Isolde was not certain she believed him, but at the moment it did not matter. She stared up at the tower and saw the fire sputter and falter. Then suddenly it disappeared in a dark circle of smoke. Her smile was huge when she looked back at Newlin. “Perhaps it is as you say. But you knew how this would turn out. I am certain of that. And now, I have only to bring peace between Rhys and Jasper and my father.”
Newlin smiled at Josselyn’s special child and began to rock forward and back in the faint rhythm that gave him such comfort. Beside him Tilly reached out and gently took his gnarled hand in hers. His rocking slowed as she drew him back to the moment. But then she began to rock in a rhythm that matched his own, and he sighed contentedly. Together they watched
Isolde limp across the yard, her arms upstretched as if beckoning the rain down from the sky and urging it never to cease. She was heading for the great hall, searching for the man she loved and the beginnings of the life she would create with him.
“Winter’s end is nigh,” Newlin murmured.
“’Tis barely begun,” Tilly replied. But then, understanding what he meant, her old fingers squeezed his. “Winter’s end is nigh. But I am cold, and hungry. Come, old man. Let us seek our fire.”
A twinkle sparkled in Newlin’s faded eyes. “I wager ’tis not in the
domen
that you wish to weather this storm.”
She harrumphed. “That hard, frigid hole? You have but to ask and any of the villagers will offer us shelter. They fear to tell you no.”
“They have no reason to fear me,” the ancient bard protested.
“No,” Tilly agreed, smiling warmly at him. “No, they most assuredly do not.”
In the hall Isolde found her mother and her aunt Rhonwen. “Where is he?”
“Upstairs. They’re all three up there,” Josselyn said. She waved a cloth, trying to fan the smoke out through the open doorway. Rhonwen had already opened up two low windows while a manservant opened the higher ones, and the damp wind had begun to seep the air clear. From the stairwell the smoke still swirled as if uncertain whether to rise up, sink down, or simply drift away. But it was already thinner than before, cooler and paler, as well. The rain had come none too soon.
Isolde started up the stairs.
“You’re limping,” her mother cried, hurrying behind her.
“’Tis nothing.”
“But Isolde—”
“Mother, please! I must find Rhys.”
“Yes, yes.” Josselyn gave her a quick hug. “Of course you must.” But she followed in Isolde’s wake, as did Rhonwen.
They found the knot of men on the fourth level. The door to the tower room stood ajar now, smoking still. Beyond it the roof had collapsed. The massive timber beams were charred
and smoldering. But the rain was heavy and the fire had no choice but to surrender to it.
Though smoky and sodden, there was an oddly triumphant feel to the disparate group gathered there. When Isolde appeared, however, their joint triumph over the fire faded, and everyone turned to look to Rhys. One problem had been resolved. However, another, more difficult one remained.
But Isolde knew how this must end and so she crossed directly to her father. “You have fought together, you and Jasper and Rhys. You have fought together to save me, and to save Rosecliffe. Can you now not abandon the need to fight against one another?”
Her father scowled down at her, but he was no proof against the earnest entreaty on her face, as she had hoped. With a muttered oath he opened his arms to her and she rushed gladly into his embrace.
“I am willing to forgive the past,” he conceded, staring beyond her to Rhys. “But he cannot persist in his efforts to attack me or any other of my family.”
“If you mean me,” Isolde began, “You need not fear—”
“I mean Jasper,” he interrupted.
Isolde turned within her father’s protective embrace and leaned back against his chest. Jasper stood beside them, as did two burly English knights. Across the small shambles of the tower room Rhys stood alone. His expression was hard. The rain beat down through the open roof, plastering his hair against his head. He was all muscle and bone, she thought, a dark, virile man, beautiful in his own harsh way, yet vulnerable all the same. All the muscle and anger in the world could not truly disguise the pain he hid in his heart.
Determined to banish that hurt from him forever, she disentangled herself from her father’s arms. For a moment he tried to hold her back. But when she looked him straight in the eye, smiled, and said, “I love him,” his hands fell to his sides.
“I love him.” She repeated that simple statement to her uncle Jasper. Then she took three steps and stood directly before Rhys. They were close enough to touch. “I love you.”
He said nothing. But his eyes, dark as night, searched her face.
“I love you, Rhys. And I love them. We must come to a peace among the three of you, else you and I …” She trailed off, shaking her head. She was unable to speak such an awful thought aloud.
