Border Bride

by Hale Deborah

  With a twitch, Bryn seemed to waken to the world once again. “Myfanwy and Davy.” He gave a vigorous nod. “Aye, Con, I’ll see to them.”

  “Good lad.” Con clapped him on the back. “I’ll come check on how you’re faring as soon as I can.”

  The boy took a few steps toward the house, then paused and looked back at Con. “Mam will make Aled better, won’t she?”

  Con replied with a nod—one he prayed would look more certain than he felt. It must have, for Bryn ran off without another backward glance.

  Now Con turned his attention to Lord Macsen. In the midst of a tight circle of his own men and those of Glyneira, the border chief was issuing swift, decisive orders.

  “…ride north and bring word to our kinsman, Madog ap Merydudd. If he can spare us men and arms, have them muster at Banwy Ford. Dylan, Cass and Onfael, rally men from all the cantrevs within a day’s ride.”

  Con could picture the Empress rubbing her hands with glee when she heard the news. No doubt she would account his mission a grand success, and make plans to reward him accordingly. The prospect of a pitched battle between the Powys folk and their Norman neighbors made Con break out in a cold sweat.

  “My lord.” He caught Macsen’s eye. “An attack to regain Hen Coed two or three days hence is just what your enemy will expect. You may prevail, but at what cost?”

  The border lord drew himself up to his full, intimidating height and glared at Con. Clearly he was not a man to tolerate having his commands interrupted, much less questioned.

  “You talk as if I have a choice, Con ap Ifan. The Normans have filched what is mine while my back was turned. Now, I must take it from them, whatever the cost. You yourself urged me to be watchful and ready to repel Norman treachery. Would that I had heeded you and turned back to Hen Coed when I had the chance.”

  The man felt guilty because he’d let down his guard for a few days to press his suit with Enid. Con understood. He also understood that guilt might drive Lord Macsen to strike back without his usual forethought.

  “Don’t fret for what might have been, my lord. Who can know if your presence and an extra handful of men would have made any difference. As it stands, you are safe and at liberty to regain what is yours. I gave you honest counsel before and I will again, if you’ll heed me. My time in the Holy Land has taught me there is often more than one way to shear a sheep.”

  “Very well, then, speak your piece.” Lord Macsen made a marked effort to contain his impatience. “I will hear you, though I make no promise to heed.”

  Con gathered his breath and his thoughts. There were times, he realized, when a persuasive tongue and a cool head could prove superior weapons to bow or blade.

  “As I said, my lord, FitzLaurent will be braced for an attempt to recapture Hen Coed. What he will not expect is for you to mount an assault against Falconbridge in his absence. I urge you to ride there as swiftly as possible, mustering men from the cantrevs we pass on our way. I wager we will find the Norman keep easier pickings than Hen Coed.”

  Lord Macsen gave a slow nod, his expression still wary. “Then what? I hold FitzLaurent’s fortress and he holds mine.”

  “Then I will broker an exchange for you, my lord.” With every word, Con’s voice took on greater confidence. Never, in all his years fighting abroad, had he felt this fire burning deep in his gut. “I know the Normans—their tongue and their ways. I will strike a barter to your advantage…I swear it.”

  As he waited for the border lord’s answer, Con found himself wondering what Enid had said to Lord Macsen before their talk had been interrupted. Would the Powys chief trust a man who had cost him a much-desired bride?

  Heaving a deep sigh, Enid ran her hand in a motherly caress over the downy sweat-streaked cheek of the boy sprawled unconscious on the table before her. Why, he looked little older than her Bryn. Had she only been mincing air when she’d told Con that familiar danger was better than foreign?

  Any threat to her children would be as bad as another.

  As if summoned by her worries, Bryn appeared in the hall. “Will Aled be all right, Mam?”

  “I hope so.” She beckoned her son near. When he approached within arm’s length, she gathered him to her. “He’s lost some blood where an arrow grazed his arm, but he doesn’t look to have taken any worse harm, saints be praised. I’ve stanched the bleeding and applied herbs to help the wound bind.”

  Bryn’s soft young features took on the harsh cast of a man’s righteous wrath. “I’ll make the Normans pay for hurting Aled, and for attacking Hen Coed.”

