You will not live out your life among us, Englishman. You delude yourself and your people if you think you will.”
She expected her words to rouse his anger, but to her surprise he gave a tolerant half-smile. “I have no intentions of living out my life here, my hot-blooded Welsh maiden.
Llances Cymry
,” he echoed in Welsh. “But before I leave here there will be a towering fortress, a thriving town, and
nurseries full of babes born of Welsh women to English men.”
She scowled at him. “English bastards, more than like.”
He shook his head at her angry reply. “The next ship brings a priest. I would see my men wed. I would see them anchored to this place. To this soil.”
Josselyn turned away from him, for something akin to panic had seeped beneath her skin. Anchored to this place … this soil. This man would not go easily, she realized. He did not care if she or any other Welsh workers knew what he meant to build here. He did not fear their knowledge of his plans. If anything, he wanted them to know. He wanted them to understand that he and his people meant to stay. He offered them peace, but the massive fortress he planned threatened war if they opposed him.
The choice was theirs to make—or rather, hers. If she wed Owain, they might be able to drive him out. If she did not wed Owain … What would happen then?
She needed to think, to talk to her uncle, or better still, to Newlin.
That thought had not yet left her head when a shout and a splash startled her. “Wily wretch!” A squat figure trundled through the shallows of the river. Newlin, she realized, both amazed and relieved. Newlin, with his fishing pole and his hook. Blessed be, but he was the answer to her prayers.
Rand did not share Josselyn’s feelings about the bard’s untimely interruption. By rights he should have been relieved to have someone break the thread of tension building between him and the skittish Josselyn. He should not risk losing an interpreter of her skills simply because he desired her in his bed. He should control himself.
He should seek out some other woman.
But he did not want to control himself or find another woman. When she’d thrown in his face the fact that she was a woman and he a man, he’d come perilously close to showing her how right she was.
Would she have responded to his rough caress? Would she have arched into his embrace? Would she have lain back and wrapped her long legs around his hips—
He broke off with a muttered curse and beat down an unseemly arousal. It didn’t matter how she would have responded. The moment had passed and now Newlin was here.
“Have you had much success?” Josselyn asked the bard. It was obvious to Rand that she was much relieved by the other man’s presence.
“We play a game, he and I.” One of the bard’s eyes wandered to Rand. “Today he has won.”
Was the man speaking of a fish, or did he refer to him? Rand wondered. “There is stew left. Fish stew,” he added. “If you go down to the kitchen, Gladys will serve you a portion.”
Newlin nodded his thanks. “I will try my watery friend once more, then perhaps I will be forced to concede his triumph. But I will try. So,” he added. “Are the victuals Gladys prepares to your liking?”
Rand nodded. “They are. And I have Josselyn to thank for that. My men will be more content with their appetites satisfied.”
The bard gave a vague smile. “A man’s appetite can be a worrisome creature, if he cannot control it.”
Now what was Rand to make of that? Were Josselyn and Gladys planning to poison him? Or did the bard refer to Rand’s lust for Josselyn—or to his lust for land and the power it would bring him?
“Do you speak in parables?” he asked, deciding to be blunt. “Is this a warning you give me?”
Josselyn moved nearer the bard, a protective gesture Rand did not miss. Newlin looked up at her. “Your skirt will get wet.” Then he replied to Rand. “I am not one given to warnings. What happens to you, to me—to anyone—is neither right nor wrong. There is no need for warnings. We each of us make our decisions—or react on
impulse or instinct—and our future is altered. Who is to say whether that future will be better or worse than another future? Certainly not I.”
He paused and began to rock forward and back. “Then again, I do advocate caution. I believe thoughtful contemplation and wise decision-making can ease each of us into our particular future. ’Tis impulse—and malice—that heap misery upon us all.”