He struggled. She saw the turbulence in his face and in his heart. “I would have you, Isolde, despite the name FitzHugh that you bear. I would have you to wife.” He paused, and she knew that concession had been hard for him. “But we cannot stay here,” he added. “I cannot be near this place, knowing an Englishman rules where a Welshmen ought.”
There was a commotion near the door, and everyone turned to look. Josselyn stood there, staring intently at her husband with a pointed expression on her face. Isolde’s brow creased. What did that look mean?
But if Isolde did not know what it meant, Randulf obviously did. He cleared his throat, then addressed Rhys. “Jasper holds sway at Bailwynn to the south. His rule there has been just, as any honest man of that district will attest. His wife is Welsh and his children are as much Welsh as English. The same is true of myself. I have worked diligently to be a good lord to the people of these lands, and in this my Welsh bride has been a great aid.” He glanced again at Josselyn. “But times change. There is a new king in England, and a new demesne for me there. Aislin,” he said in answer to Isolde’s questioning look. “Our family’s ancestral holdings, passed down to my eldest brother, John. With his death, it has passed to me.”
“You’re moving away, to Aislin?” Isolde cried. Though she’d never been there, she’d heard stories of her father’s childhood home. “But I don’t want to live in England.”
With one hand her father cupped the side of her face. “Then live here. With your husband.”
Isolde stared up at him a long moment. Was he saying what she thought he was saying? Then he smiled and shrugged, and she turned abruptly to Rhys, her heart pounding with sudden joy.
Rhys heard the same words Isolde did. He understood their meaning in the same moment as she. Yet still he stood, disbelieving. Could this be true?
The older man went on. “I am now Earl of Aislin, and Gavin is heir to that title.” He glanced toward the door, then
continued. “My beloved ladywife has requested of me that our Welsh estates pass through our eldest daughter.” As if to emphasize the importance of his words, the sky rumbled.
Rhys wiped the rain from his eyes. The storm still lashed them as they stood in the ruined tower of Rosecliffe. But Rhys knew the castle remained strong. What had been ruined could be rebuilt.
Rosecliffe Castle had been well sited, and with its wide moat and mighty walls, it was as fine a fortress as any in England, Scotland, or Wales. Certainly it was finer than anything his father might have constructed, he realized. For twenty years now, Rosecliffe Castle had served as shelter and protection to all people of good heart, Welsh and English alike. Randulf FitzHugh had done that. And Jasper FitzHugh had aided him.
But for once it was not the need to possess Rosecliffe that prodded Rhys. Nor was it his need for revenge against the FitzHughs. For the first time in his life another emotion ruled all those others, an emotion tied wholly to the woman standing so bedraggled before him. His brave and beautiful Isolde.
He looked down at her, with her upturned face wet with rain. Her hair was drenched and disheveled, her gown was ruined, and yet she was the loveliest ceature his eyes had ever beheld. But more important than that, her heart was beautiful and her soul was pure.
Randulf FitzHugh had done that, too. He and Josselyn had raised their child that they loved into a woman whom Rhys could love. The only woman he could ever love.
She blinked. Were those raindrops or tears in her eyes?
He reached out a hand that trembled and cupped her face as her father had. She wrapped her slender fingers around his wrist.
“Will you have me as your husband?” The words came out of their own volition, unplanned. But he did not regret them. Indeed, a huge weight seemed to lift away from him. “Will you consent to be my wife, Isolde?” he asked, staring intently into her serious gray eyes.
“Yes.”
The single word seemed to quiver between them. Then she launched herself into his arms, nearly unbalancing him, and
Rhys’s heart swelled with joy. She was small, but she was strong, this woman of his. She was gentle but she could also be fierce. And though a lady, she had enough of the wanton in her to keep him eternally content.
“You will marry me?” he murmured into her soaked hair.
She nodded, and only then was he aware of clapping. With his arms still wrapped tightly about her, Rhys looked up to see that they were all clapping. He was momentarily nonplussed.
Then Randulf FitzHugh approached him with hand extended. “I would have a true peace between us,” the older man said. It felt right for Rhys to take his hand, and he did so without hesitation.
Then Jasper FitzHugh came forward, his hand offered in friendship as well. “There has been enough ill will between us. If you wed Isolde, you become my nephew.”
Rhys felt Isolde tense in his arms. When he glanced down at her, however, he saw nothing but love in her eyes.
“I love your niece,” he answered the man, though he stared still at Isolde. “If you are her uncle, then you must be mine, as well.”
