Crown of Passion

by Jocelyn Carew

  Maxen had not been as beguiled by the conversation as Rhys. He knew that his quarry was about to escape. He launched himself at Caerleon, and his weight and the surprise of the attack bore Caerleon to the ground.

  Rhys yelled, “Maxen! Hold!” But the air was full of growls and snarls. An inhuman scream was torn from the bloody throat of the victim, and it is doubtful that Maxen even heard his master’s voice.

  Caerleon struggled under the weight of the dog. He worked his short sword loose from the scabbard, and with his last ounce of strength, he thrust the blade upward into the dog. Maxen received the full force of the blow as it cut through his heart and lungs. The dog was dead.

  The savage duel came to an abrupt end almost at Rhys’s feet, yet he did not see it. A splotch of bright crimson moved across the river, catching his eye. Shading his eyes to see better, he made out a horse — with Norman accoutrements — galloping away, and its rider holding fast to his booty.

  The scarlet cloak was Gwyn’s — Rhys would know it anywhere. There was none other like it in the fort. Gwyn was going away. What was more, his shocked eyes told him, she was not struggling in the arms of her Prince Henry — for it surely was he — bearing away a willing prize.

  Rhys, struck dumb with disbelief, hesitated too long. Caerleon got to his feet and swayed. His wounds were nothing — he thought — his eyes blood-red with the lust for killing. He lunged at Rhys.

  Rhys was borne backward, toward the bank of the river. His foe took him off balance and he staggered. His feet slipped on the mud of the bank.

  His arms came up to save himself, but he could not stop his slide. Caerleon had fastened himself like a leech, holding desperately with both hands to Rhys’s sword belt. The mud slid under Rhys and he went down, down into the river. The flotsam cracked sharply beneath him.

  Caerleon had used his last strength. Maxen had indeed killed his slayer, for the blood from the throat wounds made by the dog’s fangs flowed freely and took Caerleon’s life with it. He collapsed on Rhys’s body, and the river muttered around the obstacles in its path.

  Book Five

  1100

  1

  Rhys slipped in and out of consciousness, in and out of misery. He heard Gwyn, and yet he thought, this cannot be. I saw Gwyn leave. I saw her go off with Henry. Or with Caerleon? But I killed Caerleon, didn’t I? His head was all jumbled. He was not even sure whether he was alive or dead.

  Yet Gwyn’s voice came through to him now, and he stirred, trying to move out of the water. He must find Gwyn I He thought he was two people — Rhys ap Llewellyn, and Gwyn Ramsey. It did not seem unusual, because Gwyn had for a long time been a part of him. Gentle hands lifted him from the stream. He did not know that he screamed aloud, a high, inhuman sound. He knew only that the pain in his body gathered itself into an iron rod, white hot, and that the rod of pain grew and grew until it blotted out the darkening world.

  He was unaware of being lifted out of the river and onto a hurdle, then carried to the fort.

  Once on the jolting journey into the fort, he was strangely able to look down on his own body. How broken it was! He called to Daffyd, who was carrying one end of the hurdle, but he could not make him hear. Then, mercifully, darkness took over again.

  Gwyn nursed him, jealous of the attention that others, also sorely wounded, demanded of the doctor. When she emerged from Rhys’s sickroom, Dewi came toward her in a hurry.

  “The battle is over, lady,” he said. “And the Normans have learned a lesson they won’t forget right away.”

  Gwyn, gesturing back toward Rhys’s room, said, “Neither will we.”

  Dewi’s face was solemn. “Yes, lady, we will not soon forget this day.”

  She roused herself to ask him questions, and he told her what he knew. “Caerleon is dead, and the dog is dead.”

  The great dog Maxen, who had guarded her so well, for whom she had such affection, had died in battle, slain by Caerleon. But the dog had had his revenge.

  Prince Owen, in spite of his years, had worked mightily in the forefront of the fray. His wounds, though many, were not grave, and he longed to lead his men back to Llandrindod.

  “However, I will stay,” he said, taking both of Gwyn’s hands in his, “to guard the fort until Lord Rhys recovers.”

