Memories of the Heart

by Marylyle Rogers

  Vevina turned and walked away to enter the metalsmith’s shop leaving Lloyd to watch while despair descended over him in deepening waves of gloom. Feeling utterly defeated he remained standing amid the courtyard as rain began to fall like the tears he refused to let flow.

  It was time to leave Westbourne. Now when to stay would only deepen his sorrow, increase his pain. Aye, on the morrow he would depart for home—with a brief detour to meet with Simeon one last time, this time on the eastern border of Lord Tal’s fiefdom.

  Lloyd drew in a deep breath, squared beefy shoulders, and moved to reenter the castle. There was one more duty that must be performed to honorably clear his way for the morn’s outset on a long journey. He must bid Ceridwen farewell. To do else would be an unjustified slight against her.

  From inside the great hall’s entrance he caught sight of Ceri entering the corner stairwell. Lloyd deemed himself fortunate for so quickly locating his goal—mayhap it was fate’s boon to in some small way mitigate the loss of his beloved.

  “Ceri—” Lloyd called out as within a few long strides he reached the arched opening into a busy stairway.

  The voice summoning her attention was a muffled burr but one Ceri instantly recognized. Without hesitation she turned and greeted Lloyd with a smile even while stepping deep into the shadows on one side of the landing, thus clearing the way for others bearing overladen platters and heavy pitchers. After delivering an assortment of meats into the great hall for the day’s last meal, Ceri had been on her way back to the kitchens to fetch another load.

  “Is there something you would have of me, Lloyd?”

  Lloyd gave a gentle grin to the young beauty far more important to him than she knew. “Only a moment of your time to bid farewell.”

  “Farewell?” As Ceri tilted her head in question light from the shallow bowl of flame behind lent it a bright halo.

  “I mean to depart with the dawn.” Lloyd slowly nodded his sincere regret for their parting.

  Honestly fond of her ever-hearty and always loyal friend, Ceri was saddened by the thought of his leave-taking and rued this imminent loss of her only firm contact with home.

  “Although I’ll be sorry to lose your company, I do understand the desire to return to your own abode.”

  Ceri stepped forward to give the burly man an affectionate hug and press a kiss to the curls on his bearded cheek.

  Neither of them noticed that among the many expected figures moving up and down the stairway between kitchen and great hall was one who should’ve been comfortably seated on the dais.

  Lord Tal heard nothing said between Lloyd and Ceri but viewed their embrace while he weaved upward through lines of servants both ascending and descending steep stairs. His moment of uneasy surprise was calmed by the fact that, after all, the Welshman was from her home village and had cared enough to protect the angel on her journey to Westbourne.

  * * *

  The evening meal was long done when Ceri hastened across the near deserted kitchen and into the corner stairwell. The seneschal had summoned her to the great hall.

  Ceri had been only moments from retiring for the night but promptly answered the call wondering what duties remained to be done. Perhaps she was to strew fresh herbs into rushes disturbed in the disassembling of the trestle tables whose pieces were kept ever ready for use leaning against outer walls. And yet at this late hour with so many already seeking benches or open areas of floor space to spend the night, that task would surely be too difficult to even attempt.

  Though she’d grown accustomed to navigating steep steps, Ceri was still uncomfortable with the chill, stone stairwell’s gloom. To make matters worse, the gale force winds of a storm howling outside invaded through arrowslits on floors above ground level and swirled downward. Under those violent gusts the never strong flames kept lit along descending walls dangerously flickered. More than one was blown completely out, leaving Ceri to negotiate deserted steps in total darkness.

  Leaning into the solid wall and away from the core open to a hazardous plunge, with the toe of her shoe Ceri tentatively probed for the next step and then the next and the next. Relief washed over her at the first glimmer of a light above, and she climbed with more assurance. She’d nearly reached the faint gleam’s source when a powerful arm grabbed from behind to roughly jerk her back against a solid body.

  The immediate fear of falling to her death set Ceri’s pulse madly throbbing in her throat. She glanced up into the face of the one who held her safe.

  Safe? Hah!

