Nan had obviously told Robin last night, as part of their whispering, that Gryff came from Aderinyth. When Robin asked why he had not said so, Gryff only shrugged and said he had been a boy when last he had seen the place. They spoke of falconry in yet more detail for the short journey, and Gryff felt his dislike for Robin Manton dissolve almost completely.
They reached the manor long before midday. It was not a large place, but very well kept with a good number of buildings in excellent repair. The prosperous manor of an inconsequential lord, he thought, until he saw the dovecote, and the very fine palfreys in the stables. Gryff pulled his hood up, wary.
“Good fortune is with us again, Nan.”
Robin was smiling at her as he handed his rouncey over to a boy who had run from the stables. Nan raised her eyebrows at him in question as they walked toward the hall. Just as they reached it, a man stepped out, his face full of surprise and pleasure. Fuss immediately ran to him, yelping happily.
Robin cried, “Uncle Rob!” and threw his arms around him in greeting.
This, apparently, was the surprise. Gryff felt only relief that he did not recognize the man. He was older, with gray hair at his temples and deep lines of laughter around his eyes. He and Robin were alike in their warm and cheerful demeanor, obvious at a glance.
“There’s our Nan,” said Lord Robert with gentle satisfaction, when he broke free of Robin’s embrace.
He looked down at her where she had sunk into a deep courtesy before him, her head bowed. There was a fond smile on his face as he stepped close and gave her a chuck under the chin. It was a fatherly gesture, far too familiar to be an ordinary exchange between lord and servant girl. Gryff’s confusion at it changed to amazement when Nan raised her face. She flushed with pleasure and looked at Lord Robert with a shy kind of delight, as though she not only did not mind that he touched her uninvited, but hoped he might do it again.
“You’ve been to Lincoln?” he asked her, and she nodded. “The message?”
“I have delivered it, my lord.” She glanced quickly in Robin’s direction, and then at Gryff, clearly indicating she had more to say when they might be more private.
“There will be time enough for tales after I greet your guest,” he said.
He turned to Gryff, who realized belatedly that he should bow. It was far more restrained than Nan’s show of deference, and in any case Lord Robert disregarded it in favor of an outthrust arm, a firm shake of his hand when Robin gave his name and said he was Welsh.
“It will be Gruffydd, then.” Lord Robert smiled at him like an old friend. “Though I will call you Gryff, do you prefer it. Well met, and my lady wife will be most glad to greet you.”
Nan gave a sharp intake of breath and looked at Lord Robert with an eager hope. “Aye,” he grinned, and Robin laughed. “You will find her in the solar above.”
He nodded to a stair, and Nan fairly ran to it, so fast was her step. They followed more slowly in her wake, with Robin telling of how he had met Nan on the road and hoped Lord Robert would be at Whitting but could not be sure, and so left it to be a surprise. Gryff knew they would ask how he and Nan had met, why he was with her, and he tried to think of some simple explanation for it. These people seemed as family to her, strangely as protective of a servant as they would be of a daughter and sister. They would not simply accept that he traveled alone with her.
They reached the solar, stepping inside just as Lord Robert was saying that his lady wife was Welsh too, and that his new lordship of Darian was in Wales – information that came too suddenly and too fast, and all at the same moment that Gryff saw the face of this lady wife. His heart stopped. Everything stopped.
Lady Eluned. Will’s mother. God help him, she would know him at a glance.
Quickly, he pulled his hood closer, letting it hang as far down as he could manage, angling his face away from her. He forced himself to breathe slowly and said a silent prayer that she would not see him, not recognize him.
He had been barely fourteen when she had come to visit her son and spent an afternoon in conversation with him and Gryff. There were as many years on his face as hers, he reasoned, and a scar, and he had the advantage of having been a forgettable boy while she was as great and formidable a lady then as she was now.
