Crown of Passion

by Jocelyn Carew

  “I do not wish Brian to come with us,” said Countess Maud. “The boy is — not fit for court life. I have made a decision, Gwyn, and I have already written to my cousin near Argenton. I shall send Brian to him.”

  “For the church?”

  “If it comes to that,” said Maud dourly. “I doubt he is fit for anything else. My brother will send an escort for him, for I dare not send him alone.”

  The hunting party rode out in mid-morning, without Brian. If his mother missed him, she was doubtless the only one. At length, after the day had passed the noon mark and the picnic lunch had been produced and eaten, Gwyn said to Henry, “How kind you are to provide this entertainment for us.”

  Henry smiled, the crooked smile that gave him a mischievous look, and answered, “I had my reasons, as you may well guess.”

  “No, I have no idea, except to give us a nice time, especially Countess Maud.”

  “Countess Maud can go to the devil for all of me,” said Prince Henry. “It is you I wish to have by my side, not only today, but for all time.”

  Gwyn, startled, looked sidelong at Henry beneath her long lashes. Henry reached out to cover her hand with his own. They were seated under a great oak tree, almost alone. Jeanne and the others were playing a kind of tag, and even Henry’s men joined in to entertain the small girl. Their cries of joy and shrieks of laughter came faintly to the shade where Henry and Gwyn were sitting. Gwyn hardly knew what to say. She tried to explain her feelings. “You are my best friend here at court,” she explained, “and I am very grateful to you for all the things you have done for us.”

  Henry smiled an awkward one-sided grin. “I do have certain influence,” he said dryly, “and I used it to clear the knights out of the round tower so you would have a safe place to stay. You will agree that our court needs a woman’s touch?”

  “It certainly needs something.” Gwyn turned then and looked full-face at Henry, surprising a look in his eyes that she had not seen before. He leaned toward her urgently and said in a low, vibrant tone, “You are a witch! I remember you said that Saxon girl called you so, and I laughed. But it is not an amusing matter, for I have now fallen under your spell, as I have never loved a woman before.”

  The expression in his eyes sent her reeling, and she scarcely knew what to answer. Thoughts ran wildly through her mind. What will the king say? Will he let his brother wed me? Will it be approved by the court?

  Henry’s fingers squeezed hers and he said, “Don’t answer me right away. You have bewitched me and I must follow where you lead. The day may come, as you know, when I must wed for state reasons, to strengthen the monarchy, for at the rate my brother is going, he will not live forever. It is my destiny to be king of this land, and whatever that destiny requires, I shall do. But no matter what queen I must take, I want you with me, always.”

  “And what of me then?” demanded Gwyn. “I am to be set aside while your queen moves in state for all to see, at your side, crowned and honored?”

  “I have a destiny I may not shirk.”

  Gwyn began to feel her pride burning within her, reaching up and mantling her cheeks with a flush. Prince Henry was not offering her his own destiny to share. He wished to receive from her all the love she would have to give, for she was well enough acquainted with herself to know that one love was all she would ever have. She had a fanatic loyalty to a love she had not yet met. She had hoped, for a little while, that Henry was that man. But she could see that she was to be only a part of his life, and she would not share her love with anyone else.

  She drew herself up as tall as she could and said, as she withdrew her fingers from his hand, “I, too, have a destiny.” At his raised eyebrows she answered, “My destiny is to love where I will, and not where I must. Your brother may wed me to some one of his vassals, and I must accede to that, but of my own free will I go only where I love.”

  “Your love is more precious than jewels to me,” Henry began, but she swept on.

  “Yet I would only give my love in honor —”

  “To any man my brother sees fit to provide you,” scoffed the prince. His eyes darkened with emotion, anger, and his genuine feeling for her. “Honor before love, I see.”

  “And yet you hold the same thought,” objected Gwyn. “For is it not your honor that makes you hold out to wed for your kingdom? I hold myself in the same light and would not easily throw away my virtue, Lord Henry.”

  She had wounded Henry, it was clear, but she could do nothing else. It would be a road that led nowhere to give in to him, no matter how fond of him she was. She would be no man’s mistress!

