Crown of Passion

by Jocelyn Carew

  “Your fault, dear wife. Had you not been barren — or perhaps you know of some remedy to prevent conceiving? I have heard of such herbs. But no matter now.”

  His foot fell heavily on the dirt floor, and she knew he was coming for her. She cried out, and sprang to her feet. Seizing a candlestick, she brandished it above her head. “Touch me, Caerleon, and I’ll dash your brains out!”

  He watched her thoughtfully. “I believe you would. But of course my men would kill you afterward.”

  He stopped where he was. She saw, then, that he did not hesitate in fear of her, but only to listen better. Outside there were shouts and the sound of running feet. Now was her chance!

  She crept closer …

  *

  At the time that Elfod’s upraised arm and wild war cry gave the signal for Caerleon’s men, Mechel and Efa stood at the far side of the square, near the house they shared.

  “Are you leaving, Efa, when Caerleon and his soldiers ride out?” demanded Mechel. “Or are you simply a woman of the camp, to be used until Jenkyn gets tired of you?”

  “Mother, for heaven’s sake!” exclaimed Efa. “You make so much of this. You didn’t think I could stay widow for long, did you?”

  “Widow no, but I did not think whore.”

  Efa’s eyes glittered. But her mother’s words struck a place in her she had not known was vulnerable — Jenkyn’s caresses had been welcome and if she tried hard, she could remember them even when she was not in his arms. But she had not quite expected to be bearing within her “the pretty fruits of love!” Her herbs had failed her. She knew of different remedies, to rid her of the burden she carried, but her courage was not equal to the deed.

  Just at that moment Efa knew the strong impulse to creep into her mother’s arms, and weep her heart out. She had a notion that only thus could she cleanse herself enough to merit Mechel’s approval. She had never thought that her mother’s good opinion would mean so much to her. The impulse died at once.

  Elfod’s savage cry, mimicking the howl of the hunting wolf, rose and throbbed around the square.

  Mechel grabbed her daughter and they ran toward the house. Cledog emerged onto the square in their path, and without thinking, they seized his arms and dragged him into the security of the house.

  Mechel barred the door behind them. “Where is Prince Madoc?” she demanded of Cledog.

  “Down by the shore. The weather is turning bad, and he is watching the boats that are out.” Cledog’s face was ashen. “I’ll go get him —”

  Mechel seized him. “You must not do that,” she said, earnestly peering into his face. “Now listen to me. You must get to a safe place and stay there.”

  “But Grandfather —”

  “He is old, and too tired,” insisted Mechel. “You must not call him back into danger. But you will rule the people after him, and you must hide.”

  Cledog twisted out of her grasp. “What kind of leader is that?” he said stoutly, but his voice rose shrilly and he sounded like the frightened little boy that he was.

  “It is a leader,” said Mechel, but her words were interrupted by a thunderous knocking at the door. “Efa —”

  “The bar is holding, mother,” she said calmly. She saw, but did not see fit to mention, the wood straining around the iron latch. It could not take such punishment for long. She listened intently. There were three men, at least, she guessed by their voices. “Get Cledog away.”

  “A leader,” resumed Mechel, desperately intent upon the boy, and trying not to hear the sound of the knocking. They had brought up a battering ram, she thought in a part of her mind. “A leader whose thought is only for the duty he owes his people, and not for a vain show of bravery. You must be brave, and live for your people.”

  She was not sure how many times she repeated her words, in one way or another. Behind her she could hear the ominous creaking of the wooden door. Frantic, she pushed Cledog ahead of her and opened the back door. “Run,” she whispered fiercely. “Get away from the village. Go to the pine woods. They will not look for you there.”

  She watched the boy for a moment. He was obeying her instructions, she believed, for he zigzagged past the woodshed and out of her sight. He never looked back.

  She took a deep breath. Her duty done, she thought, she turned back to join Efa at the front door.

  *

  Gwyn heard nothing of the tumult rising outside. She shook with the helpless force of her rage, and her bitter thirst for revenge on the man who had lied away her life.

  She watched Caerleon as he bent over the open chest, heedlessly tossing out the contents as he searched for a small bag he had tucked into a corner at the bottom.

