The old woman clucked her tongue, but then she gave Wynne a good-natured wink. “I’ve bathed ever’ man of this castle, startin’ with milord hisself, and him but a babe in arms. They’s all got a time, near about five or six years, when they don’t want no help. But then, ’round about the stirring of their manhood, they come back to Martha for their backs to be scrubbed.” She cackled with glee. “Guess they want a woman’s hand on ’em by then, e’en an old woman’s!”
By the time Martha had backed from the room, Wynne’s smile had broken free, full and genuine. The girls were laughing, too, and even the boys appeared more relaxed when Wynne pulled the fustian curtain between the two huge caskets of water.
“She’s nice,” Bronwen murmured as Wynne helped her into the warm and fragrant waters of the women’s tub. “She’s like Cook, all smiles and happiness.”
“I wonder what Cook and Gwynedd and everybody at home are doing right now,” Isolde murmured, sinking up to her chin in the swirling bathwater.
Wynne wondered too. “Cook is probably helping Gwynedd into a nice warm bath, just like this,” she answered as a wave of homesickness caught her. In all the days of her journey she’d been too unsettled, too worried and angry and frustrated, to allow herself to miss Radnor Manor. But now as she removed her girdle and untied the side laces of her soiled gown, she was overcome by it.
It was Martha’s fault, of course. The old servant had that same warmth and matter-of-fact attitude shared by so many lifelong servants who knew how vital they were to the households they kept. Just like Cook.
She rolled down her stockings, then peeked around the curtain at the boys. Three damp heads rested against the sides of the tall wooden tub. There was no horseplay, no splashing or ducking of heads. They were simply too spent.
“Wake up, sweetlings,” she called. “Use the soap and the bathing linens quickly, then we’ll see you soon to your beds.”
“I’m too tired.” Rhys sighed. Then his brother jumped with a splash.
“Who did that? Who pinched me?”
Arthur smiled through heavy-lidded eyes. “I think there’s a crab in this tub. ’Tis an old English custom, to put a crab in the bath,” he added mischievously.
“You lie,” Madoc retorted. “He lies, doesn’t he, Rhys?”
Rhys couldn’t hold back his mirth. “Here’s your crab,” and he sent his hand across the water, making pinching motions with his fingers.
“Are there really crabs?” Isolde cried from the other tub. Wynne shook her head at the boys’ antics. She supposed nothing, not even exhaustion and completely foreign environs, could long keep that trio down. She let the curtain fall, then turned to the girls. “They do but tease and play. Come,” she added as she removed her own clothes and her amulet. “I promise to pinch back any crab that I find swimming around in our bath.”
She let out a groan of satisfaction when she settled herself onto the bench in the tub. The water was warmer and more relaxing than she’d guessed. Mint leaves and rose petals floated on the surface, and the faint scent of them filled her head as was intended, cleansing her mind of troubling thoughts and driving her demons away, at least for a little while.
She let her head sink below the surface, shaking her head and combing her fingers through the tangled length of her hair. “Ah, that feels good.” She smiled at Isolde and Bronwen as she reached for the soap. “Shall I wash your hair before I do my own?”
“I can do my hair by myself,” Isolde answered.
“Me too,” Bronwen echoed.
“Boys, be sure to wash your hair, your ears, and under your necks.”
“Under your arms,” Bronwen added.
“Between your toes,” Isolde grinned.
“You don’t have to tell us what to do,” Arthur replied from beyond the curtain wall. “We know.”
As Wynne lathered her hair, she sniffed at the bar of soap. It was of a very good quality. Hard and even. She wondered if it was made at the castle. She would have to ask Martha, for her own soaps were not nearly so fine-textured. She ducked underwater again, rinsing her hair and rubbing her scalp hard, when a commotion outside brought her sputtering to the surface.
“Which one was it? Which one?” came Lord William’s excited voice from the kitchen beyond.
“Wait, milord. ’Tis not seemly—”
But Martha’s nervous words were ignored. Lord William burst into the bathing chamber, much to Wynne’s complete outrage.
“Begone from here, you … you crude Englishman. Can we not at least bathe in peace?”