  Gwyn smiled gratefully up into the old man’s lined face. “How good you are! But that may be many a day. Lord Rhys is grievously wounded. But cannot Prince Griffith protect his own fort? Did he fall?”

  The answer came on the heels of her question. Prince Owen’s mouth had drawn down in disgust at the thought of the Prince of South Wales. “Lord Rhys,” he said pointedly, “is a man I cherish. If he can recognize defeat, now, and turn to practical things, Wales has great need of him. But Prince Griffith …”

  Prince Griffith, at that moment, came into view.

  The once-fastidious prince staggered through the gate into the courtyard. His head was bare, his hair matted with blood, and his soft fair beard was blackened by splotches of dried gore.

  His limbs appeared sound, though, and his lungs were unimpaired. “I’m killed!” he roared, coming to a halt and swaying slightly before Prince Owen. “Where were your men? I did not see a one of the Powys soldiers! All behind me, I suppose! Far enough behind, I warrant! And my precious brother-in-law! I showed you all how to fight!”

  Prince Owen was stunned. Gwyn saw his lips move, and a muscle worked powerfully along his jaw. The men of Powys had suffered wounds in order to protect the capital of South Wales, and here was the rankest ingratitude! Owen clamped his jaw shut upon the words that surged against his lips, then turned away. The usages of tribal hospitality prevented him from the only response he could make — a guest does not fell his host to the ground! But the wish was strong in him.

  “I routed the damned Normans,” continued Griffith, “but they’ve given me my death blow!”

  Gwyn cried out, “Let me get the priest!”

  “Priest be swept away by the devil!” Griffith bawled. “Get me a doctor!”

  They got him to his quarters, still roaring mad. Gwyn had never seen Griffith in this state. His head had sustained blows that must have addled what little wits he’d had. She turned toward the women’s house, to fetch Nesta to her brother’s deathbed. On the way, she saw the priest.

  Aidua had been drawn to the battle, perhaps by his intuitive knowledge, or perhaps by the vultures circling overhead. But she was glad to see him, no matter how he came. He told her, “It is not time for the Red Dragon of Cadwalla. King Arthur will not rise, for the time is not right. There will come a time, when Wales will put a king on the throne, and the Normans will be ruled by a Welsh warrior, but I shall not see it.”

  She could not find Nesta. Increasingly anxious, she once more sought out Aidua. “Princess Nesta is gone. We do not know where she is. You have powers. Could you tell us where she is?”

  Aidua scorned the question. “My powers are not for such a frivolous purpose. If the princess is gone, it is her own fault.”

  Gwyn could not disagree with him, and she remembered the last time she had seen Nesta, on the battlements, making little excited cries as the men fought beneath her. It had seemed hard to believe, but Nesta had turned to Gwyn and said, “Too bad you will never know the spectacle of men battling over you, as they do over me. For Prince Henry has heard of my beauty, so Siôned says, and has come to find me.”

  Gwyn gaped at her. It was characteristic of Princess Nesta to believe that the Normans had crossed the entire country and laid siege to a fort in South Wales only to gaze upon the face of Nesta.

  Remembering Nesta’s overweening vanity, Gwyn now stopped short, touched by a scalding flash of insight.

  “I’m no better than Nesta,” she said aloud, “for thinking the king sent Henry to bring me back! I’m only the king’s excuse. We are all of us pawns in the Norman game — means for conquering everything in their way.” It was a humbling thought.

  Gwyn went up to the top of the wal
l to look for Nesta. The chill wind whistled and Gwyn shivered. She hurried downstairs to find her cloak. But her cloak was missing, and she was nettled. The cloak was a new one, of the finest scarlet wool, and would be warm against the coming winter. But it could not be found.

  Suddenly a startling idea occurred to her. She ran out, grasping Aidua’s wrist as she went by him, and said, “Come with me please, for I need your help.”

  She ran to the sentry and found Dewi keeping him company. Gwyn questioned him: “Did the Princess Nesta pass this way?”

  The sentry shook his head firmly, “No one passed me, for I did not open the gate to anyone except yourself, lady.”

  Gwyn said, “When was that? When I went out to find Lord Rhys?”

  “No,” the sentry responded. “You left earlier, as you yourself know.”