  She inched closer. She was surprised to find that she held the heavy floor candlestick in her hand, and she looked, bewildered, from the candlestick to her husband. She lifted the weapon.

  At that moment he turned. “Aha, dear wife! A love pat you plan for me? I’ll take the candlestick.” He reached out his free hand and seized hold of her wrist. She caught sight of the object of his search.

  “My grandfather’s gold!” she screamed. “You’ll not take that!”

  “He gave it to me,” said Caerleon calmly. But with a sudden vicious movement he twisted her wrist until she cried out in pain. The candlestick clattered to the floor. He twisted her arm behind her until she fell moaning to her knees.

  He let loose her wrist, then, and prodded her with the toe of his boot. “I fear your intentions toward me are not as friendly as I should like,” he commented.

  She bent double, rubbing her painful arm. “I could kill you!”

  “You’ve said that before, but you cannot always follow your wishes.” He was amused.

  Fury swept her, making her blind to her own danger. He was standing near her, idly toeing her and laughing. With a sudden burst, as of a spring released, she flung her arm upward and struck him in the belly.

  He grunted with the sheer surprise of her attack. She pressed her advantage. She leaped to her feet and pounded his chest with her fists. She lifted one knee, thrusting it upward — her aim was bad.

  He spoke once only. “You devil-woman —”

  With a powerful swipe of his arm, he swept her away from him into the far corner of the hut. She hit the wall and slid to the floor. He was at her like a wild beast. He kicked at her head, but she slithered away. He reached for her, but suddenly she was all teeth and fingernails and kicking feet.

  He grunted when she fetched him a solid blow in his wind. He countered with a blow with his clenched fist on the side of her head.

  She clawed. She bit at whatever part of him came within reach. But she did not cry out. She needed her breath …

  A scream of dying rent the air, but it came from outside the hut. She thought she recognized the voice of Elin. She could not know the devastation that had already been wrought in the square. But she could have done nothing — even if she had known.

  She was fighting him this time — not to prevent the shame of his touch — but for her very life.

  Caerleon held her by the hair while his fist struck the side of her head. Then he loosed her for just a moment, and she flung herself away from him and launched herself toward the outer door and through it. She had a head start of only a moment, then Caerleon’s hot breath came gustily behind her.

  There was no place to run to. There were bodies — some dead, some grievously wounded — on the ground. She thought blindly that her grandfather’s house would be a haven, and she started across the square.

  Men came toward her, a foot tripped her, and she fell. More dead than alive, she was unable even to groan.

  Hands held her ankles, hands held her wrists. Faces swam before her, and the last thing she heard, before her mind darkened and she heard no more, was Caerleon’s mocking laughter.

  9

  The burying of the dead was over.

  Gwyn could not quite remember how it had come to be that she was standing beside Mechel, who had been
left for dead by Caerleon’s men. She heard, without listening, Aidua’s musical Welsh voice chanting the ritual words over Prince Madoc, dead of a heart attack, and over Efa, Owain, and Elin, and all the others who had been slain.

  “How strange it is,” she murmured, “that though I am the cause of this destruction, I am still living.”

  Taran caught the last words. Stony-faced, he watched the bodies of his only son and his cherished daughter-in-law lowered into the earth. No sound of grief passed his lips.

  “God in His wisdom has spared you,” said Taran. “There is vengeance to be exacted for this.” Somewhere behind them rose a Celtic cry, an unearthly, ancient keening for the dead. He raised his hand impatiently. “How that sound grates on my ears! Hargan should put a stop —” But Hargan was dead, he remembered.

  “Vengeance,” said Gwyn. “That will not bring them back. Not my grandfather nor Efa —” Her voice broke.

  “But,” said Taran relentlessly, “it will tell all the tribes that it is not safe to plunder the land of Prince Madoc, even though he is now dead and a youngling rules in his stead.”

  Her eyes wandered across the faces around her. There was grief, of course, and shock at the suddenness of the devastation. But beneath the mourning lay another emotion, and because of Taran’s words, she recognized the deep desire for revenge in them all.

