Rhodri enfolded Rhoni’s hand with both of his. “You are Hylda Rhonwen de Montbryce, the tiny babe born in my fortress at Cadair Berwyn.”
Rhoni grinned. “I am, my lord Prince. Rwy’n Cymraes.”
Rhodri laughed heartily. “You are indeed a Welsh woman. Someone has been teaching you.”
Rhoni blushed. “I deemed it important to learn the language of the land of my birth.”
Mabelle was pleasantly surprised by the serious tone of her daughter’s statement. Rhoni had long boasted about being born in Wales, but Mabelle had thought it an affectation. She was further surprised when they carried on their conversation in Welsh.
She turned to Rhonwen. “Have your other children arrived?”
Rhonwen took her hand. “Yes, they came with Rhodri. They await us in the Refectory. First, I’ll show you to the cell the nuns have prepared for you. It’s not very grand, I’m afraid.”
Mabelle squeezed her friend’s hand. This gentle woman had come into her employ as a healer and was now married to the Prince of Powwydd. “Lead on, I didn’t expect a cell of my own.”
She bent to whisper in Rhonwen’s ear. “I trust I’m not sharing with Rhoni?”
Rhonwen whispered back, a conspiratorial grin on her face. “No, she’s with Carys.”
On the morrow, Mabelle and Rhonwen couldn’t hold back tears during the ceremony to install Myfanwy as Prioress. Rhoni noticed Rhodri rubbing his eyes. He would probably blame the redness on the clouds of incense.
Carys grinned, Rhys smiled and Rhun and Rhydderch scowled at the Normans every chance they got. They were comical with their wild red hair and rude glances. Rhoni ignored them.
The thirty or so nuns chanted as they processed up the narrow aisle of the tiny chapel, led by an elderly woman with a bloated, sour face.
Rhoni turned to Carys and grimaced, crossing her eyes.
Carys pressed a knuckle to her mouth to stifle a giggle. “Myfanwy will have her hands full with that one,” she whispered. “Sister Aiweeda believes she should have been Prioress.”
All is not well in paradise!
Smiling angelically, Myfanwy Mabelle walked at the end of the line with the bishop.
The rite went smoothly, except for the ill-concealed resentment of Sister Aiweeda when the bishop displayed the Papal Bull confirming Myfanwy’s appointment.
Arrangements had been made to celebrate the momentous occasion with an excursion to the nearby seacoast at Prestetone. The younger nuns climbed into the carts waiting to transport them to the seaside, atwitter with excitement at the prospect. Aiweeda and some of the other older nuns tutted and scolded, but Myfanwy reminded them it was God’s wish that His people be joyful.
Rhoni was looking forward to the trip. She’d crossed the Narrow Sea to Normandie by longboat more than once, but the voyage was usually nerve-wracking. Her father suffered from seasickness, a malady he resented bitterly.
She’d never walked along a beach. Besides, Prestetone was the beginning of the famous Offa’s Dyke she’d heard much about. It would be interesting to visit the three hundred year old earthwork that stretched from the Irish Sea to the Severn River, built by an ancient king of Mercia to ward off Welsh incursions. Rhoni suspected this historical component was how Myfanwy had justified the excursion.
Mabelle and Rhonwen begged off, citing their age and creaking bones.
Rhys and Rhydderch rode alongside the carts, with their father. Rhodri’s bowmen formed an escort. Rhun walked with them, a bow slung over his shoulder, a full quiver at his back.
Rhoni and Carys sat together, arm in arm. Carys was full of questions about Baudoin. Rhoni considered bluntly telling the girl that she may as well forget any designs she had on him. Neither father would ever allow them to marry. But Carys was only three and ten. She had lots of time to find an appropriate suitor. Let her enjoy her infatuation with Rhoni’s brother. What girl wouldn’t dream of marrying the future Earl of Ellesmere?
Those thoughts brought Rhoni abruptly back to her own dilemma. She’d never been infatuated with anyone. Again the prospect of life in a convent reared its ugly head. She sat among women who had given up their freedom to live a cloistered life, not always willingly. A cold shiver marched up and down her spine.
Surely there was a husband for her somewhere? Did attractive men avoid her, finding her too frivolous, too empty-headed? Not pretty? Not desirable?
