“There’s no need,” he said.
“My father sent me to you. He has sought your death all my life. The better you look, the more glory your end confers on him.”
Cade had been watching her face as she ministered to him and now leaned forward to grab the fist that held the cloth and stop her movements. “You’re my sister?”
They wasted three heartbeats in a silent tug-of-war with the bloody cloth, but Rhiann persisted, and Cade finally gave up, releasing her.
Rhiann shook her head, dabbing at his forehead again. “No. My mother is not yours. She was my father’s mistress and died at my birth, not long after he married your mother. You are two years older than I am.”
Cade sat back. At his apparent acceptance, Rhiann took a moment to study him as he was studying her. She knew what he saw: dark eyes and black hair, pale skin and straight teeth. She looked nothing like her father or her dead mother, her nurse had told her. As a child, she’d hoped that she was a changeling and dreamed of the day her true family would come to take her away.
Rhiann also looked nothing like any of the daughters Cade’s mother had produced with Cadfael. They were blond like she was, harking back to the northern blood of her ancestors. Yet Cade little resembled Alcfrith either, and Rhiann wondered at his long dead father. Was he as tall? Were his shoulders as broad and his hair as dark as Cade’s? Did he draw the attention of everyone in a room to him as Cade did? It was only his eyes he must have gotten from his mother, although hers were a pale blue, like a washed out winter sky, and his were brighter and more piercing.
“I noticed you standing behind your father’s chair.” Cade released Rhiann from the spell that meeting his eyes had put her under. She moved back, setting down the bowl to rinse the cloth in the warm water. “If not for the fine weave of your dress, I’d have thought you were one of his slaves.”
“I’m hardly more than that, in truth,” Rhiann said. “My father demands that I serve him.”
“And you do not wish to?”
“He murders you tomorrow, Cade,” she said, by way of explanation. “And you are hardly the first.”
“So you’re a prisoner of a kind as well.” Cade reached out as if to touch the back of Rhiann’s hand with his finger. He held his hand above hers, touching but not touching, and then withdrew. “How am I to die?”
“Hanging,” Rhiann said. “They’re building the gallows now. Are you much wounded elsewhere?”
Cade shrugged and rested the back of his head against the wall. “Only a few bruises. And my pride.”
Able suddenly to give voice to her anger, Rhiann threw down her cloth. “Why? Why did you come here?”
Cade canted his head to one side to look at her. “Why do you care?”
Rhiann gazed at him, exasperated. “Because we’ve been waiting! The people of Gwynedd have been waiting for twenty years for you to come, and we would have gladly waited for many more until you were ready, rather than have you die tomorrow by my father’s will.”
Cade shook his head. “You don’t know, do you?” His voice was barely above a whisper, and Rhiann leaned in closer to hear him better.
“Know what?” she said.
Cade shook his head again. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter now.”
“It does matter,” Rhiann said, feeling fierce. “What does the bard sing of Arthur? Fear and dread followed him, even to his death? That describes my father just as well. You shouldn’t be dying here for nothing.”
“Fear and dread followed him, even to his death, before we covered him with earth. Yet death do I prefer to cowardice. For this bitter death, I lament,” Cade quoted. “I know that Arthur cast a shadow far longer than mine ever could, but I would be such a one as fought at his side.”
“Arthur is dead, Cade,” Rhiann said. “And you’ll die tomorrow. There’s not much there for the bards to sing of.”
Cade gave her a blank stare, which she met. The she looked away. “I’m sorry.”
Cade sat silent, and then he sighed hard, forcing the air out of his chest. “I am less of a man for telling you, but my heart tells me that I must speak to someone, even if she is only a girl-who-is-not-my-sister.”
He studied Rhiann again, and she waited, feeling like she was finally going to be told the truth, and perhaps it was only a stranger such as he who could tell it. “Rhiannon,” he said, surprising her by using her formal name, “your father invited me here.”
Rhiann’s hand jerked, and she nearly spilled the bowl of water. “He what?”
Cade gave her a rueful look. “We were to meet at the ford of the Cefni River, here on Anglesey. We’ve been negotiating our meeting for weeks.”
“I’m sure nobody but my father and a few advisors knew that. There’s been no talk; no gossip.”
