Rhys, unmoved, said simply, “A spy has no right to live. Besides, such a lying, vicious beast as he turned out to be, yet you plead for his life?”
“But —” Gwyn could think of no real argument on Brian’s behalf. He had been deceitful, and had tried to persuade her to leave the safety of Ludlow Castle and throw herself on his mercy. Mercy! He had none!
Rhys was still talking. “As de Lacy’s prisoner, you might arrive at Winchester. If, that is, de Lacy could keep his hands off you. And William will no longer care whether you are maiden or not, for he seeks only vengeance, not bride money.”
Gwyn sobbed into her hands, saying, “I did not know you could be so cruel.”
She meant the cruelty with which Rhys was speaking to her, pointing out her inevitable fate. He was not thinking about that, however. He said, quite simply, “I am not cruel. I shall not have him killed.”
Seeing her still sobbing, and feeling helpless to comfort her and therefore angry, he said, “Then it is true. You do love him.”
Revulsion swept her whole being. In love with a nothing like Brian du Pré? He could not believe it of her. She cried out, “No! No!”
But Rhys was in the grip of his own fury. “You pine for love like a green maiden? You even love a milksop like yon dandy?”
Rhys grasped her shoulders, not gently. He pulled her up from the stool and said, “I’ll show you what real love is!”
He kissed her. To her surprise and dismay, she found herself returning his kiss with enthusiasm. His eyebrows lifted in surprise, and then he lifted her off her feet and carried her across the room. He knelt and let her drop onto the pallet, holding her, his mouth still fastened on hers.
Her rough-spun tunic resisted his persistent hands, and she made a sound of protest.
He released her, frowning. “Let me,” she whispered, and pulled the garment up over her head. She was caught in the sleeves, but his gaze traveled over her pale, boyish body.
He groaned. She struggled to free her hands from the sleeves, and he stretched himself over her and reached to help her. He tossed the tunic away and bent to kiss her eyes, her nose. All the time his hands moved, lightly at first, and then demandingly, on her. He said something. She did not quite hear, but it sounded to her like I can’t help myself. The words were forgotten then, for her mind dissolved in riot, and the warmth within her gathered, spread fiercely to every inch of her, and finally clamoring for release, drove her to lift her hips to meet him in a consuming fire …
Some time later, she heard from far away a high-pitched scream, shattering the silence, and dwindling as it fell in pitch, and she remembered having once heard the scream of a hare, as the hounds closed in on it. There was no difference between the two sounds. She stirred in Rhys’s arms. He too had heard it. With a grunt he got to his feet and crossed to the window. She could see the moonlight on his bare shoulders and watched him lean forward to peer out of the narrow window. When he returned to her, he said, “No, he still lives. I saw him move, as they slung him onto the back of a pony to send him back to the Normans.”
“You could see so far?”
“It is not farther than one watches for the enemy in the mountains,” said Rhys, in an offhand fashion, “and he need concern us no more.”
When at length, much later, Gwyn was left alone, she found her thoughts dwelt not on Brian, but on Rhys. Rhys would now marry her, she was sure, for he had told her that he had room for only one love in his life. And she knew, as only a woman loved can know, that she was now the core of Rhys’s life.
Her thoughts would not have been so rosy had she realized that Rhys’s messenger, leaving with Rhys’s agreement to marry Princess Nesta, had left by the west gate, in the shadows, on his way back to South Wales.
Book Three
1099
1
The rest of the day was spent in tense watching from the walls for de Lacy’s army. Brian had been sent back, more dead than alive, the night before. By now his troops would have contacted de Lacy himself, and although Daffyd had made sure that there would be no information yet passing the swollen lips of King William’s spy, yet de Lacy would know instantly that his presence was known. Otherwise, the beating would not have occurred.