There was more to the bard’s enigmatic words than that, Rand suspected. But the bard had no intention of revealing it. The infuriating thing was that Rand did not believe in superstition, nor did he place any faith in the warnings of seers, mystics, or bards such as Newlin was said to be. Yet there was something about the man …
He switched his gaze to Josselyn. She was staring at Newlin, a small frown between her eyes, as if she too sought to decipher the man’s strange words. It was plain she held him in high esteem.
What part the bard would play in the struggles to come, Rand was not certain. Her role was even less so. That she opposed his presence here was plain. Whether that would change he did not know. The only thing certain was that he would not be able to control himself around her for long. The day would come when he would possess her—or send her fleeing from his efforts to do so.
For now, however, he would bide his time, learn to speak her language, and raise the walls of his castle as swiftly as he could.
D
uring the week that followed, the English ate very well. Roasted boar. Venison stew. Grilled fish. And loaves and loaves of delicious fresh bread. Two other women joined Gladys at her labors, and Josselyn took great satisfaction in watching Gladys direct them. So far as she could tell, the woman had not succumbed to the lure of strong spirits.
But as the meals improved, so did the men’s work. The kitchen and storehouse roofs went up in a single day. One of the wells began to yield clear water, and the inner wall of the castle began to rise.
It was that last event which most incited the people of Carreg Du. Although the English kept strictly to themselves, only hunting in the forest, and fishing where the river met with the sea, they were a presence the Welsh could not ignore. Every Welsh blade, from dagger to long sword, was honed to a vicious edge that week. Every leather hauberk was patched, every helm polished, and ready stores of dried provisions were packed. The call to arms could come anytime, and no one wanted to be unprepared.
That the week dragged by without incident was testament to her uncle’s caution—and his commitment to his niece.
On the Sabbath as they left for the gathering at the shrine to Saint Aiden, Josselyn walked at his side.
“Here is the coin I was paid.” She handed him the small silver piece with its profile of the British king and his long, pointed nose.
He glanced down at it, then straight ahead. “What am I to do with it?”
“Use it for whatever you deem best. Something that will help us all.”
He didn’t reply for so long it was all Josselyn could do not to pinch him. “Better you save it to bring to your husband.”
So. There it was. Josselyn knew the decision she must make. And she knew now how her uncle wanted her to decide.
“What would happen if I did not agree to marry?”
“We do not have enough men to defeat these English.”
“Perhaps we should remind Owain and his father that they will not like having the English as their neighbors. To help us now is to help themselves.”
Clyde stopped and drew her aside, gesturing for Ness and the others to continue on. Only when they were alone did he address Josselyn again.
“Owain wants you to wife. He wants
you
. I believe that in the end the Lloyds will help us, with or without the marriage. Madoc will see to it, albeit grudgingly. But Owain will watch and he will wait. And he will remember that his offer was rebuffed. Though Madoc has many years left, the day will come when his son will wrest power from him. Then, when the time is right, Owain will strike at our backs. If he cannot have our lands legally, he will take them in another manner.” His eyes burned into hers. “The results will be bitter. Many will be killed, like Tomas. And many more will suffer.”
Josselyn looked away, unable to face the truth of his terrible words. Whether she wed Owain or not, Carreg Du would succumb to his greedy ambitions. But one way many
would suffer. The other way only she would.
She sucked in a breath and battled the sting of tears. “How soon must I decide?” She looked back at him, though she knew fear showed in her eyes. “How long?”
Her uncle sighed. “’Tis hard to say. So long as I live you have time. But if the English should force a conflict …” He shrugged. “And then, there is the chance that Owain could wed another.”
That was the remark that stayed with her throughout the Sabbath services. Owain could wed another, and much as she wished he would, Josselyn knew that would seal her people’s fate. Owain was a bully and he would be quick to overrun Carreg Du if he thought no one was strong enough to stop him. For now his father kept him in line, but Madoc would not be able to do so forever. As for her Uncle Clyde, he had never been a man of war. That was why they had not responded to the English threat more aggressively. How much slower would he be to respond to a Welsh threat?