“ ’Tis my castle,” Lord William bellowed. “ ’Tis my son! Now, which one was it?”
As Wynne sat there, naked in the tub with the two terrified girls trembling in her arms, a veritable crowd of people pressed into the small bath house. The curtain between the tubs was thrown aside, and to her horror both tubs were surrounded by an avid audience.
“Milord, if you please,” Martha began, casting an uneasy eye from her master to Wynne and back again.
“Yes, Father,” Edeline murmured, clutching at her father’s arm. “Can this not wait long enough for them to at least clothe themselves?”
“Show me their feet,” Lord William demanded, shaking off Edeline’s arm and ignoring her completely. He advanced to the edge of the tub and grabbed Rhys. “Show me your feet!” he insisted.
But Rhys was too afraid to comply. He fought to be free of the man’s frantic grasp. Then, when that failed, he bit down on Lord William’s hand. Hard.
“By damn! By damn, he bit me!” Lord William shook his hand at the pain and peered at it as if expecting to see blood, or at the very least tooth marks. Then he raised his head and swung it around, eyeing the appalled spectators. “He bit me! God’s blood, but he’s a true fighter, that one is. Is he the one? Is he my son?”
“No!” Wynne cried, finally finding her voice amidst these mad proceedings. Had the entire world turned upside down? “They’re none of them yours. None of them!” She started to rise, for she needed to save the trio of boys from this ruthless barbarian of a man. But a large hand on her shoulder kept her firmly in her place.
“Milord, this is not the way to handle this matter.” Cleve stood steady when Lord William turned an impatient frown upon him. “If everyone will clear the chamber,” he continued, “we can see your question promptly answered.”
For a moment there was absolute silence, save for the nervous shifting of feet. Then Martha clucked her tongue and began to wave her apron in a shooing fashion. One by one Lord William’s daughters, sons-in-law, and curious retainers shuffled away. When only Cleve, Lord William, Druce, and Barris remained, Martha closed the door.
“Now, back with the rest of you. All of you,” she insisted, glaring at her master. “I never thought to see the Lady Alvinia’s son act in so unseemly a manner. Terrifying women and children at their bath. Were she to see you now, why she would …” Martha trailed off once it was clear Lord William was appropriately subdued. She drew the curtain, then rounded on Cleve, who stood beside the tub, his hand warm upon Wynne’s bare shoulder. “You too,” the old servant ordered, scrutinizing him closely.
Cleve’s hand gentled on Wynne’s shoulder and slid lightly, rubbing beneath the water’s surface, slipping along her flesh. His fingers stroked lightly up the sensitive skin along her neck until he cupped her chin, forcing her to face him.
“Give us a moment, if you please,” he said to Martha, though his eyes never strayed from Wynne’s.
There was another disapproving cluck from Martha, but she obliged. Though Lord William’s muttered demands and the old woman’s soothing murmurs came through from beyond the curtain, Wynne’s every sense was attuned to Cleve. He was the only one who could help her.
“Don’t let him do this, Cleve. I beg you. Please, don’t let him take any of my children.”
Though her eyes swam with desperate tears, she saw clearly the regret on his face. For a moment she believed he would do it. He would intercede
and somehow, in some way, he would make things right again. But then he swallowed and shook his head.
“He wants to know his child, Wynne. To give his heir the full benefit due him. How can that be wrong?”
“No!” Wynne jerked away from him. She wanted to leap from the water, to attack Lord William. To kill him with her bare hands if necessary. But Isolde and Bronwen were weeping in her arms, and if the sounds from the men’s bathing area were any indication, the boys were doing the same with Druce and Barris.
“Get out of here,” she ordered, glaring at Cleve over the girls’ wet heads. At that moment, as he stood there tall and expressionless, his gray tunic wet with water, she truly hated him. He’d brought her to this bleakest moment of her life, him with his easy smile and seductive glances. He’d wooed the children first, then he wooed her. But it had all been in the name of achieving his initial aim.
Their gazes met and held, hers cold as winter, his shuttered, hiding whatever emotions he felt. If he indeed felt any at all.
She took a slow, shaky breath. “Make everyone leave. Everyone. I’ll dress the children. Then and only then may your English lord enter.”
