Despite close confines which made a broadsword’s normal sweeping, slashing strokes near impossible, Tal’s greater skill easily deflected the barrage of blades almost instantly turned upon him. And yet he would gladly credit divine aid in putting an end to vile deeds wickedly committed in this sanctified chapel.
But more importantly, Tal proved himself the far superior tactician almost as soon as the clash of blade against blade commenced. The opponent whose strategy had included choosing a restricted battlefield was proven in serious error when Westbourne’s full garrison quickly arrived and trapped Lord James’s warriors within its tight confines.
Farleith weapons were confiscated and piled behind the altar where the priest had taken shelter during the fray. The invaders who’d thought to make short work of Taliesan and thus easily conquer Westbourne with few losses of their own were shamed by the haste with which they were disarmed and herded into a resentful group of captives.
But as Sir Alan started to prod the baron of Farleith toward the stairway which ended in murky dungeons, something shocking occurred.
While Tal stood on one side watching his victorious guardsmen finish their duty to subdue the defeated, a sharp blade suddenly arced from behind and bit painfully into his throat.
“Harm any man of Farleith,” Ulrich snarled, “and I swear your precious earl, your Lord Taliesan, will instantly die.”
Westbourne’s victorious cries were promptly hushed into a rumble of disgust for the traitorous knight who’d once been their captain. That ominous hum was punctuated only by stinging oaths of revenge as Sir Ulrich issued another order.
“Men of Farleith—” Though speaking to his new cohorts, Ulrich met the gaze of the knight who’d replaced him as guard captain, the foolishly softhearted Sir Alan. “First free your comrades and then precede my captive and me from this place where weakness is perilously valued above strength.”
The few invading warriors who had yet to be bound hastily released those who already were, before quickly reclaiming their weapons to depart with mocking grins and malicious taunts. Ulrich, knife still at the earl’s throat, backed from a chapel now crowded with near the whole of Westbourne’s garrison.
Once Lord James’s unexpectedly valuable ally was beyond the door with their prisoner, he motioned for several of his most trusted knights to approach. They were commanded to immediately block the chapel’s exit with trunks, chairs, any movable item from every chamber along this highest level’s central hallway.
In compliance with her lord’s demand, Vevina had remained in the solar with Lady Angwen. As the room where they waited was nearest the chapel, it was the first entered by Farleith’s intruding knights making them the first among castle inhabitants, save guardsmen, to know the day’s bleak outcome. When challenged by Vevina, the rude trespassers curtly announced Taliesan’s capture. Hysteria instantly swept over Angwen and her loyal companion had perforce to give the woman her full attention.
Ceri and her grandmother, huddling in the alcove fearfully near the chapel conflict had heard too well the frightening sounds of a battle fought in earnest—clashing blades, groans of exertion, and cries of pain. Thus, when the noise calmed to a dull thunder, Ceri had waited with ever increasing anxiety to learn the outcome.
Finally ominous footsteps were heard in the hallway—but no shouts of triumph. Ceri hastened to the door, carefully cracked it open, and peeked outside.
The reality of Ceridwen’s most horrifying fears approached as Taliesan was marched down the hall while Ulrich held a deadly sharp dagger to his throat. Blood oozed from the wound already inflicted. Ceri wanted to rush to Tal but dared not for fear that the dishonorable Ulrich would complete the assault by slicing her beloved’s throat open, forcing her to watch as his lifeblood drained away.
Ceri was terrified that once the brief period of Tal’s use to his captors as shield was past, they truly would take his life.
* * *
The lady of Castle Westbourne lay sprawled across the rich coverlet of her tester bed with none of her usual grace. Face buried in bedclothes bunched in clutching fingers, she quietly moaned in terror for her beloved son’s peril.
“Angwen, what ails you?” The words spoken from an open door held no shred of concern only disgust for time foolishly wasted.
Sitting bolt upright, the abruptly quiet lady glared toward the speaker of a question too familiarly phrased. It would be an insult from any among Westbourne’s inhabitants but from this aging woman long her enemy, it was far worse.
