by Jean Gill
Chapter 27
Anger coiled in Estela’s gut, waiting to strike.
She dismounted, followed Halfpenny across the drying mud to the opening of a mine, where a man who looked like Dragonetz came to meet them. His eyes blinked in the light, flickered with crazy shadows, and he grabbed the bread Halfpenny held out to him, wolfed it down without manners, then controlled himself, paused, turned to her.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, his words muffled by chewed bread. He couldn’t even do her the courtesy of closing his mouth while he ate.
‘That’s what Rhys said when he told me you were dead,’ she flung at him. Her voice broke. ‘I believed you were dead!’
John Halfpenny cut in. ‘He wanted me to tell you but I dared not, my Lady. If you had looked for one second as if you had hope, we’d all be dead.’
Estela ignored him, looked only at Dragonetz, waited for him to understand.
‘I believed I was to die,’ he told her.
Then it was she who understood, who imagined what he had suffered, what kind of death he faced and how hard it had been to wait days in the dark, starving, until Halfpenny returned.
‘Oh, my dear,’ she said and walked into his arms, felt the trembling of his body against hers. Of course he guessed what she had been through and felt her pain. As she did for him. As long as each thought for the other, they would come through this, together.
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered, holding her too tightly.
‘Do you want more to eat?’
‘Yes.’ His eyes showed the strain of hunger. ‘But it’s better if I wait, eat a little again later.’
He released her, rubbed his waist as if something had hurt him there. He reached into the pouch beneath his jerkin, clumsy, trying to find something, and the others waited. They said nothing, allowing him time to say and do what he needed, to return to the living from wherever he had been.
‘Here,’ he said, showing her a golden bracelet that glinted, even in the weak winter sunshine. ‘This is for you. I found it here.’ Open at either end, each finished with a snake’s head, the bracelet was beautiful – and worth a fortune. Estela slipped her wrist into it, moved the bracelet up her arm, where it rested as if made specially for her. The diamond-shaped heads were cross-hatched in likeness of snakeskin and the small tongues had the hint of a fork, but not enough to weaken the gold.
‘It’s so beautiful.’ Estela felt like a high priestess of some ancient cult with the double-headed snake coiled round her arm. Surely such a talisman would bring magic to its bearer. She brought her arm up close to study the snake heads more closely and caught the bracelet on her cloak brooch, pricking herself against the pin.
‘Ouch!’ She licked the tiny drop of blood from her arm, adjusted the brooch, automatically stroking the Pathfinder’s runes as she did so. The crisscross of runes always reminded her of choices and crossroads. She looked again at the bracelet as a cloud hid the sun, dulling the snake-eyes to hooded threat.
Gold she thought, remembering. The bracelet no longer seemed a perfect fit but pinched, as if tightening. She suddenly panicked in case she couldn’t get it off but she wriggled the band down towards her wrist and slipped out of it.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Dragonetz.
‘This is.’ She shrugged. ‘I can’t explain. I know it’s beautiful but it’s not ours.’
‘I think these were gold mines. I’m right, aren’t I?’ Dragonetz asked Halfpenny.
‘I thought there were no gold mines on the Isles of Albion or I would know of them,’ Halfpenny replied, considering the matter. ‘That’s what I thought, anyways. But you be right, yes, these be old gold mines. And the Welsh Lords were – would be right to silence you. They would never be left in peace if word got out that there be gold here. That, and all you know about their strongholds, signed your death warrant.’
Estela was still holding the bracelet, reluctant to part with it, as she knew she must. A thought struck her. ‘Why am I not worth killing?’
Both men looked at her.
‘Oh.’ The penny dropped. ‘I’m just a woman.’
‘If it be any consolation, I be just a fool,’ said Halfpenny kindly. ‘And we do have a long way to travel.’
Estela gave the bracelet back to Dragonetz. ‘We must leave it here, where it was found. It’s the right thing to do. No good can come of this gold. I would have to hide it anyway. Anyone who saw it would ask where it came from and I don’t want to talk about this place.’ She watched his face. ‘Do you? Will you tell Aliénor when you report?’ She turned to Halfpenny. ‘Will you tell the English? The other moneyers?’