The Normans did not come that day, but there was evidence of their activity. Across the meadow from the north, following the River Corve, stumbled a handful of Saxons. As they watched from the parapet, Gwyn and Rhys saw one of them stumble and fall. The others clustered around, urging the fallen one to rise, pulling at arms. Even a gaunt dog tugged at the skirt of the old woman. Gwyn cried out, “Send help to them! They are Saxons — what has happened to them? They’re nearly dead!”
The woman rose, at last, and looked long at the castle before taking one step, and then another, slowly, toward the Norman stronghold. There were three small children, clinging pitifully to each other, and a man and a woman besides.
They trudged laboriously across the cart track and stood outside the great gates facing east, looking up at the sentries. Fear and tragedy were etched on the faces of those who looked up. The old woman clearly had lost interest in her surroundings. The man looked up, crying out, in Saxon, “Please let us in, we have no food. Throw down a crust for God’s mercy, and I will give it to my children. The Normans have taken all. Left us nothing.”
Gwyn begged Rhys to let them in. He grudgingly said, “Another set of spies? They come from the direction of de Lacy’s army.” But Rhys’s heart had been touched, and he signaled to the gatekeepers for the gates to be opened. The little troop of Saxons came in, fearfully. Once inside the gate, the old woman looked around and saw that she was safe. She loosed a startling heathen cry into the air, which fell strangely on their ears, before she collapsed.
After the little family had been given food and drink, the man told his story. “My name is Ulric. This is my family, my aged mother, my wife, and my children. The accursed Normans took all our harvest, our chickens, our two cows, and left us naught.”
Rhys questioned him closely. “The Normans came just now?”
“The last was yesterday,” said Ulric simply, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. “The woods are full of Normans, and there was no place to go. They said we hid food in the thatch, so they burned the hut. Of course there was no food, but now there is no hut.”
Gwyn’s stomach churned. Ulric told how the Normans had thundered into the village, burning and killing. When the Saxon’s tale was told, and his little family found a corner for themselves and fell asleep instantly, she wandered to the broad walk atop the battlement.
But Gwyn herself had much to answer for. She could not deny that she herself was guilty of causing suffering. Had she not escaped from William’s auction block and come to take refuge with her countrymen, Rhys might not have taken the castle and de Lacy might not now be surrounding Ludlow with an eye to taking it back. How many of the people inside the castle would be dead in the morning, a lance or an arrow through their hearts?
Gwyn shuddered and covered her face with her hands. When she took her hands down from her face again she thought the view she had seen a moment before was altered. She searched the horizon, and then the nearer treetops, where the forest edged the meadow, and then she saw it. A thin plume of blue-gray smoke was rising above the tree-tops. She doubted that it could still be the remains of Ulric’s burning thatch, but certainly it was a man-made fire. She whirled and dashed down the steps to find Rhys.
Within moments his imperative gestures sent all his men to battle stations. The women of the Welsh tribes and the pathetic Saxon family were sent into the walled inner galley, close to the keep. If the battle went against them, the women and children would retreat into the keep, together with what soldiers were still able to fight, and they would all make their last stand there.
If it came to that.
She climbed to the battlement behind Rhys. De Lacy’s army, in force, had reached the edge of the forest. The herald came across the flower-stre
wn meadow, as Rhys’s herald had crossed the meadow when de Lacy held the castle.
He carried a white flag on a standard, as he rode across the meadow. When he was close enough, he called up to the watchers on the walls. “Parlez! Parlez!”
Rhys gestured to Dai, who was standing beside him on the wall. “Tell him we’re ready to parley. But do you yourself stay out of arrow shot!”
The word was passed and soon de Lacy, in full chain-link armor, rode to a place in the meadow well out of the range of the Welsh arrows. He himself would not deign to talk directly to Rhys. But the gist of his message, passed through his stentorian herald, was a simple one. Return Gwynllion Ramsey, and no harm would come to anyone.
Rhys sent word back, “Then you will turn back to Winchester? And not return to Ludlow?”
The skepticism in his voice was clear, and de Lacy appeared nettled. “The king has also instructed my lord to bring back the traitor Rhys ap Llewellyn and certain others, primarily those who attacked Brian du Pré without reason,” cried the herald.
