by Speer, Flora
“Please,” she said, thinking of Rhys and Branwen, “we mean no harm to you or anyone else. We take nothing from you, my lord.”
“Not even when you poach my game?”
“We do not eat meat. We live on roots and nuts and berries, and the milk and cheese and vegetables the folk here bring us in return for our healing skills.”
“The cattle from which the villeins get that milk and cheese belong to me. The forest and all that is in it belongs to me. Including you.”
“I belong to no one. Rhys and Branwen and I are all free.”
“Then you are the only free people in England. Everyone else belongs to someone or something.” He came two steps nearer to her. Meredith wanted to run and hide, as Gwyn had done when this overpowering Norman entered the cave, but she could not move.
“You are free,” she said.
“I belong to King Henry, whose orders I am sworn to obey.”
“The Welsh are free.”
“Ah, yes, the Welsh.” He smiled.
“You will never conquer them.” It was a proud statement of fact.
“We shall see.” He took another step, and suddenly he was so close he was nearly touching her. Meredith looked back at him, marveling at the rugged beauty of his face. The scar on the left side of his jaw only accented his fine features. She wondered how it would feel to run her fingertips along the line of that jaw, to brush back the golden hair from his brow, to hold his head against her bosom.
“What are you called?”
“I am Meredith.”
“A Welsh name. But you are not Welsh by the look of you.”
“No.” She would not tell him what she was, for she was ashamed of her parentage.
“Well, Meredith, do you admit to practicing the old ways?” His voice was not challenging, but instead gentle and friendly. She gave the answer she and Rhys and Branwen always made when questioned.
“We are healers. We mean no harm to anyone.”
“What you are doing is against the laws the Conqueror made. And by living here you trespass on my domain.” The friendly tone of his quiet voice did not change as he spoke these words.
“Then we will leave.” Meredith did not know how she would manage it, but there must be some way to convince Rhys and Branwen to move elsewhere for safety.
“You may not leave my lands without my permission. That is the law.” Still that quiet voice, and her anger flared with unreasonable intensity.
“I care nothing for your laws, Norman!”
“That is all too obvious, since you are breaking so many of them.”
“Uncle Guy.” Meredith’s attention had been so fixed upon the handsome man before her that she had forgotten Thomas. His childish voice startled her. “Lady Meredith has done me a kind service. In fact, she saved my life. Could you not, in return, allow her and her companions to live here so long as they wish?”
“Lady Meredith? Kind service?” Guy stared at his nephew in astonishment.
“It is a matter of knightly honor,” Thomas told him.
“God’s Holy Teeth, boy, who has been filling your head with such nonsense?”
“It’s not nonsense, Uncle Guy. I learned it at court. A knight’s solemn vow is unbreakable; he holds all women in reverence and he fights only on the side of right and justice.”
“Really? Then who do you suppose are the knights who fight on the other side?” At the look on Thomas’s face, Guy stopped. He remembered when he, too, had been as young and innocent of the world as Thomas was now. He would not be the one to tell the boy that knightly vows were all too often broken, that reverence for women applied only to certain highborn ladies, leaving the rest of womankind open to the brutal assaults of callous men. Guy had never cared for that sort of thing himself. He would rather woo even the lowliest tavern wench until she came willingly to his bed, and for this attitude he had sometimes been called less than manly by his rougher companions-in-arms.
“Uncle Guy, you can return Lady Meredith’s kindness if you will.” Thomas’s lower lip was trembling.
Guy did not want to hurt the boy, and yet he had. But he could make amends. He looked at Meredith. She stood before him cloaked in natural dignity, too proud to beg for herself or her friends. Dear God, she was beautiful, lovelier than the finest court lady. Dark red curls had come loose from her braids, making a halo around her head, emphasizing her delicate features. Her eyes were silver-grey as the softest clouds. Her well-rounded figure was not hidden at all by the shapeless grey robe she wore, her tiny waist only accentuated by the coarse, plaited rope that served for a belt. She was small, coming barely to his shoulder, and she had slender, graceful hands. Too slender for a villein’s brat, too fine and lovely altogether. He wondered who she really was, and who had had the fathering of her.