Halfpenny’s response was instant. ‘No. I hate gold. Terrible to work with and too valuable to be any use.’
‘Dragonetz?’ she prompted.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I need to think. But we will not take what isn’t ours.’ He reached once more into his pouch, pulled out a piece of rock and buried both the bracelet and the stone together in the mud.
Regret and relief warred but Estela took her lover’s arm and they walked back to where the mounts were tethered.
‘We’ll take turns,’ Halfpenny said. ‘I’ll walk first and we can pick up another horse at a settlement, when we be far enough away. They won’t be looking for us anyways – glad to be rid of us, I think! But you can play the servant if you need to.’
Estela glanced at Dragonetz. He might well pass as a servant in his current state of exhaustion. ‘Then you’d better let me have Talharcant,’ she observed wryly.
He summoned a weak grin. ‘Not till you show me what Maredudd taught you.’
SOMEWHERE BETWEEN THE forests of Cantref Mawr and the port of Swansea, they bought an extra horse, and Dragonetz recovered enough to interrogate John Halfpenny about gold mines.
While working in Zaragoza, Halfpenny had heard all about the gold mines in a neighbouring kingdom, ancient in construction but still working. He spoke of channeling water into cascades to wash gold ore from the river and surface rock.
‘The drains!’ Dragonetz described the stone cover he’d found on the hillside.
Halfpenny nodded. ‘There’s likely water ducts below. They’ll have exhausted all the gold they found on the surface and then made the deep mines.’
‘What about the wheels I saw at the end of the tunnel, big as millwheels, down below?’
Halfpenny considered the matter. ‘The tunnels would fill with water below and the wheels would bring it up, allow men to go deeper. ‘How dangerous we have made the earth,’ he quoted.
‘An ancient?’ guessed Dragonetz.
‘Pliny. When I did my apprenticeship, my master read Pliny to me, how gold be mined, the ruina montium, the destruction of the mountain with tunnels and water forced through.’
It was hard to believe this was the same man who’d capered for the Welsh lords, but all skilled men could talk so about their passion. Dragonetz remembered a Damascene sword-maker, a rose-grower, a falconer.
‘Did you see a large stone, bashed, strangely shaped?’ asked Halfpenny. ‘They’d need an anvil to hit the rock against, extract the ore.’
‘Maybe,’ said Dragonetz slowly. Maybe a rock with identations like four saints’ heads. ‘Why don’t the Welsh work the mines now?’
‘Too difficult to reach the gold in the deeps. Or maybe they’re afraid of the ghosts.’ Halfpenny laughed. ‘Did you see the ghost of Gweno?’
‘Aye. She was your sort, blonde and buxom, with a penchant for little Englishmen and bags of silver,’ replied Dragonetz lightly. He had seen ghosts but the worst were those he had taken in there with him. And he didn’t want to talk about it.
Estela and he held each other, carefully, as if the other were silver filigree. Not gold. They didn’t talk about the gold they’d left behind or whether Dragonetz would report it to Aliénor. They just held each other. Being alive and being together could not yet be taken for granted.
When they were hailed in Frankish, they moved another step
nearer getting home safely and Halfpenny had been right. Nobody was looking for them and nobody was interested in three weary travellers among a nationful of weary travellers. Although he still sat on the throne, King Stephen’s days were numbered and the king-to-be Henri was openly acclaimed. The English wars were over.
By cart or on horse, in company or by themselves, the threesome found the rhythm of travel that they’d known on their journey to these isles. Estela sometimes wrote in her guide and read pieces aloud but there were no games with knives. Nobody wished to test their luck.
When the ferry arrived at the far side of the Severn Sea, with Gwalia truly behind them and safe passage ahead, Dragonetz said, ‘If you wish to travel back with us, your services will be rewarded.’
Halfpenny shook his head. ‘It is time to go home.’ Dragonetz felt the words in his own gut and surely Estela must do too. Hiraeth, the home-longing, was in all of them.
‘But Stephen is still in power,’ objected Estela. ‘Are you safe?’
