“Done!” Rhys snarled.
“Then come. Come on, then.” Jasper shook his fist at him.
“The battle is mine!” Isolde’s father roared. “She is my daughter and this is my home!”
“I’ll fight him, Father. Let me,” Gavin shouted.
Isolde’s blood turned to ice. “No.” She struggled against the man who held her. “No, Rhys. Please, no!”
He flinched. She was sure of it. But he did not otherwise acknowledge her words. “Decide among yourselves. It is no matter to me whom I fight. I’ll fight all of you. Just come, tomorrow at midday. I’ll slay Jasper FitzHugh first.”
“No, no!” Isolde cried.
“And once I have dispatched him,” Rhys continued, “I will take on all comers.”
“Tomorrow. At midday,” Jasper answered in steely tones. “I’ll be here.”
In the awful silence that fell, Isolde heard the hoofbeats of
her father’s small band leaving the moat and returning to the village. She heard the harsh sound of her own breathing and the boastful mutterings among the Welshmen on the wall walk. But the man who’d set this whole tragedy into motion made no sound at all. He only watched his enemies depart, then slowly—slowly—turned his head toward her.
His expression was fierce, the coldly determined face of a man raised on war, conditioned in battle, and not afraid to die in pursuit of vengeance. But there was a bleakness in his eyes, a flat finality that frightened Isolde even more than the revenge he sought. He stared at her across the gulf of twoscore years of hatred, and she heard the silent truth in his eyes. What little comfort they’d found together—what passion and .even, perhaps, the beginnings of love—could never make up for a lifetime of rage, a lifetime of waiting for this confrontation. She held no sway with him; she saw that with a sickening clarity. She could change nothing of his intent; nor could she ever forgive him for it.
They stared another long moment. Isolde did not struggle against the man who yet held her in his grasp. What purpose was there for struggle now?
“Take her to the tower,” Rhys ordered after a moment. “You will remain there until this matter is done,” he added to her. Then he turned and stalked away, and Isolde finally understood.
His hand was damaged and his arm, but they would heal. But he bore other scars of a deeper damage, hidden scars upon his heart and upon his soul, and they would never heal. Never. Though he had begun to care for her, he could not love her. And he understood, as she was now learning to, that the absence of love must leave them only with hate.
Randulf and Jasper were furious, as much at each other as at Rhys, it seemed. Josselyn and Rhonwen shared a look when their husbands returned, but they wisely kept their distance.
“The battle is mine!” Randulf thundered.
“But I am the one he has sworn vengeance on!” Jasper countered.
“’Tis my daughter he holds and my castle he has stolen!”
Josselyn caught Gavin by the arm and dragged him into
the kitchen of the small cottage they’d taken in the village. “What news of Isolde? Did you see her?”
Gavin’s young face was pale, but his eyes were bright with youthful outrage. “I saw her. We all did. She waved and she said she was not harmed. But he would not let her go.”
From behind them Rhonwen nodded. “I told you Rhys would not hurt her.”
Josselyn just arched one brow and turned back to her son. “What has transpired?”
Once Gavin had explained about Rhys’s challenge to meet each of them in battle, beginning with Jasper, Josselyn let the lad go. When they were once more alone, she said to Rhonwen, “There must be no battle. Not tomorrow. Not ever.”
“But how can we prevent it?” Rhonwen threw her hands up in frustration. “Oh, why must men turn first to their weapons when talk can accomplish so much more?”
Josselyn stood there, her arms crossed over her waist, thinking. “It is up to us, Rhonwen. You and I—and Isolde. We are the ones who must forge a peace here, else someone we love will die.”
They were quiet a moment. Then Rhonwen asked, “Do you think he has seduced her?”
Josselyn pursed her lips a moment, then nodded. “Yes. I am almost certain of it. What I am not certain of—what I hope is true but cannot say for sure—is whether
she
has seduced
him
. Whether she has cracked the surface of his hard heart.”
“How can we know?”
Josselyn peered through the doorway at her husband, whom she dearly loved but who was too old to face a young man like Rhys in battle. Even Jasper was not so keen with his weapons as he’d been in years past.
“We cannot know for certain. But I believe time is our ally. Yes. Our ally.” She faced Rhonwen with determination shining in her eyes. “We must use any reason we can find to delay this battle they plan for the morrow. We must at least do that, and then trust in Isolde to manage the rest.”