Gulls danced on the wind, calling to each other, reminding her they were close to the sands.
A novice squealed, “I can see the sea!”
Rhoni inhaled deeply. Yes, there it was—that unmistakable scent of the sea. She squeezed Carys’s hand and turned to look at the distant shore.
The Seal
Myfanwy organised the women into groups, admonishing them not to venture into the water, and not to stray from their escorts.
Rhodri assigned a contingent of bowmen to each group. He and Rhun accompanied Rhoni, Carys and Myfanwy. Rhoni felt content, as though she was with family. The brisk wind whipped Myfanwy’s veil around her face, and Rhoni’s wimple was soon lost to the breeze.
The women scoured the beach for pretty shells, poked at strange creatures in tide pools, and sidestepped encroaching waves. Squeals of girlish laughter filled the air.
Rhoni looked out to sea and closed her eyes, raising her face to the sun. She let the warm wind lift her arms and suddenly she was a soaring bird. The breeze tickled her palms.
“The tide is coming in, Myfanwy,” Rhodri warned. “We’ll have to keep an eye on it.”
Rhoni reluctantly opened one eye. Rhodri’s voice had broken the spell. For a brief moment, she’d been one with the sea, the sun, and the warm zephyr.
Suddenly, a young nun came scurrying around a rocky outcropping, red-faced and breathless. “Mother, Mother, come quickly. Sister Aiweeda has fainted.”
Rhoni came back to reality abruptly.
Rhodri and Rhun strode over the rocks.
The women hastened after them.
“What happened?” Myfanwy asked breathlessly.
“She was attacked.”
Rhun nocked an arrow to his bow in the blink of an eye.
Aiweeda lay on the sand like one of the jellyfish they’d grimaced at earlier, quivering before a barking seal. The wet skin of the first seal Rhoni had ever seen gleamed like polished silver mottled with brown spots. Though it seemed distraught, the comical the way it barked and slid rapidly back and forth on the sand was enthralling.
Rhun took aim.
Rhoni shoved him. “Non! Don’t kill her.”
The arrow skimmed harmlessly into the water.
Rhun shoved back. “Stupid Norman,” he yelled.
Rhoni landed on her derrière in the sand.
Rhun reached into his quiver for another arrow, but his father waved him off. “Put it away. The seal isn’t attacking.”
Rhoni struggled to her feet and ran to join the group approaching the seal, frustrated by her shoes bogging down in the sand, impeding her progress.
The animal seemed to sense it had an audience. It lumbered into the water, then out again, in then out, barking furiously. Rhoni had seen their dogs do the same thing when they wanted—
“She wants us to follow her.”
Several faces turned her way, derision writ plain, but only the sneering Rhun voiced the opinion. “And how are we supposed to do that?”
Rhoni frowned, sure in her heart the seal was trying to convey a message. She shaded her eyes with her hand and looked out to sea. “There!” She pointed, shouting over the roar of the surf. “What’s that?”
Everyone strained to see what she’d seen. Out on the water bobbed a strange object, round, adrift.
“Looks like a boat,” Myfanwy observed.
“There’s someone in it,” Rhoni yelled, not understanding how she knew, but certain of it.
Rhun bristled beside her. “It’s too small to be a boat.”
Rhodri suddenly unbuckled his scabbard, tore o
ff his doublet and shucked off his boots. “Rhun, get more bowmen. Rhoni might be right. It’s a coracle.”
He strode into the water and swam towards the craft. The seal followed like a sleek shadow. Men came pouring from all directions to join Rhodri in the water.
The women huddled together on the sand, watching Rhodri and the others haul the boat to shore. As the men dragged the coracle out of the water, Rhoni broke away from the nuns and ran to the swirling foam at the water’s edge, deafened by the thudding of her heart in her ears.
Dripping water and winded, Rhodri stopped her. “Don’t look, child.”
She grasped the side and pulled against him, compelled to look inside. Curled up in the waterlogged craft were the bodies of a young boy and the biggest, most striking man she’d ever seen, a man who had been cruelly tortured. His suffering tore at her heart. She wanted to soothe away the pain of the abominated eye, the burned and bruised leg, the scarred wrists. A sob lodged in her throat. She leaned on Rhodri, trembling from head to toe.