“You’re acting the weak, witless fool that we both know you are not.” Not serf but freeborn woman, Mabyn was not intimidated by her hostess’s position and marched boldly into the chamber. “If you responded like this—as a milksop—to honest losses suffered, then how can you dare blame me for your woes?”
Angwen’s shoulders squared and her chin tilted defiantly.
“What happened to the fiery princess I knew?” Mabyn demanded, hands firmly planted on broad hips. “Was she the real victim of your apparently endless complaints and unfounded accusations?”
“Milady—” Vevina softly called to the companion of near a lifetime as she moved to stand at her tactless mother’s side. “You must restore your composure and prepare to act in Lord Taliesan’s defense elsewise all will be lost.”
Suddenly aware of her disarray and embarrassed by this betrayal of weakness, Angwen rubbed dry the damp cheeks brightly rosed by emotion.
“Aye,” Angwen firmly assured her listeners. “I’ll be myself, the fiery princess turned countess, and prepare to act in my son’s defense. But where to begin … what actions can be taken?”
Seeing a flicker of the young princess in this stern lady of the castle, Mabyn reassured her. “Belike we will find one, if we search—calmly.”
Angwen gazed into the eyes of the wise woman of Llechu without either fear or resentful hate for the first time since she’d left her father’s princedom and journeyed to Westbourne.
“Surely—” Vevina quietly interposed. “The first step must be to await the demands Lord James will assuredly issue as a proposed exchange for ensuring the safety of our earl.”
“But while we wait—” Ceri spoke quietly from several paces behind the two older Welshwomen. “There will be time to consider any possible plans for Tal’s rescue.”
* * *
Though crowded with inhabitants gathered for the day’s first meal, the great hall of Westbourne Castle was abnormally silent this morning after the aborted betrothal and fiendish capture of Lord Taliesan. Their repast was finished, but the people lingered while a grim-faced Lady Angwen sat alone at the high table’s center and steadily watched the approach of an unwelcome visitor.
“Milady—” As the unkempt figure spoke in a thready, obsequious voice his open mouth revealed a tangle of crooked and discolored teeth. “I been sent to bring this to you.”
Along with this announcement the man roughly slapped a folded sheet of parchment down on the high table’s linen-covered surface directly in front of the lady of Westbourne.
In equal parts distaste for the messenger and dread of the item’s likely contents, Angwen hesitantly began to reach for the deceptively harmless sheet.
“Who are you?” The imperious woman demanded, still so loath to touch the delivered piece that she disdainfully motioned toward it instead. “And who gave you this?”
“I be Orm.” Beneath the lady’s fierce glare the uneasy man awkwardly shuffled. “But I don’t know the one what insisted I see it come to you.”
“Then, pray tell—” Angwen sneered. “How was it that you went to meet with this individual you claim not to know?”
“Didn’t go to him!” The denial’s fervor went far to prove its honesty. “Nor would I have met the toad, were it my choice.”
Skeptical, Angwen’s dark brows arched in dubious question.
“I were minding my own business, weren’t I? Just a free man toiling in his garden when of a sudden I were wickedly grab
bed from behind, blindfolded, and dragged away.”
Distrust sharpened the probing gaze Angwen focused on the uninvited visitor.
“To meet their master, your captors must’ve taken you to a building of some kind,” Angwen persisted, determined to learn more from this peculiar stranger than the precious little she already had. “What did that building look like?”
“No building.” Greasy strands of lank hair fell forward as the unwilling messenger firmly shook his head. “When they peeled the wretched cloth from my eyes, I were in an unfamiliar forest glade (took horrible long to find my way back) and I were facing a man hefty enough to make a pair of me.”
With this description’s oblique confirmation of an already assumed fact, Angwen had no further excuse to delay in dismissing this creature and turning toward the the unpleasant item he’d brought.
Orm quickly departed, as glad to escape the castle as no doubt its intimidating lady was to be rid of him.