Isolde paced the confines of the tower room. Four paces across the tiny chamber. Four across, four back. It was not as cold now as it had been earlier in the day. The clouds had increased
again, but instead of snow a dull rain fell, melting the snow and ice and turning the world to a wet and gloomy gray. It well suited the gray gloom that had settled over her soul.
Someone would die tomorrow. Someone she loved.
She halted her nervous pacing and pressed her hands against the sides of her head. She could not bear the thought; she simply could not.
On impulse she dropped to her knees. “Dear God, sweet Mary, Lord Jesus. I have been a sinner. I know I have. But please, I beg you. Do not punish me by hurting one of them. Spare them, all of them. Oh, please …” She trailed off, head bowed over her tightly clasped hands. She needed an answer, she needed some assurance from God, some sign from above that He heard her prayer.
But there was none. How could there be? she asked herself. Mere mortals could not make demands of God, no matter how sincerely motivated, and expect a quick answer. Still, she remained on her knees a long while, searching her heart for a solution.
When she finally rose, she had made no progress, save for knowing that she could never fully hate Rhys. Even should he fight her uncle and her father, and strike them both down, even then she would hate what he had done, but she would not hate him. She only hoped beyond all reason that it would not come to that.
Restless, she made a circuit of her tower prison, rattling the locked stair door, then moving to the other door that led to the overlook. It was not barred, but it was raining outside, a cold blustery rain, and she retreated from it. With nothing else to do, she took up her charcoal stick and stared at the bare wall.
Rhys had been so tender of late, especially last night and this morning. It was hard to align that Rhys with the man who’d vowed death to her family just hours ago. She reached out with the piece of charcoal and drew a tentative line on the stone. The slope of a nose. The angle of a chin. At first her hand trembled. She did not want to draw him. She did not want to memorialize him on the walls of Rosecliffe.
But she kept on. The dark slash of his brows—he was smiling. She shivered and turned away, then began afresh.
This time the brows lowered in anger. His eyes sparked with vengeance. She drew in great arcs of movement, swiftly. Faster and faster. The charcoal scratched across the uneven stones. Then it splintered in her hands and fell in useless shards to the floor.
“Why!” she screamed. Then she attacked the drawing, smearing the charcoal image with her hands as she raged at the injustice of it all. Why? Why?
“Isolde.”
With a gasp she spun around. Rhys stood in the doorway, and for a moment she was frozen in shock. She had not heard him remove the bar. But he had heard her, and now he stared at her two frenzied sketches. The good Rhys and the bad one.
She turned away from him. “What do you want?”
He sighed and that small indication of his weariness reverberated through her.
She blinked back the sting of unwanted tears. “What do you want of me, Rhys?”
He did not answer, but instead studied the first sketch. “Is this me?”
She shrugged. “Sometimes.”
“Sometimes?”
She stared down at her hands, grimy from the charcoal. “Sometimes you are easy to be with. Kind. Thoughtful.”
“And this other sketch,” he said after a moment. “Was that also of me, sometimes?”
Isolde nodded.
“Sometimes. When I am cruel? When I am angry?” Another pause. “When I vow to kill your family?”
She closed her eyes. “I cannot speak with you about that,” she said in a strangled voice. “If that is why you have come, then I wish you would leave.”
But he did not leave. “I am neither of those men, Isolde, but rather a portion of both. Can you not see me as both? Not wholly good; but not wholly bad, either.”
She turned half the way toward him. “I know that.”
He held his arms open. “Then draw me that way. Draw me as I am.”
It was the oddest experience, drawing Rhys. Odd, with a feeling of unreality about it. He seated himself upon a stool
beside the window so that the meager light through the stretched skin fell upon him. A solitary candle on the windowsill increased the shadows across his face, and Isolde stared solemnly at him. His was a handsome face, a man’s face, strong and stubborn, and she wanted to draw him. Her hands fairly itched to make his image.
She sighed and pulled out a precious piece of sheepskin, one she’d been saving for something special. This was special, though not what she’d imagined using it for. Tomorrow would her drawing be all that remained of Rhys? She did not want to think about that.
She sat cross-legged on her pallet so that she was positioned lower than he, then stared up at him. “Turn your face toward the light.”
He studied her a long moment before doing as she asked. “Like this?”