He issued commands, pulling her from the scene. “Get them out of the boat. We’ll see to their burial.”
She wrenched away from him. “Non! They can’t be dead. The seal thought they were still alive.”
Rhun seemed ready to utter another scathing remark about her sanity. She put her hands on her hips, braced for an argument.
“Water.”
All heads swiveled to the bodies.
The boy had levered himself up on one elbow, eyes wild, lips parched.
Rhodri sprang into action. “Rhun, get water from the cart. Quick.”
He easily lifted the boy from the coracle, but it took six men to extricate the giant and lay him on the sand.
If the boy lived, the man might also have survived. Rhoni dropped to her knees at his side, took his hand and pressed it against her cheek. He was ice cold. She leaned over to listen for breath.
Faint, but there. She turned to look at him and found herself gazing into a dark eye more compelling than the brutally marred flesh that had been his right eye.
“Mo aingeal,” he rasped.
An overwhelming desire to kiss his wind-ravaged lips swept over her. She wanted to fill his lungs with the breath of life. She squeezed his hand. “He’s alive!” she screamed, laughing through salty tears, rocking back and forth on her knees, speechless with relief.
Rhun came running with water skins and helped the boy drink. Rhodri knelt at Rhoni’s side and spread his doublet over the man’s chest. He held a skin to his parched lips and poured a little water into his mouth. The man spluttered, coughed and choked, but then grabbed the water skin and drank greedily.
“Easy now,” Rhodri advised, helping him sit up. “Not too fast.”
The wretch didn’t seem to comprehend. He frowned, looking over to the boy. “Conall?”
The lad was on his hands and knees, taking in gulps of air. “Aye—”
The man put a trembling finger to his cracked lips. “Praise be to God we’re alive, son.”
The boy coughed and frowned. “Aye, da.”
Myfanwy had studied languages. “They are speaking Gaelic,” she said. “They are father and son.”
Rhun spat. “Irish barbarians.”
It was urgent they get back to the priory as quickly as possible. Rhodri and his men had no dry clothing. Conall and his father were in dire need of Rhonwen’s expert care. Carys was her mother’s apprentice, but there was little to be done at the beach.
Nevertheless, Rhodri deemed it wise to put Carys in the same cart as the one-eyed man. Like her mother, the girl possessed a mystical ability to heal that had nothing to do with potions and salves. Rhoni insisted on being allowed to ride with them. Myfanwy completed the group. The boy was fit enough to ride behind Rhydderch.
The Welshmen who strained to lift the man into the cart laid him on his back, but he gritted his teeth, struggling to turn on his side. His cloak was bloodied.
“He’s been flogged,” Myfanwy whispered.
Bile rose in Rhoni’s throat. She grasped his hand. She was aware torture existed, indeed was used by her father’s men when necessary, but what had this wretch done to deserve such extreme punishment?
Carys and Myfanwy relied on soothing words and gentle touches to ease the stranger’s pain. Rhoni held his blistered hand, elated to feel warmth return. It was the first time she’d touched a man’s hand so intimately. It dwarfed hers and did strange things to her insides. She wanted to press it to her cheek again, but by the look of his clothing, this man was a peasant, far beneath her rank.
Myfanwy wiped his forehead with the hem of her white robe. “What is your name?” she asked in his language.
He licked his chapped lips. “Ronan. Ronan MacLachlainn.”
Rhoni mouthed his name. Ronan.
Myfanwy’s eyes widened. She turned to Rhoni. “Son of a seal. His name means son of a seal.” She made the sign of her Savior’s suffering across her body.
A shiver of eerie certainty stole into Rhoni’s heart. Her gaze remained fixed on Ronan’s ravaged face. Only his name had escaped his swollen lips, but the musical lilt of his husky voice sent little winged creatures fluttering in her belly.
Without warning, he smiled at her weakly and she felt the light press of his thumb against her palm. Wet warmth flooded from a very intimate place. The earth had moved. Shame warred with desire. Had the other women noticed? She opened her mouth to speak, but no sound emerged. He wouldn’t understand her language anyway.
“Do you know where you are?” Myfanwy asked.
Ronan hesitated, his one eye still fixed eerily on Rhoni. “Ynys Môn?”