  “You’ll do nothing of the sort!” Fear gave Enid’s voice a sharper tone than she’d intended. “Who’s put such foolishness into your head?”

  One name burst off her tongue in a fury. “Con?”

  “No!” Bryn pulled away from her. “He didn’t say a word about it. He said you needed me to help by keeping Myfanwy and Davy out from underfoot, and I have. They’re in your chamber with Davy’s little dog.”

  “Oh.” Con might not have planted rash notions in her son’s head, but he had sown them long ago in the boy’s blood. “That was wise of him to suggest, and good of you to do.”

  “I do have the odd prudent notion.” Con’s voice wafted into the room.

  Its warm teasing timbre stirred a sense of lightness in Enid’s bosom, despite her regrets about last night and the fresh fears borne to Glyneira by the unconscious boy on the table. She welcomed that queer feeling almost as much as she mistrusted it.

  “You know, Bryn,” Con added, “your Mam and Idwal are going to need a good strong garrison to keep Glyneira safe in case the Normans grow bolder. I’d stay myself if I was a better fighter who’d be of any use to them.”

  Few people knew as well as Enid how hard it could be to resist Con’s sincere-sounding flattery. Now she thanked God for his dubious talent and prayed her son would yield to it.

  “Pig swill!” The boy glowered at Con. “You’re a great warrior—a Crusader. You wouldn’t let anything keep you from going with Lord Macsen, and neither will I.”

  “Bryn ap Howell!” Enid cried. “I did not raise you to spew such talk. Apologize to Con at once.”

  Her son was not so far gone in youthful rebellion that he could ignore a rebuke from his mother. Bryn hung his head, directing his scowl at the floor as he scuffed the reeds with one foot. “Your pardon, Master Con.”

  “That’s better,” his mother said. “As for your going with Lord Macsen, I will not permit it and neither will he, I daresay.”

  “Of course he’ll take me.” Bryn ventured a defiant glance. “I am a part of his household. I have friends at Hen Coed, and I want to help free them from the Normans.”

  “Lord Macsen will have enough to worry about without minding a boy of twelve years.”

  “I’m near thirteen, and I don’t need minding!”

  “You need a rod taken to your rump, saucy whelp.” Con came between them. “Now, now, save your spleen for the Normans, both of you. Enid, the lad is to be commended for his boldness—”

  “Whipped for his insolence and folly, you mean.”

  “Fie, woman. I doubt you’ve ever laid a hand on this young fellow in anger.” Con reached toward Bryn, tilting the boy’s chin to meet his gaze. “Your mother only wants to keep you from harm.”

  “Keep me in swaddling clothes!”

  “Go cool your temper, now.” Con gave the boy a gentle nudge toward the door. “Nothing’s been decided. Lord Macsen is still laying his plans. If he wants you with his party, I’m sure your mother will not gainsay him.”

  Before Enid could sputter a denial, Con shot her a warning look. To her own surprise, she held her tongue.

  “In the meantime,” Con said, “why not prove to your lord how useful you can be by making certain the horses are well watered and otherwise ready for a long swift ride?”

  Bryn mulled over the suggestion, his gaze fixed on the floor except for a single fleeting glance from Con to his mother. Finally h
e muttered a word or two that Enid could not make out, though his tone suggested assent. Then he bolted from the hall.

  After a moment’s stunned hush, the fear-fuelled anger in Enid found a natural target. “What daft talk was that? If you think I will let you or Lord Macsen put my babe in the middle of a battle with the Normans, you are—”

  Her next words were lost in the folds of Con’s tunic as he gathered her into his arms and held her tight. Her rage demanded she pull away, but the maternal worry that fuelled it sensed an answering concern in Con.

  “Don’t fret, cariad,” he crooned, running his hand over her hair in a gesture of loving comfort she so desperately needed. One she had never received from any other source. “I won’t be taking him anywhere, and neither will Lord Macsen. But the lad’s more apt to heed an order from his lord than a scolding from his mother.”

  It felt like the world had turned upside down, for her to be taking wise counsel from Con. When had he grown discretion and prudence?