“Yes.” It was not as difficult as she thought. Without his dark observant eyes upon her she was free to stare at him as long as she liked. The wide brow and strong nose. The full, curving lips that neither smiled nor frowned. His chin jutted out, determined. His jawline was straight and firm. His neck was thick with muscles and disappeared into the opening of his quilted hauberk.
She drew it all without rushing, dipping a goose quill into the ink as she created his image on the sheepskin. It would be all she would ever have of him, no matter what tomorrow brought, so she wanted it to be perfect. His raven-black hair. His midnight-dark eyes.
But she could not depict him wholly dark. There was a darkness in his soul, but she had discovered that there also was light, and she wanted that to show, as well. So she labored carefully over his image, and when she was finally satisfied, she pushed the ink aside and sat back on the pallet.
“Will you show it to me?” he asked, looking down at her.
She held it up. “You are a good subject. Much more so than my sister Gwen. She squirms and …” She trailed off. The subject of her family cast a pall over them both. She knew how he hated them.
He stood, a faint crease marking his brow. “’Tis good work. As I have said before, you have a rare talent.” He
cleared his throat. “You may come down to the hall for the evening meal,” he added.
She stood also, setting the drawing aside. “Am I commanded to appear, or is the choice mine?”
Their eyes held and her heart raced of its own accord.
“The choice is yours.”
Then he left and she had only the echo of his words for company. The choice is yours. She wanted to laugh, except that she feared she might cry. The choice had never been hers. Not to leave him, or to love him.
Some decisions the heart made all on its own.
IT DRIZZLED OFF AND ON THE WHOLE DAY AND INTO THE night. When the bells of prime pealed over the cold, bedraggled countryside, Josselyn had already been awake two hours, worrying, praying. Plotting. She would not allow her husband to fight Rhys—nor her brother-in-law, Jasper, either. They were men—angry men—with a need to strike back at anyone who threatened them, their loved ones, or those they were sworn to protect. But though they were angry, they were not stupid. If she could just convince Rand that waiting would aid their cause …
But how could she be certain? What if she were wrong about Rhys? What if he vented his anger on Isolde?
Josselyn hugged her arms around herself, afraid for her firstborn child, but afraid also for Rhys. Did she dare take such a chance?
A figure moved in the muddy street, not huddling against the damp wind. A child? But when Josselyn squinted she recognized Newlin.
Newlin! She pressed her tightly clasped hands against her mouth. Newlin would know what to do. The fact that he came directly toward her convinced her all the more. She held open the low door for him, and giving her a sweet smile, he entered with his familiar sideways gait. For all the rain, he was not excessively wet and he declined her offer of a warming tea.
“It has come round to us, my child,” he said. “Winter’s end is nigh. Do you remember when I taught you those words in
the foreign tongues of Norman French and Saxon English?”
Josselyn nodded. “It has been more than twenty years. But those lessons, they have served me well.”
“Yes, with a Norman husband and a lengthy sojourn in the lands of the Saxons.”
“But I am back in Wales. In
Cymry
,” she said, growing more serious. “And now I am forced to face a countryman as my enemy, when I would rather face him as my friend.”
“Winter’s end is nigh,” the old bard said, blinking.
“Winter’s end? But it is not even Christmastide.”
He only smiled and that more than anything encouraged Josselyn. Did he mean that the end of the discontent at Rosecliffe was nigh? She knelt before him and took his twisted old hands in hers. “He will not hurt her, will he? I cannot believe Rhys would allow any harm to befall Isolde, no matter how angry he might be.”
“No, he would not,” the old man agreed.
“Not even if no one faced his challenge this day? Even if his revenge upon Jasper and Rand was somehow foiled?”
The ancient little man patted her hands and for a brief moment both his good eye and the one that wandered focused together on her. “You cannot delay this confrontation forever. Indeed, it may be that only in their confrontation can one season die and another finally be born.”
“’Tis not the death of a season that worries me, but the death of someone I love!” Josselyn stood and began to pace, then stopped. “Tell me this. Does he love her? He has held Rosecliffe for two weeks and in that time he has not hurt Isolde, or so she says.” She paused, pinning her wise old friend with her eyes. “Has he taken her to his bed?”
The bard’s eyes twinkled. “So some believe.”
Josselyn pursed her lips thoughtfully and considered that news. She was too practical to be very upset about her daughter’s loss of virginity—if she had been willing.
“She was.” Newlin answered her question before she could ask it. He turned away and stretched his hands to the fire. “But now, Josselyn, I would make a request of you.”
