by Nicole Locke
Ffion dropped the bandages in a bucket. ‘It’s quite a miracle you pulled through. Rhain was right in notifying me immediately. I was able to prepare the herbs in time for them to take.’
Anwen patted the side of her head. ‘Wasn’t...wasn’t Lord Teague under the tree? Didn’t he save—?’
Ffion seized Anwen’s wrist; her cold fingers dug like claws into her skin. ‘Gwalchdu’s lord saves nothing!’
Anwen jerked her wrist free and Ffion’s lips pursed before she shook her head. ‘I only meant it is better if you don’t touch the wound. You may harm my healing.’
Anwen rubbed her wrist and quickly damped her anger. Ffion was trying to help her. ‘How bad is my wound?’ she asked.
‘You’ll scar.’ Ffion began to clean the wound and the water brought both pain and relief. ‘It’ll be permanent, too. Most likely a disfigurement so no man would have you. But that is probably for the best.’
Ffion slowly rinsed the linen in a bowl, as Anwen processed the Sister’s almost gleeful words. Despite her Welsh-born accent, Anwen knew Ffion would be no ally.
‘But your disfigurement does not seem to keep some men away now, does it?’ Ffion dabbed at the wound. ‘However, the wound is healing according to God’s wishes. You must still be chaste.’
Anwen didn’t want to think about all of Ffion’s words, but she needed to clarify something. ‘It’s healing?’ she asked.
‘Yes. In His great wisdom, God gave me gifts and knowledge of the healing arts. I suspect your healing to take at least another sennight.’
‘Surely it won’t be that long.’ The poultice stung.
‘A few days ago, we didn’t think you’d live. You are staying here for a sennight so you will not undo all my work.’
‘I didn’t mean to stay as long as I have.’ Demanding woman of God or not, Anwen had no intention of staying. She was needed at Brynmor. And not only for Melun’s sake. She wondered if Alinore, her sister, was alive; if Urien, Lord of Brynmor, had hurt her again. It hurt to think of them. She needed a distraction from knowing she wasn’t there to protect either of them now.
‘Have you been here long?’
‘Almost all my life.’ A look of pain crossed Ffion’s face as she added, ‘Many years.’
‘You’ve known the family that long?’
‘I am the family. I am the sister of Teague’s mother and Rhain’s aunt.’
Edith opened the door, her hobbling-and-hopping gait shaking the bread and pitcher on the tray she was carrying.
Ffion’s frown increased. ‘I had requested Greta bring food for you. Pity, for Greta would be better for your healing.’
There was a loud rattle as Edith set the tray on the table at the far end of the room.
Gathering her mortar, pestle and satchel, Ffion said, ‘It will do you well to remember the seventh commandment. Now go with God.’
Edith continued to arrange the tray until the door closed behind Ffion. ‘Go with God, she says. As if that woman walks with the Maker himself! Her lecturing you not to commit adultery, when you’re having trouble eating!’
Edith opened the door and stuck her head through it.
‘But surely she means no harm,’ Anwen said.
‘Oh, don’t mind me, dearie.’ Edith gave her a smile over her shoulder. ‘Don’t mind me. I’m an old woman and tend to talk when I shouldn’t.’
Anwen thought about furthering the conversation when the smell of food wafted in. Edith stepped away from the door and Greta carried a large tray of dried meat and cheeses into her bedroom.
‘Thank you.’ She smiled at Greta, who was setting the tray across the bed.
‘Oh, don’t mind Greta none,’ Edith began, as she checked the fireplace, then straightened the window shutters. ‘Speechies took her voice away a long time ago, but you’ll never find a smarter soul than our Greta.’ Edith paused, then said more reflectively, ‘Maybe the lord and his brother, but certainly nobody kinder.’ For all her small stature, Edith moved and talked like a whirl of dust in a storm. Shaking her head, she added, ‘Simply look her way when you speak, and she’ll get your intention sure enough. Hearing’s good.’
Looking at Edith and Greta, Anwen wondered at the one-sided conversations these two women must have had over the years.