Despite a continuing reluctance, Angwen focused on the ominous delivery. As was true of all the women and most of the men among her Norman peers, she couldn’t read. Though it would be simple to summon the cleric responsible for castle records, she hesitated. Too many traitors had been revealed in their midst for her to easily trust. Moreover, the cleric was well known for his skill in cultivating the castle gossip vines. Until she knew what this parchment contained, Angwen deemed it best to guard the message’s privacy.
But Mabyn possessed such skills and had taught them to her daughter—likely granddaughter, too. For that reason as Angwen clutched the parchment and rose to her feet, she motioned for her Welsh companion to follow as she retired to the solar.
Vevina sat with her mother near the top of one of the hall’s two long lines of lower tables. As Vevina moved to slip away, Mabyn refused to be abandoned and trailed behind as her daughter led the way to obediently join their lady on the climb up stone steps.
While crossing the chamber to reach the corner stairwell, Angwen paused only to command that Ceridwen also join them.
Once the women were enclosed in the solar’s privacy and seated at its small table, Angwen dropped the missive to bare planks and jerked her hand back as if the dark marks on the sheet were poisonous snakes coiling to strike.
Angwen’s companions gave their full attention to the document. The parchment lacked an identifying seal, yet its never doubted source was unmistakable in the terse wording of its ultimatum.
Taliesan was alive but to keep him so, Lady Angwen as mistress of Westbourne had three days in which to either cede the whole of the fiefdom to King Stephen or prepare to receive her son’s dead body.
A further warning accompanied the ominous demand. Farleith had taken as captives serfs from Westbourne’s outlaying villages and farms. If any attempt were made to attack or lay siege to the Lord James’s keep, one by one they would be killed and placed on pikes lining its palisade wall.
Untrained for the tactics of war, still the women realized that the only option given was a fool’s choice since Westbourne was lost on either hand. Even if not immediately yielded to the king, once the fiefdom’s only male heir was killed, it would be leaderless and easily conquered.
Knowing her duty, a chastened Angwen led the way back down to the great hall where trestle tables had been cleared away but castle inhabitants remained, tensely waiting for news. The haughty Lady Angwen surprised her Welsh companions by requesting that they join her on the dais while she shared the contents of the recently delivered parchment with her people.
As news of the demanded surrender of Westbourne to King Stephen in exchange for the life of their earl spread across the hall, a deep rumble of frustrated defiance rose from the crowd. Not one among them would willingly see Lord Taliesan’s life forfeit yet the prospect of meekly surrendering was nearly as monstrous.
One harsh voice roared out above the rest. “I say we march at once and burn the wretch’s keep to ground.”
An immediate storm of disagreeing assertions overwhelmed even the rarely quiet hall.
More than one woman wailed, “Think of all the innocent captives they would slaughter.”
“Lord Tal would die.” Disgust for the fool who’d suggested such a risk coated the words.
“Not if we rescue him first!” A hotheaded guardsmen argued.
“How?” Another instantly demanded. “How when you know they’ll have their noble hostage, their prize, trussed and prepared for execution?”
“Quiet!” With the same talent for quiet command that Tal had recognized, Sir Alan took control of the chaos and moved to face the crowd grown belligerent. “Think rationally with your mind not your heart and never your resentment. As our earl cautioned, remember that the best way to ensure our foes’ victory is to do their work for them by fighting amongst ourselves.
“’Struth, Lord Tal is hostage and too many of Westbourne’s people are captive.” Alan’s stern gaze turned from one guardsman to the next. “It’s just as certainly a fact that if we attack without calm planning, our enemies will assuredly delight in carrying out their threats.”
Alan waited for the uproar to recede into strained murmurs before making sure that the hazards faced were comprehended by all.
“If the heartless execution of innocent captives fails to halt our onslaught, there is no doubt but that they’ll hold Lord Taliesan as the final shield—and gladly destroy him before our eyes.”
Ceri’s heart plummeted beneath the weight of graphically stated threats repeated by the knight standing below her position on the dais. Had she won her quest only to lose its heart to such dastardly evil?