  Kill the enemy, for they have killed what we hold dear. And for the first time in her memory, she caught sight of Rhys’s vision. A united country with law and order controlling the turbulence and savage greed of the Celtic tribes — if Rhys’s dream had come true, Port Madoc would still be a smiling village.

  Kill the enemy! Taran’s words echoed in her thoughts and took a shape of their own. Surely her life had been spared, even though she felt as though a single pain throbbed inkier from her head to her toes and centered in her broken heart. She could not believe that God’s purpose in sparing her life was to kill — but generations of Christian teachings had not silenced the ancient cry of this people for vengeance.

  The burial was done, and the villagers wrapped themselves numbly in their grief. The men of the village were few — those who had been at sea, fishing, and those shepherds too high on the mountain slopes to know of the village’s travail, survived. When Cledog gave the alarm, the shepherds raced down the mountains, but Caerleon’s men, sated and suddenly fearful of the retribution they deserved, had fled to the south and escaped.

  Vengeance — an eye for an eye, a life for a life. No matter that the second life could not bring back the first. No matter that the second life, inevitably, would require a third, and a fourth. Vengeance was the ancient tribal way and would not be balked. Aidua tried. His wise words were blown on the seawind, and no man heeded them.

  At length, with somber eyes and doomful words, he gave up on his attempt. “It is a way to ease their grievous wounds,” he told Gwyn, “and I shall go at their head. Perhaps the long journey will dampen their resolve.”

  Gwyn raised blank eyes to him. “I hear you, Aidua, but also I hear my great guilt and my own helplessness to atone. If Caerleon were dead, I could rest. Perhaps.”

  “Perhaps,” he rejoined dryly.

  “I shall go, too.” She was unfeeling, unaware of what went on around her. It was as though all her emotions had been drained away, leaving a shell that walked, but hardly spoke. Nothing could dissuade her from leaving Port Madoc. She spoke of revenge, but she knew it as an empty word, now. Perhaps, if feeling ever came back, she would know what to do.

  Perhaps, she thought without really believing, the sight of Caerleon will stir me so that I can thrust him to the heart, and let his blood run out on the ground. Maybe that will ease my great emptiness.

  Book Four

  1099

  1

  The same late summer sun that saw Gwyn in the mountains also shone on the southern capital.

  There were no signs of an army gathering, supplies stockpiled, or any of the other activities that would indicate a state of war. Any Norman who had walked through the unguarded gates would have immediately felt at peace, for there was no suspicion of danger from Brecknock.

  It was a time of waiting, a time of being suspended halfway between summer and winter. While in the ordinary way there would be great preparations made to provide against the coming bad weather, yet here in Griffith’s court, where Rhys and his men still lingered, there was only indolence.

  Rhys was in a dark mood. Even Daffyd hardly dared to speak to him. The reason was clear. Griffith, having promised an alliance, made no move toward equipping his troops, or even looking to his defenses. All seemed to hinge upon the wedding of Nesta and Rhys, as though that were the aim and goal of Rhys’s presence.

  Despairing of Griffith’s inaction, Rhys had sent messengers with letters to the princes of Wales. He had earlier sent Caerleon to bring back Gwyn and, incidentally, to enlist the support of Prince Madoc in the cause of a united Wales. There was no word yet from his blond lieutenant, and Rhys chafed over his absence.

  His letter to Prince Owen of Powys was answered — not to Rhys’s satisfaction. “I should not like this missive to reach the eyes of your host,” read the lines painstakingly written in church Latin, “but I should like to see a firmer basis for alliance than the reed you lean on.”

  Rhys could agree with Prince Owen — Griffith was, not to put too fine a point on it, unreliable. But the Prince of Powys also asked a question that gave shape to the vague doubts that lay within Rhys’s mind. “Are you sure you can control your friend from Dyfed? He has a streak in him that I do not like.”

  Nor did Rhys. There was nothing more he could do until Caerleon returned with Gwyn. Rhys knew now the mistake he had made in letting her go. He had not followed her immediately, for just then Griffith was haggling over whether or not he would add another thirty soldiers to the budding army, and Rhys dared not leave the parley until that was settled.