She looked back at Greta. ‘Thank you, again.’
Greta’s smile lit up her brown eyes.
Anwen chose a piece of cheese. When it stayed down, she felt a faint glimmer of hope. Despite everything, she was healing. Soon, she could return home and everything would be set aright again.
* * *
‘I thought I’d find you here.’ Rhain climbed the last two stairs to the top of the outer bailey tower.
Despite the cold, Teague stood just beyond the torches’ flames so he could remain in the shadows. It was easier to watch his men this way. It was also easier to hide that he stood alone while they walked the cold night in camaraderie. He had long become accustomed to being a voyeur to the life they led.
‘Ffion says Anwen is recovering, but she still needs to stay a sennight,’ Rhain said.
News of the woman again, who was as obscure to him as the darkened forest beyond the courtyard. Was it she who made him aware of his solitary life?
‘Well?’ Rhain prompted.
‘Let Ffion have her say in this.’
‘It may be easier, but I wonder.’ Rhain shrugged. ‘Ffion is not as she was.’
‘You left when you were a child,’ Teague reminded him.
‘True. But what about tonight’s episode during dinner. Has it happened before?’
Ffion’s episodes, as well as her anger and unintelligible murmurings, were worsening since his brother’s return. He worried for her. ‘Yes, it has happened before, but tonight it was mild.’ Teague pulled his cloak tighter around him. The ground was already hardening with frost, his breath gusted out in front of him. He hadn’t been aware of the cold until his brother arrived.
‘It was as if something upset her.’
‘Christmas approaches. Though Ffion is fierce on celebrating Christ’s birth, there are those who celebrate more than the Christian traditions. It is a battle she doesn’t like to lose.’
‘You once wrote to me about the Mari Lwyd. Is she still arguing about that?’
‘Every year,’ Teague said. ‘Ffion insists the decorated horse skull with white linen is to celebrate the Virgin Mary and should come at the end of the Christmas season in January.’
‘But the villagers...’
‘Still bring it out at the end of harvest on Martinmas. When we slaughter the animals for winter, there’s always celebration.’
‘Wassailing? I could see how that would worsen her condition.’
‘It does.’ Teague nodded. ‘Since Martinmas approaches, I am glad you are here.’
‘For all her faults, at least her stubbornness proves she’s family.’
Ffion had shown Teague only stubbornness and animosity. Though he never doubted she was family, it wasn’t what secured her home at Gwalchdu. It wasn’t the reason why he protected her, when her episodes became noticeable, and the Church made enquiries.
No, it didn’t matter if his aunt hated him, most people did. He would protect her; he would pay off the Church and their damning enquiries because he would be for ever in his aunt’s debt.
‘Stubbornness is no doubt what gives her strength,’ he said.
‘Well, the battle of winter traditions will certainly make for an interesting Christmas,’ Rhain said.
No one ever won, but Teague ensured Ffion’s wishes were obeyed and that the villagers hid their pagan ritual. It was the least he could do for his aunt.
He’d been a mere boy when his mother gave birth to Rhain and, as a result, he was barred from her birthing chamb
er. But Ffion had been by her side, tending to her in those last hours. Knowing what he knew of Ffion’s skill now, he had no doubt she’d waged war to save his mother’s life.
‘It seems as if her condition worsens.’ Rhain sighed raggedly, his breath visible in front of him. ‘I knew she wasn’t well when she approached the table. I could see the whites of her eyes and she was sweating profusely.’ Rhain wrapped his arms around him and patted his sides as if beating off the cold. ‘But her prayer! I couldn’t understand a word she said.’
When Teague had paid his respects to his mother, he hadn’t known what to expect. He’d been but five years old and within hours witnessed his mother’s heart breaking and heard her pain-filled labour. Yet when he saw her lying there in the bed all he saw was peace.
Ffion had given his mother peace in the last moments of her life.
‘Tonight, you had a calming effect on Ffion.’ Teague tilted his head. ‘When it happened before, I stepped in, but her rage worsened and she was dragged out of the Hall.’