If Will’s father was dead, then she must have remarried this Lord Robert. A new lordship of Darian in Wales – he had heard this was what Edward had done with the conquered land, parceling it out to favorites. It was true to Lady Eluned’s nature, to keep herself in power and wealth by marrying a man who had been granted Welsh lands. And somehow she had come to know Nan, whose hand she clasped tight in fond greeting, a palm cupping her cheek, affectionate as a mother. She did not look in Gryff’s direction, so focused was she on Nan.
And Nan... Nan was giving her such a look that it stunned him. It reminded him of when she had seen her sister, all the joy and relief and love, but with something more. Respect and reverence. He thought of her face in the glow of firelight, a half-peeled turnip in her hands as she said, A great lady saved me.
This was the lady. Lady Eluned had saved her. Of all people, Lady Eluned.
He drifted slowly backward, praying he might inch his way out of the room before being noticed, as they conversed with perfect ease of ordinary things. Yes, Nan had been to Lincoln, and her tone forbade speaking of it any further as Gryff stole a glance at the other ladies in the room. He thought he recognized one, and pulled his hood even closer. Lady Eluned was explaining that they had journeyed out of Wales to do business at court and had only lately come to Whitting, while Gryff took a small step backward, almost stepping on Fuss.
Their voices went on, a gentle rise and fall as he prayed for a quiet and unseen escape from this pleasant lion’s den. Word had come from Morency that Sir Gerald was healing well; the prioress at Broadholme sent greetings to Lady Eluned who was a patroness of the order; they had worried for Nan when they received word of the attack that had injured Sir Gerald. All the while, Gryff kept his head down and made his way to the door, inch by slow inch.
He was at the threshold when he heard Lady Eluned raise her voice a little to say, “But now you must tell us, Nan, how it is you have found a prince in your travels.”
His stomach dropped. He froze, not even breathing, and turned his eyes up to look at Lady Eluned.
She watched him steadily, perfectly composed. She glanced at Nan’s puzzled face, and raised her eyebrows in polite surprise. “Did you not know?”
Nan blinked at her, uncomprehending, then turned to Gryff for explanation. He could say nothing. He could only wait for Eluned to say it.
“I see I must introduce you.”
They were all looking at him now, everyone in the room. He pushed his hood back, because there was no use in hiding. A feeling of unreality came over him as Eluned’s eyes fixed on him and proclaimed his name.
“This is Gruffydd ab Iorwerth ap Cynan Goch, the last Prince of Aderinyth.” Her eyes never left his, not for one syllable of it. “This is Nan,” she said to him, infinite power in the way her hand settled lightly on Nan’s shoulder. “And she is under my protection.”
Chapter Nineteen
Nan was staring at him, dazed.
“Prince?” she echoed, as though she had never heard the word before.
“Tywysog Aderinyth,” Lady Eluned supplied, giving the word in Welsh as though that would clarify the matter. Her hand never left Nan’s shoulder and her eyes never left Gryff until she said, “Forgive me, my lord,” and sank into a very deep courtesy.
“Nan,” he began, and stopped. He did not know how to continue. She looked bewildered at Lady Eluned’s show of deference, then looked back at him with disbelief.
“All have believed you dead these five years, Prince Gruffydd,” Lady Eluned informed him when she rose. “All but my son.” She clasped her hands lightly before her and turned her eyes to her lord husband for a brief moment. The ladies who had been embroidering near the window until they ha
d heard the word prince now stood gawking at him, and she addressed them. “We wish to be private. Go now. You will say naught of what you have heard here, or I will know of it.”
Nan flinched a little at the words, and looked as though she took them as a command for herself. She had even lifted her foot in preparation to walk away, but Lady Eluned’s hand came gently to her shoulder again. Protection. Nan was under Lady Eluned’s protection.
“The abbey was your hiding place,” said Robin in a voice of discovery when the other ladies had gone. “The abbey in the wilds that burned.”
“I feared for my life.” He said it to Nan, who was staring somewhere in the vicinity of his chest. “I feared Edward would imprison me.” He saw confusion crease her brow at the name, and said, “King Edward.”