  The sentry was bewildered. Aidua said, “The way it turns out, lady, is that your cloak went through the gate. The red cloak, with the fur lining.”

  Gwyn remembered then that Nesta had expressed a liking for the cloak. She had taken the cloak, it seemed, gone through the gates, and ventured out to a place where she could see better. She had complained that the battlements were too far away, that she could not see the fighting properly from there.

  The sentry, preoccupied by the battle going on far down the hill, would have noticed only that a lady in a red cloak — doubtless the Lady Gwynllion — had left the fortress.

  But then?

  If Henry had come on the excuse of taking Gwyn back, how easy it would be to pick up the red-clad lady and ride off with her! He had seen Gwyn in that cloak once, and in the urgency of the fighting he might not have paused to examine its wearer.

  Gwyn turned to Aidua. “The Princess Nesta was kidnapped, in my place.”

  Aidua said, “She may have been killed on the battlefield. Let me send searchers out.”

  Gwyn nodded assent. But no matter how far they searched, they found no trace of her. One soldier reported seeing the red cloak, riding fast and far, out of sight. It was the cloak that he saw, and not the wearer.

  The third day after the battle Gwyn went to talk to Rhys. She had refrained from telling him that his betrothed had been kidnapped by Prince Henry. She hardly knew how to tell him, as she was not sure of his feeling for Nesta.

  Daffyd admitted her and softly closed the door behind her. Rhys lay with his eyes closed, and she had time to note the new lines of pain on his dear face, the bony nose more prominent than ever because his face had grown thin. The pallor of weakness was frightening.

  She made a strangled sound in her throat, and Rhys opened his eyes. “You,” he said in a tone of wonder.

  Rhys was much better than he had been. He was not yet sitting up, but his eyes were clear, and he no longer slipped back and forth into the darkness.

  She dropped to her knees and took his hand in hers. Pressing his fingers to her breast, she said, “Yes, Rhys.”

  “But — how can you be here? I saw you riding …”

  “Don’t think about it now,” she soothed him. “I’m here.”

  “You didn’t go away?”

  “No.”

  He smiled then, faintly, and was quiet for such a long time that she thought he had fallen asleep. She gently placed his hand back on top of the coverlet and inched away from the pallet, so as not to wake him, but his eyes flew open again. In a clear, strong voice, he told her, “Caerleon is dead.”

  “Yes, Rhys,” she whispered. “Maxen saved me the trouble.”

  “I thought that was why you rode away — that you blamed me.”

  Gwyn said, “Why?”

  “Because I sent Caerleon to you,” said Rhys.

  Gwyn said, “Did you think I cared for him?”

  Rhys said, simply, “I did not know.”

  Gwyn sat, her hands in her lap, unable to remember the words she had rehearsed. Finally, Rhys said, “What is it, Gwyn? There’s something you’re not telling me.”

  “It’s Nesta. She’s gone.” Gwyn then explained all that they had been able to find out. Rhys’s reaction was startling. His face paled. He tried to rouse himself from his pallet and managed to sit up on one elbow. Gwyn shrank away from him, in a mixed reaction of surprise and indignation.

  “You’ll hurt yourself, Rhys!”

  She whirled toward the door to call Daffyd. He was right outside, and she gestured for him to come in. Daffyd took one look at his master, and then said, “You told him about the Princess Nesta?”

  Rhys bellowed, a feeble echo of his magnificent voice, “Yes, and I wonder why you didn’t tell me yourself?”

  Daffyd said, “There is little you can do about it, Lord Rhys.”

  Rhys struggled up to rest his weight on his elbow. “I thought — I thought it was you,” he told Gwyn. Then the full implication of Henry’s outrageous kidnapping burst upon him. “She is not what he expected!”

  “I’m sure you’re right,” said Gwyn dryly. She was taken aback by the force of his explosion.

  Rhys demanded, “Where is Prince Griffith? Out after his sister, no doubt, and I’m still here!”

  Gwyn, moved deeply, replied indignantly, “No, he is not. He does not feel the need to rescue his sister, but rather to nurse his own wounds.”

  “How badly is he hurt?”

