Immediately Hugh understood. This was the grave of all of the villagers de Lambert had slain in his fury against the Welsh. De Courville had never returned to finish the wretched work, and he realized that the Welsh chieftain must have seen to his people in death as he had not done in life.
As the women stood with bowed heads, Hugh shifted on his knee and a twig snapped beneath his ankle. At once the taller girl looked up, grasping her companion’s hand. Hugh expected them to bolt for the horses and flee.
But the dark-haired girl only turned in the direction of the sound, and, drawing a slim dagger from a sheath on her belt, peered directly at the underbrush hiding Hugh. At the first real look he had at her face, Hugh was struck by two things—one, the girl had a wild look about her that suggested she was not a native of the area, but born further inland and two, that there was no fear on her face. She handled the dagger as though she understood its uses as well as Hugh. The other girl was pulling back and trying to tug away, but her mistress held her firmly by the hand, and spoke in Hugh’s own tongue: “Show yourself.”
Curiosity got the better of him. Hugh gingerly parted the trees and stood up. “How do you know my language?” he asked, as he stepped into the village clearing.
She drew herself up and met him with a haughtier stare than any Norman lady he had ever seen. “Do you think we can’t learn the language of dogs? Get out of here, Norman, go back to your stone cess pits. Leave us to mourn in peace.”
She was about his age, he thought, or maybe younger, and he presented his hands to show he wasn’t armed. “Who are you?”
“Your death, if you don’t leave us now.” The wind whipped her tangled hair across her face.
He raised his hands higher and took a single step closer. This girl had the bearing of a queen, he thought, and he wondered if she knew anything of the events of the day Richard had been wounded. “I mean you no harm.”
“As you meant these poor souls no harm?”
“It wasn’t my fault! I didn’t come here willing.” The memory of that day sickened him, and he turned away with a shudder at the reminder of de Lambert’s face as he spitted the innocent child with his sword.
“I suppose you came to mourn them, too?”
“Not exactly,” he admitted.
“Then what do you want? Get out of here, boy—before my brother’s men find you, and give you the fate you deserve.”
“I’m not a boy—and I told you I had nothing to do with what happened here.” Hugh paused, as the full import of her words struck him. “You’re Llewellis’s sister?”
“Prince Llewellis,” she corrected him. “And you’re Hugh St. Clair’s bastard son, whose guardian lies close to death. I hope the devil takes his rotting soul to hell.”
“Your brother nearly managed to send him there,” said Hugh, wondering if there were some way to get information out of her.
Her expression told him that she didn’t understand what he’d said, and in that moment, Hugh wondered if he had the proof he’d sought, or if she just didn’t speak his tongue well enough to grasp the meaning.
“He’d like that,” she answered slowly. Hugh narrowed his eyes, wondering how to phrase his next question, and just as he opened his mouth to speak, three armed horsemen burst into the clearing, longbows slung across their backs, quivers of arrows at their sides, long sheathed daggers slapping against their thighs.
Hugh turned and bolted, speeding through the forest on wings of fear. An arrow thudded past his ear. He dodged behind the broad trunk of a great tree, flattening himself against it in anticipation of a deadly volley. He waited, heart thudding visibly, straining to hear the sounds of his pursuers.
The forest was preternaturally quiet. Only a bird twittered, scolding him from the branches above his head while a squirrel scampering across the forest floor paused and looked at him, as if assessing whether or not it was safe to cross. As the animal bounded away, Hugh eased a peek around the tree. No one had followed him. The minutes sped away, and Hugh realized that no one intended to pursue him. He had only to return home and face Sir Geoffrey’s anger.
Cautiously he started off, and paused when he came to the tree where the arrow was imbedded. He pulled it out of the trunk. He ran his fingers over the tip, down the shaft, and examined the fletching. Welsh arrows were legendary; there was no parallel in all of Europe. He remembered the day of the attack and he realized he had what he had come looking for. Now if only he could convince Geoffrey de Courville to listen to him.