Cade shrugged. “I was clearly a fool to believe him, and even more of one to come here, but it was not without cause. After I took from him one of his forts on the mainland of Gwynedd, he sent an emissary to me. He said that he didn’t have an heir and would bestow the honor upon me, given that my mother is his wife. But he felt he needed to meet me first. You must admit, this overture was not without precedent and, after my initial skepticism, I believed him.”
“He—” Rhiann swallowed hard through the thickening in her throat. She could barely get the words out. “Nobody who knows my father would ever have believed him. He hates you with such passion I’ve thought at times his heart would give out when he speaks of you.”
“I didn’t have the benefit of your experience,” Cade said, “nor the advice of counselors who would know better. Even my foster father agreed that I should make the attempt. Unfortunately, he, along with the other counselors I did have, paid for their ignorance and my naïveté with their lives.”
Not wanting to think about their wasteful deaths, Rhiann bowed her head, soaking and squeezing the cloth over and over again. Finally, Cade reached out a hand and gently took it from her. This time, she let him.
“I’m sorry,” Rhiann said again.
“And my mother?” Cade said. “How goes it with her?”
Now it was Rhiann’s turn to shake her head. “You’ve not seen her? Not since you were an infant?”
“No. Not until today.”
Rhiann didn’t know what to say; how to begin or not begin. “I don’t know. She has never—” She paused and tried again. “I have lived with her my whole life, and she showed more emotion in seeing you than I have ever seen from her. For the first time it occurs to me that she didn’t give you away, she gave away herself. She sent you away and kept herself from you so that you might live.”
Cade stared past Rhiann at the fireless hearth, and she followed his gaze. It was the beginning of February, but even so, not too chilly in the room, despite the recent rains. Rhiann supposed the guards would not have lit the fire anyway for fear of finding the fort burning down around them in the night. Then Cade flexed his large hands, and Rhiann imagined him grasping a sword and wielding it. Even the heavier Saxon ones would give him little difficulty.
“Go now, and do not watch tomorrow. I would not have you see me—” He stopped and cleared his throat. “I’d prefer you didn’t see what happens to me tomorrow.”
Rhiann had been kneeling on the floor but now got to her feet, leaving the bowl and cloth in case he wanted them. “Shall I send for your mother?”
Cade didn’t answer. Rhiann let the silence lengthen and then turned to the door because it didn’t seem like he was going to respond. She knocked so the guard would let her out.
“No,” he said, finally. He remained sprawled in his original position on the floor.
Rhiann nodded. The guard opened the door to allow her to leave and then barred it behind her. The guard had once been one of Cadwallon’s men, long since retired from the field and now reduced to guarding his former lord’s son. He refused to meet her eyes, but spoke anyway.
“It’s best this way, miss,” he said.
“No, it isn’t.” The f
ierceness of before rose inside her again. “This is wrong. I can’t believe I’m the only one who sees it!”
The man shrank back under Rhiann’s attack, but before he could say anything more, Rhiann felt a step on the floorboards behind her. She turned to see Alcfrith watching them from the other end of the hall. Their eyes met, and Alcfrith tipped her head towards the entrance to her room before entering it. She left the door ajar.
Hesitantly, Rhiann followed her into the room and shut the door.
“You’ve seen him?” Alcfrith said.
“Yes.”
“Is he badly hurt?”
“He’s not much injured. Far less than I feared. He will certainly live long enough for Father to murder him.”
“As he murdered Cadwaladr’s father,” Alcfrith said.
“What? What did you say?” Rhiann said. “My father killed Cadwallon?”
Alcfrith turned to Rhiann with a blank stare, one that told Rhiann she was already so far gone in grief she didn’t see her—and perhaps her words had not been meant for Rhiann, but for the woman Alcfrith had been.
“You must save Cadwaladr,” she said, “and leave Aberffraw with him.”
“Me?” Rhiann said. “I’ve been struggling with how it might be possible since they brought him in, but I’m afraid it isn’t.”
“You have no future here,” Alcfrith said, ignoring Rhiann’s protest. “You’ve turned down all the men your father has brought for you to marry.”
“I couldn’t marry any of them,” Rhiann said. “They were all his allies. Every last one was old and evil. Did you see the teeth on Meurig of Rhiannt?”
Alcfrith shook her head. “Marriage could have been a way out of here for you. As it is, it’s too late. If you stay here, your father will force you to marry Peada, my brother’s son. He’s not a bad man, but no Christian.”
“I’ve already told father I won’t marry Peada,” Rhiann said. “The priest won’t let Father force me into it.”
