by Hale Deborah
Lord Macsen shook his head as he took a seat and began chafing his hands. “Since Falconbridge and Revelstone have been too much occupied attacking one another to bother with Hen Coed, I decided to make a circuit of all the maenols under my protection to see how they’re faring before winter sets in.”
“Indeed?” Enid pretended to believe his excuse. “If the rest are as well-disposed as Glyneira, then you may retire back to Hen Coed a contented man.”
“You had a good harvest?”
“The most bountiful I’ve seen in all my years here,” Enid boasted. “Thanks to the peace, some fine weather and the extra acreage Con plowed in the spring.”
Though she spoke his name in an offhand tone, deep in her heart a sweet plaintive chord sounded, as though plucked by skilled fingers on a golden harp…with one broken string that would never be mended.
Perhaps Lord Macsen sensed it, too, for he caught and held her gaze in his. “The children are well?”
“Never better.” Enid flashed a broad smile that she only had to force a little. “All growing like weeds. See this one, if you please.”
She pointed to Myfanwy, who had entered the hall bearing a ewer with steam rising from it. “You will accept an offer of water I hope. It’s too late for you to ride farther on a cold day.”
Helydd came in with basins and cloths. Two bright pink spots blossomed in her cheeks as she exchanged a shy smile with Lord Macsen’s nephew, Rhys.
Macsen watched the two young people for a moment before he heeded Enid’s question. “We would be glad of your hospitality. Warm water feels good on feet chilled from a long ride.”
Enid set a basin before Lord Macsen and poured the steaming, herb-sweetened water into it. “Master Bryn finds life here a little dull by times. I promised him he could visit his friends at Hen Coed in the spring if the borders are still quiet.”
Though Enid had not expected an answer from Lord Macsen, a twinge of unease stirred within her when none came.
All three of the men pulled off their boots, then let out a communal sigh as they eased their pale blue feet into the water set before them. As Enid, Helydd and Myfanwy washed and dried their guests’ feet, they spoke of workaday matters—the weather, the harvest, small doings at Glyneira and Hen Coed.
Once the homely ceremony of welcome was complete, Lord Macsen rose from his seat by the fire and sauntered over to the loom.
Enid followed. “A new cloak for Bryn. I’m in a hurry to finish it before the weather grows colder.”
“The color will suit him.”
“Aye, if he hasn’t outgrown it before I’m done.” Enid glanced toward the fire, where Rhys and Helydd sat talking. “You haven’t only come to see how Glyneira is faring, have you?”
“Rhys means to ask for her.” Lord Macsen pitched his voice low. “But you didn’t hear of it from me.”
“Helydd will say yes before he’s done asking,” Enid whispered back. “But you didn’t hear of it from me.”
“He’s a good lad,” Lord Macsen assured her. “I’ll give him leave to stay here a few years, to help manage Glyneira until your boys are old enough.”
“Gaynor will be delighted to hear it.”
With the prospect of new babies at Glyneira, perhaps Gaynor would quit muttering under her breath about Enid’s folly in refusing Lord Macsen’s proposal.
“It will be good training for Rhys,” his uncle said. “Since he’ll likely be lord when I am gone.”
“May that day be long in coming.” Enid crossed herself. “And before it comes, I pray you’ll find a wife worthy of you who will bring you many years of happiness and bear you strong sons.”
The look on Lord Macsen’s face made her wish she had kept quiet. He rallied quickly, though. “I also come bearing news I thought you should hear.”
Something in his tone set Enid aquiver. “Con?”
Lord Macsen nodded. “Have you heard from him since we all parted at St. Mynver’s?”
“Why should I?” Enid passed a hand over the soft, blue wool strung on her loom. “He’s probably roistering around the Holy Land by now, having a fine time.”
“He was being held by the Normans at Falconbridge.”
Righteous rage blazed through Enid. “What foul dealing was that? Did they fall on him when he rode away from the abbey?”
Lord Macsen swiped his knuckles over his bearded chin. “I reckon Con may have been part of the exchange.”
