‘I wonder where my baggage has got to and why the rest of the party were waylaid. I hope they have taken shelter and not come to grief.’
‘I will send out a search as soon as ‘tis light, Lady, do not fret, we will do well enough here. Have some rye bread and a cup of milk, t’will hold you ‘til supper.’
‘Ooh, supper,’ I teased, ‘what have we, Rhodri, roasted mutton and turnips?’
‘Nay, Lady, we have some cheese and onions, a store of nuts and I think I saw berries and apples growing along the way, although I doubt the apples will be ripe.’
Anwen handed Idwal to me who proceeded to grab at my hair and face. Then she took my wet tunic, cloak and stockings and hung them on some sticks she had arranged by the fire.
‘This reminds me of that awful lodging we had in Ireland, Anwen, do you remember how ill we all were and how desperately Mother wanted to go home? At least we are in better straits than we were that day.’
‘I try not to think of that, Lady. Are you warm enough? Are you sure? Here let me tuck the blanket about you better.’
‘God’s grief, Anwen. I am pregnant, not invalid. I do well enough, sit and rest yourself, for heaven’s sake. Rhodri, if we take some unripe apples and cook them they will make a warming nutritious food … if only we had honey.’
Anwen stood up, putting a hand to her back that was stiff from so long in the saddle.
‘I have honey, Lady. I carry it always to wear on my face at night to smooth my complexion. It is in my saddle bag.’
‘Anwen, you are a treasure. God bless your vanity. Now if I weren’t too lazy to carry my own belongings I should never have lost them and we should have a host of warm clothes and tasty morsels to eat.’
With the men of the teulu seated a little apart from us, we told each other tales until the dark crept in from the corners of the hut and the fire shrunk low. Then, wrapped in coarse travelling blankets instead of fine furs, we slept fitfully until first light. Leaving Anwen to prepare breakfast and two men to guard us, Rhodri rode out to discover the fate of the rest of our party.
Heulwen tidied our things together while Anwen took the remnants of our makeshift meal outside to feed to the birds. I, crook backed from a night on the floor, strolled around in the watery sunshine thinking dismally of mounting my pony again for another day in the saddle. In truth I longed for a day abed although I would never admit it to the others.
My lower back was an agony of knotted muscle and my thighs were chaffed raw from the wet ride of the previous day. I thrust my arms upward and made a big circle in the air, stretching and easing my aching shoulders. I had mislaid my comb with my baggage and my hair was a mass of tangles. I called to Anwen as she returned from the privacy of the nearby woodland.
‘Anwen, my hair feels awful. Would you see if you can comb it through with your fingers and form some sort of a braid of it? Oh, I will not be sorry to see home; think of the jugs of warm water and the roaring fires in my chamber and these garments can go straight on the midden, look at them. Mired to the knee and I have even managed to get a large rent in the skirt. Should anyone come across me now I’d not be taken for a princess of Wales.’
My hair somewhat tidied and my face washed on the corner of a blanket dipped in the brook, I sat on a fallen log and waited for Rhodri to return. At length he appeared, emerging from the woodland alone and worried.
‘Rhodri?’ I queried, ‘ is there no sign of them?
‘No, Lady, I can only think they took a different path and will find their own way. I am reluctant to spend more time searching for them but thought to send the men back for a further look and to see if they can pick up their trail. I know this country and think we shall do well enough, the four of us.’
It is only in retrospect that this suggestion emerges as a singularly stupid idea. The armed men of the teulu were sent back to search for the others and we went on alone, confident in Rhodri’s ability to protect and get us home safely. The dank day made little effort to brighten and we travelled on through light, misty rain for most of the morning. As before we stopped around noon for sustenance and then continued our journey. We were about half way from the settlement where we planned to pass the night and I anticipated an evening spent in the hospitality of one of our own.
Everything smelled of rain; wet grass, wet heather, wet alder, wet horse and I began to grow impatient with the weather.
‘It’s August for goodness sake.’ I cried, ‘surely we can expect to see sunshine for at least some part of the day.’
