Border Bride

by Hale Deborah

  She approached so quietly the two musicians did not pay her any mind at first. In the dim interior of the hall, Myfanwy’s young face seemed to cast a radiance of its own, kindled by the admiring attention of their guest.

  He was a handsome fellow. Not towering and brawny like Lord Macsen, but medium tall for a Welshman, his lithe frame fleshed with hard, lean sinew. The eastern sun had tanned his face since last Enid had beheld it, and any suggestion of boyish roundness had been pared away by the years.

  Topped by a vigorous tangle of nut-brown curls, it was a well-shaped face in every way. Agile brows arched above a pair of eyes that shimmered with lively charm. Beneath the straight sloping nose with its potent flared nostrils, poised a tempting pair of lips. They were neither too full nor too thin, but so ideal for kissing they made Enid’s own lips quiver just to look at them. Below that melting mouth jutted a resolute chin, softened by the disarming hint of a dimple. It was a face to break a woman’s heart.

  How many more had he broken since hers?

  Clutching the basin with a remorseless grip to keep her hands from trembling, Enid willed her voice not to catch in her throat as she spoke loud enough to be heard above the music.

  “Well, well, Conwy ap Ifan, what are you doing in Powys? The last I heard you’d hired out as a mercenary to the Holy Land.”

  His voice fell silent and he glanced up at her with a sudden questioning look. For a moment Enid’s unhealed heart wrenched in her bosom fearing he would not remember her.

  Then his smile blazed forth. “Well, well yourself, Enid versch Blethyn. What are you doing in Powys? The last I heard, you were set to wed some princeling from Ynys Mon.”

  Something about the set of his features or the tilt of his head sliced through Enid like an arrow loosed at close range from a powerful Welsh short bow.

  Dear heaven! She must get Con ap Ifan away from Glyneira before Macsen and his party arrived.

  Chapter Two

  A pity he couldn’t linger here, Con found himself thinking as he cast an admiring eye over the cariad of his boyhood, since ripened into vivid, beguiling flower.

  Enid’s sudden appearance and sharp questions had taken him by surprise. Yet in another way they hadn’t. Something about the child had put her mother firmly in his mind, though he’d scarcely been aware of it at the time. The sweet lilt of her young voice, perhaps, or some trick of her smile, for all else about the pair went by contraries.

  The girl was fair and tall for her age and race, while her mother had the dark, fey delicacy of a true Welsh beauty. Full dark brows cast a bewitching contrast to her dainty elfin features. Her eyes were the dusky purple of black-thorn plums, and her hair—what Con could see of it and what he recalled—still black as a rook’s wing. Skin like apple blossoms and lips the rich intoxicating hue of Malmsey wine.

  Indeed, a kind of besotted dizziness came over Con as he drank in her twilight loveliness.

  A trill of laughter from the child startled him halfways sober again. “Mam, do you mean to wash our guest’s feet before the water gets cold?”

  Enid gave a startled glance down at the ewer and basin in her hands as if they’d appeared there by magic.

  “Aye.” She took a step toward Con, then hesitated. “If you wish it, that is. I only heard secondhand that you’d accepted the offer of water.”

  “With pleasure.” Con set his harp aside and pried off his boots, wondering if he’d only imagined the shadow that had dimmed her features. Had she hoped he’d change his mind about accepting the water? “After a day’s brisk walk, your hospitality is most welcome. The young lady’s music has already lightened the weariness of my spirit. Such a jewel is a mighty credit to you and her tad.”

  Enid had dropped to her knees on the rush-strewn floor, and begun to pour gently steaming water into the basin. At Con’s tribute to her daughter, her slender form tensed.

  “Myfanwy, cariad, will you go check how Auntie Gaynor is coming with the last rinse of the wool? That’s a good girl.”

  When the child had made a subdued exit, Enid explained, “My daughter does mighty credit to her father’s memory. She’s much like him in many ways.”

  “I’m sorry.” Con chided himself less for the compliment gone awry than for the envious curiosity that flamed in him. By the tone of Enid’s answer, he might guess how much or how little she had loved Myfanwy’s father.

  It should not matter to him…but it did.

  “Was it very long ago you lost your husband?” At the last instant he managed to stop himself from adding the Welsh endearment, cariad.

  “In the fall.” Enid pushed the basin toward him. Though her curt reply told him she didn’t want to dwell on the matter, it gave no real clue about her feelings for the man. “There was some trouble with the Normans, so Howell joined the muster of Macsen ap Gryffith. He took sore wounds in the fighting. They brought him home where he lingered until the first snow.”

  Con eased his feet into the warm water as he digested this intriguing scrap of news about Macsen ap Gryffith. If the border chief had lost men in an autumn skirmish with the Normans of Salop, he might not need much nudging to retaliate in the spring.

  “What brings you to the borders?” asked Enid, her head bent over the basin. “Did you grow tired of plying your sword for hire to the Normans?”