“This is some manner of mistake.” Enid fluttered her hand, dismissing the whole preposterous idea. “Con would give up his life sooner than his freedom.”
“I find it hard to credit, myself.” Lord Macsen shrugged. “I think he did it for the boy. If you doubt me, ask Rhys. He was there for the talks with FitzLaurent—part of them at least. Once Con had struck a bargain to redeem Hen Coed, the Norman announced they had Bryn. After that Con negotiated in private for the boy’s release. He would vouch nothing to Rhys about what it had cost.”
Enid thought back to their parting at the abbey. If Lord Macsen spoke the truth, it cast all Con’s words and actions from that day in a new light.
A light too bright for her to behold without flinching.
“You said Con was being held at Falconbridge.” Enid held tight to the loom frame and forced herself to ask, “Do you know where he is, now?”
Cheer up, man! a small voice whispered in Conwy ap Ifan’s thoughts as he shielded his eyes against the bright glare from a fresh fall of snow that had blanketed the borderlands. It’s Christmas, after all.
For a fellow who’d relished any form of merriment, those twelve days of feasting and revelry had never failed to brighten the darkest time of year. During his sojourn in the Holy Land, he had celebrated with gusto, perhaps to ward off the gentle ache of homesickness that always afflicted him then. This year no amount of food, wine or music would make up for what was missing from his life.
“Don’t complain, now,” he chided himself. “You have plenty of plums in your pie to be thankful for.”
Chief of which was his liberty. His weeks at Falcon-bridge had proven to Con that he could still thrive in captivity, and that had given him an additional measure of freedom…from his worst fear. Still, he never rode through the gate of his castle without giving thanks for the simple privilege of being able to come and go at will.
His castle. Just thinking those words made Con dizzier than when he stared out over the battlements at the ground below. What a sight his face must have been when the Empress had offered it to him!
“You have succeeded in your commission beyond any measure I could have hoped, Con ap Ifan.” Empress Maud had brushed aside Con’s sputtered thanks for ransoming him. “I begin to doubt the wisdom of loaning your services to that upstart who styles himself Prince of Edessa. If you have your heart set on it, I will honor our agreement, but I have another reward in mind that might better suit us both.”
When the Empress went on to offer him a Marcher castle in Hereford, left wanting since the death of its childless lord, Rowan had fetched Con a rough nudge and muttered at him to close his mouth.
From the moment he’d lain eyes on Craig Taran, Con had felt a special affinity for the place. Straddling the border as it did, with the wild Welsh Forest of Radnor sprawled to the west and the fertile fruit orchards of Hereford spread to the east, the place reminded Con of himself, with a foot in each of two very different worlds.
It would be no easy feat, balancing between the two in the years to come, but Con warmed to the challenge. There’d be no glory in it. Perhaps he’d end up hated by both sides. Neither of those things mattered to him the way they once might have.
He would be safeguarding this tiny patch of the Marches, doing his best to keep the peace and build bridges between Norman folk and Welsh. That would be enough for him.
Well, almost enough.
“My lord!” The cry dragged Con from his musings. It took him a moment to realize he was the lord being hailed.
He cross
ed the bailey with a wary step, mindful of the treacherous slicks of ice beneath innocent dustings of snow. “What’s the trouble?” he asked the guard who had called to him. Besides the Normans and the Welsh, Craig Taran also stood between two warring factions in the struggle for the English throne.
“A party of riders coming from the northwest, my lord.” The report added fuel to Con’s misgivings.
“Bar the gate,” he ordered. “Summon bowmen to the walls.”
Entering a guard tower that overlooked the castle’s main entrance, Con scrambled up the narrow winding stairs.
“How many?” he demanded of the grizzled veteran on duty. His question discharged a cloud of vapor into the frosty air.
The guard wiped his dribbling nose on the sleeve of his tunic. “Less than ten, sire, and moving too slow for a war party. Do ye reckon they could be guests come for Yule-tide, my lord?”
“Guests?” Con gave a mirthless chuckle as he peered in the direction of the riders making their way toward the castle.