Out of the corner of his eye Guy saw a white cat slide out of the darkness of the inner cave. The animal sat down and turned its blue eyes upon him.
“Uncle Guy?” Thomas was tugging at his sleeve. “Are you ill? Why don’t you speak?”
“Not ill, only thinking.” Guy looked at Meredith again. He could not keep his eyes away from her lovely face, but he was eerily aware of the cat still staring at him. He knew in this part of Britain the common folk believed cats could charm the winds. Although Guy held no such belief himself, he wondered if the exquisite girl before him did. “Meredith, I command you to tell me exactly what you and your friends do here.”
The answer came not from Meredith, but from directly behind Guy’s shoulder.
“We do nothing that could bring harm to any living being,” Rhys said. “What are you doing here, young man? Who are you, and by what right do you question any of us?”
Guy’s first impulse was to cross himself several times, but then he recognized there was no evil in the elderly man, nor in the small, dark woman who stood protectively by his side with one hand on the jeweled hilt of a tiny dagger. Guy stopped his right hand in mid-gesture, and placing it on his chest and bowing, he told Rhys his name and title. He noticed that Thomas looked frightened, glancing from Rhys to his uncle and back again, and he guessed that Thomas feared his reaction to these strange people would be the same as Father Herbert’s would have been.
“We have some ale, a gift from a friend,” Rhys said. “We will gladly share it with you, sir.”
Guy thanked him, and a moment later Meredith handed him a wooden cup. Rhys sat down on a boulder and looked unblinkingly at Guy. Thomas came to stand beside the old man. Rhys put one hand on Thomas’s shoulder and the cat inserted itself snugly between man and boy.
Rhys reminded Guy of a hermit he had once visited in the Holy Land. Recollection of that time and place flooded in upon Guy’s consciousness. Goodness flowed out of Rhys in the same way it had flowed from the hermit, but Rhys had a different quality about him, a sense of something more ancient and unknowable. Guy shook his head and stared into his cup of ale, wondering what Meredith had put in it. Then, deliberately, he drank it down. Rhys chuckled, and Guy knew the old man had understood his thoughts.
“I would like to know who you are and from where you come,” Guy said to Rhys, and Rhys told him the story Meredith had heard many times before of the first Norman invasions of Wales, ending with the words, “I am a healer.”
“Not a Christian, I think,” Guy said.
“No, I am not. I keep to the old ways.”
“I have known Saracens and even Jews who were good and honest men, and Christians who were not,” Guy said.
“Saracens? Then you have been to the Holy Land?” When Guy nodded, Rhys added, “But you do not wear the crusader’s cross on your tunic.”
“I am not worthy. I saw things done by crusaders and did things under orders from my superiors that left me sickened. I cannot believe our Gentle Lord wants us to treat other men, even non-Christians, so cruelly. The bloodshed and horror we inflicted, not just on fighting men who expect such treatment, but on women and children, too, were so repulsive to me, the corrupt
ion and greed of our leaders so great, that I was relieved to receive King Henry’s order to return to England.” Guy stopped, surprised at himself. “You are a remarkable man, Rhys, to make me talk like this. I don’t usually speak so freely to strangers. I seldom say so much to friends.”
Meredith, watching and listening, thought she understood part of the reason for the sadness she had sensed in Guy. This was no ordinary Norman, cold-hearted and indifferent to the pain of others. This was a man worthy of her love. Rhys comprehended Guy’s special quality, too, she thought. His next words proved that.
“You are a most unusual Norman,” Rhys said, and Guy felt oddly comforted, as the shameful memories of the siege of Jerusalem and its aftermath faded into the back of his mind where he was usually able to keep them firmly locked. Now Guy looked at Branwen and Meredith.
“How did these women come to be with you, Rhys?” Guy asked.