  “Let me go!” Ceri stiffly demanded. She had plainly been tricked. The message delivered by a guardsmen on his way to the garrison’s vast chamber for a night’s peace had come not from the seneschal as claimed but from the guard captain.

  “Release what I’ve plotted to secure? Never.…” Ulrich’s offensive sneer was an insult but even more repulsive was the obscene heat of his too intimate gaze and the repugnant invasion of far too familiar hands moving over her captive body.

  Ceri took in a deep breath, intending to scream as loud and long as it took to bring others to investigate its source.

  “Tch, tch!” One large hand crushed over delicate lips, stifling her efforts into muffled snarls no more effective than the protests of an irritated kitten. “If you make a sound, I’ll simply drop you down this spiraling stairwell’s central shaft.” Ulrich sounded spitefully pleased by the prospect. “You’ll die, of course, and we will all mourn your unhappy accident—an unfortunate misstep in the darkness.”

  “Should anything happen to Ceridwen, now or at any future time—” A deep velvet voice softly thundered from the darkness behind Ulrich. “I will know from whom to demand retribution.”

  Tal’s abrupt intervention startled Ulrich so badly that his hold loosened. Ceri pulled free, backed two steps up the stairway, and desperately pressed against the security of unmoving stone. At the same time, in some corridor of her mind, she realized that Tal had used her name … her full name.

  “Milord—” A blustering Ulrich foolishly tried to recast his actions in a more favorable light. “I merely caught this graceless female, saving her from a nasty fall.”

  “Ulrich, I will expect you in my solar an hour before the morrow’s prime. There we’ll discuss the proper … payment for your generous rescue.” By the contempt in Tal’s words it was clear he’d heard far too much to be so easily misled. Moreover, Tal deemed it a personal insult that this man thought he was so undiscerning as to find the dainty damsel in any way lacking for grace.

  Fuming, Ulrich stalked past his lord to reach the guardrooms below. The Welsh bitch had first shamed him before the guardsmen under his command and now, much worse, she had turned his lord’s deep disapproval upon him.

  She would pay! Nay, they both would!

  While Ulrich retreated, Tal moved upward until his face was on a level with that of the beauty two steps higher.

  “Did he harm you?” With the question Tal’s fingertips gently brushed a soft cheek.

  Only as Ceri shook her head did she become aware that in her struggle with the knight, an abundance of black ringlets had come loose from coiled braids to riot untamed about her face. In addition, her garb was stained and creased from the day’s labors. All were foolish yet disconcerting details that she greatly regretted for making her appear so far less than her best before this incredible man.

  “Come with me to the solar.” Tal recognized how deeply shaken Ceri was and couldn’t bear to simply send the damsel back to her duties. Never mind the fact that, although he truly cared about the welfare of his people, at no earlier time had concern for a servant led him to issue such a personal invitation.

  “You need time to recover and a goblet of mulled wine will help in restoring your composure.” With these words Tal firmly took Ceri’s fingers into his own reassuring grip.

  While Lord Taliesan claimed her hand to lead the way upward, Ceri marveled that an event so wretchedly foul as the knight’s assault could bring an o
pportunity to be with the man she loved—and to move forward on a quest for lasting happiness.

  Climbing narrow steps with Tal, Ceri was disconcerted when plaits loosened in her struggle with Sir Ulrich fell free, sending a disheveled mass of black hair tumbling over her shoulders and down her back.

  The pair were so deeply aware of each other that neither spared a thought to notice the soft scuffling of slippers hastily climbing at a pace considerably faster than their own.

  Having lost sight of her son after the evening meal’s end, Angwen feared him caught in a snare cast by Vevina’s niece. She had come searching for him with every intention of protecting him from the young witch. Instead she’d glimpsed Sir Ulrich’s initial wrong and observed Tal’s rescue of the damsel.

  Angwen had also heard the regrettable offer of shared wine that would open the way for Tal to spend private and likely harmful time with the dangerous Welshwoman. Angwen was not pleased.