Any other words he might have uttered froze in his throat as the party drew close enough to see clearly. The December wind blew one rider’s hood back, sending a stream of long golden-brown hair flaring behind her like a proud pennant.
A girl? Myfanwy!
Con squinted so hard, his eyes ached. At the same time he held his breath. Nearer the party came until he could no longer deny it was Enid, her children and a number of men.
While the sight of them stirred a heady sense of elation in Con’s heart, another part of him would have preferred the armed warriors. His only reservation in accepting the lordship of Craig Taran from the Empress had been the fear of seeing Enid’s family again.
The family that might have been his.
The watchman snuffled. “You see? It’s as I said, my lord, no threat.”
“No threat.” Con echoed, as if he believed it.
He descended from the guard tower with halting steps. For the first time in his charming life, Con didn’t know what he would say.
“Company for Christmas—this is a welcome surprise!”
Enid’s heart leaped when she heard Con’s voice, only to collapse into the snow at her feet when she got a good look at his face. Contrary to his hearty greeting, she and her children were as welcome here as Con had been when he’d first appeared at Glyneira in the spring.
The children would never guess it though. For that Enid was grateful. Con held his arms open to catch Myfanwy and Davy, who all but threw themselves from the horses and pelted toward him.
“Is this castle really yours, Con?” Davy’s eyes grew wide as he stared around a bailey that would have held three of Glyneira’s courtyard.
“Are you a Norman now?” Myfanwy asked in a wary voice.
“Yes to the first,” Con informed the children. “And no to the second. You’ll meet some Normans while you’re here, though. Be kind and don’t tease them about their teeth.”
Teeth? Enid shook her head over what was clearly a private jest between the three of them.
“What kind of host am I?” Con looked toward Enid and Bryn, his glance shying away without meeting theirs. “You must forgive me, for I’ve never had a place of my own to receive guests. You’ll all be chilled to the bone, and me keeping you standing out in the cold bailey. Come in, warm yourselves and have something to eat.”
He called out some orders in the Norman tongue. A horde of guards and servants rapidly descended on the Glyneira party, taking their baggage and leading their mounts away to be tended.
“This way.” Con set off toward the main keep with Davy and Myfanwy each clinging to one of his hands.
Enid blushed at her daughter’s forwardness when Myfanwy tugged on Con’s sleeve, then whispered into the ear he inclined toward her.
“Here’s a lady who will school me in the duties of a good host.” Con chuckled. “She reminds me I must offer you water for washing your feet. My Norman servants will think it queer, but they have a Welsh master now, so they’ll have to get used to Welsh ways.”
A Welsh master. Enid swallowed a lump in her throat as she took Bryn’s arm and made him follow the others inside. Would a man who had risen so high in the world really want a backward Welsh widow without a word of French—even if she was the love of his youth and the mother of his son?
Suddenly all the bright airy dreams she had spun since Macsen told her Con’s whereabouts felt as flimsy and brittle as frozen cobwebs.
Her misgivings must have communicated themselves to her son, for Bryn hung back. “You see?” he muttered. “I told you we shouldn’t have come. Con did mean all the things he said when we parted at the abbey. About not needing the bother of minding a child.”
“No.” Enid tilted the boy’s chin to make him look her in the eye. Con might not want her, but he must want his son. Surely he could not disdain what she prized so highly? “He only said those things because he was being taken hostage by the Normans. In exchange for your freedom. Does that not tell you his true feelings?”
Bryn answered with a wordless grumble that sounded doubtful. Howell had never been a proper father to the lad. Lord Macsen had tried, but he’d been saddled with so many other responsibilities. Con had been ignorant of Bryn’s existence until a few months ago. Was it any wonder her son found it easier to believe he’d been spurned than to accept the possibility that Con had made so great a sacrifice on his behalf?
They climbed a broad staircase to an enormous room warmed by not one but two huge stone hearths. When three maidservants scurried in through a back entrance, Con fired off a rapid volley of orders in their language.
