‘You have drunk enough, my lord,’ Eva said. I hadn’t realised she had returned to her chair. ‘I don’t want you to pass out on me.’
I sat up, physical and metaphorical ears pricked.
‘As if I would!’
‘You would.’ That was Hugh’s voice, full of laughter.
Eva spoke softly. She whispered in her husband’s ear. ‘I want you to plant a son in my belly tonight.’
‘Did we not do that earlier?’ William chuckled, and I cringed.
‘We may have. Once more could make it certain, my husband.’
Hugh pushed his chair back.
Paws scrabbling, I leapt to my feet.
‘Where are you going?’ William asked.
‘Against my better judgement, I shall ask Hesta to dance,’ he said.
‘What you should be doing, is asking her to marry you,’ William called after him. Hugh’s back stiffened. ‘A good woman will settle you down.’
I hoped it was only me who heard Hugh’s muttered, ‘Aye, like it settled you down,’ as he jumped down the dais’s few steps.
Hesta accepted his invitation with a luminous smile, and I watched, consumed with envy as she dipped and leapt, Hugh’s strong hands catching her effortlessly about the waist and lifting her high, so she soared above the rest of the dancers like a linnet above crows. She held Hugh’s gaze, her eyes wide and honest, showing him her love, and when the dance ended, she led him out of the hall, hips swaying, glancing back over her shoulder to check he followed.
I scampered off the dais, unable to stop myself, knowing I would probably regret my curiosity, and caught up with the pair as they strolled across the bailey.
‘I love Christmas,’ Hesta was saying. ‘You will be here for it?’
‘Yes. Lord William has no plans to travel until the spring.’
‘Good. I have a gift for you, although you may have it early if you wish.’ Hesta halted and turned to face him. Her lips parted and her chin tilted. Their mingled breath clouded above them, his head inches from hers.
I scooted close to a wall, grey on grey, still and silent.
‘A kiss?’ he said, lightly.
‘More than a kiss, my lord, if you want it.’ Her voice was teasing and husky.
‘I would not take more than a kiss from you. I honour you too much.’
Prettily played, Hugh. A girl such as this could not be bedded without consequences. If he tupped her, he would have to marry her. She was nobly-born, and I suspected she was a virgin still. He could do no other than take her to the altar after he had taken her maidenhead. I wondered where her father and brothers were, for she must have some male figure in her life who she answered to, who would arrange her marriage, and control her. Or was she hoping for a fait accompli, that her guardian would be forced to allow her to marry Hugh once she had been deflowered by him? Of course, there was always the other alternative – that she would be sent to a convent.
She played a dangerous game. Hugh’s reputation may be tarnished, but it would be nothing compared to the disgrace heaped on Hesta’s lustrous head. Even kissing in corners could see her become a woman of God if she were caught.
She pouted at him and her eyes filled with tears. ‘You don’t love me.’
‘I do. As a sister.’
‘You do not kiss your sister!’
‘And I should not kiss you.’ He glanced behind him. The bailey was empty, except for me, and I blended into the shadows.
She put a slender hand on his chest, above his heart. ‘Have you given your pledge to another?’
‘You know I have not.’
‘I will give you lusty sons and beautiful daughters. I have Lord William’s blessing and a handsome dowry. We could be happy, you and I.’
‘I am sure we could, but I do not love you, Hesta. Not in the way you wish.’
She shoved him hard in the chest, and he took a step back. ‘The woman you love does not love you.’ All trace of desire had been stripped away. ‘And if she did, it would not matter. She is not yours. She will never be yours.’
Hugh looked up and out toward the battlements and the crest of the mountain beyond, ink-black against a dark sky, and shuffled from one foot to the other. ‘I do love Eva, I admit it,’ he said. ‘But not in the manner you think.’
‘Only because Lord William stands between you.’
He shook his head. ‘I love her as my liege lord’s wife. Nothing more. I admire her and respect her. I would die for her, as I would die to protect Lord William.’
I am not sure I fully believed he did not love Eva, not after what I heard in his voice at supper.