  Hurrying to the castle’s highest level, Angwen quickly entered her own bedchamber and noiselessly closed its door before Tal and his unfortunately invited guest could reach the same corridor.

  By the scene just passed it was crystal clear to Angwen that the time had come for her to act. She must arrange for the one barrier most apt to dispel the young Welsh witch’s enchantments.

  In her bedchamber Angwen laid plans to protect her son while in the solar Tal settled Ceri into one of the tall chairs flanking the small table atop which rested a silver platter holding numerous candles. Their flames were reflected and intensified by the platter’s polished surface to glow through the ruby wine already waiting for Lord Taliesan.

  From the precious flask, Tal poured a measure of the mulled wine prepared and left here for him each evening into a delicate goblet. This he placed carefully before his seated guest.

  Having never drunk from anything finer than an earthenware mug and feeling unnaturally clumsy under the intensity of Tal’s dark gaze, Ceri didn’t dare risk reaching for the fragile chalice. Instead her gaze dropped to the wine it contained, glowing like a liquid jewel.

  “Vevina is your aunt?” Tal gently enquired. By attempting to start this conversation on a surely safe topic he hoped to ease the tension that had so obviously rendered Ceridwen mute.

  Ceri nodded, soft rose warming her cheeks as with one hand she brushed a heavy cloud of black hair back over her shoulder.

  “Then Mabyn—” Tal’s eyes narrowed on slender fingers threading through lush tresses, their pale length a sharp contrast amidst ebony curls. “The wise woman of Llechu, must be your grandmother?”

  Again Ceri nodded but this time chided herself into speaking rather than continuing to sit like a voiceless, mindless lump.

  “Gran Mab raised me from a babe.” Ceri’s sweet voice was unnaturally flattened by the weight of willpower forcing it out. “And I’ve always lived with her.”

  Tal took the chair across from Ceri as he asked, “But what of your mother?”

  These questions, the same that she’d already answered while tending his wound in the Welsh cottage, struck Ceri like an invisible blow. This table was small and the space between them narrow but she was abruptly, painfully aware of how vast was the breach left gaping open by memories lost.

  On realizing she’d left her response unspoken too long, Ceri immediately said, “My mother, Gwynth, was Aunt Vevina’s twin sister. She died bearing me.”

  This time it was Tal who nodded his understanding although, having seen a bleak expression cross Ceri’s gentle face, he probed further. “Were there other children about … perhaps cousins?”

  “Nay, the twins were Gran Mab’s only offspring. And I was Gwynth’s only child while Vevina chose to remain here with your mother rather than return to Dyffryn and bear a family of her own.”

  These were facts Ceri knew full well after having overheard more than one whispered conversation between her grandmother and Lloyd. Still, rarely near at the start of these discussions, she had little idea what specific spark of contention fired emotions until heated words burst forth too loudly to be missed.

  A faint scowl marred the line of Tal’s dark brows. Her response suggested an unsuspected resentment born long years past and never eased. But whose? Vevina seemed satisfied with her life in the castle. So was it Mabyn who resented her daughter’s choice? Or was it Ceri, herself?

  Attention seldom wavering from the intriguing man, Ceri noted Tal’s darkened expression and realized that this was one subject they hadn’t discussed during their talks in the Welsh cottage.

  Too aware that his frown had driven this winsome guest back into her silent shell, Tal gave Ceri a warm smile and made a quiet observation.

  “You must have had a lonely childhood.”

  “Gran Mab is good company.” Ceri’s back instantly straightened as she defended her upbringing. “She loves me.” Recognizing this as a feeble response, Ceri quickly added, “And I am fortunate that Gran Mab has patiently taught me the herbal healing arts.”

  Tal saw that he’d unintentionally offended the gentle damsel and gave a charming if wry half-smile as he lifted his hands in mock surrender.

  “I intended no criticism of you or your grandmother who I am sure adores the only family member still in her care. I merely wondered if perhaps you, too, suffered a lonely childhood.”

  Ceri frowned. Lonely? Lord Taliesan had been born and raised in this massive castle containing a multitude of inhabitants. Then as an adolescent he’d been sent to foster with other youngsters in the earl of Gloucester’s fortress. How could he ever have been lonely?