Lord Robert spoke somewhere behind him. “It was not an unreasonable fear. But how came you to know Nan?”
Beauty and blood, a hundred miles and more from this place. He could still see her cutting the rope that bound him, handing him bread. “She saved my life,” he said, still looking only at her. “You saved me.”
“The thieves that attacked on the road out of Morency, when Sir Gerald was injured,” Robin dutifully explained to the others. Nan had apparently told him everything last night. “They captured him when the abbey burned.”
“What fortune that you were spared, and could hide your identity for a journey the breadth of England,” observed Lady Eluned. There seemed to be a barely restrained anger in her, pulling her voice tight.
“If not the king, my bastard brother would see me dead.” He must explain it. If only Nan would turn her eyes up to him. “I must be a nameless Welshman, to live.”
They all seemed frozen in place, waiting for something – waiting for Nan, to do or say anything. But she was as still and silent as stone.
Lady Eluned let out a breath, too emphatic to be a sigh, and said, “We must discuss what is to be done. Sit you down, my lords, and I will call for refreshment.”
As though she had been waiting for the words, Nan dipped her knee quickly and whispered, “I will see to it, my lady.” She fled from the room, as swiftly as she had run to it only minutes ago.
Gryff stared at the door where she had disappeared, wanting to go after her but knowing he must not. He knew every line of her body, every wordless sign that told him she did not want him to follow. Later, he would find her and explain. It was only a name. It meant nothing. So long as it did not kill him, it was only an inconvenient name.
“Robin.” Lord Robert’s voice was low. “Be sure we are not disturbed here. And go to her.”
Gryff watched Robin leave, fighting against the jealousy that sprang up to know her friend would be welcome when he was not. But that could not matter now. He forced his attention back to this moment – this dangerous moment when he stood under the roof of two of the highest nobles of King Edward’s court, and they knew who he was. It was an unwelcome feeling, to slip back into the role of hostage prince and face all the political maneuverings that must go with it. But he must, if he was to survive.
Instinct told him that Lady Eluned’s opinion mattered more in this. His father had known her a little and had believed she was deeply sympathetic to the Welsh cause, that she despised King Edward. But Gryff’s father was forever looking for allies. Will had said his mother was proud to be Welsh, but was loyal to the king.
Gryff finally turned to face her, and found her looking at him with outrage.
“You fool,” she seethed. Her fury filled the room, so forceful that he almost took a step back. “You have bedded her.”
He grit his teeth and glared at her, equally outraged at this presumption. The gall of her, as though she had any right to know his intimate affairs. But she did not quail beneath his look as any other mere mortal would.
“Do you deny it?” she snapped.
He stood to his full height and curled his lip in scorn as he looked down at her. “How do you dare to –”
“Oh I dare, my lord prince, for I do not say lightly that she is under my protection.” Her color was high, her fists clenched. “Knowing the king would wish every royal Welsh line ended, knowing your own brother would murder you in hopes of your inheritance, still you took her to your bed.” Her voice had risen almost to a shout, her scorn easily outpacing his. She looked as though she might strike him. “What think you such a king or such a brother would do if you have put a babe in her belly? If your life is forfeit, what then is the life of your child or of the woman who bears it? They would hold her life as nothing, you fool.”
Now she was shouting, and it was the only reason he could hear her above the rush of blood in his ears. The words seemed to cut into him, sharpened by undeniable truth. God forgive him. He had not thought of it. Not once.
“Even believing the king would see you and all your line wiped from the earth, you could not control yourself,” she spat. “I say it is a murderous lust in you, my lord, for you have risked her very life only for your pleasure. Did you not think even once of the consequence? Rhodri would put her to the sword as you watch, did he think she might carry your son, he would not suffer her to live –”
She stopped abruptly. Her husband had come to stand near to her and put his fingers lightly on her wrist. Only that soft, discreet touch, and the whisper of her name, and she halted her tirade. Her breath came fast, her jaw clamped tight as she tore her angry gaze from Gryff and looked to Lord Robert.