Then he grasped the man’s hand in a pledge of peace. He could feel in Jasper’s strong grip the empty place where one of his fingers was missing—the finger Rhys’s father had cruelly severed. How long ago those awful days seemed. But this was a new age. He shook Jasper’s hand, then turned to face his Isolde.
“I would have a private word with my bride.”
He held her before him, a hand on each of her shoulders, staring deeply into her eyes as he waited for everyone to leave. Then they were alone, just he and her in the smoldering ruins of the tower, with the weight of twenty years echoing around them.
“I love you.” The words came hard. They were foreign to everything he’d ever known. But they were the only words that came even close to revealing the emotions in his heart. “I love you, Isolde. I … I wished to tell you that in private.” He took a shaky breath. “I have been a fool not to have recognized that simple truth long ago. I tried to give it another name. But … I love you,” he repeated, gratified by the glitter of emotion
in her eyes. “And you should know that I would want you for my wife, with or without Rosecliffe Castle.”
She had listened solemnly and now she nodded. A smile trembled along the edges of her lips. “Would you have made peace with Jasper for me alone?”
Slowly he nodded. “For you, it seems, I would do anything.”
“Even walk through fire,” she said with tears in her eyes. But they were tears of happiness, the only tears he hoped ever to see in them again. Then laughing through those tears, she flung herself into his arms, sealing their love and their vows with a kiss.
Rhys wrapped her in his arms then, picking her off her feet, began slowly to spin in a circle. How had he come to possess so perfect a creature as she? What had he ever done to deserve her?
“We will be so happy here,” she whispered, and he knew it was so. From this ruin they would raise new walls. Strong walls.
Good walls.
ROSECLIFFE CASTLE, WALES
MARCH, A.D. 1156
ISOLDE SPUN IN A SLOW CIRCLE. HER EYES WERE HALF-CLOSED, deliberately unfocused so as to better visualize the mural she worked on. Above her on the roof, the leadfitter hammered, using heavy mallets to seal the new lead sheets into place. This time the tower roof would be impervious to fire.
She had been waiting to begin this project for nearly a year. But the long winter had delayed rebuilding the tower room walls. Then had come the spring plantings and the sheep shearing. During the summer, however, the workmen had finally turned their efforts to the tower repairs. Even Rhys had labored at it, laying stones and muscling the massive timbers into place before winter’s first snowfall.
But now spring was imminent and the final work on the roof was nearly done. It was a point of pride with Rhys that the tower be completed before her parents came for their first lengthy visit to Rosecliffe.
But Isolde wanted more than merely the walls and roof and parapet finished. She wanted the mural complete, as well, the endless scene she envisioned enveloping the entire room.
Rhys had been gone these past two days, attending to business at Afon Bryn, and during that time she’d worked feverishly from the first pink light of dawn through the lengthening evening hours. Today she’d had even more cause to hurry. She rubbed her hands in slow circles around her extended belly. Baby Alan—or Alana—was growing impatient, it seemed. He’d settled a little lower, and all day her back had
ached. Whatever part of the mural she did not complete today would go unfinished for several months to come, she suspected.
She made the complete circle once more. The trail of roses was finally right. And the silhouette of the mountains to the east and the profile of Rosecliffe Castle pleased her now. The wolf was better. But the dragon … She squinted. Something about the dragon was not yet right. His eyes, she decided. They were as dark as Rhys’s, but they did not sparkle as his did. She smiled to think of that sparkle, sometimes heated by passion, other times simply by love.
The door creaked open as she worked on them. “Lady Isolde, you must stop now,” Magda scolded. “If not for your sake, then for mine. You know how fussy Odo becomes when the meal is delayed. And he refuses to serve without you, so ’tis no use to tell him to commence while you are still up here.”
Magda waddled farther into the room, her stomach almost as large as Isolde’s, and Isolde let out a chuckle. “We are quite the pair, aren’t we? But I think, Magda, that I shall regain my waistline before you do.”
“Oh, milady, has your time come?” Magda’s eyes widened as she anxiously scanned Isolde. “We must get you to your bed. I knew you should not have been allowed to climb all those steep steps. Lord Rhys will have my head if he should hear of it.”
“You climb them,” Isolde pointed out. “And you’re nearly as far along as I am. Don’t fuss, Magda. Rhys fusses enough for both of you. My labors have not yet begun, but I do feel different today. Perhaps the babe will not greet us this evening, but soon. Quite soon.”
“’Tis a good thing Lord Rhys has returned,” Magda grumbled.