  “I don’t know what’s come over Bryn. He was always the sweetest-tempered, most obliging child in all the world.” Resisting the intense urge to weep out all the strong feelings that battled inside her, Enid wrenched herself out of the safe circle of Con’s arms. With Con ap Ifan, that safety could only be an illusion.

  “Blood will tell.” He chuckled.

  Enid ignored the familiar attempt to lighten her mood. “Now all of a sudden he’s so…”

  “Willful?” suggested Con in a whisper. “Stubborn?”

  “Blood will tell.” Enid expelled a deep sigh. “My blood.”

  Had her father felt just as helpless, just as furious in his helplessness, facing down a heedless child bent on bringing herself to harm?

  Her eyes searched Con’s, looking for guidance with no true expectation of finding it. “What am I to do with a boy who’s as reckless as you and as stubborn as me?”

  “Treasure him.” A proud gleam in Con’s eyes told Enid he did. “Shield him when you can, but do not try to hold him too tight…”

  As he spoke, Con took her hand and squeezed it gently. His grasp felt warm and heartening…at first. Little by little, he increased the force of his grip until Enid jerked her hand out of his.

  “…or you will drive him away.”

  Was that part of what made her draw back from Lord Macsen, Enid wondered, the sense that he would try to hold her too tight?

  “I never thought the day would come when I’d look to you for advice on how to raise my children, Con.”

  He shrugged and flashed a smile that could charm fish out of the water. “I’m not the boy I was, cariad. By all that’s holy, I swear I’d do everything in my power to protect you and the children from harm if you come away with me to the Holy Land.”

  She wanted so badly to believe him, but how could he promise such a thing? And how could she leave behind everything familiar and dear to her?

  Con held his arms open. “Once I’ve helped Lord Macsen settle this business with the Normans, may I come back and ask for your hand again?”

  “You may come.” Something drew her toward him, something she could not control. That frightened her worse than any Norman war party. “But I cannot promise how I will answer.”

  “I’ll take my chance as I find it,” murmured Con as his lips found hers and exchanged a wordless vow.

  Chapter Eighteen

  A light rain began to fall not long after Lord Macsen’s party quit Glyneira. On they rode through the mist-swathed countryside at as swift a pace as their mounts could sustain for the day. There was not rain enough in all of heaven, however, to quench the small but stubborn spark of hope that lit Con’s whole being.

  Enid had acknowledged his wise advice in dealing with their son. Events had unfolded to show her that dear, familiar Wales could be every bit as unpredictable and dangerous as any foreign place. To cap it all, wonder of wonders, his cariad had promised to revisit a decision she’d made.

  The decision to refuse his marriage offer.

  With a glow of certainty he’d seldom felt in his life, Con knew he could change her stubborn mind if she gave him a fair hearing. For the coin of stubbornness had two sides, and the other face of it was constancy. Whether she knew it or not, Enid had remained constant in her love for him all these years, in spite of what it had cost her.

  Con had never thought himself capable of inspiring that depth of feeling in anyone. All his life he’d striven to win favor by being amiable and amusing. Only with Enid had it been enough just to be himself. Perhaps that was why no other woman had ever displaced her in his heart.

  “You look in fine fettle, Con ap Ifan.” Rhys, the young nephew of Lord Macsen’s who had been paying court to Helydd, let his horse fall into step with the chestnut mare Idwal had lent Con for the journey. “Spoiling for a fight with the Normans, are you?”

  Con pondered the notion for a moment. Could there be more to this strange eagerness inside him than the high hope of winning Enid once all was settled between Falconbridge and Hen Coed?

  In his years as a hired warrior, a wind of anticipation and challenge had often filled his sails on the eve of battle. Today, some righteous passion thrummed in his veins, deeper and stronger than the familiar lust for adventure and glory. For the first time in his life, he would draw his bow in defense of his native land.

  “The Normans have done well enough by me over the years,” he said at last. “But I do look forward to outwitting that fellow FitzLaurent. By all accounts, he thinks pretty well of himself.”

  “Do you truly believe we can overrun that big stone keep of his?”

  They were travelling in a great arc moving north, then east, giving Hen Coed a wide berth and gathering as many men as could be spared from the small cantrevs they passed.