“Peada is the ruler of Middle Anglia and King Penda’s son. When Peada comes for you, you will have no choice. He does not listen to priests.”
Rhiann’s stomach sank into her boots. All along she’d feared exactly that, even if she hadn’t admitted it to herself and had managed to defy her father up until now. Cadfael had known it too, undoubtedly. He’d taken the opportunity to punish Rhiann with public disgrace for her disobedience, but Rhiann had felt throughout it all that he’d been laughing at her, sure in his power over her future.
Every man he’d brought to Aberffraw to seek Rhiann’s hand had been Welsh, and thus subject to the restrictions of the Church. The Saxons, on the other hand, were pagans, bowing only to their gods and with no respect for the gods of others. They’d sacked churches and killed monks countless times. Of course, Cadfael’s men would have done the same to them, if they’d had churches.
The Welsh gods, the sidhe, were entirely different from the Saxon gods, with familiar names that didn’t grate on one’s ears: Arianrhod and Gwydion, children of Dôn; Llyr, god of the sea; Arawn, Lord of Annwn, the Underworld. Rhiann suspected that many of her father’s men, under their Christian guise, still believed in the old gods, keeping them close but hidden like a comfortable and faded shirt worn beneath a new and glossy coat of mail. Since the coming of the Christ, the sidhe had hidden themselves, no longer walking freely among their people. With each passing year, they retreated further into the mists and shadows of the high valleys and mountains.
“I hadn’t realized that my time was so short,” Rhiann said. “Father hasn’t said anything to me about it.” Her father claimed to be a Christian, but an alliance with a Saxon king was worth more to him than his religion. Or her.
“Why would he?” Alcfrith said. “You are a woman, and your value is found in what he can sell you for, even at twenty and long past the point at which you should have married. You are his to do with as he pleases.” She turned her back on Rhiann, her head bowed. “Just as I am.”
Uncertain, Rhiann reached out a tentative hand and rested it on Alcfrith’s shoulder. Alcfrith took Rhiann’s hand in hers, turned back, and managed a half-smile.
“I may not be able to save myself,” she said, “but I will not stand by to see either Cadwaladr or you lose your life, or your soul, at Cadfael’s hands.”
“I don’t know what to say.” Rhiann was stunned at Alcfrith’s frankness. “You’ve spoken more to me in these few moments than in my entire life.”
“I have clothes for you.” Alcfrith turned abruptly from Rhiann. She walked to a chest in the corner of the chamber and opened it. Inside were male garments—breeches, jersey and cloak—which Alcfrith brought out one by one and piled into Rhiann’s arms.
“Why are you doing this?” Rhiann said.
“I’ve never been a mother to you.” Alcfrith closed the lid to the chest and faced Rhiann again. “Neither to you nor to my son.”
“I never expected—”
“Well you should have!” Alcfrith said.
Startled, Rhiann took a step back.
“All your life until now you’ve held yourself cheaply, expecting nothing and receiving nothing,” Alcfrith said. “I treated you no differently than your father did. I just couldn’t bear—” She paused.
“Bear what?”
Alcfrith took a deep breath and let it out. “You reminded me so much of Cadwaladr, even as an infant: so stubborn, so fiery, and yet so soft and warm in my arms. I couldn’t bear to hold you. As you grew—as you crawled and walked and talked—all I could see in you was my lost son.”
“You can see him now,” Rhiann said. “He’s right next door.”
“No.” Alcfrith shook her head. “I have no claim on him. He owes me nothing, and I will not ask anything from him because he’d give it.”
Alcfrith was right. Rhiann had spoken with Cade for the first time that evening and yet she already knew him well enough to know that what Alcfrith said was true. “Father’s not going to kill Cadwaladr,” Rhiann said, suddenly sure.
Alcfrith nodded. “I have a plan. God willing, you will take him out of here and never see me again. If Cadfael catches you, I will not be able to save either one of you.”
“I understand,” Rhiann said.
“You don’t have much time, cariad.”
Rhiann stared at her. Loved one, Alcfrith had called her, for the first time in her life. Alcfrith put a hand on each of Rhiann’s shoulders, pulled her into her arms for a brief hug, and then stepped back in order to look deep into Rhiann’s eyes.
“There is much you need to do,” Alcfrith said.
Sweet Mary, do I dare?
Yet Rhiann did exactly as Alcfrith asked.
___________
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