by Jean Gill
Foremost among the party were always Rhys and Maredudd, riding together, first to dismount into their women’s embrace. Maredudd favoured Enid, a bouncy girl whose curves were barely hidden by her badly-laced dun gown. When the men were not around, most of the women behaved differently, seeking more efficient ways to work rather than to swing their hips with greater allure. Enid, however, was the same bright spirit, hiding nothing and changing nothing, whoever she was with. Estela found her easy company and perhaps Maredudd did too.
Rhys’ choice was a darker character, in looks and personality. Mair’s hair was black as Estela’s but curled wildly and cropped short, as was the Welsh habit with both sexes. Estela found it strange to see the blunt cut fringes hiding their foreheads. Back home, this would have been considered both ugly and lowborn but here, lords and peasants alike all wore this chopped style.
Mair was forever tossing her head like a pony, to shake her fringe out of her eyes, a restless soul. Had she not been living and working the peasant life outdoors, her skin would have been creamy white. It had freckled, rather than browned, in the little sunshine that graced this dreary climate.
Curious, Estela had asked Wyn about her and been told not to annoy ‘that one’. Rumour said she’d killed Rhys’ previous girl but ‘an accident in the woods’ was always possible, and Rhys had taken a fancy to her, so folk let it be.
What kind of people are these? Estela wondered, where a murder is taken so lightly. She stayed away from Mair but watched, as the girl flung herself onto Rhys or flirted her hips as she led his pony to water. Wyn had also said that nobody kept Rhys’ attention for long. He liked a woman well enough but he liked a new one best of all.
As Dragonetz regained enough strength to walk, and then train, in the courtyard, he drew much feminine interest. Estela was aware of women glancing at her, wondering how hard she’d fight for her man. Very, was the answer, and she would stop work to go over to Dragonetz, rest her hand lightly on his arm. If he was sitting, she’d sit beside him, put her hand on his thigh, glare at any women within her line of sight. Mine her eyes told them, in the language she’d learned over the preceding days, one that needed no lessons in pronunciation.
She’d not thought of herself as innocent but she had never lived in a soldier’s camp before. And none of these women were wives. Except herself, by Dragonetz’ words. Wife carried status and along with the messages her eyes flashed, kept the women away from Dragonetz, who merely found the unspoken rivalries amusing. He would catch her possessive hand, take it to his lips, murmur what looked like sweet nothings to the envious onlookers. What he actually said could be anything from ‘Chicken for dinner would be wonderful,’ to ‘They should have more men on the north wall. Approach by sea would be slow.’ Or, of course, he might whisper sweet nothings, and make her blush.
They were indeed on the coast, but not upriver in Caerfyrddin as they had intended. Instead, they were not far from where they had crossed the mouth of the River Tywi, in Llansteffan Castle, well south of the stronghold where the Welshmen had left their wives and children as they struck out against their enemies. As to who those enemies might be, Estela was confused but, thanks to Halfpenny and Wyn, Dragonetz was able to explain.
The brothers wanted their land of Deheubarth back, and had made the most of the Franks fighting each other in the wars between Henri and Stephen. Neither King had time or troops to spare, to help their Marcher Lords hold the lands they’d stolen from the Welsh. Rhys and Maredudd were on a campaign to retake all of south Gwalia. They hoped to drive the Marcher Lords out of the southern and eastern tract of land where they’d settled, expanding from coastal bases. Caerfyrddin and Llansteffan were only two of the fortresses the brothers intended to claim for themselves.
First, they would deal with their old ally and old enemy, their uncle of Gwynedd. Uncle Owain had brought Gwynedd, the north of Gwalia, to their aid as they fought for their inheritance. But the treacherous northerners had then claimed Ceredigion to the east, for themselves. Ceredigion was part of Deheubarth and now was the time to remind Uncle Owain that his nephews were men grown, who would not leave him in peace.
‘So,’ Estela asked Dragonetz when they were alone. ‘How will you make yourself indispensable?’
‘Sing,’ was the answer.
‘Then so shall I!’