Then a heavy hand fell upon his shoulder, and he turned, startled, to see a Welshman who grinned at him as if he’d just won a prize. Or captured dinner.
CHAPTER 6
“She was wonderful,” stammered the maid, Bronwyn, her face red with the unaccustomed attention. She glanced at her mistress as she fingered her long black braids nervously. Angharad responded with a glance, a wink and a quick smile that vanished as her brother snorted his displeasure.
“She was foolish,” he answered from the big chair pulled to one side of the hearth against the evening’s chill. The resemblance between the brother and sister was striking. Llewellis, the heir of the old prince who’d died in the summer, sighed loudly and glared at his sister with a look of exasperation. “How many times have I told you not to venture so close to the border? What if that young cock-robin weren’t the only one there? What if de Lambert himself were waiting?”
“De Lambert’s dying,” replied Angharad. She didn’t bother to look up. Her brother wanted a fight, and she was happy to give it to him. She didn’t appreciate the way his guards had spoiled her fun, and she certainly didn’t like his tone now. She wasn’t a child, and she most certainly wasn’t an idiot.
“So you hear. What if you’d been captured, what if you’d been sold—like poor—“
“That’s not the only thing I heard, brother.” Angharad raised her chin and stared at her older brother. “Why aren’t you showing me some gratitude? I brought you a hostage and valuable information. You should be thanking me, rewarding me, not threatening to punish me.”
Llewellis made an impatient noise. “You didn’t bring me a hostage—you could’ve been taken one yourself. As to your information…so what if de Lambert blames me for the attack? So what? Of course he would blame me—those are my lands according to the treaty the old lord signed, and we’ve every right to defend them. Do you expect me to be surprised?”
Angharad rose to her feet and held her hands out over the fire. The day was fading behind a blaze of purple and red clouds, and the warmth of the flames felt good. “If they quarrel amongst themselves—perhaps there is a way to turn this to our advantage.”
Llewellis turned to her with a start, and she pressed on. “If de Lambert believes that we were the attackers, it means he has another enemy he doesn’t know about. And that means that this enemy may do for us what we would so dearly like to do for ourselves, and rid us of this Norman nuisance once and for all.”
“It could just as easily have been thieves…the wood is full of them at times. There’s no proof of what you say.” He glanced at the men lounging by the long hearth on the opposite wall. Angharad’s clear voice had carried, and they were pretending not to have heard.
“Then send someone to look for proof,” insisted Angharad. “Surely you see.”
Llewellis looked down at his youngest sister. She was the only one unmarried and he realized it was high time to send her to carp at someone else’s hearth. He exchanged a glance with his second-in-command across the hall. That the enemy of his enemy is only sometimes his friend was a truth Llewllis had learned the hard way. But maybe there was something to the girl’s story that could yet be turned to their advantage. Certainly, the hostage would. So he leaned forward and patted her cheek and said the sweetest thing he could think of to say before so many, “Yes, little sister. I do.” He was astonished that her reaction as to flounce angrily from the hall.
When the men had gone to their feasting and the women
had retired to their quarters above the hall, Bronwyn crept up to Angharad who sat before the fire where her old nurse, Nesta, was brushing out her tangled braid. “Lady? What will they do with him?”
“With whom? The Norman?” Angharad shot her companion a look bordering on contempt. “Do?” She shrugged and cocked her head at the same moment that the brush went the other way. “Ow! Nesty, watch what you’re doing.”
As the old woman murmured, “Then hold your head still,” Angharad looked back at Bronwyn.
“My brother will hold him for ransom—he’s the old lord’s son. He has some value.”
“He has some value as sport,” one of Mairedd’s maids giggled. “I heard the knights talk about what they’d do to him if Lllewellis lets them—hang him on a hook and flay him was the most popular.”
“He better stay on the good side of our prince,” put in another.