The moneyer gave a wry smile. ‘Safer than I’ve been for many a year. I will find my way, and,’ he crossed himself, ‘God willing, my family.’ He grinned. ‘If you come across coins with my name as moneyer, you won’t need to weigh them.’
‘You’ve taught me much, Mintmaster, including the meaning of true coin and sterling. You are both and you have my thanks, and this.’ Dragonetz drew one of his remaining diamonds from his scrip, saw Halfpenny hesitate. ‘You don’t have qualms about diamonds now too? These were earned, not stolen.’
‘I did not do it for the reward,’ Halfpenny said.
‘I know,’ said Dragonetz. ‘Take it.’
Halfpenny drew their attention to his fidgety left hand and the diamond disappeared from his right, one of the jongling tricks he had done at the Welsh court, but not with diamonds. He bowed to Estela. ‘My Lady. I doubt you will find another target so easily. I should have asked for bigger payment!’
‘Yes, you should. We’ll miss you.’ How easily she spoke for both of them, and, to Dragonetz’ surprise, he liked it.
With a bundle tied to a stick, Halfpenny quickly merged into the crowd, his walk a merry parody of those around him, hiding his feelings in comedy. Dragonetz remembered their first meeting, in a Les Baux prison where the moneyer was sentenced to worse than death for forgery.
‘Paths and crossroads,’ murmured Estela, fingering her Viking brooch, her eyes following and losing their companion.
Was it always to be like this, one thinking and the other speaking a thought aloud? He had not known two people could be so close. He should ask her now... but if she said no, they would have a long journey with no future that he could imagine. He would wait at least until they were across the sea. But he must ask her before they reached Aliénor.
As they travelled, they shared long silences with the same ease they talked. Their tongues tripped over Welsh words, speaking freely of Rhys and Maredudd, of Gwalia and its people. What had Estela said? Too deep in Welshness. Despite the doom planned for Dragonetz, some fondness for the Welsh was embedded in their core, like a splinter that hurt when pressed, but was now part of them. They even understood the doom planned for Dragonetz. Wouldn’t King Henri have done the same? Or even Ramon Berenguer? For a ruler, the kingdom came first.
‘What have we left behind?’ Estela asked him.
So much, he thought. We will never be the people we were. ‘I talked to Rhys of the Usatges. Maybe the Welsh laws will show that. And the castles he plans will be better built!’
‘And I sang,’ Estela declared with satisfaction.
‘Such song.’ Dragonetz carried with him the voices, each holding true to its own part. ‘I will take the part song to our monks, show them how it’s done.’
‘We bring with us more than we left behind,’ was Estela’s judgement. ‘I’m writing down the song, the one for Mair, the song of women working, loving, fighting.’
‘Nobody will believe it,’ said Dragonetz.
‘They don’t have to. It just has to be a wonderful song.’
‘And it will be,’ Dragonetz assured her.
Then there was the sea and a boat and Estela turned green. He was no longer tempted to ask her, not when she was struggling to hold the contents of her stomach, despite all her remedies.
At Barfleur, on Frankish soil at last, they took a room at an inn, and followed all the recommendations of the wise traveller for making the most of such luxury. Bathed, dressed in fresh clothes, over a private meal with a cup of good red wine – they were not sorry to leave behind the horrors of Welsh beverages – Dragonetz felt the moment had come.
Her hair rippled down her back below the waist, her eyes held his, the only gold he needed. And he did need her.
‘Estela, my Lady,’ he began. He could see in the anxious topaz of her eyes, in her stillness, that she knew what he was going to say.
‘I called you wife in Gwalia. I want to continue to do so. I am yours as you are mine. Marry me.’
Her eyes clouded. ‘Dear heart.’ She stumbled over the words. ‘I can’t. I don’t understand what you’re asking. I’m married.’ She paused, searching. ‘I won’t have you kill the man who was married to me.’
She saw that wasn’t what he meant. ‘Then I don’t understand.’ She pronounced the name of the man she’d married as if it were gravel in her mouth. ‘And if Johans de Villeneuve were dead, naturally, and we married, it would make a bastard of Musca and he would always be inferior to any other child born to us. I could not allow that.’ Her last words came out in a rush as if she was afraid of saying something different.