‘And then Talharcant can sing too.’ The sword named Bladesong in Occitan had been sheathed longer than its wont. ‘Wyn tells me that the first steps to recovering Deheubarth lie to the west. Rhys wants to oust his uncle from Ceredigion first; Maredudd prefers to gain the coastal castles held by the Franks.’
Estela realised what was not being said. ‘If Maredudd has his way, you’ll be in the attacks against Henri’s vassals, your peers.’
Dragonetz’ face was grim. ‘It will happen all the same even if we recover Ceredigion first.’ We noted Estela.
He continued, ‘That’s why I needed to know more, to judge what was my duty before I ride out.’
‘And you know now?’
He nodded.
‘The Marcher Lords have no respect for Henri. They claim ever more land, war against each other, would wipe out the Welsh if they could. They’ve never met their Liege and he’s been too busy claiming a future kingship to worry about Gwalia. Aliénor read it aright; Henri needs a balance here, not a victory. The Welsh can contain the overweening Marcher lords and those same lords can be forged into a weapon against the Welsh, should Henri choose, until all make oath to their Liege and keep it.’
Estela knew her knight. ‘You seek balance, again, as in Les Baux.’
‘It is the only way. Those who seek to kill all their enemies will waste their own lives in a task that only creates more enemies.’
‘Then it doesn’t matter whose choice you follow, Maredudd’s or Rhys’, you ride with the Welsh and help them win.’
He nodded. ‘And whatever they decide, the brothers will ride together. That’s why they win. I shall help them win more swiftly and, I hope, with honour.’ That was why he looked grim. Not at the choice of enemy but at the probable manner of victory. He had never ridden with Welshmen before.
His next words, brutal, confirmed her guess. ‘They do not take prisoners but they do take heads.’
‘Because of their mother?’ Estela remembered Rhys’ bitterness.
‘I think not,’ Dragonetz replied. ‘It is their way, of old. It might even be that the Princess was beheaded as a message, that Franks would treat the Welsh by their own customs. I witnessed such a response in the Holy Land. But there is no honour in cutting off the head of a brave lady who has led her men and lost a battle!’
‘The man who did it – is he still alive? Will it be his castle that the Welsh attack if they choose the Franks next?’
‘No, Kidwelly is too strong and Maurice de Londres is dead.’ He hesitated. ‘Estela, I wish you had not come with me.’
‘Nonsense! If I hadn’t, you might not still be alive. And I would not have heard the Welsh tales and songs.’ Or ways to pull a woman’s hair and scratch at her eyes. To lift his dark mood, Estela asked him what they should sing for the Lords of Deheubarth and she told him the style of song she’d heard from the women.
The prospect of something other than manual labour motivated Estela to work twice as hard and earned her an invitation to bake ‘bara’. Baking bread was work she could enjoy and she sang as she explored the stores. The other women had no idea what she was singing but they smiled at the sound.
A girl with dimples and brown curls touched Estela on the arm, pointed to herself. ‘Blodwen,’ she said and she pointed to her mouth, said something that made the others nod in agreement. Then she started to sing and Estela understood. Blodwen was a singer too. Estela had no idea what the words were but the sound was sweet and rousing. A couple of women brushed tears from their eyes.
‘Hiraeth,’ one told Estela, her mouth twisting.
When Estela saw Wyn again, asked him what the word meant, and his m
outh twisted too. ‘It is a Welshness,’ he told her. ‘You do not feel it. The love and longing for your homeland. The pleasure of knowing such love and the grief of loss.’
‘Hiraeth,’ repeated Estela. Wyn was wrong; she knew that feeling well.
RHYS WAS DELIGHTED at Dragonetz’ offer of entertainment but told him, ‘We take song and verse seriously. A woman can play the harp or crwth nicely as you please but the voice is an instrument for men. I’d not waste my time listening to a woman. You’d not demean your wife by letting her make a fool of herself.’ It was a statement, not a question.
However tactfully Dragonetz relayed the Lord’ response, Estela understood all too well. Her confidence drained away. Even if she did sing, would these barbarians recognise her skills? When they didn’t know the words, would they hear only her woman’s voice that they had been taught to underestimate, to ignore? And if she sang, she would be thought immodest (a whore again!); if she did not sing, she was a goodwife, invisible – or worse, a mere table decoration, and in a place so barbaric there were no tables! Where they served themselves, and sat on their bedding rushes to eat from trenchers that were more like stone than bread. There was no risk of the trenchers crumbling into their beds! The hiraeth washed over her, for civilisation, for home, for Musca, Gilles and Nici. This place was so other.
