The boy thought for a while. ‘And do you like him, Mother?’
I took a deep breath. ‘He was my playmate once but now I am a grown up, I do not want his friendship any longer.’
Hedyn’s brow furrowed, his face contorted as he wrestled with this information.
‘Will Medwyl not want to be my friend when she becomes a woman?’
‘Oh, I am sure she will. It is different with you two for you are half-siblings. Her father is your father and that makes it different. Now, I don’t think we should tell anyone about what happened. I wouldn’t want Osian to get into trouble. Can it be our secret?’
He nodded. ‘Very well, Mother, I liked him at first. I thought he was our friend. And he had such nice crinkly eyes.’
‘Yes,’ I said and stood up, smoothing my skirts. As we passed beneath the outer gate Hedyn fished the feather from his pocket. It was somewhat spoiled now but he smoothed it as best he could with his fingers.
‘I wish Medwyl wasn’t my sister,’ he said, ‘ then I could wed her, when I am a man.’
Angharad was just disappearing into the women’s bower when we entered the gate. Hedyn, spotting his siblings, ran off happily to play and I hoped he would soon forget the incident. He was a sensitive child, far more bothered by small things than his elder brother and of the two boys, he was the one I worried about.
Cynfeddw would always cope with whatever problems life threw at him; I had no worries on that score. He was competent and selfish enough to always come out on top. Hedyn was another matter. I watched him approach Medwyl and show her the feather. She smiled her wide smile and poked it into her waistband before taking his hand and leading him off to play. Of course, they weren’t siblings at all and there was no likeness between them. But for my duplicitous ways there would have been no bar to marriage between them but now that was something I must never let happen. Should their attachment grow it were better they were kept apart than my own sin be exposed. I lingered for a while, pondering the problems of family and the future until, satisfied that he was already forgetting what he had witnessed in the meadow, I went inside and gestured for a drink.
Angharad’s face was unusually flushed when she brought it and I noticed she was a little out of breath. She gave a reluctant bow.
‘Where have you been, Madam?’ she asked, handing me the cup, and I answered without thinking.
‘Hedyn and I went to the river to collect teasels.’
‘But where are they, then?’ She cast a glance about the chamber, her eyes gleaming darkly as if something had excited her.
‘I couldn’t see any within my reach. I will send a boy for them later.’ She stood, clutching her tray, her eyes hiding something, and annoyed by her constant presence, I flicked her away as if she were a wasp.
Seven
I slept for a while before supper so as to be fresh when Cadafael came to me later. When I awoke, revived and freshened by sleep, I stretched my limbs and called to Gwarw to help me into my saffron tunic. She fastened it with my favourite amber clasps and then brought a stool so I could sit while she dressed my hair. She drew the comb through it, teasing out the tangles, before looping and twisting the knee length braids about my ears. I always enjoyed such ministrations and I closed my eyes, giving myself up to the gentle rhythm of her busy fingers. When she was done I stood up and held out my arms for her inspection.
‘You’ll do,’ she said. ‘Now, hurry along, the company are waiting.’
The hall was crowded, the air rich with the aroma of roasting meat, and smoke curled about the carved timbers, the hall ringing with music and laughter. I made my way through the throng, smiling a greeting here and there to people I passed. I loved to play the noble queen and enjoyed their respect, although deep down I knew it was more than I deserved.
‘This time tomorrow Oswiu’s fate will be all but sealed.’ Penda leaned back in his chair, waving a leg of mutton. He took a large bite, chewing it open-mouthed. ‘Ah,’ he cried, catching sight of me, ‘the night improves. Madam, I was just telling your husband that he must visit my Mercian holdings, you must accompany him.’
I smiled agreement. Cadafael had not greeted me but sat beside Penda, looking grimly at the floor. I guessed he was thinking of the morrow and my heart twisted a little. They were all soon to risk death; any one of them might ride away tomorrow, never to return. It was a threat we all had to learn to live with. There was never any real safety; none of us were truly secure.