Had their new master taken one of them into his bed? As she watched the young women bob their heads and rush off to do Con’s bidding, a strange heat coursed through Enid—one that owed nothing to the roaring fires in the hearths.
An old hound rose from his warm spot beside one fire-place and ambled over to Davy, his tail wagging.
“This is Vaurien.” Con scratched the beast behind the ears. “He belonged to the man who used to live in this castle. Not much of a hunter anymore, but the old fellow’s pleasant enough company.”
Enid flinched. She didn’t want Con to feel bound to her out of pity such as he spared the old dog. When he offered them water, perhaps she should refuse, pretending they had only stopped here for a little refreshment before continuing their journey.
“How is Pwyll these days?” Con asked Davy. “I’ll wager he’s grown since I saw him last.”
Davy gave a vigorous nod as he petted the Norman hound. “He’s almost as tall as this fellow. I wanted to bring him with us, but Mam bid me leave him back at Glyneira for now.”
“Glyneira?” Con’s head snapped up and his eyes locked on Enid’s. “Not Hen Coed?”
Dear heaven, of course! No wonder he hadn’t looked happier to see them. He must have thought…
“Not Hen Coed.” Her words came out on a tremor of frail, newborn hope.
Con left the children and the dog, walking toward her with the stilted gait of someone abruptly wakened from a sound sleep. His eyes had a matching vacant stare.
A pace or two from Enid, he halted. “You…didn’t wed Lord Macsen after all I went through to bring it about?”
Was he pleased or distressed by the prospect? Enid could not tell.
A soft, seductive little voice in the back of her mind urged her to pretend she and Macsen had wed, then concoct some story to explain her family’s continued presence at Glyneira. But she’d kept too much from Con in the past. She would tell him the bald truth now, even if it meant she might be spurned and humiliated.
“I did not wed Lord Macsen, fine man though he is. It would not have been fair to him. Nor to myself.”
“Stubborn woman.” She had never heard Con’s carefree voice as it sounded now. Did that bode well…or ill?
“So I am.” A golden note of pride rang in Enid’s voice. “Stubborn enough to misbelieve what you told Bryn and me when we parted at the
abbey. I have brought him here to be with you. My son needs his father, Con. And whether you will own to it or not, I think you need him even more.”
Were those tears in Con’s eyes, or the flood tide of an infinite blue ocean of love?
“I do own it.” He turned toward Bryn and slowly extended his hand. “With all my heart. Under the same conditions, I would do no different, but I repent any hurt you took from my harsh words. I hope you’ll reserve your judgment long enough to let me prove the truth of my feelings.”
The boy hung back, scuffing the toe of his boot through the fresh rushes on the floor. He cast a dubious look at Con’s outstretched hand, as if fearing it might ball into a fist at any moment. Then he raised a questioning glance to his mother.
And warm smile of encouragement blossomed on Enid’s lips. She nodded to her son.
With halting steps, Bryn approached his father. Perhaps what he saw in Con’s eyes convinced him, or perhaps he was too young and too much his father’s son to have learned caution yet, for he flung himself the last few steps into Con’s waiting arms.
Myfanwy and Davy left the dog and ran to their mother. It had not been easy finding the words to tell them Bryn was Con’s son, but now Enid was glad she’d made herself do it.
“Will Bryn come back to Glyneira and see us sometimes, Mam?” asked Myfanwy. The child had made no secret of how much she’d enjoyed having her elder brother home from Hen Coed these past months.
Before Enid could reply, Davy piped up. “I like this place. Can I come and live here, too, with Con and Bryn?”
Though Con’s arm was around his son, he gazed at young Davy with no less affection. “I would like that, if your mother can spare you.”
He raised his eyes and looked deep into Enid’s. “But don’t you think you might get terribly homesick for her and for Myfanwy?”
The way Con said the words terribly homesick told Enid he didn’t only mean Davy.
“I know!” Myfanwy jumped up and down. “Mam and Con can get married like Rhys and Auntie Helydd did. Then we can all live here together.”