Forcing her thoughts from vile images, Ceri rose from behind the high table, an unexpected action which instantly won the attention of all.
“As Sir Alan says—” Ceri’s steady voice carried throughout the vast chamber. “Our foes have made it abundantly clear that the act of going with force of arms to rescue our earl is doomed to a ghastly end.”
“However—” Ceri paused and drew a deep breath for courage to propose a scheme for victory suggested by Gran Mab the previous night. “What if those inside Farleith Keep are rendered helpless, even unconscious before Westbourne’s force arrives?”
Utter silence reigned. Even if she was a witch, this mysterious Welshwoman’s suggestion would be welcome … if it could be trusted … if it could be accomplished.
Lady Angwen recognized this as the moment for her to take on an important role which only she could play. She rose to stand at Ceridwen’s side and issue a firm order in her most commanding tone.
“Perform, without question, whatever instructions you are given by my three friends from Llechu—Ceridwen, Vevina, or Mabyn.”
Though startled to be claimed a friend, Ceri was relieved that the fiefdom’s lady had issued the necessary order and pleased by the prompt willingness to obey shown by those commanded.
The castle was soon emptied as a strange army of sorts flowed beyond bailey walls to sweep through the forests encircling tilled fields. Armed not with weapons but containers of all shapes and sizes, they searched for an often elusive prize.
At the end of a long day they returned exhausted but triumphantly bearing a small treasure-trove of tiny white berries that were deadly eaten en masse but whose juice, when added as mere droplets to other elixirs, induced a beneficial sleep.
The kitchens bustled with activity while, under the seneschal’s command and Mabyn’s careful directions, the process of reducing bitter berries to a colorless liquid began. Once that task was well under way Ceridwen slipped out in search of a young friend she knew could be trusted for an important mission.
“Thomas—” Ceri called from the opening of a deserted stall being cleaned by the boy. “For your lord’s sake, I have a task for you to undertake.”
“Whatever you wish, I will do gladly for either the earl or for you.” A spark of hope warmed the dejected boy’s gaze as he earnestly offered his help. Though the nasty hostage taking had occurr
ed only the previous day, it seemed to him a bleak lifetime had passed.
“My aunt told me that you’ve already been to Grendel’s Tor?” Though a statement, Ceri posed it as a question and only continued after a tousled head nodded. “Go again during predawn light but wait concealed in forest gloom until you see my friend, Lloyd, arrive.”
It was a simple enough deed and Tom was thrilled to think that by so easy a chore he might be a part of his Lord’s rescue.
“What would you have me tell Lloyd? Or is he meant to give me a message for you?”
For nearly the first time since the previous day’s unhappy events, Ceri’s grin reappeared. “Probably both.”
Tom returned her grin and listened intently as she continued.
“Tell Lloyd about the preparation of our berry elixir and plan with him another meeting on the morrow. It’s then that you’ll take a covered vessel filled with that liquid to give him.”
When Ceri returned to the hall she was pleased that the first small amount of the desired potion had been produced. At Lady Angwen’s suggestion, the colorless, odorless liquid would be poured into the same delicate flask that Ceri had once been warned to handle with the special care due its great value.
Chapter 21
Formed all of wood, Farlieth Keep possessed no stone dungeons. Therefore, the enemy earl was held hostage in a prison different but no less unpleasant.
Taliesan sat trapped in the oppressive darkness of a root cellar dug many feet down into the cold, damp earth and only minimally braced against collapse by a pitifully few rotting timbers. He’d no idea how much time had passed since he was rudely shoved from daylight into this vile pit between keep’s back and palisade wall. But by the parched dryness of his throat and hungry rumbling of his belly, he assumed it must have been a considerable length of time.
The only thing Tal did know for certain was that while standing to rise on his toes and reach as high as possible, he couldn’t touch the heavy, iron-bound doors closed above.
Though it might portend greater danger, even death, Tal couldn’t help but welcome the grating noise of a long metal bar sliding free of outer loops to permit the overhead portal’s reopening.
Memories of the Heart Page 21