But, as if in answer to my protest, the rain grew heavier and a good deal wetter. Soaked through again, my hair dripping in rat’s tails about my face, I cursed the day I had suggested we travel back to Rhuddlan. Had I stayed with Alys I should be warm and dry in her sumptuous palace not here, freezing like some bedraggled hedge drab.
The mountain track we traversed was steep and narrow so no conversation could be exchanged and my spirits grew grim as my body grew more tired. Ahead of me I could see Rhodri’s straight back moving in time with his pony as it nimbly followed the broken path. Behind, Idwal was whimpering into Heulwen’s bosom and Anwen came along in the rear, every so often calling out to me to assure herself of my well-being.
Rhodri had just reached a plateau and his pony was climbing into a clearing when I heard a cry behind me, followed by a rumpus of scrambling and screaming. I turned abruptly. Heulwen’s pony had missed its footing and slipped on the steep uneven slope. Idwal and his nurse had, fortunately, been thrown clear but the pony continued to slide helplessly, straight into the path of Anwen’s mount. Both ponies, unable to manoeuvre on the wet slope, collided and went down and, in their struggle to halt their chaotic slide down the hill, Anwen was dislodged from her saddle. I heard the sickening snap of bone as her mount rolled heavily across her leg.
Forgetting my ungainly size, I leapt from the saddle before Rhodri could forestall me. Heulwen was sitting up and I could hear Idwal's fretful cries so, knowing they lived, I ignored them and rushed to help Anwen. As I drew close, the ponies found their footing and lurched to their feet, galloping away into the wood. Anwen lay unmoving in the mud.
‘Anwen, Anwen.’ I panted, kneeling at her side. ‘Oh God, Rhodri. She is dead.’
He knelt beside me and felt beneath her bosom. I remember thinking irrationally that she would be mortified had she known of his intimate exploration, then he lifted each eyelid.
‘I think she lives Lady. But I know not for how long. Her leg is broke and she has banged her head, look at the swelling here.’ He stood up and looked about him desperately in the relentless rain.
‘God damn me for a fool.’ he cursed, ‘I should never have allowed us to become separated from the others.’
There were five of us. One man, three women and an infant; one woman was unconscious, one heavily pregnant and the other carried in her arms the precious son of the king. We had just two ponies and were miles from any holding. In the end I sat on Glimmer with Idwal strapped to my back, for it was impossible to strap him to my belly.
Heulwen took the other mount, supporting in her arms the unconscious Anwen, her leg held straight in a makeshift splint. Rhodri held the bridle and walked, casting about him through the gloom for a sign of shelter. It seemed an age later when he spotted a cave on the side of the wooded hill, half hidden by brambles and bracken.
Our refuge was not cut very deep into the rock face but it provided shelter from the wind and rain and still allowed enough light to enter so that we could light a fire and see to our patient. Rhodri decided we should meddle no further with Anwen’s leg, it seemed the splint was holding and should continue to do so until we could find a medicine woman. We bathed her bruised head with some water that trickled in through a fissure in the rock and then I took Idwal on my lap and examined him from head to toe to ascertain that he was unharmed. Heulwen looked dazed; the side of her face was plastered with mud but she was otherwise none the worse for wear. When I handed her charge back to
her, he latched on to her breast, suckling long and hard until they both drifted off to sleep.
‘I am deeply sorry, Lady, ‘twas my arrogance got us into this mess.’
‘It isn’t your fault, Rhodri. How could you ever have foreseen anything like this?’
‘I don’t know, but a man should be prepared for anything. Can you imagine what Gruffydd will say when he finds out? He will have me hanged.’
I lay my head back against the cave wall. Pain surged at my temples and my eyes were sore, my body felt as though I had swam the millrace. I must have wrenched myself when I leapt from my horse for fingers of pain wandered around my midriff. Suddenly, dragged back from my reverie, I became aware of Rhodri standing above me, blocking out the light from the cave opening.
‘Oh, did I fall asleep? I am sorry, Rhodri, to leave you to fret alone.’
‘You weren’t asleep long. I didn’t intend to wake you. Why don’t you try to nod off again?’ I stretched out my limbs and groaned as the feeling surged back into them.