“Trust me, Wynne. ’Tis time to trust me. I can help you in this.”
A flicker of emotion showed in his eyes, but Wynne did not care. Her smile was bitter. “You only wish to help yourself. Just … just leave me be.”
After a moment he sighed and shrugged. Then he turned on his heel and moved past the curtain. She heard him murmur and Lord William’s indignant reply. “I just want to see their toes!” But Cleve’s reply was firm, and after a little shuffling the door closed with a thud.
“Arthur? Rhys, Madoc? Are you all right?”
“Can we come in with you?” Arthur’s voice came, thin and wavering.
“Of course, love.”
Water sloshed, and three sets of feet hit the stone floor. At once the boys barreled past the curtain and clamored into the women’s tub, bare bottoms gleaming in the dim light. As she clutched them all to her as best she could, Wynne remembered another time, four years earlier. How overcome with responsibility she’d felt as five toddlers had clung to her for comfort. She’d been so inadequate to the task then, but she felt even more inadequate now. She wanted so much to protect them—from the horror of their terrible conceptions, from the difficulties life would present them. But she couldn’t do it. Not anymore. She couldn’t even keep them with her any longer.
Her tears mingled with theirs as they huddled in the tub, no longer comforted by the warm water and the pleasant fragrances. This was England, and they were surrounded by enemies.
“Why—” Madoc hiccupped, then began again. “Why does he want to see our toes?”
“Is he going to make fun of them?” Rhys added.
Wynne tried to swallow past the lump in her throat. She was so accustomed to the slight difference in the twins’ toes that it hadn’t occurred to her that it might be an inherited trait like any other. Oh, why hadn’t she foreseen this? “I think that perhaps he has the same sort of toes.”
Arthur straightened and pushed his wet hair from his eyes. “You mean Lord William has duck toes?”
“They’re not duck toes!” Bronwen cried in sudden defense.
“Hush, my darlings. Hush. Of course they’re not really duck toes. But they do have that extra bit of flesh between them, and I suppose, well, that you probably took that trait from one of your parents.”
She pressed her lips together, willing her voice to stay steady. “I have my father’s blue eyes. Arthur, Isolde, and Bronwen all carry some English traits in the color of their hair or their eyes. But you two, Rhys and Madoc, you are so dark-haired and dark-eyed. You have always appeared Welsh through and through.”
“Except for our toes,” Rhys said.
“I think so.”
They sat in silence a moment. The sobbing had ceased save for an occasional trembling breath, and the hiccups also were easing. Then Bronwen pulled a little away from Wynne.
“Will Rhys and Madoc have to stay here with their … well, with their father?”
The words of denial Wynne wished to speak died unsaid. Their father. Could it be true? Could that great blustering oaf actually have fathered her sweet, troublesome twins? Unbidden, his tremulous question about their mother came back to her. He’d wished to know if she’d ever spoken of him. And his face had gone gray to hear she had died. He’d gone so far as to claim that the woman had loved him.
Wynne gazed down at the twins’ dark heads. She was far too confused to keep her thoughts in order. If the woman had loved him … And he seemed in his own crude fashion to have cared for her …
She swallowed against her terrible choking fear and tried to pick her words carefully. “Perhaps … perhaps they will wish to stay if Lord William is their father. But I will not see any of you forced into a life you do not wish,” she added vehemently. She forced her tears away. “Come, now. Let us complete our bathing and greet Lord William once more.”
“I wish Sir Cleve was my father,” Arthur remarked, more to himself than to anyone else.
Wynne helped the boy climb from the tub. “There are many, many more worthwhile men in the world,” she muttered. “Welshmen.”
“Shall you not marry him after all?”
Wynne frowned. “Use that toweling to dry yourself, Arthur. And I never intended to marry him. I told you that. Anyway he is to wed the Lady Edeline.”
Arthur sighed, and after a last wistful look he did as he was told.
“Lady Edeline is very beautiful,” Isolde said once the boys were out of sight.
“Druce was staring at her all through the meal,” Bronwen added.
“Well, she is betrothed to Sir Cleve,” Wynne retorted as she rose dripping wet from the tub. “And that is that.”