“He seemed as though he was quite taken with you, Angharad,” Mairedd, Llewellis’s wife put in. “I saw him at dinner—he didn’t take his eyes off your face. Even when the Prince himself spoke to him, the young Norman kept his eyes on you.” She giggled and Angharad sniffed. Mairedd was pretty, an empty-headed nuisance who kept Llewellis warm in bed at night, but otherwise had not the brains of a hen.
Angharad snorted. “Leave be. I’d cut my own throat before I’d let one of them touch me.”
Mairedd laughed, that silly titter of hers, and turned away to the other women.
Angharad stared moodily into the fire. Llewellis would linger long in the hall this night, discussing the situation with his men. But as far as she could tell, it mattered not at all which Norman vassal held the lands over the border. She sighed. Wales needed a strong leader, a high king, who would unite all the princelings under one banner. She remembered the tales of Daffyd the bard, of Arthur and the Pendragon. Would the day ever come when the sleeping dragon of Wales would wake?
She realized with a start that Nesta had finished with her hair, and was waiting for her to stand and undress for the night. Instead she shrugged the old woman away, and reached for her shawl.
“Angharad,” called Mairedd from her cluster of women, who were discussing the finer points of the new woolens, “where are you going?”
“Out,” she answered. “I find the air in here very close.” She did not wait to hear the babble of protests. She threw the shawl over her head and dashed from the chamber. On the landing she paused. From the hall she could hear the rumble of the men’s voices, rising and falling in endless argument and boasting. The mead was flowing freely by this time—a maid who ventured into the hall would soon likely find herself a maid no longer, and even Llewellis might be powerless to protect her. No, she thought, better the clear of the cold night.
She gathered up her skirts and climbed to the roof, emerging into the cold night air, with a sense of relief and escape. The mountains of Wales loomed like black shapes against the star-studded sky, thickly forested, rolling on to the horizon, stretching to the west. The air cooled her hot cheeks and she leaned against the battlements, watching the stars. Somewhere, over those mountains, lay her mother’s house—her mother who had been all too happy to kiss her goodbye and say farewell. Her mother expected her oldest brother to find her a husband—a worthy husband, she’d said. Angharad sighed. No one believed her to be capable of finding her own husband.
She didn’t expect to love him. But from the time she was small, Angharad had sized up her lot in life and come to some conclusions. A man could be a warrior, a lord, or a cleric, or take up a trade if he had no head for God nor strength for the sword. A woman could only be a wife and the mother of his sons. Or a nun…which held no appeal for Angharad ,who had a hard enough time keeping still or not falling asleep at ordinary Mass. So she was stuck being a wife—but regarding whose wife she insisted on having on say.
“It’s a pretty night,” said a voice from the shadows.
She jumped, and turned to see the young Norman hostage. “You! What are you doing up here?”
“Your brother’s not a cruel jailer,” answered Hugh as he walked to stand beside her, “he said I might have the run of the roof. I suppose he figures I have little chance of escape up here.” With a wide sweep, he indicated the sheer three hundred-foot drop to the ground below.
She favored him with a brief nod and turned away.
“Wait!” he called. “Don’t go.”
She looked back at him, knitting her brows together. “What makes you think I’d want to stay and talk to a murderer like you?”
“I’m not a murderer,” he said, holding out his hand. “I had nothing to do with de Lambert’s actions—it wasn’t my idea to raid your villages.”
She looked at him up and down, considering his words. Who knew better than she that often younger sons and daughters were caught in crossfires not of their own making?
As the wind blew harder, and she pulled her shawl tighter across her shoulders, she shrugged. “What were you doing there?’
“I told you. I was looking to see who it was who attacked de Lambert. I know it wasn’t your brother.”
She leaned back against the stone. He was guileless, still a boy, she thought, to tell her so much. Didn’t he realize they were enemies? “Who do you think it was?”