Josselyn prayed with a devoutness she had not felt in months. She prayed for her uncle’s continued good health, for Owain’s patience, and for an idea—any idea of what she could do.
The only idea that came to her, however, was to seek out Newlin, and after the service ended, she did just that.
But she did not find him. He was not at the river fishing. He was not at the
domen
. She did not want to approach the English encampment, especially since she suspected Rhonwen trailed somewhere behind her. But near the edge of the forest Sir Lovell spied her and, much to her dismay, called out for her to wait.
His cheeks were ruddy as he hurried up to her, for the day was the warmest they’d yet had. “What brings you here on the Sabbath, Josselyn?”
“I look for Newlin. Have you seen him?”
“He and Rand sat up conversing late into the night. But I have not seen him today.” He paused, then went on. “I
am glad I spied you, for I would speak to you on a matter of some … some importance to me.”
“What matter is that?” Josselyn asked, her curiosity piqued. She saw the master builder daily but he seldom singled her out, save to greet her in the same courteous manner he used with all the Welsh women. As she studied him, his face grew redder still.
“’Tis …’Tis the matter of … Gladys.”
Gladys? It took a few seconds before Josselyn divined the true import of what he’d just revealed. Gladys! A stroke of lightning could not have startled her half so much. Sir Lovell was interested in Gladys—Gladys, the widow of Tomas.
She turned away and fiddled with her skirt while she tried to compose herself. But it was hard. Fitz Hugh had hoped for this. He’d planned for it. English men and Welsh women. And she’d inadvertently helped him.
But she must not let it go any further. It would undermine her plans if romance bloomed between these two. She had to stop it before it began.
She cleared her throat. “Gladys has had a difficult enough time since her husband’s death without you making things worse for her.”
He stepped back, a stricken look on his guileless face. “But I want only to help her, not to make her life harder still. My wife is gone, as is her husband. Besides, she has children she should be tending to, not our kitchens.”
“Her children are well tended, now. Gladys took her husband’s death hard,” Josselyn said, forcing herself to be cruel. “In the aftermath she was a poor parent, and her children were taken from her. She wants them back and every day she comes nearer that goal. How do you think her people would feel if she took up with an Englishman? How quickly do you think they would return her children to her? And even if they did, her eldest child would never forgive her. Look behind me, Sir Lovell. Search the forests for a little girl. She is Gladys’s eldest and she hates that
her mother works here. She worries, and can you blame her? ’Tis said her father—Gladys’s husband—was killed by the English.”
Though it is more likely Owain did it
.
But Josselyn could not concern herself so strictly with the truth, not when Sir Lovell desired Gladys—not when Randulf Fitz Hugh’s plan was working, and after only two weeks’ time! She pressed on before he could reply. “If you care for Gladys, you will let her be. You will not force her to choose between you and her own people. Between you and her children.”
He nodded and backed away, mumbling. But his shoulders sagged and his head was bowed. As he departed, Josselyn beat back an awful wave of guilt. He cared for Gladys; that was clear. But did he care enough to do what was right for her, or would he be selfish and think only of himself?
She watched him angle across the long slope of the hill, a lonely figure heading back to Rosecliffe. She turned in the opposite direction. She’d done the right thing. It seemed cruel, but in truth, it was a kindness. There was no hope for a match between those two. Perhaps if Gladys did not already have children. Perhaps a Welshwoman with no family of her own might find contentment with an Englishman. But even then there were too many years of animosity between their people.
Like the enduring animosity between Owain’s family and her own, a niggling voice whispered from the depths of her mind. The fact was, waging peace through intermarriage was a common practice in Wales, as in all of Britain. Randulf Fitz Hugh sought to do no more than her own uncle did.
“Taran,
” she swore. She turned her back on Sir Lovell’s distant figure and headed north, toward the bay and the sea beyond it. If only her father were here. She would not be so beset by troubles if Howell ap Carreg Du were still alive. He would chase the English away and cow Owain and his
thugs as well. And he would help her find a good, strong man to wed.