“I am no traitor!” shouted Rhys, enraged. “Your king is none of mine!”
The herald countered, “You hold the castle as his vassal, so says my lord.”
Rhys’s countenance grew dark. “Dai, tell him we withdraw from the parley.”
Dai shouted the message, in limping Norman. “The Lord of the Western Marches deals not with heralds,” he added with a final flourish.
De Lacy brushed aside the herald and bawled toward the men on his battlements — “Give up the girl, and my castle!”
Rhys threw the challenge back. “The lady is Welsh, and I am not giving her up.”
De Lacy thundered, “She is a ward of the king. She is Norman. The king will not be denied. Nor will I, mark you!”
Gwyn stepped forward to stand beside Rhys. It was clear that neither de Lacy nor Rhys would yield. It was time for her to do something — after all, she was the central figure of de Lacy’s demands and had, therefore, a large enough stake in the proceedings. Besides, the men could not stand forever, shouting back and forth across the flower-strewn meadow …
She lifted her hands to heaven, as though beseeching divine retribution upon the foe. In a high, singing voice she chanted words in the ancient tongue.
The response was beyond her dreams. The Cymric syllables fell like alien weapons among the Normans, and de Lacy even crossed himself before wheeling his mount to canter toward the woods.
Rhys turned to her and grinned. “I’ll bet that’s the first time,” he said, “that a fairy tale ever routed an army.”
Merrily, Gwyn laughed. Rhys quickly sobered. “They’ll be back, and don’t think otherwise.”
By the next day he was proved right. The army of Roger de Lacy had moved closer, although still not within arrow shot. They began to build siege machines, and the work progressed quickly. Caerleon said handsomely, “You were right, we can certainly withstand these siege instruments, and we will be safer inside than out.”
It was a fine apology, but Rhys brushed it aside. “He’ll never use those siege machines,” he said in irritation. “Those are just to keep us occupied, while he finds the secret entrance to the fort. I wish I knew where it was.”
Caerleon searched the surroundings carefully. “I see none, nothing that even looks like it.”
Rhys said, “I think it will probably be in the woods beyond, for he would not build an exit that would come up in full view, along the meadow there, or even along the stream.”
All through the day the soldiers worked on the siege machines. Their diligence was almost suspiciously noteworthy. Gwyn realized that Rhys must be right, that these siege machines, being built in full view of the watchers on the walls, were only a diversion, while the real attack would be made somewhere else.
Only de Lacy knew where the attack would be made, because de Lacy had built the castle. He had built a hidden escape tunnel, but an exit could easily become an entrance.
Rhys spent the night on the walls, brooding, and at length sent Gwyn to bed alone, while he stayed on the walls.
He announced his decision to Caerleon the next morning. “We cannot withstand a siege indefinitely, and we cannot allow these people to be slaughtered when de Lacy’s army makes their way into the fort. We shall retreat.”
Soon Rhys told Gwyn, “The retreat is organized. The Saxons refuse to leave the castle, for I think they believe we are worse savages than the Normans.”
Gwyn thought, how hard it is for a man to believe that women would rather take their chances among surroundings they know, rather than start off into the unknown. And she herself knew that, although she had been willing to start across Wales to visit her grandfather, yet were she placed as Ulric was, with a family that probably could not travel as far as the first ridge of mountains, she would do the same as he did.
When night came, the Welsh were ready to abandon the castle. Gwyn was hardly aware when the retreat began. She knew, vaguely, that there had been half a dozen Welsh soldiers near the door. The gates did not appear to open, but when she looked again, the men were gone.
The second group of men had vanished through the gates without a sound when Rhys took her hand and pulled her close to him. “I want you out of here before the Normans find out that we are leaving.”
“You mean now? Without you?” Her whisper was strained. She felt the pressure of his fingers around her wrist. His grip tightened until she could have cried with the pain of it. She said, “Rhys —”
“Sorry. I did not mean to hurt you. But my very dear one, you must be safe. I could not abide my life if you were not part of it.”