There was a part of him that still believed as the child did, that Ffion, in order to give her sister peace, had taken the grief and pain as her own. For ever after, Ffion was never the same. Her countenance was lit with some wrathful vengeance he couldn’t understand.
But he didn’t need to understand everything. He understood what mattered most. That he owed his aunt a debt he wished he could pay. And he hated that she suffered.
‘It’s almost unbearable to see her so altered,’ Rhain said.
Teague couldn’t disagree. Ffion was the only family they had left. Over the years her episodes continued and so did her demands for control and order.
Just like the demands she made now when it came to Anwen of Brynmor. He stamped his feet against the cold seeping into his shoes. Instead of ruminating on the past, and freezing his toes in the process, he should be searching for Gwalchdu’s weakness and the enemy.
He should be scanning the forest beyond for a fire. If Anwen wasn’t his enemy, or was only an accomplice, the main perpetrator would still be nearby. On a cold night such as this, a fire would be necessary.
But the darkness beyond Gwalchdu’s walls was complete. So Teague turned his attention to the barbican. There were two guards above the gate and two standing next to the closed portcullis. Such manpower was excessive, but the threats could not continue.
And though his aunt’s demand for Anwen to stay had been made with the greatest disdain, it was a simple request to agree to. In fact, he wouldn’t want it any other way.
‘Let the woman stay the sennight,’ Teague said. ‘But I want a guard at her door.’
Rhain glanced at Teague. ‘A guard at Anwen’s door? I wonder you do not apply this to all passages.’
Teague shot him a look.
Rhain shrugged. ‘She won’t like it, but it would do more harm to move her and no harm will come of her staying.’
Teague’s mouth twitched. ‘No harm? What of the threats and the fact she is not from Gwalchdu, but an enemy’s manor?’
‘We haven’t received any messages attached to a slaughtered animal since the day we brought her here.’
‘There were weeks between messages before and the villain still won’t show himself.’
‘It is all very odd. The messages never demand anything, neither money, nor horses, nor services. There’s never a pattern to their appearance. Everything we’ve been taught about an enemy doesn’t apply, except the slaughtered animals and the threat of your death, which is always there.’
Teague leaned over the rampart to feel the burst of cold night wind. Everything Rhain said was true. The enemy didn’t follow any normal pattern. He couldn’t negotiate to stop the threats when he didn’t even know who to negotiate with. Until the enemy revealed himself, Teague was a warrior in a ghostly war. His sword and training were useless because he could not see or strike his enemy. A lord with no power to protect was no lord at all.
‘How?’ Teague hit the rampart. There was not the usual talking amongst the soldiers as would be expected this time of night. All the men had been notified that there would be a great reward for any information or capture of the enemy. ‘How is he coming in? How is he getting to the livestock or my falcons?’
‘He’s not getting in; he’s already here.’ Rhain gestured in front of him. ‘Look at this place. There are torches lit at night, when we expect no visitors; extra soldiers at the entrances, when the gates and portcullises are closed.’
Teague shook his head. ‘The threat is too recent. The people here are loyal and this is their home.’
‘I think we need to stop asking how it is happening, but why.’
Teague hid his impatience. ‘I thought the messages made it clear.’
‘Yes, someone doesn’t like you, but why now? Why these threats, but no action?’
‘The enemy waits for fear to seep in before they strike. It’s just as we did in Dolwyddelan. Fear, ultimately, is the conqueror.’
‘And is there fear here?’
‘By God or Gwyn, no,’ Teague growled. ‘Never.’
‘Exactly.’
He turned to Rhain. ‘Exactly what? The enemy doesn’t want me afraid?’
‘No, it means it’s something else.’
‘Or it could mean the enemy miscalculated,’ Teague said. ‘We’ll know who is right when the next message comes.’
‘Are we so sure it is but one person?’ Rhain asked. ‘It would seem, given the wide dispersal of the messages, that it could be at least two.’