‘Then why not take me?’ Hesta demanded. ‘I know you desire me. There must be a reason, and the only reason that makes sense is that you have found another.’ Her words were slow and thoughtful.
‘No,’ he said, quickly. Too quickly?
Hesta drew in a sharp breath. ‘You have, haven’t you? It is her, the Welsh woman.’
Did no one here know my name?
‘I heard what happened to her in Criccieth and how you could not keep away from her.’ Hesta heard far too much for her own good. ‘I see how like Lady Eva she is. Hugh, listen to me.’ Hesta stepped close again, her expression earnest. ‘She is not Eva – she never will be. She is an imitation, a likeness, an image of Eva drawn in the dirt. That is all this woman can ever be.’
How poetic. How true. All I could ever be was a flitting shadow of a woman. Hesta nailed my situation with the accuracy of an archer hitting his target, even if she did not know it.
Hugh withdrew from her again. He obviously did not want to discuss this. ‘I do not care for Caitlyn,’ he reiterated.
Good, he remembered my name. What else did he remember? Fur? A tail? A talking cat?
‘Why was she tortured?’ Hesta asked.
He shrugged. ‘I cannot give you all the details, but suffice it to say, one of Llewelyn’s barons took a dislike to her when he discovered her outside Lord William’s door.’
‘No! You do not mean William mated with her?’
Hugh stifled a laugh with his hand. ‘No, I do not! One of Llewelyn’s barons, Sir Ifan, thought she was spying on William.’
‘And was she?’ Hesta saw something in Hugh’s face. ‘I see,’ she said. ‘She was looking for you. I am right, am I not? I am right in thinking you feel something for her?’
I waited for Hugh to deny it again.
He said nothing.
Chapter 21
Killing becomes easier the more often you do it, or so it is said. The first death is an assault on the soul, however much that death is deserved or justified. By the fifth, the mind must inevitably have become accustomed to it. How else could men live with themselves after battle, men like Hugh, seasoned fighters, who were at the peak of their profession. He had probably killed hundreds of men on the field, and several off it. I wondered if he had ever killed a woman.
Five men had died at my hand, and all of the killings had been justified. They had been in self-defence, except one, Idris, but he had deserved it most of all. I had used a knife on two of them, poison on the other three.
Poison was a woman’s weapon of choice, easily concealable, easily administered, not needing strength or ferocity, and a person did not have to linger to witness the results. The poisoner could be many miles, and many days, away from her victim. Depending on the skill of the person preparing the potion and the poison selected, death could even appear to be from natural causes. You didn’t have to be a witch to use poison. Plus, the method was considerably more dependable than a curse or an incantation.
I carried the pouch containing the ground root and the dried berries with me at all times, tied to a cord around my waist and buried deep underneath my clothes. The cord, although made of soft, fine-woven silk, rubbed and chaffed my skin. The contents of the pouch rubbed and chaffed my mind.
It was irritating me right now, as was Hesta, who had forgone morning mass to stand sentinel and now stuck as c
lose to me as a shoe on a foot, hardly leaving me sufficient room to wield my spoon as I broke my fast. I ate my boiled oats in silence, the atmosphere in the great hall subdued and sleepy. I envisaged plenty of sore heads this morning. Looking around, I saw no one I recognised. Neither Lord William nor his wife was in the hall, and nor was Hugh.
As soon as Hesta rose to fetch a portion of bread from the trestle table on which the breakfast foods were laid, I made a dash for the door. Solitude was what I craved, and I wouldn’t find it with Lady Eva’s terrier on my heels.
Some days my burdens were heavier than others. Today they threatened to crush me. I had to be alone. The presence of others stung my mind, like salt rubbed into a wound, so I headed for the one place to guarantee serenity – the chapel.
Cold air, bitter and sharp, stung my nose as I hurried across the bailey. It was December and winter would not be denied, creeping with relentless determination over the land into halls and hovels alike. A hard frost lay on the hills, and the tops of the mountains were draped in cloud. Smoke rose in slanted columns to mix with the mist, their wraith-like tentacles reaching skywards. A grey day to accompany my grey thoughts.