  Gwyn forgot her own troubles that night at dinner, when she saw a glance that passed between Flambard and Rainault, over Brian’s head. Then she remembered Flambard’s visit to the round tower, and realized that somehow Brian figured greatly in Flambard’s thoughts. But why?

  FitzOmer was at dinner as well, and his eyes fell on his intended bride. He moved over to where she sat, and she shrank back against Countess Maud. FitzOmer smiled at her, intending a gentle smile. He did not realize that his smile would never be a pleasant one. And afterward she found out why little Jeanne was so afraid of FitzOmer.

  Back in their rooms, Hyrtha said, “Something is wrong, Jeanne won’t talk to me.” Gwyn knelt before the frightened little girl. The pain in Jeanne’s eyes wrenched them.

  Little by little the story came out. It was mostly guesswork on the part of Gwyn and Maud, for all that Jeanne would say was, “He did something to me!” The gesture that accompanied this statement over and over gave Gwyn a sickened feeling at the pit of her stomach. They took Jeanne into the next room, and Hyrtha brought a bowl of water, filled with herbs. The sharp scent of lavender rose in the confined room, and Hyrtha with great gentleness bathed the little girl. Hyrtha was ashen, but her hands moved to undress the child, to wash her body with cool water — “I washed all the hurt away, love” — and drop a fresh-smelling chemise over the thin chest, the bruised, scratched body. Jeanne seemed hardly to know what Hyrtha was doing, and repeated with a whimper and that fluttering of her hands that somehow seemed obscene in such a small child, “He did something to me!”

  Countess Maud was helpless in a sickroom, as Gwyn had discovered long ago, and left the girl’s care to Gwyn and Hyrtha. Gwyn could do nothing to soothe the child until suddenly Jeanne, undressed and covered with a fur blanket on her pallet, shivered against the cold and clung to Gwyn’s hand. “The Butterflies!”

  Hyrtha looked askance at her and said to Gwyn under her breath, “Has she lost her senses?”

  Jeanne said, “No! I want the story!”

  Gwyn began the story. “The sun has risen and set a million million times — since the little boy Ifan found in his master’s house a box within a box within a box, and in the tiniest box he found three black and green butterflies. The butterflies asked, ‘What commands our gracious master?’ And he wished for the Princess Mechel, the beautiful lady he had seen when he first came to town, and the three butterflies granted his every wish.

  “And Ifan lived happily, until the butterflies were stolen and he must find a way to get them back.”

  “And when they were stolen?” It was Hyrtha’s question, for she had been caught up in the story. “How did he get them back?”

  “A little mouse brought them out of the mansion where the wicked carpenter had imprisoned them. And Ifan” — the little girl’s eyes drooped, drowsily — “and Mechel lived happily ever after.”

  Jeanne broke the silence only once, to exclaim in a lost little voice, “If I had the butterflies, I would wish to die!” Gwyn said soothingly, “But then who would release the butterflies? You remember, at the end Ifan released the butterflies to go home and not live in slavery anymore. If you were dead, no one could do that!”

  “No. But I would send the wicked man where the carpenter went!”

  FitzOmer? No doubt of it.

  “Where is that?” wondered Hyrtha.

  Gwyn let her
voice fall into a singsong, lower and lower, as she finished the story. “The wicked carpenter was banished from Wales, but because no one should stay away always, he was to be allowed to come toward his home, at a length of a barleycorn, every hundred years.”

  “Less than an inch!”

  “Too fast — I’d never let him come back!” Jeanne said sleepily. “And I’d set the butterflies free …”

  As Gwyn finished the story, setting the butterflies free to go where they had come from, her voice dropped lower and lower, and at last she saw that Jeanne’s thin little chest rose and fell regularly, and the girl was asleep.

  She moved with Hyrtha to another corner of the room so as not to disturb the girl. She said to Hyrtha, “This kind of thing is not new to you?”

  Hyrtha said simply, “After what happened to my family, nothing shocks me anymore. Nothing the Normans do can disturb me, as much as they have already done.” Her voice sank lower. “When the Normans came they killed my mother, and my father. My brother Godric hid, but then they found my little sister, dragged her out into the clearing, and then one after another took turns on her.”