‘No, it has to be one. I’ll not question Gwalchdu’s defences that much. They’re too tight for two or more people to go unnoticed.’ Teague paused, before his tone turned lethal. ‘But one man or twenty, I will end this ghostly battle.’
‘When you are like this, I do not wonder why you are known as the Devil of Gwalchdu. No wonder the King trusts you so well with such a strategic castle.’
‘Gwalchdu belonged to our family long before Edward’s Welsh Wars or his campaign against Scotland. He would need to be a hundred kings before he could wrest its governing to someone else.’
‘Have you told Edward about the threats?’ Rhain asked. ‘I am sure he would not appreciate games here.’
Teague shook his head. ‘He is spread too thin with the Scots. He barely responds to correspondence regarding our positioning in Wales; I could not bother him with private matters.’
‘Perhaps he’s distracted by his worry of Eleanor, who has been sickly.’
Teague could never understand Edward’s obsession over his wife. The time he spent with her could be used to solve the problems in Scotland, to tighten his reign in Wales. Instead, the King was almost...devoted to her.
He remembered his parents’ relationship. They, too, had seemed devoted to each other. But it had been all a lie. His father had abandoned his family, his pregnant wife, for another woman. And with grief racking her body, his mother had begun an early, bloody and heartbroken labour.
‘The King’s affection for Eleanor seeps the strength from him,’ Teague said. ‘She bore him enough sons for a dozen monarchies. He wastes his time on petty worries.’
Rhain slapped Teague on the back. ‘It’s love, Teague, not simply affection, and some would disagree with you and say their love strengthens Edward for all his trials.’
Teague knew better. Love had sapped the strength from his mother just when she needed it most to bring Rhain into this world and it had killed her.
‘Love? What use is love?’
Chapter Five
‘I trust you are well today?’ Ffion entered Anwen’s room without knocking.
Anwen didn’t turn from her seat in the window. The courtyard was full of market wagons, kitchen maids with arms of laundry and soldiers training.
‘Your situat
ion will not end simply because you ignore it,’ Ffion continued.
‘I did not know prisoners were allowed any benefits.’
‘You are hardly a prisoner,’ Ffion admonished as she went to the table to make her poultice.
‘I have been well for three days. Well enough to return to my home, yet a guard is at my door and he will not let me leave this room.’ Anwen unwound the bandages from her head. Ffion had taken the stitches out a few days before, but the poultice and the wrapping of her head continued.
‘As you know, the guards have explicit instructions you are to remain here for a sennight. Need I remind you that if it were not for me and the hospitality of Gwalchdu, you would be dead?’
Ffion never failed to remind Anwen who tended her.
Anwen tilted her head so the older woman could apply the paste. ‘If you’d let me have a mirror, which must exist here, I could put this on myself.’
‘Of course we have a mirror, we have several, but I believe you need these visits.’ Ffion pressed her hand to secure the bandages so she could wrap them. ‘There is much sin in this keep and many lecherous thoughts. We need God and prayer to purge us. Have you been practising your lessons of chastity, obedience, poverty?’
‘I am a Christian, Sister,’ Anwen said, ‘and do my prayers as often as time will allow.’
‘At Gwalchdu I expect prayers to be six times per day. Now you are better, perhaps it will be time for you to join us.’ Ffion raised her finger in the air. ‘Remember: community—’
‘Prayer, study and service,’ she interrupted. ‘But I am not staying at Gwalchdu and you cannot keep me here.’
Ffion opened the door, and stepped across the threshold. ‘It seems we will both have to await God’s answer to your fate. In the meantime, I will expect you to pray with us. The bells will tell you when.’
Anwen turned her attention to outside her window. She had no intention of following Ffion’s directives and she had no intention of staying here.
From what she could see, she was in an inner tower that was surrounded by a low wall. Directly underneath her, there were no gardens with flowers and benches. Without any ornamentation, the grey stone walls jutted out forcefully from the hard-packed ground. It was as if the castle stood in defiance of nature. Very much like the lord who governed it.