“There is nothing that could keep me from you,” she breathed, making it a kind of vow. “Never will I love another man, save you alone. We have not had the blessing of the priest, but that will come.”
“I wish you to go now, with Maldwyn.”
“You must force me against my wishes.”
A groan escaped his lips, and he pulled her roughly against him. “God is my witness, I cannot force you away from me!” His breathing quickened, and he drew her into the darker shadows next to the kitchen shed.
At last their kiss ended. She gave a shaky little laugh and clung to him with both hands. “There will never be separation between us. I will not leave until you leave.”
Rhys frowned, but she thought she detected a satisfaction deep in his eyes. Then he put his hands on either side of her head and tilted her face up to him. He whispered, “You are my very heart, and we will never be separated, else I be dead.”
2
They moved by the Normans without arousing suspicion and then traveled for many days in the cold and rain. At night Rhys would not allow a fire, for fear that de Lacy’s men would mark their progress.
He and Gwyn slept together, so she was never cold. It was too bad, however, that she did not see the looks Caerleon gave them, did not realize that he felt she had turned against him.
At last they saw the three peaks called the Brecon Beacons rising against the sky like the sentries they resembled. Beneath those peaks, Rhys told her, lay Brecknock, Griffith’s capital town. They would arrive before sundown. The ground over which they traveled now, mainly moorland, was gently rolling, and their travel was swift.
As it turned out, the Brecon Beacons were the only sentries that Griffith thought necessary. For around his fortress, even at the gates, he had not posted sentries. Rhys frowned in disapproval.
“Let us hope that the banner isn’t stolen,” said Caerleon wryly. “For clearly anything else could be. It’s a wonder he hasn’t offered the whole land for the taking!”
Rhys said quietly, “Perhaps he has. But let us remember that we need his men, too. Without the army of South Wales, we cannot be certain of a victory remarkable enough to impress the Normans.”
He put his pony into a trot, and he and Caerleon rode down the last slope to the ford on the Honddu River. Gwyn followed more slowly. Suddenly she shivered. Rhys rode away from h
er, his back turned to her, toward thier princess. Gwyn’s hands tightened on the reins. She believed that Rhys spoke the truth when he swore devotion to her. But he also spoke the truth when he planned for the union of all of Wales under the Red Dragon. “I will do what is required,” he had said, “to insure the freedom of my people.”
Which truth would win out at the last? She could not know. She only knew that her Celtic blood — the blood of people who could see beyond tomorrow, it was said — turned cold within her. She shivered again, then rode down the slope to the river.
But if Griffith had forgotten to post sentries, at least his welcome was as warm as the southern sun. With arms wide, he greeted Rhys, and after a moment, during which time he surveyed Gwyn’s small figure, dressed in soldier’s rough garb, he offered her his hand.
“How wise you are, Lady Gwynllion,” he said, after he had been introduced to her, “to travel in such a sensible manner. I wish my sister had your sense, but she insists on taking everything she owns with her when we go no farther than across the river.”
He laughed, a strange sound compounded of pride in his sister’s feminine waywardness and the ruefulness of a man who cannot handle his womenfolk.
He raised an eyebrow and winked at Rhys. “I vow you will have your hands full with my sister. She has had her own way far too long. But, of course, she is so beautiful —” He left the sentence dangling.
Gwyn could not believe her ears. If Griffith still thought that Rhys was going to marry his sister, then Rhys must tell him at once he was wrong. She glanced at Rhys. There was no change of expression on his face. Beyond Rhys stood Caerleon and he looked at Gwyn wisely, as if to say, “You remember I told you this would happen.”
She was suddenly conscious of her appearance. Her rough-spun tunic, too large for her, gave her a bulky shape no different from Dewi’s. Ifan’s wife Morwyth had been taken at once to the women’s quarters, and the foot-weary soldiers were already settling in the barracks.
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