The chapel opened its peaceful arms as I pushed open the door and stepped into its embrace. Morning mass had come and gone, and the sanctuary was empty, not even the priest in sight. Exactly how I wished it to be.
I had been brought up in the religion of my father. His Christian God was my god, although my mother had secretly worshipped at another altar. For her, it was the old ways and the old gods, those deities of air and earth, forest and sky, stream and mountain. For me, as the daughter of a Welsh king of Gwynedd, it was the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost who guided my formative years. My mother paid public homage to one, and private homage to the others. Only when I discovered that magic stalked the land did I understand her duplicity – because I had become the most duplicitous person I knew.
Both my mother and I pretended to be one thing on the outside and were another thing on the inside. Both our crimes were punishable by death. She would have been accused of heresy if caught, and I, of witchcraft. Neither of us deserved to be held accountable. No man nor woman could help believing what they believed, and I could not help what had happened to me.
Dipping my fingers in the holy water, I blessed myself, genuflecting automatically, my body remembering the rituals. I chose a pew halfway to the altar, the wooden seat cold and hard under my bottom. Even inside the church, my breath fogged in front of my nose, the braziers lining the sides doing little to dispel the chill in the high-vaulted sanctuary.
The peaceful stillness and the almost-silence loosened the tightness in my chest a turn, and I breathed deeply, drawing the lingering scent of burnt incense into my lungs, a smell I associated with my childhood and Father. Mother had always smelled of roses and honey.
Today, I had an urge to be closer to God. With old-woman slowness, I stood and shuffled to the altar. My body might be forever twenty-three, but my mind and my soul were ancient, and the years bowed my back until the weight of them forced me down as I knelt before the altar, a statue of the Virgin Mother on one side, Jesus, resplendent in his suffering, on the other. Their images stared back at me with dead, judging eyes.
I clasped my hands in prayer, bowed my head, and asked the question I came to ask. And waited.
An ache, almost not-there at first, seeped into my knees from the cold marble. I tried leaning forwards then back, to shift my weight, but my restlessness served only to grind my bones against the cold stone until shards of fire radiated out, creeping up my thighs and down my shins. The rest of my body had chilled until the chattering of my teeth broke the long silence.
But when I thought I could stand it no more, the answer finally came, ringing clear and true in my mind. Those eyes were not dead after all.
‘Thank you,’ I whispered, my voice lost to the arching beams high above.
‘I often come here after mass,’ someone said from behind me.
I muted a scream, gulping it back, and clambered awkwardly to my feet, my legs tingling as life slowly returned to them. I wobbled, my knees refusing to straighten.
‘Steady.’ Eva caught me by the elbow. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you, nor intrude. You looked so peaceful.’
‘I was.’ I realised how churlish it sounded. ‘I mean, I am. Peaceful.’
‘Until I arrived.’ She smiled, and her face was lit from the inside. ‘Sit with me?’
The front pews, reserved for Lord William and his family, boasted fat, red cushions embroidered with his family crest. My knees sighed with relief when my backside sank onto one of them.
‘I always borrow one of these to kneel on.’ Eva stroked the cushion next to her, her eyes fixed on the statue of Mary. ‘Marble isn’t kind to flesh and blood. You managed to escape Hesta, I see. Good for you.’
Eva was not what I expected. Not at all.
‘I shall call her off,’ she added.
‘I don’t object to her sticking close to me,’ I said, ‘but it isn’t easy going to the privy with her at my elbow.’
Her peal of laughter made me smile. ‘I asked her to look after you, to make you feel welcome, not to wipe your arse. I will instruct her to return to her own room.’ She turned to me. Her eyes, lustrous in the scattered light from the stained-glass window, were beautiful.
Her words sank in, and I let out an astounded laugh. The lady had a sense of humour, and a grubby one at that. As I chuckled, I recalled what Maude told me, that Hesta had been tasked with more than friendship. Or had she? Had I interpreted Maude’s innocent ramblings because of what I knew? That was the problem with a guilty conscience – the simplest of comments or actions by others often became sullied by paranoia.