Even I, a queen who had all the llys to do my bidding, could be dead by the following day of fever or misfortune. When I was a little girl, one of my maiden aunts with whom I had spent the afternoon, had choked to death at supper on a fishbone. It was the suddenness of her death that kept her in my memory, for the event had taught me that our time on earth was fleeting and that any one of us could be taken at any time. But, although we were all aware of life’s impermanence, we did not dwell on it, but took pleasure as we found it, usually in small, unremarkable things.
From my seat, I surveyed the hall. It was a bigger crowd than I had ever known before. A crush of young men strutted hopefully before the maidens, children taunted hounds with scraps and, a little removed from the main company, the grandmothers sat huddled together, as hungry for gossip as for their supper.
At the end of the furthest bench my eyes fell upon Osian. He sat alone with a jug of mead at his elbow and I felt a twinge of pity which was quickly followed by an attack of exasperation. Why make such a fuss? What was done, was done. It was over and we must both move on. I was not really as heartless as this may sound, for although I didn’t share his heartbreak, I did pity it. Time is a great healer and all this would pass. He was a good looking fellow and there were a hundred girls willing to salve his suffering, he would forget me soon enough.
Rhonwen came in and breathlessly took her place between Penda and I. I wondered if she could handle a man like that and hoped she would not become the focus to his attentions as I had been. I had noticed before that she ate capaciously at every mealtime, and when she began to enthusiastically fill our platters, I nibbled at a savoury to show willing although I was not in the least hungry.
I turned toward Cadafael, trying to catch his eye, my smile wide but he was not looking my way. Some instinct making me wary, I followed his eye to where Angharad wove her way through the throng toward him, her face aglow with triumph, and when I saw the look they exchanged, my heart plummeted, churning my stomach as I realised what should have been apparent from the first. All afternoon, while I had been absent with my son, she had been with Cadafael. That was why she had behaved so strangely on my return. That was why he could not look me in the eye.
I pushed my plate away and slumped back in my chair, my insides churning with misery and disgust, making me nauseous. I tried to act as if my husband weren’t even in the room and fixed my gaze on the opposite end of the hall, where Osian sat. I had never felt so betrayed. I had truly believed all his talk of love, trusted in our newfound relationship but now he had spoiled it all and, at that moment, I felt I would never trust again.
It soon became impossible to hold back my tears and, when the first few drops fell, leaving a dark tell-tale spots on my bodice, I got up and made my way quickly from the hall. With a sick heart, I entered an antechamber, perched upon a stool and buried my head in my hands, openly weeping. I needed Ffreur, longed for her comfort, her sensible reasoning. She would have known how to prove my assumption wrong and reconcile me to the fact that I was loved and cherished by the man who had taken me as wife. When she was alive, I had taken her for granted, always supposing I was the strongest, the one who supported her but without her, I was as spiritless and as lost as a new-born babe.
‘Heledd?’ My head came up in time to see Osian close the door. He held up his hands to indicate he meant me no harm but I stood up, wary of his intentions and looked down my nose, wanting only to be alone with my misery.
‘What do you want?’ I sniffed and wiped my tears on m
y sleeve.
He took a step nearer. ‘I want to say I am sorry. I want you to forgive me; I cannot bear it to end like this. I want you to be mine again.’
Turning astonished eyes upon him, I decided to tell him the truth. ‘I never was yours, Osian, don’t you understand that? You stole me from my brother’s care when I was little more than a child, and then you made a cuckold of my husband but I was never yours. I never will be.’
‘You hate me, then…’ His voice trailed away, breaking with regret but it was no time to show the slightest sympathy so I shrugged and turned away. ‘Oh, what does any of it matter? Just leave me alone.’
He took another step toward me but I threw up my arms before he came too close. ‘I said, leave me.’
‘Heledd, say you don’t hate me and I will go.’
‘I don’t hate you.’ My tone negated the meaning of the words, my voice flat and uncaring. In truth, I didn’t hate him. I just craved some peace to sort out my feelings, wallow in my own tragedy.
‘No, no,’ he grabbed my hands. ‘Say it and mean it, Heledd.’ His face was close, his eyes awash with sorrow and, unwillingly, I felt myself relenting. I sighed and opened my mouth to speak but my words were cut off suddenly when the door flew open.