  Daffyd said dryly, “Not too sorely wounded to eat. I saw a roast goose going in, not more than an hour ago, and now he is calling for more.”

  Rhys dismissed this comment impatiently. “He’ll be blaming me for his sister’s kidnapping. What will happen to her?” He pursued his own line of thought, marking his progress by broken words. “He’ll see she’s not you, and then — he’ll bring her back, he can’t do anything else — but can he — she’ll be molested, without a doubt — maybe brought back deflowered —”

  Gwyn sprang to her feet. The tender feeling she had known while holding Rhys’s limp hand to her breast vanished as though it had never been. Tartly, she said, “Haven’t you already done so yourself? How is this? It did not take you so long with me!”

  Daffyd raised a futile hand and let it drop again.

  Rhys was beset with pain and the frustration of unaccustomed weakness. He turned on Gwyn accusingly. “You were willing enough!”

  Gwyn said, “I believed you loved me! I had not yet found out how you can lie!”

  Rhys groaned and fell back on the pallet. “Women! A starving monk has a better life than I!”

  Gwyn tore furiously out of Rhys’s room. What a dastardly, low-principled creature he was! Her fury took her as far as the parapet. There were soldiers posted along the walls, but she found a place where she could be alone with her sore heart and her wounded love.

  She had the devil’s own luck with her men! she told herself. She believed now that if Rhys had any love in his heart at all, then that love was for Nesta. If the princess were still virgin — so she reasoned — then it was because Rhys respected her. She could not say the same about his feeling for her.

  Once again her inner heart told her what she feared to hear — she had not atoned sufficiently for the havoc at Port Madoc. The cool wind rose from the river, and still she stood, wrapped in her thoughts. The twilight crept up from the valley below, where the burials had not yet been completed. The breath, of battle — the stench of decay and rot — was fainter than it had been yesterday.

  Out of her meditations came one clear ringing truth. When it came to danger, it was Nesta Rhys thought of first. This was a sure indication of the way he must feel about the Princess Nesta. Even though he had said other things to Gwyn, this was the true measure of his feelings.

  It was Nesta who spoke to his heart, and not Gwyn.

  But still, the question was strong in her mind. Why hadn’t Nesta protested? Why hadn’t she revealed her identity? She must have known that Prince Henry had no designs on her, that he had come for Gwyn.

  It took a long sleepless night and half of the next day before Gwyn was sure of what she should do. By now Prince H
enry had discovered the mistake. And Nesta was in captivity. The insult would have to be avenged soon. The Welsh, led by Rhys, would charge out of the mountains to retrieve their princess. It was more than likely that Rhys, already weakened by his sore wounds, would not survive such a raid. She had little hope of persuading him not to travel until he was well enough. She knew the thought of Nesta in the hands of the Normans, subject to insult at best and dishonor at worst, would torment Rhys.

  Gwyn must go and exchange herself for Princess Nesta. She must do it. She had already lived through the worst that life could do to her, she thought, with Caerleon. The scene at Port Madoc lived vividly in her mind every day. She had much to answer for, and this was one way to atone.

  It was now, she realized, the only atonement she could make. If she could liberate Princess Nesta and send her home to Rhys, then whatever happened to Gwyn herself was no more than she deserved. There was blood on her hands, treachery, and tragedy for so many. And with any luck she would not live long enough to suffer greatly.

  She asked Dewi to take her out of the mountains of South Wales, onto the plains. “From there,” she said, “I can search out Prince Henry, but I should be glad of your company that far.”

  “Our loyalty is to you, lady. But I thought it would be better to go back to Port Madoc, and see the young Prince Cledog and help him.”

  Gwyn nodded. “This is your first loyalty, to him.”

  Dewi agreed. “And we have gotten our revenge on Caerleon, for the story has been told and Caerleon lives no more.” Taran and Cynan joined them just then.

  “But I still have my own purpose to work out, and I should like you to come,” she said. Dewi continued to object. “All that is in the past now, and Prince Cledog needs us.”

  She responded, “I do not wish to tell you what to do. I myself, no matter whether you go with me or not, am going to ride out to the east. I have no doubt that I can follow the track of an army. I will go and get the Princess Nesta back.”