She didn’t know her head had drooped until she felt her chin lifted gently, Dragonetz eyes steady on hers. Those had been his very words, what felt like a lifetime ago. ‘Do you want to be a table decoration?’ he had asked her, when she was his student and felt a failure, missing notes and spoiling phrases. And she had worked so hard, learning everything he and Malik could teach her! She had come so far!
‘What’s a crwth?’ she asked, summoning a weak smile.
‘As far as I can work out, an instrument with strings, a bit like a rustic lute but held more like a viol. Lord Rhys has promised us the finest music of his court when he returns to his seat. Wyn says the women and children are in Dinefwr, in the north of the realm, so the softer artisans and musicians must be there too.’
He was not fooled by her smile for a second.
‘No,’ he said to her softly. ‘My wife will not be demeaned by public performance. Because Estela de Matin will be the best singer in that Hall, whichever Welshmen the Lords call upon to strut their superiority.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘You’ve known worse audiences and we are together this time. This is what we’ll do.’
Chapter 16
The food was but a repetition of the usual fare, chunks of meat served on trenchers, each large enough for three people, and a small piece of bread to mop up the gravy. Though baked daily, bread was a luxury and one of the advantages of being a baker was that Estela could sneak an extra crust for herself and Dragonetz. And John Halfpenny, as he made up the third person sharing the trencher.
Estela chid herself for being so mean as to resent sharing. She had never known hunger before and realised that her charitable habits in the past were more comfortable from a full belly. For all their savage ways, Lords Rhys and Maredudd always said grace and put a symbolic portion of bread aside at table, for the poor. It was given to those who came to the castle gate after sun-up each day, along with a rather larger portion reserved from the daily bake. ‘Cadell’s tithe’, the Welsh called it and when Estela enquired of Wyn, she learned that Cadell was a third brother, gone to Rome on pilgrimage that year.
‘He took a beating. Then he put his brothers in charge and left to find healing of the soul.’ Wyn was reluctant to discuss the matter.
The following day would be the Sabbath and Estela was again surprised to learn that no unholy activity was permitted. The men would not ride out and the laundry must wait a day to be taken to the stream, however brightly the sun might shine. The atmosphere was light with the prospect of a day’s rest and instead of the usual ale, wine flowed freely.
When all had finished eating, the drinking continued and, with a nod of assent from Maredudd, Rhys called to one of his men, presumably to start the entertainment.
‘Wyn!’ Dragonetz caught the Welshman as he tried to slip past them and off to who-knows-where. As if that had always been his intention, he sat down beside them and resumed his role as interpreter.
He’s paid well enough for it, thought Estela.
The older man called by Rhys struck a pose near the brothers, facing the audience, and declaimed in a resonant voice. Poetry perhaps?
‘The lineage of our Lords,’ whispered Wyn with pride. ‘From Adam to Aeneas and down to the present day.’
‘Aeneas!’ Estela couldn’t prevent her reaction but Wyn took it as ignorance rather than amusement and proceeded to enlighten her.
‘Aeneas was the hero of the Trojans, who escaped and set sail, as recounted in Virgil’s Aeneid, to found a line of heroes here in our mother country,’ Wyn told her sotto voce. Unlike hunger, being patronised was something Estela had experienced before, and she held her tongue.
For what seemed an age, a whole Trojan war of names rolled out in sonorous Welsh. Informed that ‘ap’ meant ‘son of’, Estela could pick out the names but their descriptions were lost on her.
‘Cadell ap Rhodri Mawr, Hywel ap Cadell, Owain ap Hywel Dda, Einon ab Owain, Cadell ab Einon, Tewdur ap Cadell, Rhys ap Tewdur, Gruffydd ap Rhys, Maredudd ap Gruffydd, Rhys ap Gryffydd,’ the voice intoned and Estela could have cheered when she recognised the brothers’ names. She was surprised by the order and guessed that Maredudd must be the elder brother. She had assumed Rhys to be because of his manner, not in the way he treated his brother but in his own bearing, a certain presence. Perhaps it was just because he’d stopped the badger-baiting. Or because he was the one with a reputation for poetry and song.