Cadafael took the floor in two strides toward us, his eyes blazing.
‘Under my nose, Heledd?’ he snarled before turning his fury on Osian who raised his hands in supplication.
‘It isn’t what you think, Lord, we did but discuss a suitable song for your entertainment.’
‘You’re a liar, minstrel.’
Before I could stop him, Cadafael raised his fist and, in a kind of trance, I watched the violence unfold. His fist smashed into Osian’s jaw and sent him spinning to the floor. The events that followed seemed to be in slow motion, it didn’t feel as if it was truly happening at all. I switched my eyes dully from one to the other, vaguely aware of imminent danger but too slow to act. My mind thick with shock, I tried to make sense of it all. What had made him suspect us? How could he know? He had never shown any sign of suspicion before. And then, as if in answer to my unspoken question, Angharad’s upright figure appeared in the doorway.
She took her place at Cadafael’s shoulder, her face fierce with triumph and I blinked at her for a while before shifting my gaze from her to Cadafael. The pain I saw in his eyes was like a physical blow and I knew then that I had lost him.
‘My lord,’ I stepped forward. ‘I don’t know what this woman has told you but it is lies. I have not betrayed you…would never betray …’ My voice gave out on the lie.
Cadafael turned his bleak eye upon me and I thought I saw a glimmer of hope but then she laughed, and moved, like a serpent, toward me, her eyes glittering like a devil’s as she circled me.
‘Oh yes, she has, many times. Look, My Lord, is your son, Hedyn, not the image of this minstrel, this … nobody? Does he not have the same eyes, the same hair? Don’t you think that is not too strange to be a co-incidence?’
Her voice was honey-smooth. I wanted to kill her, to sink my nails into her evil, deceitful eyes and tear them from her head. Cadafael looked as if he would vomit. His face was like parchment, his eyes burning black against the pallor of his cheeks. He would not look at me, his chest was heaving. I reached out to grab his sleeve but he threw me off so that I almost fell. It was as I fought to regain my balance that he turned his fury upon Osian.
‘I will kill you.’ His voice was like cold water and no one doubted his words.
‘Cadafael …’ My whisper was like a sigh as his sword left its sheath, I swallowed, searching for my voice, finding it quickly as violence erupted once more. ‘Cadafael,’ I screamed, ‘he is unarmed.’
Time seemed to freeze, paralysing our bodies into effigies of stone. The weapon hovered for a few fateful seconds in the air above Osian’s head, the blade burnished gold in the torch light. I clasped my hands, fell to my knees, my breath trapped in my lungs and begged him to hold his hand. It was a moment I will forever recall. Cadafael looked at me, with all the dishonour I had brought down upon him blazing from his eyes. One shining, screaming second and then his sword fell, silently and slowly, cutting through the solid air, severing the bonds of our marriage and slicing through Osian’s heart.
Blood spurted forth. Great gouts of it. I scrambled on my knees toward him, trying to staunch the wound, my screams filling the chamber with men at arms.
I heard Cynddylan’s angry voice. ‘What goes on here? Cadafael? Heledd? Who has slain my minstrel?’
I could not speak or move. His head lay in my lap. His eyes were blind, his breath stilled, while his heart’s blood soaked into my skirts and into the floor rushes around me. Cadafael lowered his sword and gave Cynddylan a ghastly stare.
‘Ask my wife,’ he spat. He hated me. My head lowered in torment as, with his pride in tatters he allowed Angharad to lead him away. Away from me. Away from our children.
‘Wait.’ It was Cynddylan’s voice that halted them. ‘You cannot just walk away. I am owed an explanation, Cadafael. You have murdered my servant.’
He was indignant, both at the violence that had broken all the rules of hospitality and the loss of a valuable asset. Cadafael turned, looked Cynddylan bleakly in the eye and shrugged, as if he did not care. ‘Then I must explain that your sister is a whore and I, it seems, am a cuckold. She has degraded herself in the arms of your minstrel and passed his bastard off as my son.’ His voice shook, my actions sounding the more terrible for being spoken aloud.
Faces turned to look at me, hands raised to mouths, followed by a murmur of surprise. I hated myself.