Josselyn’s mind was still circling the fact that Isolde had accepted Rhys’s affections, so it took a moment for Newlin’s words to sink in. “A request? Oh, but of course.”
Newlin stared into the fire. “There is a woman at Rosecliffe. She arrived with Rhys. An old woman named Tilly—though she goes by Tillo and disguises herself as a man.”
Josselyn’s brows arched in curiosity. When Newlin’s wizened face pinkened ever so slightly, however, she could scarcely believe it. Was the solitary Newlin enamored of a woman? “Her name is Tilly?” she asked, dumbfounded by the possibility.
He nodded. “She is in need of a home, and though she denies it, I know she likes Rosecliffe.”
Josselyn’s senses came immediately alert. “Are you saying I will soon be in a position to decide who may or may not reside at Rosecliffe?”
The bard glanced over at her and grinned. “I had not meant to reveal that. I see the years have not dulled your mind.”
Josselyn chuckled, pleased beyond measure by both his remark and his revelation. “Nor has time dulled yours, though perhaps someone has distracted you?” Then she waved her hand. “Never mind about that. We are in agreement, then. Tilly will have a home at Rosecliffe. But what of Rhys?”
Newlin sighed. “Some things are clear to me, Josselyn. Others less so. And remember, Rhys has a will of his own. His choices are his to make, not mine. Only time will reveal to us what those choices will be.”
“But he will not hurt her,” Josselyn murmured under her breath as Newlin turned to leave. “He will not hurt her,” she repeated as she watched her old friend depart. That was enough for her to know. Now, she could turn her energies toward convincing both Rand and Jasper that to decline Rhys’s challenge was not cowardice, but rather, a strategic decision. No easy feat, she knew, for they were both angry and impatient. She would have to find a way to distract them.
Thunder boomed and rolled across the land, rattling the doors and windows, and a fresh wave of rain beat down on the sturdy thatch-roofed cottage. Though the snow was fast melting, it was still not a fit day to be out-of-doors. She tapped a finger against her chin. Better to stay abed.
Then she smiled to herself. A day spent abed, that was one way to distract Rand, and surely Rhonwen could do the same with Jasper.
Feeling better now, she added a few logs to the fire then turned for the stairs. First she would speak with Rhonwen. Then she would search out her magnificent, hardheaded husband and teach him a thing or two about strategic warfare.
Rhys stalked along the wall walk, clenching and unclenching his fists. Where were they? Where in God’s name were they!
He glared down at the village that spread beyond the castle walls. It was strangely still for this hour of the morning. After the heavy snowfall, then the melting rains of the past few days, the village folk should be taking advantage of the break in the weather. There was livestock to tend, wood, to be collected. Hunting to do.
But the village was as still as death. Only the numerous spumes of chimney smoke gave evidence of any life there at all.
He stopped his pacing and leaned forward between the crenellations, ignoring the pain to his stitched wounds. “Show yourselves, you bloody cowards,” he muttered.
From the corner of his eye he saw Linus huddled in the shelter of the gatehouse. Like Linus, every warrior at Rosecliffe was on alert, battle vestments donned, weapons honed, and senses attuned to any movement from the village. Though the battle was rightly between Rhys and Jasper, the revenge of a son directed at his father’s killer, there was more than that at stake. These were Welsh lands; they deserved a Welsh ruler. If he should die on the point of a FitzHugh blade, Rhys hoped Glyn and the others would carry on the battle.
How would Isolde react to his death?
He closed his eyes, fighting off any thought of Isolde. Thinking of a woman during battle was deadly, a mistake he’d never before made, and one he refused to make now. But ignoring his memories of Isolde was impossible. His head was filled with them. His body fairly thrummed with them.
She’d been incredibly attentive to him yesterday and this morning, as well. She’d removed his bandages twice, checking his injuries and spreading a soothing ointment over the wounds. Then she’d rebound his wounds, and all the while she’d spoken of subjects far away from the one uppermost in both of their minds. Music. Art. Sculpture. At her urging he’d
described the town of York, the great castle at Richmond, and the Abbey of Whitby on the German Sea. He’d explained how the Scottish pipes worked and she tried to explain her need to create art. She’d practiced again on his gittern. In time she would be very good.
But neither of them had mentioned politics, family rivalries, or their conflicting loyalties.
At the evening meal she’d played her role as lady of the castle one last time. One last time, for whether he won or lost this battle today, he would lose her forever. She would leave. He would have to return her to what was left of her family.