“Young love is heedless,” he said, his voice as gentle as his touch as he looked steadily at her. “Nor has it any care for danger, nor any thought of death. Surely we must forgive the recklessness of young lovers.”
Her face softened, the fury fading as he spoke. They looked at each other a long moment, his hand on her sleeve, before she nodded in assent. She stepped back and turned away to the window, but not before raking another scathing glance across Gryff.
Now Lord Robert stood alone before him and he felt like a boy again, back in his earliest years when his father’s silent disapproval was so unbearable he would rather die than endure it. The shame seemed to suffocate him. But the shame was nothing to the horror of thinking that Nan might bear his child and be hunted for it. That he may have cursed her to his own fate – it was torment beyond anything the king might do to him.
“Sit you down.” Lord Robert nodded to a bench near the hearth. When Gryff did not move, he said, “You look as if you will fall over do you not sit, boy, I will carry you there if I must.”
His words acted as a bracing slap in the face. Boy, he said – not prince, not lord – and spoke to him as a child. The light contempt and lack of deference was so typically Norman that it had long since ceased to offend. It almost made him nostalgic. He sat.
“In faith, you may be thankful we know you did not force her. Any man who had tried would not yet have all his limbs.” He said it as he walked to a table in the corner where there were cups and wine. He poured as he spoke. “Be more thankful still that Edward does not think you a traitor.”
Gryff looked at the cup of wine held out to him. He held his breath as he took it. The court, the king, power, games – he was back in a world where trust was a luxury few could afford, so he waited until Lord Robert drank before he put his own cup to his lips. The wine itself left him speechless for a moment. He had forgotten how delicious it could be, how well the wealthy drank and ate.
He swallowed it, and asked, “What does he think me, then, if not a traitor? Has he sought me these many years?”
“Aye, at first.” Lord Robert sat across from him. “But you did not reappear to fight against him, nor has there been any whisper of you in Wales. And so he is inclined to agree with Will, that you are a loyal subject who fled in fear of your life from a greedy brother. Or that you are dead.”
None of it meant that Gryff was safe, that the king would not lock him away or worse. This was what it meant to have the blood of princes running in his veins.
“I would let him think
me dead.”
He heard only the hard beat of his own heart in the silence that followed. It was presumptuous of him to even imply that this man, a stranger, might abandon honor for his sake. But it was a necessary part of this world, the continual assessment of potential allies and enemies.
“Hear me well, Gruffydd ab Iorwerth. I am a loyal servant of the king.” There was a hint of apology in Lord Robert’s face. “He will have truth from me, and know you live. Even if it means your death, I must tell him – though I think it will not be so dire.”
Gryff nodded, glad to know exactly what he could expect. “I mean you no insult. I have lived in the wilds these many years, and know little of king and court. In faith, I have had little news since Wales fell.”
“As I will give the king naught but truth, so too do I give it to you, and whatever news you seek. What would you know?”
Gryff took another careful sip of the wine, beating back the tide of questions that swelled in him. Better to learn what he could now, from this man who had no reason to twist the truth.
“Aderinyth.” He closed his eyes briefly, bracing himself. He had always known, in his heart, that he might never go back – that there might be nothing to go back to. “What has Edward done to my people?”
“It goes hard in Wales, but Aderinyth is spared the very worst of it. The greatest wealth cannot be reached, for the falconers keep their secrets well. Only a dozen nesting places have the English discovered, and none of them the white gyrfalcons. Your people hold the knowledge hostage to good effect, despite all efforts to prise it from them.”
A wave of relief came over Gryff, to know there was not the same devastation in Aderinyth as had been rumored in the rest of Wales. His breath loosed, and he brought the cup to his lips again.
Desire Lines (Welsh Blades, #3) Page 20