  After a long silence Gwyn said softly, “You saw?”

  “I was hiding under the thatch in the hut, and they did not see me. I feared they would set fire to the hut as they had the others, but they must have thought the whole village would catch from the one blaze, and they rode off, laughing.”

  “They killed your sister?”

  “There was no need to kill her, with a sword at least. They had already killed her as she lay there, naked and crying out to them. They had no mercy!”

  Gwyn lapsed into thought. Whatever had happened that day to Jeanne had not been of the magnitude of what had happened to Hyrtha’s young sister, but she did not know how deep a shock the girl had sustained. Gwyn resolved then, swearing an oath to herself, that she would never allow Jeanne to become the bride of FitzOmer. In fact, Gwyn would strive with all her spirit, and her body if necessary, to see that FitzOmer never came near the child again.

  There were times, she thought sourly, that she was ashamed of her Norman blood.

  7

  Winter shall wane, my child, fair weather come again,

  The sun-warmed summer! the woman grow up beloved

  Among her people. Much joy from harp-play …

  Hyrtha’s voice, crooning the old Saxon words, came from the inner room, where Jeanne was too wounded to leave her pallet.

  Gwyn thought briefly how tender the poem sounded, almost as though the same sweet voice had not, only an hour since, promised harshly, “I will kill the Norman myself for what he did to the child!”

  When Prince Henry found out what had happened between FitzOmer and the child, he disappeared into his brother’s suite. He was there for some time, and Gwyn watched closely to see when he emerged. She was too far away to see aught but the furious set of his shoulders and the angry aggressive way he strode away.

  Apparently William had dismissed the anguish of his young ward as though it were of no import. She heard Henry calling for his groom, his squire, and in a short time all three clattered out of the big double gates and down the hill. Gwyn could not watch them out of sight, for her view from the tower was blocked by the watchtower at the gate, but she thought that in Henry’s present state of mind it would be well were he to go far and long before returning to court.

  The injury that had been done to young Jeanne, Gwyn realized, had its counterpart in Countess Maud’s moods. Never an easy person to live with, Countess Maud now was so touchy that even Gwyn, sharing to some degree Countess Maud’s anguish, could not reach her.

  Countess Maud sat hunched before the empty grate, black with dead coals and ashes, and brooded. Margit brought bowls of broth to her, and after they sat untouched and grew cold so that the grease formed on the top of the broth, she came and took it away. It was a lonely time for Gwyn, but she would have to be content to stay with Countess Maud, waiting for the moment when she returned to the present.

  “Why does not my cousin send word?” fretted Maud. “I dare not let the boy out of my sight!”

  Brian, unaware of the plans made for his journey from Winchester to Normandy and kept in the keep by his mother’s orders, made plans for a great new poem. “The tune jingles in my head by night and by day,” he confided to Gwyn. “And the tale will have naught to do with hunting or with battles. It will be about birds singing, and the stars and — You will see!”

  Gwyn spoke kindly to him and asked interested questions, and he hurried out at last, borne to his rooms upstairs on the wings of her faith in him, so he told her.

  The second day Flambard sent for Gwyn, saying, “We have no lady in our dining hall, and King William has expressed a wish that you attend him tonight. With, of course, Countess Maud and your own squire.”

  “I should not like to disappoint my king,” said Gwyn, demurely. “But I am coming down with a congestion, and I think it would be best if I stayed within the tower.”

  Flambard’s little eyes immediately glinted suspiciously. Countess Maud spoke then, as though from a great distance. “Gwyn, you must obey.”

  Flambard nodded approvingly. “You are right, lady, for my master, although I should not say it, is not a man to cross. He has expressed a wish, and he expects this to be law. As, of course, it is in his kingdom.”

  Gwyn’s proud blood stirred uneasily. She did not like to be told what to do. But life had taken a wrong turn since her father’s death, and in the last three months she had learned to do much that she found new. Flambard must have no reason to complain of her to the king. She lifted her chin proudly and said, “I shall obey my lord’s wishes.” Flambard grunted, gratified at her submission, but she continued, “Will my Lord FitzOmer be present at the assemblage?”