“Your father loved this spot.”
Josselyn jumped in alarm. “Newlin!” She pressed a hand to her racing heart. “You startled me. How did you know I was thinking of my father?”
The bard smiled. “He often brought you here. Do you not remember?”
Josselyn stared around her. “I remember sitting in a tree with him. That tree.” She pointed at a gnarled oak that looked older than time itself. “I remember him climbing to the top while I clung to his back. He called me his little squirrel.”
“’Tis the tallest tree in these forests. From its topmost branches you can see the horizon.”
“The horizon is always visible,” she reminded him. “From wherever a body stands, she may see some sort of horizon. You taught me that.”
His warped face turned up in a grin. “So it is. But is it the horizon she wishes to see?”
That sobered her. What horizon did she wish to see now? What future did she want? Despair settled heavily upon her. “I don’t know what to do,” she confessed. “I am sore beset and caught between two enemies, the English and Owain ap Madoc.”
He nodded, then turned and continued walking in the direction she’d been heading. “You have considered all your choices.” He did not term it as a question.
“I have. If I marry Owain I encourage a battle with the English. If I do not marry him I put off that battle, but I cannot avoid it forever. Why must we ever be forced to fight for our own lands?”
“There is another choice,” Newlin replied, ignoring her frustrated words.
“Another choice? Yes, to battle the English alone, without the aid of any allies, or with reluctant ones,” she added, recalling her uncle’s words. “That choice is not much
better, for Owain will ultimately exact his revenge on us.”
The bard stared steadily at her. “You could join forces with the English.”
That was such a ludicrous idea, such a thoroughly ridiculous thought, that Josselyn laughed out loud. “Join forces with the English? Surrender to them, you mean. Give up our lands, our independence. Our way of life. No, that will never happen.”
“You are thinking like a man. Think like a woman, Josselyn.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Newlin gave his one-shouldered shrug. “Sir Lovell admires our Gladys.”
“Oh, no. Not you too!” she cried. “You want Welshwomen to marry these Englishmen? Where is your loyalty? Gladys deserves better than an Englishman. She deserves a good Welshman to serve as father to her Welsh children. To give her more Welsh babies.”
“Gladys’s future is for Gladys to live. Her horizons are for her to seek.”
Josselyn had never felt more confused. “Are you telling me she should marry Sir Lovell? That cannot help but lead to disaster.”
They had reached the place where the hill fell away to the sea, where the forest gave way to gorse and heather. She could see the bay, enclosed by the two arms of land, and beyond, the gray churning sea. Somewhere to her right was the black stone outcropping with its tangle of wild roses, where the English raised the walls of their fortress. She sucked in great drafts of cold sea air and tried to think clearly.
“Even if I leave Gladys to her own devices, there is still the matter of what I should do—and don’t say that I should marry an Englishman. Help me, Newlin.” She raised her arms then let them fall to her sides in a helpless gesture. “Help me, for I am much confused.”
She thought he would not answer, he stared into the distance
so long. He began the subtle rocking typical to him, then stopped and turned his odd gaze upon her. “Yon English lord asks many questions.”
The English lord? Josselyn didn’t want to talk about Randulf Fitz Hugh. She wanted to forget he existed at all. Only she couldn’t. Indeed, he was the source of her current misery. If he hadn’t come to Carreg Du she would not be in this dilemma. She sighed. “What sort of questions is he asking?”
“Questions about the niece of Clyde ap Llewelyn.”
Josselyn gasped and every one of her emotions focused on that remark. Alarm. Outrage. Panic. Then a perverse sort of thrill. He was asking about her. Then panic returned. There was only one reason he would care about Clyde’s niece: because she was the lone heir to these lands he wished to claim. “Does he know that
I
am that niece?”
“It would seem he does not,” Newlin answered. “But eventually he must find out. As he learns our language he has but to ask any of the women who work for him.” Left unsaid were two facts: she was the one teaching him their language; and she was the one who’d brought other women to work in his camp.