‘God’s grief. I ache from head to toe. Have you had time to think yet what we are to do? We can hardly travel all the way to Bistre with Anwen in that condition. Has she stirred at all?’
‘Nay, Lady, only to snore like a drunkard. I have seen something similar before. I fear she is in a deep state of sleep from which she will not waken until she is ready … or maybe never even wake at all.’
I sighed and crawled across the floor to where my dear friend lay, her face pale and deathlike in the fading light. Closing my eyes tight, I sent up a prayer to God, I did not pray often, outside of church, but this situation was dire.
‘I will have to ride to Bistre for help at first light. You will have to stay here, it should take me no more than a few hours to get there and back if I take no rests. Will you be alright if I do that, Lady? I doubt things can get much worse.’
Fear plunged its burning dagger deep as I looked up at him, tears springing from my eyes, my mouth gaping in horror.
‘Oh, My God.’ I screamed, clutching at my nether regions. ‘ It can get worse, Rhodri, it can get a whole lot worse.’ I wailed, for I had discovered that the back of my gown was soaked and that I sat in a sweet smelling puddle of birth fluid.
I had long imagined Rhodri’s hands upon my body but the circumstances in which his touch became reality I had never dreamed of. My pains began soon after the birth waters were released. We had no proper supply of water, no potions, no midwife and very little dry fuel for the fire. Rhodri remained calm, as he ever was, in the face of my panic. He did not try to staunch my tears but, instead, nestled me to his metal studded tunic and I found a strange comfort there, my tears ceasing of their own volition. The labour pains, I now realised, had been gathering in strength for a few days and, now that I acknowledged them, they soon became unbearable.
Rhodri knelt beside me and rubbed wherever I indicated required attention. Fidgeting and unable to find a comfortable position, I was so grateful that he was there, never losing patience but offering me sips of wine and constantly stroking and soothing my rigid body.
This had been going on for sometime when Heulwen woke from her slumber and squeaked at the shock of finding us engaged in such intimacy. When she realised I was in labour she staggered over to help and immediately upset my cup of wine that had been set beside the fire to warm.
‘Go away, woman.’ snapped Rhodri, ‘see to the babe and Anwen, but stay close, I will call you if needs be.’
Looking up at him through my sweat-dampened fringe as he massaged my distended stomach, I realised, through the fog of pain, that he loved me. The expression on his face was not one of disgust or even fear at the danger we were both in, but one of supreme contentment. I remembered the salves and potions the midwife had applied at my first lying in and acknowledged that none of them had relieved or calmed as Rhodri soothed me now. I tried to speak but, as I did so, a pain came again, distracting my thoughts. As it abated I felt the beginnings of an impulse to bear down and expel the child from my womb; this labour was progressing much faster than my last.
When the urge grew too strong to resist, I signalled to Rhodri and, putting my arms about his neck, pulled myself into a kneeling position and placed my forehead against his, puffing hard I looked into his eyes. He was my life line and I felt that, if I lost eye contact with him for one moment, then all would be lost but if I maintained it, if he continued to hold and help me, then all would be well. Despite the fact that I was giving birth to a royal prince, half way up a wooded valley in a cave that was the winter home of hibernating mammals, I no longer felt afraid.
I strained and pushed, moaned and gyrated my hips and, all the while, he guided me, never once becoming too tired himself or stopping for a drink or a piss. Heulwen crouched beside Anwen on the other side of the fire with Idwal in her arms but we were oblivious to her presence. I had been pushing for some while before I felt the head lurch suddenly into the birth canal. Panting like a hound, I waited for the next pain and when it came and I felt a vice had been placed about my middle, I pushed and cried out aloud as the child slid, wet from my body into Rhodri’s waiting hands. Collapsing forward with my arse in the air, I caught my breath and then turned myself over to greet my child. Rhodri wiped him and wrapped him in his tunic before offering him to me. I looked upon my second son and then up into his half brother’s eyes and was glad; everything, as absurd as it seemed, was as it should be.
Rhodri squatted close to the fire, adding fuel to the dying embers and, every so often, he glanced to where I sat happily suckling my child. Catching my eye he smiled, a smile of gentle regret.
