The Faery Bride (The Celtic Legends Series Book 2) (23 page)

Too many days she’d sat by the fire with her spinning whilst Rhys and Dafydd pored over sheets of parchment riddled with draftsmen’s lines and scribbled Latin, whilst they talked of masonry and scaffolding, of mortar and stone, whilst her gaze drifted from the spindle in her hand to the sight of Rhys’s dark head bent over the drawings.

He said, “I’m taking the minstrel to see it.”

“What interest would a minstrel have in a pile of stones and mortar?”

“Purely mercenary. He wishes to see the castle to gauge the true measure of my wealth.”

“As if we hadn’t given him a taste of that at the feast we laid out for him last night.”

“In Wales, we don’t disappoint our guests.”

“Are you scolding me? Didn’t I lay out a good enough table for you, even slaughtering a fatted calf for that leering poet?”

“That leering poet is one of the bards in the court of the Prince of Wales. Equal in stature to the King’s doctor.”

“Then if ever I am blessed with a visit to the Prince’s court, remind me never to get bored or sick.”

She tugged the leather tie from her braid and let her hair spring over her face. She didn’t like the bard. She hadn’t liked him from the moment he’d sauntered into the
llys
with his harp slung across his back. His worldly, black gaze had drifted to where she stood by Rhys’s side and his lips had twisted in the slyest of smiles. For the first time since she and Rhys had returned from the mountain hut, she’d felt like the whore of Babylon.

Dafydd had assured her that Welsh law recognized her relationship with Rhys being as legally strong as that of a wife, despite the dictates of the Church. For the first awkward week sleeping in Rhys’s bed, while making her initial bumbling attempts to take on the domestic duties of the mistress of the place, she tried to take some comfort in that knowledge and not think of sin and shame and what it would mean for any children that came of their bedding. Truth be told, no one had done anything riskier than winking at her—probably out of fear of risking Rhys’s fury. But a bard was beyond vengeance. His place was sacred in any man’s home. And this bard of Aberffraw had a way about him that she did not like.

Well, the Irish knew of courtesy as well as the Welsh. She’d bite through her lip before she showed Tudur Aled any ebb in her hospitality.

She padded across the room and yanked her old woolen tunic off a peg, but Rhys took it out of her hands.

“Not this.” He fisted the wool and tossed it back up on the peg. “I won’t have you dressed like a peasant while that bard prances around in his silks.”

“Didn’t you see the way he clung by the fire last night, chattering his teeth? We should be giving him a wool tunic—”

“There are silks enough in that trunk. Wear them.”

She eyed the dusty old trunk. “I’ve no stomach to wear another woman’s clothing.”

She had rifled through that trunk one day, wondering if there was anything within besides fripperies, and had realized it contained a bride’s trousseau. She had stepped away and slammed the lid down. In that trunk lay the musty, unworn trousseau of the Lady Elyned. Rhys must have had the cloth purchased and cut long before the disaster of the wedding. She wondered why he hadn’t burned it all.

“You’re a practical woman, Aileen. If you don’t wear them, they’ll be nothing but food for moths.”

“Would you have me on my knees in the storage shed, wearing some fine stuff?”

“No. I’d have you ordering others to do that work.”

“You’re trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”

“I will have you looking like the lady of the Lord of Graig.”

Lady.
Wasn’t that a pretty word, respectful and so cunningly vague. “It’s no use.” She swept her fingers down the length of her undertunic. “Dress me in silks, if you will, but Tudur Aled will still be the prettier.”

His lips twitched. “I’ll be the judge of that.”

She flushed, for she’d meant her words as a slap to the bard and his preening ways, not a plea for a compliment. She wondered if she actually saw humor in his face, or if she was just losing her senses. She felt a lot that way lately. Half–adrift, bobbing on a boat at the end of a frayed thread. Pulled in at one moment, sucked away at another, always waiting for the tether to break, and praying with bated breath that it wouldn’t.

Suddenly, he tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “So. What have you planned today, Irish?”

“I . . . the spinning, as usual. Always enough flax and wool to keep me busy.” His unexpected, affectionate gesture had disarmed her. “I thought I might set to the soap–making before the day is done.”