He stared blindly at the village below him. He should return her to them now.
But he could not.
He pounded his fist against the stone parapet, reveling in the stabbing pain. “
Sceat!
Show yourselves!” he roared. Then breathing heavily, he turned away from the deceptively placid village. He strode to the stairs. “Bring my horse,” he ordered the first man he saw. In the bailey he gestured to Glyn. “You will hold Rosecliffe while I ride out with three men.”
The lanky Welshman looked astounded. “But they have not shown themselves. If you ride out with but three men they will take you. Did you not see the size of their army?” Glyn shook his head. “Our strength lies in these walls, Rhys. Out there we are outnumbered.” Then a sly look came into his eyes. “Except, of course, that you hold the girl. They will not risk her, I think.”
Nor will I risk her
.
The response was nearly out of Rhys’s mouth before he caught himself. He would not risk Isolde, either. But her family could not be sure of that. Though the idea left a bad taste in his mouth, he knew he must use their fear for her to his advantage.
He fixed his gaze on Glyn. “I hold Isolde FitzHugh. But I am not craven enough to do her harm. Nor will any man harm her if he expects to live out the day.”
Glyn met Rhys’s warning glare and he stiffened at the implication. But he gave a curt nod. “I am not Dafydd. I know our battle is with her menfolk.”
Rhys nodded as well, but he was not totally appeased. If
he should fall to the FitzHughs, could he trust his Welsh countrymen to safeguard Isolde when their own lives were in danger? He watched his second in command climb the steps with a sinking certainty. He could not trust Glyn no matter what he said, nor any of the others.
But he could trust Linus and Gandy and Tillo.
Isolde watched from the tower overlook. It was strange to observe from afar the preparations for the conflict to come. Today men would pit their lives for possession of Rosecliffe Castle, men like Rhys and her father and uncle. Good men all, they were honorable and brave, and were their loyalties not so squarely in opposition, they would all respect one another. She was certain of that.
She shielded her eyes against the light, stinging rain. The village was still, as was the castle. Only the Welsh men-at-arms moved about the bailey and wall walk. Everyone else hid and waited. But she could not hide.
Then she spied Rhys descending the stairs from the wall, conversing with one of his men. Tall and bareheaded, he was nonetheless dressed for battle. He wore his padded hauberk, and his long sword swung at his side. He signaled several men and in short order four horses were led out from the stables. Her heart began an uneven thudding.
“Please don’t fight them.” She leaned out between the crennels, needing Rhys to look up at her and hear her plea.
But he did not look up. He spoke to Linus. He gave orders she could not hear and men dispersed at his command. Then he mounted a huge destrier and positioned his weapons: his long sword, a mace, a pike in its sheath. He raised his chain-mail cowl and placed his helmet on his pommel. Then at his gesture the bridge creaked down, the gate screeched open, and he and the three others started forward.
She reached out a futile hand to him as he disappeared beneath the gatehouse, a powerful, broad-shouldered figure bent on his own destruction. Then she turned away, consumed with a grief that was as illogical as it was overwhelming.
She did not see him emerge on the road beyond the wall. She did not see him turn once as if to scan the castle defenses for any weakness.
But it was not weaknesses in Rosecliffe’s walls that Rhys searched out. He knew already the weakness in his plan, and it lay not in the mighty fortress walls, nor in the meager number of men left to defend the castle. The weakness was one he carried inside him—in his heart, if one could believe the love-struck words of the minstrel balladeers. He loved Isolde FitzHugh. That was his weakness. And he sought one last sight of her. He needed to see her, to know her eyes were upon him no matter that her loyalties lay with her family.
But she was not there. On the tower overlook he saw nothing, and in his chest something hard seemed to turn over. As he turned his attention back to the road and the hostile village, he told himself he was glad she was not there. It was better if she kept herself apart from this day’s doings. A man did not need a woman lurking in the background when he faced another across the raised length of his sword. His jaw clenched in a grimace. In truth a man did not need a woman at all, save to vent his lust upon.
As they made their way down the wet, rocky road, however, he knew he was a liar. He had never needed a woman in his life—until he met Isolde. And though he had made her his captive and could keep her as long as he wanted, that was no longer enough. She’d said she loved him, but more than that, she’d shown him her love in so many little ways. That was what he most wanted from her, he now realized. The small, everyday expressions of her love.