  It had been settled, and then unsettled again. Griffith was as a reed in a flowing stream — bending now this way, then that way, until Rhys was ready to throttle the man.

  Nothing Rhys could say to Griffith seemed to make any difference. Griffith agreed to anything, with great good humor, but nothing happened. Even the great hound Maxen seemed morose, disdaining the dogs that yapped around him as mere nuisances. The time of waiting stretched on. Rhys, once in a while, exclaimed to his loyal follower, “Daffyd, tell me this. Is there a great cave between here and Port Madoc that swallows up all who journey on the track?”

  “Not unless all fell into the cave where Arthur’s Round Table sleeps,” grunted Daffyd, with heavy-handed humor.

  “Caerleon should have sent word, if he could not persuade the lady to come back. And Niclas — what happened to him?”

  Daffyd rumbled, “The lady has meant only trouble to you. So you have told me, Lord Rhys — more than once.”

  “I shouldn’t have let her go!”

  Daffyd said, with cunning, “You want her grandfather’s men? Is that it?”

  “I want her back!”

  Daffyd had yearned silently over his lord’s black moods, knowing well what caused them, and now decided to speak. “Go after her, lord!”

  “I can’t,” groaned Rhys. “Griffith would fall away from the cause, and all our work for naught.”

  “Not much loss,” said Daffyd stoutly. “Men like these southerners are worth but little in a fight.”

  Daffyd would realize anew that it was not Griffith and his laggardness in war, but Caerleon and his mission to the North to bring back the Lady Gwyn, that ate most dangerously into Rhys’s spirit. And there was nothing that Daffyd could say, for he, too, was anxious to see Caerleon approaching and, of course, the Lady Gwyn riding with him.

  Daffyd’s thoughts were long indeed. He was intensely loyal to his master, for he had ridden and fought beside Lord Rhys for more years than he could remember. And yet, to be honest, Daffyd thought that his master had been a great fool to let the lady go. The Pri
ncess Nesta, while beautiful enough, was not the woman Daffyd wanted to see in Lord Rhys’s life. But there was nothing he could do but stand by and let Lord Rhys’s irritation boil over, and at least give his master some way to ease his spirit.

  Rhys’s dreams were all of Gwyn now. Anxiety rode him during the day, and his body tossed restlessly all night long. Her tilted green witch-eyes mocked his sleep, and even in bright daylight he could almost see her eyes changing color as he came to her. Sometimes she smiled sweetly, in his memory, submitting with ineffable tenderness, but sometimes — and it was hard to say which pleased him more — her response was spirited, even fiery.

  Daffyd, out of loyalty to his lord, even toyed with the idea of going after the lady himself. She was a lightsome sweet-smiling lady, and he missed her sorely. He bent his thoughts seriously to the problem.

  But at last came the day when things changed. Even the great dog Maxen lifted his enormous head and looked intently through the open gates. Daffyd was the first to notice that Maxen’s behavior was curious, and he went to stand beside the dog and look in the same direction. Daffyd could see nothing, but the dog’s sight was much longer than Daffyd’s, and suddenly a low growl sounded in the dog’s throat, and the hair on the back of his neck rose slightly and stirred. Just so did the dog always respond to Caerleon’s presence, and Daffyd was sure that whatever group approached from the northwest, Caerleon would be at the head.

  At length Daffyd could see the first signs of movement, as the group wound across the opposite hills and down into the valley. As they drew closer, Daffyd could recognize Caerleon at the head of his men. He recognized some of the other men, also. But Daffyd could not see the lady with him.

  Most unsettling to Daffyd, although he would not have been able to put it into words, was the uncommon swagger that Caerleon managed to exhibit, even in his saddle. It was as though Caerleon were returning in triumph. And Caerleon, victorious, was a man Daffyd would not trust farther than he could throw him. Caerleon was a south Welshman, and Daffyd, from the northern mountains, instinctively mistrusted. all from the warmer climate. But besides his instinctive distrust, Daffyd had a long and vivid memory of times when Caerleon had defied Rhys, even betrayed Rhys.