John Halfpenny was saying something to Dragonetz that she couldn’t hear over the general noise as men called for more drink and the women stepped over each other to get the jugs and avoid the hands that reached up to stroke a passing leg. Women and men alike were bare-legged and mostly bare-footed. Many of the men even rode out on skirmishes unshod, their feet toughened as dog-pads.
‘What are they doing?’ Estela spoke into Dragonetz’ ear, to be heard, and watched Halfpenny and Wyn stumbling towards the spot vacated by the genealogical bard.
‘Wyn says he usually tells a few jokes, acts as a sort of jongleur I think, before the music. And Halfpenny insists he is funnier than Wyn so they have a wager on who gets the most laughter.’
‘That’s not an equal contest when Halfpenny has but a smattering of Welsh!’
‘Ah but the only laughter to be measured is that of my Lords Rhys and Maredudd. I am to judge.’
Estela sighed. All she needed was endless tavern humour while her stomach churned, waiting for the moment she and Dragonetz took their turn. She checked for the umpteenth time that her oud was at her side, wrapped in its cloth.
‘Would you like me to recite your ancestry unto the twentieth generation before you sing? She asked him. ‘Dragonetz los Pros ap Dragon de Ruffec?’
‘You will have quite enough to think about, Estela cydwedd Dragonetz.’
‘Wife?’ she guessed, hesitant.
‘Yoke-mate,’ he told her, his eyes dancing.
Then Rhys called for quiet and Wyn moved his arms a lot, spoke very fast and was appreciated by all in the audience but for her and Dragonetz, if she were to judge by the raucous laughter. She understood not one word.
When Halfpenny ended his tale of a cock and a rabbit with a punchline that relied on susse (know) sounding like suce (suck), she wished she hadn’t understood a word of that either, but a few men in the Hall guffawed, and she could assume that those who didn’t, couldn’t understand the Frankish. Dragonetz’ lack of response was no indicator as to the quality of the tale as he was completely absorbed in his study of the reactions from Maredudd and Rhys.
‘One apiece,’ he murmured. ‘Even.’
Then it was Wyn’s turn again and Estela could guess at
the development of the story by the rhythm and volume, the pause and the open-armed gesture of hilarious climax. And it must have been because the Hall exploded in laughter.
Dragonetz shrugged. ‘Two to one,’ he said.
Halfpenny mopped the sweat from his brow and swore volubly and at length, which amused his audience more than his previous tale. He stood on his hands and waggled his legs, moving his feet so that they looked like two puppets talking to each other, as he provided the dialogue.
The left foot wiggled its complaint, simpering, ‘This accursed language is only good for taxes and tolls. When a man tries to speak his mind in Frankish, the words sound like a girl’s lawsuit, pretty and meaningless!’
‘True, that is,’ yelled one of the audience and there was a murmur of approval as the words were translated for all to understand.
‘Who among you understand the language of gluttons and whoresons?’ Nobody was keen to own up to this skill but the amusement made it clear how many in the Hall enjoyed the list of Frankish insults directed against the speakers of that language.
Then it was the right foot’s turn to point toes at the audience and address them, in a gruff voice. This time, almost everybody in the Hall understood the words and there was uproar.
Almost everybody.
‘That must have been funny,’ Estela observed, as Halfpenny tumbled adroitly to his feet, took an agile bow and glanced with sideways challenge at his comic competition. ‘It didn’t even sound like Welsh.’
Dragonetz threw her a swift glance of sympathy, then returned to his study of the two Welsh lords. ‘I think it was meant to be Frankish,’ he told her.
Then he murmured, ‘The decider, I think,’ as Wyn cleared his throat and drew all eyes to him.
If there is anything less entertaining than men telling bawdy jokes in a tavern all night, it’s men telling bawdy jokes in a foreign language, thought Estela as she watched the faces of the audience for clues as to what on earth Wyn was narrating.