  “I hope he believes we cannot.” Con patted the neck of his borrowed mare. After so many months afoot, it felt good to have a mount under him. “Or better yet, has discounted the possibility that we may try. Even if it does not yield easily, the battle cannot be as hard as the one we would have to fight for Hen Coed. And no danger of your families getting caught in the fray.”

  “Lord Macsen is right about you, Con ap Ifan.” The young man urged his mount to overtake the next rider in line. Over his shoulder he called, “Your skill as a warrior is even more subtle than your touch on the harp.”

  Con laughed. “I hope you fight as well as you flatter, friend!”

  Lord Macsen’s party rode on through the hilly green borderlands. Along narrow paths through old but vital forests. Past slender brooks that spilled over stony outcroppings. Except for the odd word passed when another horseman rode by him, Con was alone with his thoughts and his hopes.

  The challenges before him—to help Macsen ap Gryffith regain his stronghold at the lowest possible cost in Welsh lives, and to win Enid as his bride—suddenly mattered far more to him than any honor Empress Maud could bestow.

  “Glyneira feels so empty this evening.” The words slipped out of Enid’s mouth before she could check them.

  On her right at the high table, Helydd made no answer but a faint sigh as she nibbled on a morsel of lagana, lost in thought. Idwal chewed his food in a sullen silence that mirrored young Bryn’s. Clearly their spirits rode north with Lord Macsen’s troop, though their bodies had been prevented.

  Only Gaynor remained her usual cheerful, voluble self. “I should be mighty surprised if it didn’t, between all our company going away and a good many of our own men riding with them. Not even the bard left to amuse us of an evening.”

  Enid tried not to wince at her sister-in-law’s words. If she could be honest with her heart, she must admit it was not the absence of Lord Macsen’s party that made the place feel empty. So many familiar faces of Glyneira men missing from the evening meal did not leave a void inside her that even the reunion of her family failed to fill.

  It was Con ap Ifan she lacked and yearned for.

  Looking back on those first bleak months when she�
��d come to Glyneira in exile, Enid let herself acknowledge for the first time the true nature of her despair. Sharing her bed with a stranger had only been part of it. For years she had blamed it on homesickness for the cherished people and routines of her family’s estate in Gwynedd. Now she understood whom she’d most sorely missed.

  Gaynor’s remark about the missing bard sent Myfanwy scrambling up from her place. “I can fetch my harp and entertain. Con taught me a new song. He said I have a fine voice.”

  “So you have, my pet,” Gaynor clucked. “By all means, play for us to lighten our spirits.”

  Enid exchanged a smile with her sister-in-law as Myfanwy ran off to fetch her harp without even a token show of reluctance. The child returned as quickly as she’d gone. Taking Con’s accustomed spot by the fire with a proud toss of her golden-brown braids, Myfanwy began to sing of a Fair Folk castle beneath the waters of an enchanted lake.

  Gaynor slid closer to Enid and whispered, “In all the excitement, did you and Lord Macsen reach an understanding before he rode away? Will we celebrate his return with a wedding?”

  Perhaps, but not the wedding Gaynor had her well-intended, meddling heart set on. This might be the best time to break the news to her, Enid decided, in the midst of a roomful of people.

  “I know you only want what’s best for me and the children, Gaynor, but I can’t wed Lord Macsen. I don’t love him.”

  Gaynor’s eyes grew as big as two rounds of lagana, and she looked as though she was suffering a silent fit of the palsy.

  She said not another word about Lord Macsen or anything else until the household had settled down for the night. Then, she clamped a forceful hand around Enid’s wrist and hauled her toward the deserted kitchen.

  “Have you lost all sense?” she hissed. “Lord Macsen finally offers for you, just as I said he would, and you turn him down? Surely you don’t doubt he’ll get Hen Coed back.”

  “No, I don’t doubt it.” Now that she had finally reconciled her head with her heart, no matter how imprudent her decision might appear, Enid was quietly resolved. “If I loved him the way a wife ought to love her husband, I wouldn’t care whether he regained Hen Coed. I’d give him the running of Glyneira gladly.”