‘What?’ I asked, when I saw his wistful expression, ‘what is it?’
‘Oh, you know, Eadgyth, don’t you? You know I wish that he were mine, and you were mine and we were far away from Rhuddlan and Gruffydd. I’d be happier were I a penniless woodcutter and you my wife, living in a hut where our children played in the dust.’
I pondered that happy scenario for a while and then, with a wry smile, whispered,
‘I wish that too Rhodri but it can never be. Even were I widowed, we could not be wed. In the eyes of the world I am your mother or as near as makes no difference.’
He ducked his head to tend the flames again,
‘It has been hard to watch Gryffydd use you so badly; you were a child when you came to him and he a man old enough to be your grandfather. He didn’t let that stop him though did he? He paid your tender years no mind? I should like to kill him, to ring his blasted neck and watch him die, slowly for the way he has treated you … and for that matter, that way he has treated me for all these years.’
‘Rhodri.’ I sobbed, my euphoric afterglow of birth plummeting. He dropped the stick with which he stirred the fire and threw himself down beside me. He took hold of me, dropping kisses on my dirty face and on my sweaty hair, only to draw back and release me when we heard Heulwen clumping back up the path after relieving herself in the wood.
I was churched and fully recovered from the ordeal of the birth before we met again. I had seen him from my bower as he went about his business and I watched him sparring with the grooms and flirting with the maids. I felt cut off from him, as if the emotion that had flared between us had been quenched.
Recalling the long ago afternoon when he had helped me choose Idwal’s name I decided to christen the new child with the second name he had suggested. Maredudd had been the name of Gruffydd’s grandsire on his mother’s side so I could see no obvious objection to the choice.
Although we had sent him news of his son’s birth, Gruffydd remained in Deheubarth and sent no word in return. We knew that he was dealing with his old adversary, Cynan ap Iago, whose father had been killed by Gryffydd’s hand. Now, grown to man’s estate, the son sought vengeance for his father’s murder. The sinner, that had of late grown so strong in me, wished him luck. Gruffydd’s business affected us not at all at Rhuddlan, we did not mourn his absence and the llys resumed the relaxed, happy a
tmosphere it usually enjoyed in the Lord’s absence.
It was the morning of my churching and Tangwystl, who had taken over some of Anwen’s less arduous duties, helped me into a new gown and over tunic. Anwen had spent many hours stitching it. The kirtle was of sea green and the tunic a pale sky blue and I knew it suited me well. It was an exciting moment when we fastened the shoulder clasps and brushed out my hair to fall, dark upon my shoulders. During the pregnancy it had thinned and dulled but now it had begun to thicken and the comb slid through it, making it crackle and stand out until Tangwystl smoothed it with a piece of silk. Anwen, her broken leg propped on a footstool, sat with the children before the fire.
‘How do I look? ’ I asked her.
‘Oh yes, Lady, you look fine. Motherhood suits you well, I remember you looked the same after Idwal’s birthing.’
‘I think it is more than evident I am now a mother of two,’ I said circling my thickened waist in despair.
‘Nay, Lady. It suits you, ‘tis a woman’s form you bear now and there is a new self-assurance about you that is attractive; as if a new dimension has been added.’
I crossed the room and dropped a kiss on Anwen’s head. ‘Thank you, Anwen, you are such a good friend to me, whatever should I have done without you all these troubled years?’
She shrugged off my gratitude while I smiled at myself in the looking glass, then I called to Heulwen, who collected the children and followed Tangwystl and I from the chamber and into the sunshine.
Standing outside the church door, a soiled being, the priest blessed me, declaring me cleansed and fit for the company of men once more. After making my confession and sending up some hasty prayers, I left, feeling reprieved. How marvellous it felt to be free of my chamber.
The autumn sky was bright and a sharp wind blew in off the sea scattering yellow leaves about the churchyard. I sucked in the fresh air as we strolled about the settlement, my small laughing group of women and children hurrying along behind. The people of Rhuddlan surged forth to welcome me back among them and congratulate me on the birth of another prince. Then, thoroughly chilled and hungry, we returned to the great hall where refreshments would be on offer and a welcome fire in the hearth.
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