Wynne had convinced herself of that very fact when she bid Lord William, Cleve, and the others to enter the bathing chamber. The children hung behind her, all clean and dried, with damp hair combed back from their wary faces, and fresh gowns and tunics on. But they were all barefoot.
Lord William, too, had shed his shoes, and his toes fairly wiggled with anticipation. But it was the expression on his face that disturbed Wynne the most, for his aging features were suffused with a longing and a hopefulness that made him appear almost young again.
Her gaze shifted of its own accord to Cleve, and she recognized the concern in his eyes. But it was too little, she told herself. And it came far too late.
“Come here,” Lord William commanded in a hoarse voice barely more than a whisper. “If you have funny toes—duck toes, my mother used to call them—then show yourself to me.”
Wynne’s heart pounded so hard, she surely thought it would explode. She could not move. But Arthur did. He nudged his brothers forward. “Go on. Show him. He’s your father.”
Wynne did not witness the rest. She could not. Rhys and Madoc stepped hesitantly forward, encouraged by Lord William’s wondrous smile and Cleve’s reassuring presence. They compared toes—old, hairy toes with long, yellowing nails against plump, little toes, rosy from the bath. But all were made the same by the odd flange of flesh that connected the second and third toes together.
With a glad cry Lord William fell to his knees and embraced the startled twins. But Wynne’s tears blinded her to their reunion. She clutched her remaining children to her breast, unable to contain her sobs any longer.
“My sons!” Lord William wept with heartfelt emotion. “Oh, Angel, my Angel. At last I have our sons!”
20
KIRKSTON CASTLE WAS NOT a place arranged for privacy. Although Wynne slipped down the dim stone stairwell, servants and retainers abounded, curled in their rugs and robes, asleep wherever a niche presented itself. In the hall itself Lord William still sat, toasting his great fortune—two sons!—with whoever managed still to match him toast for toast, drink for drink. Even the forecourt was not empty, Wynne found. A merry bonfire flamed high, and the servants who had not
yet succumbed to sleep milled around in excitement. The birth of a son was always a joyous occasion in any noble household. With the arrival of two sturdy sons, however, Lord William’s castlefolk clearly anticipated some display of generosity on his part.
And well he should be generous, Wynne thought, leaden-hearted. Not often was a man blessed with such fine sons as Rhys and Madoc—not that the man deserved them. He’d done no more than spill his seed, and indiscriminately at that.
Yet he claimed her precious boys as his now, and no one was inclined to challenge him save her.
Wynne pulled her hood about her face and wrapped her mantle tighter around her arms. But the cold that enveloped her, setting her teeth to chattering, came not from without but from within. Her heart—her very soul—was frozen. She could no longer feel anything at all. But it was the only way she could function, at least until she could find some private place to collapse in helpless grief.
As if she hadn’t cried enough already, she thought as she peered about through red-rimmed eyes. She’d cried before them all, revealing her complete devastation and upsetting the children. When had she first begun to lose all control over her emotions?
The answer was obvious. When Cleve FitzWarin had made his fateful ride into Radnor Forest. From before she’d even laid eyes on him, he’d begun his insidious attack on her emotions. And now he’d won.
She edged around the bonfire, staying beyond the reach of its flaming light, keeping well to the shadows. Past the kitchen and the bath house she crept, searching—she did not know precisely what she searched for. Around a heavy timbered corner and then along the rough stone outerwall, she let her left hand trail along the cold stones as she moved through the darkness. Once she heard a man’s voice somewhere above her. A guard on the ramparts. Was there no place for her to find solace?
Then, in the pitch-darkness of the overcast midnight, her hand met with wood. She stopped and ran inquiring fingers around the weathered surface. It was the postern door—probably leading to the river, if her bearings were correct.
She found the heavy ring and pulled. To her surprise the door opened with very little protest. She peered inside, then driven by her desperation, she stepped within the depths of the thick castle wall. At once she stubbed her toe on a bucket, and when she reached out to prevent herself from falling, her hand knocked down several slender poles. Fishing poles, she realized, once she’d righted herself. This door must indeed lead to the river.
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