I wanted to die. I had betrayed them all.
Cynddylan was speechless.
But Cadafael was walking away. I had to stop him. I scrambled from beneath Osian’s prone body, leaving him sprawled in his own gore, and hurried after them, careless of the gawping crowd, my voice rasping as I called his name.
‘Cadafael. Please, let me explain, in the privacy of our chamber.’
He hesitated. For the first time he met my eye and the look he gave me triggered a dagger of despair. I have never seen a man so defeated. To my shame, I attempted a small regretful smile, hoping even at that late stage to sway him with my charm, and just for a moment I thought he would relent and listen to my explanation. But she stopped him. Angharad touched his arm and raised herself on tiptoe to whisper in his ear.
I had not thought he could look any more defeated but this time when he turned to face me again his eyes were rheumy with grief, his voice a painful rasp.
‘So, Madam, you paid this girl to lure me from your bed? I am that repulsive?’ He moved toward me, his brow both puzzled and injured, and to my annoyance Angharad came with him. He leaned so close I could smell the mead on his breath. ‘For how long, wife, did you keep my concubine in your pay?’
I opened my mouth and shut it again, lowered my head and a tear dropped. ‘Nay, Lord, it isn’t like that. Let me explain.’
But I knew I was beaten and my voice when I spoke was no more than a whisper.
Suddenly angry again, he shrugged Angharad from his arm and thrust his face into mine, making me shrink away although I wished for nothing more than to be taken into his arms. ‘Explain? God in Heaven, Heledd, the time for explanation is gone. I release you from our marriage. It is done, DONE.’
‘Cadafael.’ My scream surprised even myself. As he strode away I sprang forward, tears spouting, nose streaming. I clung to his arm. ‘But I love you, Cadafael, if you will only listen.’
He tried to shake me off but I refused to release him, dangling on my toes, my pride perished but he wrenched himself from my grip and thrust me away, in the process, catching my nose with one of his arm rings. I fell. Blood gushed down my face and a gasp of horror rippled through the watching crowd.
I scrambled back up onto my feet. ‘Wait, husband, please, listen.’
But he kept on walking.
And then Cynddylan was there, holdin
g me back, silently urging me to show some pride. I leaked blood and tears onto his jerkin until he handed me a kerchief. ‘Hush,’ he soothed, ‘I will follow after and speak to him, get him to listen. Maybe he will come round. Rhonwen, look after her.’
I opened my mouth, spittle at the corners. ‘But he has denounced me before the whole court. He will never climb down from that.’
Cynddylan followed after my husband, my younger brothers crowding after him. ‘Cadafael,’ I heard him call and I hurried in their wake, holding the kerchief to my nose. My face was numb and, slowly and painfully, my lips and nose were beginning to swell. Cadafael stopped, half-turned and waited for my brothers to draw near.
Many men would have quailed at the sight of Pengwern’s finest up in arms but Cadafael was no coward. He raised his arms and let them fall again to his sides. ‘What would you have me do, Cynddylan? You would act no differently were you in my place.’
Cynddylan looked at his feet and then back at Cadafael. ‘If I were you, I would remember that my wife’s brothers are powerful allies and deadly enemies.’ His voice was deadly quiet, his expression grim. Cadafael snorted humourlessly.
‘You would turn against me? Break the treaty?’
‘Heledd was part of that alliance, you have shamed her, broken your marriage.’
‘She shamed herself!’
His words were loud and clear, the truth of them cutting me deep. Their faces were close together now, the tension between them tearing the company apart. Men began to separate, move away from new-found allies to stand with old ones. The llys was forming into factions and I realised then that I had started a war.
‘Would you fight me, Cynddylan? You know I have the right of it.’
‘Aye, I will fight you, Cadafael. You have turned my sister’s name to mud with your lies. You listen to your whore but refuse to listen to the explanation of your wife.’
‘The truth is in her eyes, Cynddylan.’
As I heard the sliding steel of my brother’s withdrawing sword, and saw Cadafael throw off his cloak and reach for his weapon, I longed only for my own life to end.
The Song of Heledd Page 16