  Flambard made to answer tartly, but then relented. “No, Lady Gwynllion. He departed before daybreak, riding hard. He found no friend here at court.” He paused in the doorway and spoke to Maud. “I shall expect your entire group, Countess Maud, all but the ill child. Leave a maid with her.”

  Countess Maud was clearly on the verge of voicing a vigorous protest, but instead she threw up her hands and let them fall limply in her lap. It was no use, her attitude said. What was to be, would be. Gwyn gave the countess a questioning look, but she could not catch her eye.

  Thus it was that later in the afternoon, with the setting sun still touching the tops of the surrounding walls, Gwyn was on the way across the courtyard to the dining hall. Shadows from the stone wall were beginning to lengthen, and by the time she came back this way, the courtyard would be lighted by great flaming torches.

  With her walked Countess Maud and Brian. Gwyn stole a glance at the boy, unworldly and young, as though he walked in the Garden of Eden before the Fall. Brian had charm — his long lashes lay on his pale cheek, there was a speaking, sensitive look in his brown eyes, and a graceful way about him.

  He was dressed in a plum velvet surcoat with gold trim and carried his lute by a broad silk ribbon wound about his wrist. His mother looked sourly at him. “Strange how my mind runs on my brother tonight,” she muttered.

  “Is he in England?” asked Gwyn.

  “Dead,” she answered shortly. “A good thing. For he was guilty of strange sins.”

  They had almost reached the dining hall, formerly a barracks that had been transformed into a roistering place for William’s court, when a hail from the sentry at the watchtower at the gate rose above the ordinary din of the men, horses, dogs, all vocal in their various ways.

  Gwyn and Countess Maud stopped in their tracks. A visitor was apparently coming, and any visitor meant news, or at least some kind of diversion other than the ordinary faces that Gwyn had already grown tired of.

  Gwyn, anxious to see the arrivals, ran toward the gate. She was joined by men from the barracks and from the dining hall, all converging upon the large double gates, where the approaching caravan would soon appear.

  An event such
as this aroused curiosity, and in some a sort of tingle of anticipating danger. For while it was most likely, especially under the harsh rule of the Normans, that a party approaching openly would be a friendly one, yet many inside the fort could remember when any armed man, approaching even alone, would be cause for concern.

  Gwyn peered out through the wide double gates to the northwest. At her right lay the silvery surface of the river, bordered by the grassy meadows that sometimes flooded, and just now full of birds flying up, frightened by the approaching caravan.

  To the north rose the stubby tower of the new cathedral, the town of Winchester lying at its feet. Directly ahead, leading from her feet down the slope and along the water meadows of the river, ran the road. It was no more than a broad track, wide enough for wagons or for two men riding abreast. And halfway down the road, bordering the river, came the newcomers. They were a wild lot, not armored, as Gwyn had expected. Instead, they came doggedly forward, a group of small brown men.

  There were no more than twenty mounted men, and another group of foot soldiers, perhaps twice as many, trotting along beside the horses, without sign of weariness. The man in the lead sat his small pony, looking at first outlandish. Someone said, “It’s the Lord of the Western Marches!”

  Gwyn could not believe it. A great lord, leader of a host of fighting men from the mountains, to come without armor, without war horses, only on the small shaggy Welsh pony?

  The great army of the Welsh — only a handful of men without armor, without panoply of trumpets and pennants? Her own serfs on Ramsey Manor could put up a more martial show than this!

  It was Gwyn’s first sight of Welsh tribesmen. Her mother had told her many tales, but they did not touch the reality. Gwyn’s heart sank, dismayed at the poor showing and at the open contempt that the men around her, the conquering nation, showered upon the newcomers. As the troop approached, the leader lifted his right hand in a salute, to show that he came in peace. He dismounted upon invitation by Flambard, who spoke for the king, and the two men exchanged greetings just outside the open gates. Then Flambard brought the leader inside the court and presented him to the ladies. Gwyn looked at the newcomer more carefully now that he was closer to her.