Hesta may well have shadowed me for a reason of her own. A Hugh-shaped reason. She wanted him, and they made a striking pair. I didn’t blame her for her covetousness, for I coveted him too.
Our laughter tapered off.
‘I came to pray for my daughter,’ Eva said, serious now. ‘I find it impossible to hear God when the priest drones on and on. Surely, he could make do with fewer words? He uses so many of them and repeats them far too often.’
Her dry humour amused me, and I enjoyed her openness. Few ladies in her position would dare make fun of the castle priest.
‘Isabella worries me,’ she continued. ‘She is headstrong and opinionated for one so young. I swear I have no idea how I gave birth to such a child, and Maude is no better. You have met Maude?’
A statement disguised as a question? She knew I had.
‘Yes. She is charming,’ I said.
‘You are talking about my daughter, are you not, and not some other child? Precocious, naughty, undisciplined, maybe, but not charming.’ A smile softened her words. ‘Never charming.’
‘I found her delightful.’ I spoke the truth.
Eva gave me a quizzical look. ‘I pity the man who lands up with her. She will lead him a merry dance.’
A bout of shivering caught me.
‘Can I lend you my cloak?’ She felt for the clasp at her throat.
‘No, my lady, but thank you, anyway. Lord William will flay me alive if you catch a chill.’
She snorted, a most unladylike sound. ‘He probably would not notice. Hugh is a different matter, though. He would notice.’
I stiffened. She saw my reaction and patted my hand.
‘He is good at breaking hearts,’ she said. ‘I love him dearly, but he is a cad.’
She really had no idea he was in love with her.
‘He will not break mine,’ I said.
‘He needs the love of a good woman.’ She stared straight ahead, examining the cross.
‘Hesta seems a good woman.’
Another snort. ‘Hesta is Hesta,’ she said.
That was cryptic.
Eva carried on, her attention still on the cross. ‘Hesta was sent to me by her father, Richard of Essex. He asked me to tame her, to prepare h
er for marriage. She has no mother, so I agreed. When Richard died, she remained with us. Her brother, the current lord, left it to William to secure a husband for her, but he has yet to find someone Hesta deems “suitable”. I believe both of them are hoping Hugh will marry her. She is nearly eighteen and is more than ready to be a wife. She should have been married years ago.’
‘Will Hugh marry her?’ I asked.
‘Alas, no. Hugh shows no inclination to settle down.’
Ah, but he would, if Eva were free.
Eva sighed and her mouth twisted into a moue. ‘I am being silly, but I wish Isabella could wed a man like Hugh. He will be a considerate husband and when he gives his heart, he will give it unreservedly.’ Her voice was wistful.
He already has, I thought, if you only knew it.
‘Isabella will come to her senses,’ Eva went on, twisting a ring on her middle finger, a ruby surrounded by glistening pearls. She slid it off and back on again. Twist. Off and on. Twist. ‘She is young and has yet to understand her responsibilities. I am sure she will warm to you,’ she said.
She was not sure at all, I could tell. Off. On. Twist. Worry for her eldest child clouded her expression.
‘Please tell me she will be safe, and happy,’ she pleaded.
She must know she was asking the impossible. Isabella’s safety would hardly be an issue, but no one could guarantee her happiness.
‘One day Isabella will rule Wales at Dafydd’s side. With Lady Joan to guide her and Dafydd to care for her, she will be a great lady.’ I crossed my fingers against the lie. After Joan married William, the likelihood of Isabella still marrying Dafydd was slim.
We sat in silence. Eva appeared to be deep in thought.
‘I came to pray for a son,’ she said. ‘To pray that William planted a boy in my belly last night. He needs a male heir.’ Her voice cracked.
I understood her grief. Men wanted sons, and she had so far failed to give him one. She had failed him in her only real task as a wife.
The altar faced south, light from the grey day outside illuminating the stained-glass window behind it, patterning the marble slabs with blue and red and green.
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