“They must speak for themselves. Branwen, what will you say?”
“My husband died,” Branwen said. “I do not know where we lived, only that I was turned out of my home, and Meredith and I walked until we met Rhys, by accident. He gave us shelter and we have remained here ever since.”
Meredith wondered if Guy could detect how much of Branwen’s story was lies, or that she had left out most of it.
“What of you?” he asked, looking at Meredith.
“Meredith was a child, not much older than Thomas,” Branwen said quickly. “She probably remembers nothing of her life before we came here.”
“Let Meredith speak for herself,” Rhys chided gently.
“I would change nothing Branwen has said,” Meredith told Guy, “except to add that all I want is to be a healer. Nothing you or anyone else can do will stop me. I will be a healer until I die. I don’t care if I do break the law. There is no one else to help the people who live here, only Rhys and Branwen and me.”
“There is a barber-surgeon at Afoncaer.”
Branwen snorted in derision.
“Much good a Norman surgeon will do for a Welshman in need,” she said. “We have to take care of ourselves, and if you try to stop us, there will be trouble, I can tell you that.”
“Do you threaten me, Branwen?”
“You heard me, Norman.”
Guy’s eyes narrowed at her tone. There was a short, tense silence before he answered her.
“Branwen, I agree with what you say. You may tell your fellow countrymen that so long as they cause no problems in the building of my castle, so long as my rightful share of crops and livestock is rendered to me on time, I will not interfere with Welsh customs. Have you heard any complaints about treatment of the workers at Afoncaer?”
“They say you are fair,” Branwen admitted, “that you only require two days a week for the building and two days for your crops, so there is time enough for each man to work his own land. But they do not like it that you are building a castle here at all.”
“I appreciate that, but you must understand I am following my king’s orders. And,” Guy added, “if I am destroyed as was my brother Lionel, another lord will be sent to Afoncaer, and another and another, until the castle is built. It will be built, Branwen, and each lord who comes here will be harsher than the one before. Tell that to your fellow countrymen.”
“I will. Now, what of us?” Branwen seemed to have no fear at all when facing this powerful baron.
“You are all trespassing on my land. But you did rescue my nephew. In gratitude, I grant you use of this cave, and since you say you eat no meat, I give you freedom to take whatever plants you need, within reason of course, and Thomas and I will both swear to reveal the location of your cave to no one. You have Thomas’s word for it,” Guy added with great seriousness, “that a knight never breaks his vows. You, in return, will take no animals from my forest, you will do nothing that might interfere in any way with hunting parties from the castle, and should I ever have need of your healing skills at Afoncaer, you will come at once.”
“I can easily agree to all of that,” Rhys said. “Branwen? Meredith?”
“Agreed,” Branwen said, with something like respect creeping into her voice.
“Yes,” Meredith whispered.
“Well, Thomas,” Guy rose. “We should go now.”
“May I come again?” Thomas asked Rhys.
“If you are more careful not to be followed,” Rhys told him. “The next person at your back may not be so understanding as your uncle.”
“I will be careful,” Thomas promised. He bowed to each of the women. “Goodbye, Lady Branwen. Goodbye, Lady Meredith.”
Guy watched Branwen incline her head and smile at Thomas as though she had been reared to accept the addresses of courtiers. He forgot Branwen when he looked at Meredith, who was smoothing Thomas’s ruffled golden hair and telling him to keep his injured knee clean and not fall down on it for a day or two. She had a sweet smile, and when she met Guy’s glance there was something in her face that tugged at his heart.
A maiden out of an ancient legend, Guy thought, living in a cave in an enchanted forest with a lost princess and a magical cat and an elderly wizard. He could almost believe that somewhere in the darkness of the inner cave lurked a fire-breathing dragon, protector of them all. He laughed to himself at his own imaginings, but he went away feeling almost as young and innocent as Thomas.