“That mare you rode, New Year’s Day. Do you think you can handle her?”

“While spinning or soap–making?”

That spark of a smile again. “Neither. I could use better company than Tudur Aled on the ride to the castle.”

If she had any sense she’d refuse him downright. Already the chill of the day was seeping in through the stones. The last freeze had made the passes icy and uncertain. She’d not yet mastered the art of riding a horse, and she had no stomach for the company of the bard. But her pulse jumped at the idea of spending the day with him.

“I’ll go with you.” She curled her fingers around the wheat–gold tunic. “But I won’t wear the silks in the cold.”

“There’s more than silks in there.” He crossed the room, threw open the trunk, and yanked out a stretch of blue wool. “You’ll wear this, instead.”

She eyed the deep blue mantle with its edging of soft gray fur, and bit down upon her reflexive refusal. It did look like a warm cloak, and her woolen mantle was seeing the wear of the years. Surely she’d need all the warmth she could muster for the ride through the hills. And pride was a terrible sin.

Later, on the path, Aileen was thankful for the cloak when she saw the layer of ice on the snow which spotted the hillsides. Their horses’ hooves cracked the veneer and the sound echoed across the hills. Aileen clung to the mare with her thighs and let her hands lie loose upon the reins, giving the gentle horse its head as she followed Rhys’s gelding. The sharp breeze tore her hair from its netting and sent it flying.

Her heart flew as wildly. It was a fine thing to be sitting atop a strong horse cantering across the hills. Trickles of mountain streams spilled here and there from melted pockets of snow, winding their crystal clarity down to pools where ice stretched fingers across the surface. Rhys rode with all the straight–backed assuredness of a lord upon his own lands, but more than once she caught him glancing over his shoulder to check upon her progress.

She found herself thinking of what Ma, Da, and all her brothers and sisters would say if they could see her now. Aye, Cairenn and Niall would turn green with envy, they would, so eager they always were to make their way to the mainland, so hungry for what lay beyond the shores of Inishmaan. Yet it was she, the spinster sister, who sat upon a fine horse and galloped in mountain snow behind a nobleman. She, the second mother of the family, who now spoke a second language, who knew stories of a strange land and its people, and who lived the adventure she’d never really wanted.

Where was the homesickness now? The flush of guilt did little to heat the numbness of her cheeks. It was the day, no more, she told herself, the fine crisp air and the novelty of it all and the look in Rhys’s eyes as he’d invited her in his casual way to see the half–built castle he and his brother had spoken so much about. Later she’d feel the homesickness, later she’d worry about her family. Now she would breathe in this rare and unusual excitement, and thrill to the sinfully luxurious feel of soft gray fur against her cheek.

Rhys halted his beast at the top of a rise and waited for her to join him. Steam rose from his horse’s shaggy brown coat. Her mare edged close to the palfrey. Aileen glanced behind her and discovered that Dafydd had taken another route with the bard. They headed into a dim pass through the hills.

“There it will be.”

She followed the path of Rhys’s outstretched hand to a river which split around a mound of an island. A skeletal tracing of rocks poked up amidst the snow. From here she could see the outline of a large square building flanked on each corner by round towers. On either side of the river, tree stumps poked out of the snow where the workmen had cleared the land up to the elbow of the hill. The black, leafless branches of alder and oak rimmed the valley.

“The far tower,” he said, pointing toward the southernmost stone ring, “will be built this spring. Twelve feet across on the inside, the walls five feet thick.” His fur–lined sleeve swung as he gestured to a craggy gape in a nearby hillside. “The masons quarry the stone from there, good Welsh rock, it splits straight and even. There, do you see that break in the northern wall? That will be the front entrance. The bridge over the moat will rise, and an iron portcullis will close up inside. It’s being smithed even as we speak. And there, that southern tower . . .” Aileen listened as he talked of carpenters and scaffolding, of mortar and measurements, gesturing here and there, discussing details worthy of a craftsman’s skill. She struggled to keep up with his words. Excitement animated his voice.