Myfanwy shook her head. “No, this isn’t Holy Island. You came ashore at Prestetone.”
Ronan frowned. “Drifted.”
“Where are you from?”
“Sord Colmcille,” he rasped.
“He’s from St. Columba’s Well,” Myfanwy explained to the others. “It’s a place of pilgrimage in Ireland for many who believe its waters cure ailments of the eyes.”
A scream welled up in Rhoni’s throat. Tears streamed down her face. She choked on the bitter irony.
When Ronan first saw a golden haired aingeal kneeling over him on the beach, he thanked God for his deliverance to heaven. But then awareness of intense pain returned, along with sounds of male voices shouting commands in a foreign tongue, women whimpering.
Hell then?
Once it penetrated his wits that he and Conall had both survived, he had to make sure their identity remained hidden. He didn’t know where he was, nor who had rescued them. The quick witted Conall had caught on, despite his exhaustion.
They’d landed in the midst of a bevy of nuns. Saints be praised! The lilting words of the nun and the girl who might be her sister soothed him, though he didn’t understand the language they spoke.
But the woman with the blonde hair whom he’d first believed was an angel—he was compelled to stare at her. Her fair face was a reassurance he still lived. She hadn’t spoken, only held his hand, but even in his wretched state his shaft had hardened. Thank the Lord for the baggy trouzes. It was an arousal the like of which he’d never experienced with Mary. It shamed him, but at least that part of his body was still working. He might yet live.
What a sight he must be, yet the woman didn’t seem repulsed. He was grateful for the warmth of her hand. He tried to smile and managed to press his thumb into her palm. He felt the ripple of desire that her eyes betrayed.
This was dangerous. She was obviously a noblewoman, and he wanted them to believe him a peasant.
Her eyes filled with tears when the nun explained where he’d come from. He had an urge to brush them away, but a peasant would never be so bold.
The nun wiped his forehead again. “I am Sister Myfanwy, Prioress of a nearby convent. We’ll take you there. This is my sister, Carys. Our mother is at the convent. She’s a renowned healer. She will mend your body.”
But what of my soul?
&nbs
p; He still didn’t know the name of the blonde woman. He stared at her full lips. They could bring relief to the ache in his loins. Shame flooded him again. What had happened to his loyalty to Mary? Mary had never put her mouth on him, never tasted him.
He willed away his errant thoughts. Pain and despair had robbed him of his wits.
The woman leaned over, her lips close to his face, her warm breath tickling his ear. She smelled of the sea, and something else, something he couldn’t name. Her unbound hair fell about his face. She tucked it back behind her ear. Her breasts strained at the fabric of her gown. More blood rushed to his loins. It was the best he’d felt for many a day, a good ache.
He barely heard her strained whisper. “I am Rhoni de Montbryce.”
Críost! A bluidy Norman.
He closed his eye, groaned and withdrew his hand.
Who Is Ronan?
For a sennight, Rhonwen and Carys labored day and night to heal Ronan. The convent’s Infirmirian conceded supervision of her domain to Rhonwen, recognising her as the superior healer, not to mention the wife of the Prince of Powwydd and mother of the Prioress.
The salt crust was washed from his body and hair. The fractured bone in his leg was set and immobilized with a hardened casing made from ground sea shells, egg whites, flour and rendered fat. The deep welts on his back, the many burns, and the scars at his wrists were cleansed and salved, his nose reset, and his blinded eye packed with padding and bandaged.
Conall didn’t budge from Ronan’s side.
The nuns offered up perpetual prayers on billowing clouds of incense for the two survivors.
Rhoni stayed away from the infirmary, tortured by the memory of Ronan’s rejection. What did it matter that a peasant who was possibly an escaped criminal had scorned her? Her preoccupation was ludicrous, yet she spent hours on her knees with the nuns in the chapel, praying for him.
As the day of departure approached, she plucked up courage to ask her mother if she might stay at Llansanfraid, strangely numbed by the prospect of being far away from Ronan.
Mabelle de Montbryce looked at her curiously. “It’s out of the question, Hylda Rhonwen. It’s safer if we travel together.”
Vengeance (The Montbryce Legacy Anniversary Edition Book 4) Page 4