Chapter 19
Sir Guy fitz Lionel, late of Adderbury, now Baron of Afoncaer, could not sleep. Every time he closed his eyes he saw Meredith. In spite of her denial, he felt certain she must be a witch. Why else would her image torment him so?
For his long absence earlier that day he had made no excuses to anyone but Isabel. He was lord of the castle, so no explanation was necessary. He had silenced Isabel’s curiosity by saying he had taken Thomas out to look at the land along the river, and since he had returned with Thomas riding mounted behind him she could not say his story was untrue. To Reynaud’s more subtle questions Guy turned a deaf ear.
He wished he could sleep. He lay on a thin straw pallet on the earth floor of the great hall, along with most of the other men. Guy did not mind his hard bed. He had known worse ones on his travels, and had several times slept on the bare ground the night before a battle. He was accustomed to sleeping in a room filled with other people.
No, it was that red-haired witch-woman who had enchanted him and kept him from sleep.
Angrily, he turned on his other side. He had to stop these mad ideas. He was beginning to think like Father Herbert. She was no witch, nor were the others. There had been no evil in that cave. None.
He had been without a woman for too long, that was it. He wanted nothing to do with the creatures his sister-in-law had brought with her to Afoncaer. They were all too old or scrawny or too homely, and the females he had seen among the villeins were not worthy of a single glance.
He imagined how it would be to hold Meredith in his arms and feel her clinging to him, wanting him. He could take her if he wished and make her his mistress. Other Norman lords did such things and no one thought anything of it. It was their right. Meredith was too far below him in rank for them to come to any other arrangement. His proud Norman blood curdled at the thought of marriage with a Saxon, and a peasant at that.
But if he installed her at Afoncaer, in the private chamber that would be his in the tower keep Reynaud was building, he would have to face the pain and sorrow in Rhys’s fine grey eyes, not to mention Branwen’s scorn and contempt. And Thomas, what would Thomas think of the uncle he idolized if Guy took Thomas’s friend Meredith to his bed?
Then there was Meredith herself. He had seen her pride and her dignity when she had said she was a healer. Would she come to him willingly or would he have to force her? He had never lain with a woman who did not want him. He would not start with Meredith.
He sighed, turning over again. It was impossibly difficult, this business of being lord of a castle. He was besieged by conflicting demands and could not meet them all. He was lonely
. He longed for comfort. Ah, to lie in Meredith’s arms and know joy and peace. Meredith.
Damnation! He needed company, not a woman. The only man at Afoncaer worth talking to was Reynaud, and he was a cleric, a man of books, not a knight. He needed men of his own kind about him, and he knew just who they should be. He might even persuade them to stay permanently. A report on the progress of Afoncaer was being sent to King Henry the next day. Guy would have Reynaud write a personal letter, to be taken by the same messenger. Walter fitz Alan would surely come to Afoncaer at his invitation, and assuming Walter could locate him, Brian of Collen would come, too. They would celebrate their reunion with a great feast. It was too bad the new keep, with its guest rooms built into the thickness of the walls, would not be finished for another year or so, but they would have another feast to celebrate that when the time came. Walter and Brian would not mind sleeping in the great hall on tables or benches, or even under them, if they were drunk enough.
Until his friends came he would keep busy and try to stay away from that alluring cave in the forest, and soon he would forget the flame-haired wench who lived there. He would make himself forget her. On that thought, Guy fell asleep at last.
He was trying to understand Reynaud’s carefully-drawn plans for placement of buildings in the inner bailey, but his sister-in-law’s angry tones filled the great hall, assaulting Guy’s ears and making concentration impossible, especially in the mid-summer heat.
“Something must be done about this. Whenever I want Thomas to do something for me, I can’t find him. Where does he go?”
“He has other duties, too, Isabel, besides attending you. There is weapons practice. He’s learning how to use a sword and lance. Then there is riding and wrestling, and he’s helping the falconer in the mews. There are a hundred things a future knight must learn to do. He spends a lot of time with Geoffrey, and with Captain John. Women don’t understand these things.”