“Four towers—one at each corner—and one in the middle to act as a guard tower at the entrance. Arrow–slits all around. Huge living quarters—enough for all my fighting men if need be. The mead–hall will be in the southern exposure, and kitchens in the courtyard. We’re even building staircases which lead to pockets where men could be isolated, if the enemy managed to get in at all. I’ve seen that done in a castle in Normandy. . . .”

He spoke of war matters, and her attention wavered. Her gaze trailed from the black etching of the castle in the snow–covered valley to the sight of the man sitting straight upon his mount. She’d never heard him speak this way before. She had never seen him so animated.

“It’ll be a fine, strong castle, I’ve no doubt,” she said, as he paused, “but why are you building such a thing when you’ve a good strong house in the shadow of Craig Gwaun?”

A wry smile stretched his lips. “You think this is a nobleman’s conceit.”

“I think no such thing.” She knew for sure that there was more to this castle than stone and mortar. He spoke of it as a bard would speak of a lover. “It’s true a body can’t be in two places at the same time, so there must be another reason for such effort and expense.”

“There is. The English.”

She knew of the English. Ireland knew of their atrocities. “Surely this homestead is well protected against them?”

“The
llys
would keep us safe from the English, but this castle will stop their march before they come that close.” He swept his arm over the eastern horizon. “The river grows shallow here, but beyond, it is deep enough to carry boats full of Englishmen straight into the heart of Wales, once they climb the first set of hills.”

“Is England so close, then?”

“Close enough for the Prince of Wales to commission me to build a castle on this river.”

Her brows shot up. “You’re building this castle for Llywelyn?”

His lips twisted in a smile. “Every stone laid in the name of God and the Prince of Wales.”

It was a good thing his attention lay upon the terrain before them and not upon her face, for though he had spoken the words as if he’d repeated them a hundred thousand times, she heard the dry sarcasm beneath.

He said, “North Wales has yet to be conquered. These hills have protected us. But this place is the breach in our natural defenses. If they dare to try to conquer us yet again, it is here they will thrust their arrow.”

And he will be here to ward it off.

She heard the words though they lay unspoken. She saw the truth of them in the rising of his chest, in the way he unconsciously clutched the hilt of his sword.

“This is a lot of trouble to go to for the sake of another man.” She knew something of the troubles in building the castle. Dafydd and Rhys had argued over the plans loudly enough for her to hear about the difficulty of finding good laborers, the problems with the mixing of the mortar, the sogginess of the island ground. And Marged was full of stories about the strange happenings the people of Graig whispered of whenever the subject of the castle rose among them. “How long have you been making such effort for Llywelyn’s sake?”

“Years.” He kicked his horse around. “Don’t look so surprised. It may take twenty–five. Or thirty. Or forty. Something that will last forever cannot be built in a day.”

Aye, she thought, nudging her mare behind his gelding. Perhaps he’d started building this castle for the prince who had forsaken him. Perhaps he’d begun building this castle to ward off the English threat. But anyone with eyes could see that the castle had become much, much more than a fortress for a faraway prince. Down in that valley lay the physical manifestation of Rhys’s power, the proof that he had not been defeated by the world.

How convenient that the bard of Aberffraw was here to see this monster of stone rising from the valleys of North Wales. She hoped that perfumed puff of a minstrel scurried back to the Prince’s court to tell the tale of what the leper–lord of Wales had wrought.

She snuggled deep in the fur–lined cloak, wondering why she would feel so much joy at this, Rhys’s quiet triumph.

They eased their mounts down the side of the hill. The boughs closed over their heads, forming a lacy canopy. The horses’ hooves thudded in the snow. They passed a dark cave overhung with ivy. The sight of the cavern set her to thinking about the dragons that were said to live in these hills. It set her to think of the tales Marged had told whilst they broke from their work to share a meal across the battered table in the kitchens, before she’d become mistress of the place and thus been barred from that kitchen sanctuary.

Marged spoke of the
Y Tylwyth Teg
, small, handsome creatures in human form, very kind and generous to those who treated them well but who took revenge on people who dared to ill–treat them. Aileen had recognized them as the Irish faeries, the
Sídh.
Marged said the Welsh believed they were the souls of virtuous Druids, who not having been Christians cannot enter the Christian heaven. Such a cave as this one would be a fine doorway to the Otherworld.