‘Nor I,’ said Dragonetz gently. ‘But I have thought over what the notary said and there is a way we can be married, and Musca my legal son and heir. I will have to ask Aliénor but I will not ask her without having your consent.’
He asked again, ‘Will you marry me?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘If it is possible. But I fear you will find there are too many obstacles.’
‘That’s not very romantic!’ he teased her.
‘Marriage and romance are of a separate and opposite nature,’ she quoted from Aliénor’s playful court of love.
‘Then let’s enjoy romance while we still can.’ Dragonetz scooped a handful of hair to one side so he could kiss her neck.
‘The wise traveller makes no mention of such activities,’ complained Estela, primly.
‘The wise traveller should know when to stay silent,’ murmured Dragonetz, ensuring that she did so.
Chapter 28
For their private audience, Aliénor had dressed down and was merely resplendent in blue velvet and pearls. Motherhood becomes her thought Estela then, more cynically, perhaps being Queen of England and mother of the heir to the English throne, becomes her.
She listened to Dragonetz’ report of the Welsh Lords’ conquests, their independence, their willingness to hold their own lands without causing problems for King Henri, should he support them.
‘Are they capable of holding those lands against the Marcher Lords,’ Aliénor asked.
‘Yes, as long as Rhys and Maredudd rule.’ Dragonetz corrected himself. ‘As long as one of them does.’
‘There is tension between them?’
‘None. But Rhys is the stronger.’ Estela flicked him a glance but he had not forgotten. He would keep his word. ‘The third brother is of no interest – he has turned monk. But there is a fourth. He was taken prisoner on a battlefield by the Lord of Kidwelly, Maurice de Londres. The missing brother is called Maelgwyn. The king will earn much gratitude from the Lords of Deheubarth if he finds their brother alive, or can tell them Maelgwyn’s fate.’
‘You are saying that to win them as allies, we should leave them the rights to the kingdom they’ve already taken, ignore the plaints of the Marcher Lords – do nothing, in effect and they will keep a balance for us, while we sympathise with those lords who’ve lost territory and power, make them work to win our favour.’ Aliénor looked pleased with
the strategy, as well she might. Rumour said the royal coffers were empty so any possibility of making allies without using bribery and gifts would be most welcome.
‘You make them sound less barbaric than one supposed,’ Aliénor observed.
Dragonetz weighed his words. ‘They are both less, and more, barbaric than one supposed.’
‘And are there assets we should know about?’
‘Not in Deheubarth.’ Dragonetz didn’t pause. ‘Pembrokeshire is richer, partly under Frankish rule and English is spoken there, not Welsh. The Belgian merchants there run a fine wool trade.’ Aliénor’s eyes lit up as he continued, ‘Pembroke falcons are highly prized as are their herding dogs: a short-legged, brown race with foxlike face.’
Estela tried not to smile as he quoted the Wise Traveller word for word.
Almost girlish with excitement, Aliénor thought aloud. ‘They would be the perfect gift for Henri!’
Dragonetz added, ‘I was forgetting. There is one treasure beyond price in Deheubarth, in which the king would take great delight.’ Estela held her breath. ‘Their music-making is divine and a Welsh harper makes other instruments sound like a hen-coop. When you negotiate with Deheubarth, you could pay tribute to their fame and ask for a harper to grace your court.’
Aliénor nodded. ‘What about the north of Gwalia?’
Dragonetz shrugged. ‘It is a different country, often at war with the south. I know nothing of the northern rulers but what the southerners have told me. The men of Deheubarth won back a fortress from the northerners and there is little love between them.’
‘This means that north or south Gwalia would ride with Henri against their countrymen?”
‘Yes. They do not see each other as countrymen. If you have no option but to ride against Deheubarth, the northern Welshman Cadwaladr will help you win. He is hated by his own people and by the southerners as a kin-killer, is loyal to nobody. He already rides with the English and if you pay him enough, he will serve your needs. None of the Welsh can be trusted but he is the worst of them.’