  Her reasoning was clear to Tal and he gave a slight shrug while trying to explain. “As a child I was not permitted to play with the children of serfs who would one day be under my command. True, I had an older brother but he was sent away to foster with Earl Robert and—”

  Tal let the words fade yet almost immediately took a slightly different direction to finish. “In the end I was alone even in the middle of a huge crowd.”

  “I am so sorry for—” Ceri almost sympathized with him over his brother’s death but then realized that since he remembered nothing of their conversations in the Welsh cottage, he would wonder how she could know anything about that ghastly accident. “I mean—I sympathize with your loneliness as I must confess that I, too, spent most of my childhood alone.”

  The empathy warming green eyes with a silver glow caught Tal with its honest compassion. His potent smile rewarded this sweet damsel plainly not some distant imaginary figure but rather a very real angel.

  Chapter 9

  Dry rushes layering the solar floor crunched beneath Tal’s feet while, impatient to get an unpleasant duty done, he paced from one side to the other and back again. He had commanded this meeting with the intention of not merely terminating Ulrich’s position as guard captain but of banishing him from Westbourne lands.

  Ulrich’s attack on Ceri was sufficient proof of far more than poor judgment. It was a glaring example of the man’s callous indifference to all the people of Westbourne—noble or serf; Norman, Saxon, or Welshman. And Tal deemed it more than just cause for removing Ulrich from their company.

  Unfortunately, however, recent treacherous events and unpleasant discoveries raised the strong possibility of an insidious viper in their midst. Tal had spent much of the night considering his options, and by its end he’d been reluctant to completely drive Ulrich from castle and fiefdom. After all, it was easier to guard against the foe nearby than fear the one skulking through shadows unseen.

  By the time Tal rose to greet the day, he’d devised an alternate method for dealing with the untrustworthy knight.

  A steady rapping against the solar’s oak door won Tal’s immediate attention. Taking a seat on one side of the chamber’s small table, he purposefully relaxed against his chair’s deeply carved back. He turned a cold glare on the portal oddly illuminated by the first gleams of predawn falling through a narrow arrow-slit above his head.

  “Enter.”
The order was brisk and brought quick obedience.

  “As commanded, Lord Taliesan—” Sir Ulrich dropped to one knee in exaggerated homage for his lord. “I am here.”

  Tal’s expression had the harsh impassivity of granite, and he wasted no moment to launch into the purpose of this meeting.

  “Your vile assault on Ceridwen was inexcusable.”

  A complete lack of even the faintest glimmer of the mocking humor seldom absent from Lord Taliesan’s face made the depth of his disgust unmistakable. This fact grated across Ulrich’s too easily ignited temper so harshly that he instantly flared back.

  “I saved her life!”

  “Nay!” Tal responded, golden warning fires flashing in dark eyes. “You threatened to take it if she dared make a sound!”

  Ulrich’s chin snapped up as if Tal’s accusation held the force of a physical blow. The never strong floodgates restraining the knight’s fiery anger were shattered by the fierce battering of raging resentment. Torrents of searing invective were set loose to freely surge until ending with the contemptuous words of its last venomous splash.

  “You can’t be so foolish as to think there is someone, anyone in Westbourne who can better perform my duties.”

  Tal had remained impassive and unsinged beneath the flowing fire of this irrational harangue and spoke only after the irate deluge of Ulrich’s snarled words ebbed into smoldering silence.

  “My choice to replace you as captain of the guard was easily made.” Dark penetrating eyes like smoldering charcoal narrowed on the rash knight daring to castigate his lord. “Sir Alan is as capable as ever you were, and he possesses a talent you sorely lack.”

  Ulrich’s wordless response was a sneer of disdain for the other knight even while he inwardly acknowledged just what complete folly his anger had brought about—and its likely price.

  “Sir Alan is a powerful warrior,” Tal stated, each word a shard of ice. “But of equal import he is an honorable knight who deals fairly with both his peers and his lessers—a skill that you most clearly have never possessed.”