“He has returned! Oh, why was I not notified?”
“But that’s precisely what I’m doing, milady. Osborn spotted him coming up the old road from Carreg Du. I came up to fetch you so you can greet him in the bailey when he arrives.”
“And so he won’t know what I’ve been up to, eh?” The baby kicked and Isolde laughed. “Let us be on our way, then.”
They started down the stairs arm in arm. The mural was nearly done; her parents would arrive within a matter of days; and Rhys was home. To Isolde’s mind her life could not be more perfect. Rhys loved her, he’d made peace with her family—and himself—and soon she would present him with the ultimate proof of her love for him. She could hardly wait to see him.
A half league from the castle, Rhys rode like a man possessed. Around midday he’d had a sudden premonition. A baby in the village had cried out and he’d felt the hair on the back of his neck rise. Within the hour he had left Gandy and Linus to finish his business at Afon Bryn. He had to see Isolde. He had to be with her. He should never have left when she was so near to her time, even though she’d assured him she had several weeks to go. He should have listened to his heart and remained at her side.
Up the hill his game steed labored. He passed Carreg Du, then made his way through the cleared fields that surrounded Rosecliffe. The field workers were returning home from their daily labor, some to Carreg Du, others to the village below the castle. Everything looked as it ought; but until he saw Isolde, he would not be content.
As he rounded the turn near the
domen
, he lifted a hand in greeting to Newlin and Tilly. But he did not slow his pace. Then he saw the castle and its newly finished tower. He was home.
A figure in the gatehouse spied him and waved—but did not signal any distress. Rhys took a deep breath of relief, then on impulse reined in his weary mount and simply gazed upon Rosecliffe.
Home. How strange for him to feel such a powerful connection to the one place he’d always hated. In the past year, however, there had been many such alterations in his feelings. And all because Isolde loved him.
A hard lump of emotion rose in his chest. Isolde had seen something in him worth loving. But even more amazing, she’d made him look deep into his own heart and discover his ability to love in return. It sometimes terrified him, how desperately he loved her.
Now she must suffer the wrenching pains of childbirth on
account of his love, and that terrified him anew. Some women died in childbirth.
He leaned forward and urged his steed forward once more. He must get to her. He must be certain she was all right.
Newlin watched Rhys fly up the hill to the castle and smiled. “There is magic in the tower,” he murmured to Tilly, who sat beside him on the
domen
soaking up the last of the day’s sunshine. Soon the sun would be gone, but for now it warmed the land, and gleamed upon the noble walls of Rosecliffe Castle.
“Magic?” Tilly asked. “Is the babe to come tonight?”
“Methinks so,” he murmured, patting her hand.
“Speaking of babes. I have heard of a child, born in Afon Bryn. Its face is misshapen, and one of its feet, as well. The villagers believe it is cursed. But of course it is not. It is only very small and defenseless.”
Newlin was quiet a moment. “And you wish to raise it?”
“I do.”
Newlin smiled and again patted Tilly’s hand.
“Winter’s end is nigh,” he said, and everywhere the signs said as much. Buds swelling in the forest. The pintails beginning their mating rituals. A child would soon be christened in yon castle—and another brought home by Tilly to his little abode.
His old heart swelled, for he was happy.
“I have heard a song,” he said, beginning to rock back and forth. Tilly rocked with him. “It came to me in a dream.”
When stones shall grow and trees shall no’,
When noon comes black as beetle’s back,
When winter’s heat shall cold defeat;
We’ll see them all, ’ere Cymry falls.
But what is ruin when next comes June
To rise and gro’ what ’ere we sow?
Pick wise the seed and heaven heed,
Then pure of heart, seek your reward.
The last ray of sunlight kissed the highest portion of Rosecliffe, then melted away, leaving lavender to claim all. As
darkness crept over the land, candles were lit, and torchères and lanterns, then as the hour grew late, those lights slowly winked out—save for one.
In the tower room the candles burned a long while. A man paced the overlook, sweating despite the cold night, for his ladylove suffered to bring their child to life, and he could hardly bear it.
Her words came back to him, words from the hardest part of their past. It
was
far easier to fight than to love. He believed her now, for his heart was breaking at her every cry of pain.
Then there was a new cry, a baby’s thin, trembling wail, and a dam broke in Rhys’s heart.
“Rhys?” Isolde called out to him. “Rhys? Come and see your son. Come and see him.”
And with tears of joy streaming down his face, Rhys went to her.