He shot her a quick look, a rueful grin. “I don’t know. De Lambert has lots of enemies. Like your brother. Isn’t that the situation with the Welsh?”
How neatly he had turned the tables. She shrugged. “Men will fight each other…it’s their way. There’s only one way for the Welsh to win this war with the Normans.”
He looked at her with a question in his dark eyes.
“There has to be a leader,” she continued. “One person, who can unite all the Welsh under one rule and so make us strong.”
“Like Duke William,” said Hugh, “who led the Normans here.”
“Who led the Normans into England,” she corrected. This time it was his turn to shrug. “You don’t like de Lambert, “ she said, watching his face.
“I hate him.” Hugh could not control the savagery in his voice.
“And yet you’re both Normans.”
“He’s not like my father, he’s not like the Lion Heart, or even William the Marshal, who is—was—my father’s overlord. I would do anything to get away from him—anything to get Eleanor away from him.”
“Anything?” Angharad raised one questioning eyebrow.
“Anything,” said Hugh.
And she marked well his tone of voice.
CHAPTER 7
“The puppy, the damn stupid miserable puppy,” swore Geoffrey de Courville as he flung the parchment message to the floor. It snapped back into its original shape and came to a rest beside the hem of Eleanor’s gown. She pressed her lips together and glanced at Richard. “lf he hadn’t gone off, this would never have happened. He deliberately shirked his duties—deliberately flouted my commands—how dare the wretched boy think that his hide’s worth so much as a chicken’s?”
“Please, Sir Geoffrey—” began Eleanor.
“Oh, no, my lady, you wouldn’t listen to me when I told you the time had come and gone for him to be sent away. You wouldn’t listen when the lord of Bramber himself sent for Hugh—”
“The lord of Bramber is no better than those marauding Welshman!” Eleanor stood up and faced the knight. “I will not see my brother turned over to some scoundrel simply because it is inconvenient for you. Hugh is the son of the lord of the manor—”
“The bastard son of the old lord,” Geoffrey spat back. “And so was I and so are a hundred—no, a thousand like him. And he’d best be sent to learn to earn his keep, for he’ll not eat otherwise.”
From the bed, Richard coughed, the strangled, hoarse noise he made when he wanted attention. He pointed at de Courville, and motioned him to leave. “Not—now,” he managed to choke out. Geoffrey shot Eleanor another murderous look and left the room.
The door slammed with a dull thud. Eleanor star
ed at Richard. The expression on his face was
inscrutable. He struggled to sit up, and gestured for the scroll lying discarded on the floor. With a trembling hand, she stooped and retrieved it, handing it to him automatically.
He opened it, scanned it almost as though he expected to read it, and made an impatient little noise. He thrust it back at her. “Read.” he said, “slow.”
She took a deep breath, sat in the chair beside the bed and obeyed. The words were simple enough. Llewellis Ab Rhawn was holding Hugh for hostage in retaliation for the raids of the last months, until Richard ransomed him for five thousand gold marks.
Eleanor sighed again. Five thousand gold marks was more than all the worth of both her manors put together. There was no question of such an amount being raised. Five thousand gold marks was the ransom of a prince. Llewellis offered them six months to raise the money—very clever, with winter coming on and the fighting likely to cease anyway. She put down fhe parchment and raised her eyes reluctantly, afraid of the anger she would see in Richard’s face. She expected—at the least—derision.
Hugh was lost. She shuddered to think how the Welsh might be treating him.
The expression on his face as her eyes met his made her draw a quick breath. He was looking at her with a mixture of what could only be concern and sorrow. He looked as though he cared, and cared deeply, about her brother’s fate.
“What—do?” he managed. He actually looked and sounded as if he meant to have a discussion with her.
She laughed, a little hysterically and got to her feet. “Do, my lord? Do? What is there to do? We no more have five thousand marks than we have wings to fly. We have six months in which to raise it, but we will sooner grow wings.”
[1997] Once and Future Love Page 6