  Her question caught Con like an unexpected thrust after a cunning feint. For a moment his glib tongue froze in his mouth. If he told her he’d come on a mission from the very people who’d killed her husband, she’d likely turf his backside out the gate, traditions of Welsh hospitality be damned.

  “You might say I’m taking a rest from it.” No lie, that—not a bold-faced one, anyhow. “I mean to go back to the Holy Land, though.”

  As Sir Conwy of Somewhere, riding at the head of an armed company of his own men. The dream sang a most agreeable melody in Con’s thoughts.

  “In the meantime, barding lets me enjoy a bit of adventure without the danger. Mercenary or travelling bard, both make good jobs for a vagabond.”

  “You’ve always had itchy heels, haven’t you, Con?” Enid mused aloud as she washed his feet. “I suppose you’ll be on your way from here tomorrow morning?”

  The water was no more than tepid, but Enid’s touch set flames licking up Con’s legs to light a blaze in his loins. He could almost fancy it searing the itch of wanderlust from his flesh…but that was nonsense.

  Though part of him longed to stay and visit, that tiny voice of caution urged Con to go while he still had a choice.

  “Tomorrow.” He nodded. “Before Chester dogs arise, if the weather holds fair. I don’t want to wear out my welcome.”

  A quivering tension seemed to ebb out of Enid as she dried his feet. For all her show of welcome, she clearly wanted to be rid of him. The realization vexed Con. He wasn’t used to women craving his absence.

  Enid raised her face to him then, and Con struggled to draw breath. In the depths of her eyes shimmered a vision of the playful sprite he remembered from their childhood—so close and physically accessible, yet as far beyond the reach of an orphan plowboy as the beckoning stars.

  “I’m surprised to see you whole and hale after all these years. I feared you wouldn’t last a month as a hired soldier.”

  She’d worried about him. The knowledge settled in Con’s belly like a hot, filling meal after a long fast. He hadn’t expected her to spare him a backward glance.

  “White my world.” That’s what the Welsh said of a fellow who was lucky, and Con had been. “I’ve had the odd close shave, but always managed to wriggle out before the noose drew tight enough to throttle me. I’ll entertain your household with some of my adventures tonight, around the fire.”

  He leaned forward, planting his elbows on his thighs. “That’s enough talk of me, though. You never did say how you came to Powys from your father’s maenol in Gwynedd. From time out of mind I heard nothing but that you were meant to wed Tryfan ap Huw, and go to be the lady of his grand estat
e on Ynys Mon.”

  Enid scrambled to her feet and snatched up the basin so quickly that water sloshed over the rim to wet the reeds on the floor. “You ought to know better than most, Con, life has a way of turning out different than you expect.”

  Which was exactly how he liked it. How tiresome the world would be without those random detours, bends in the road, hills that invited a body to climb and see what wonders lay beyond.

  But Enid had never thought so. More than anyone Con had ever known, she’d longed for peace and security. She’d craved a smooth, straight, predictable path through life, content to forgo the marvels if that was the price for keeping out of harm’s way. What calamity had landed her here on the Marches where turmoil reigned?

  Enid flinched from the memories Con’s question provoked, in much the way she would have avoided biting on a sore tooth. Once in her life she’d taken a risk, hoping to gain the only thing she’d ever wanted more than a safe, ordered, conventional life. She’d rocked the coracle and it had capsized, almost drowning her. That ruinous venture had taught her a harsh but necessary lesson about leaving well enough alone.

  The man who had cost her so dearly spoke up. “Did this turn in your life bring you happiness, Enid?”

  How dare he ask such a thing, as if he had any business in her happiness after all these years? And how dare he pretend to be taken by surprise over the unexpected direction her life had taken? He’d been there when the road had forked, after all. Then he had wandered away, lured by the fairy-piped tune of adventure, leaving her to bear the consequences.

  A sharp answer hovered on her tongue, but died unspoken.

  If Con ap Ifan had forgotten what happened between them thirteen years ago, on the eve of his departure from her father’s house, she did not wish to remind him—could not afford to remind him. For then he might guess what had become of her, and how it had all fallen out.

  “It brought me my children.” She measured her words with care, anxious not to disclose too much, nor rouse his curiosity further with blatant evasion. “They are the greatest source of pride and happiness in my life.”

  A grace she’d ill-deserved.

  Con’s face brightened, as if she’d told him what he wanted to hear. “No wonder you’re proud of them. They’re a fine pair, though I only saw the little fellow for a moment. Your last yellow chick, is he?”

  “I beg your leave for a moment,” she interrupted him, “to toss this water out.”

  Somehow she knew that after inquiring about the baby of the family, Con would next ask if she had any children older than Myfanwy and Davy. “I must see that supper’s started, too. Will you take a drop of cider to refresh you until then?”

  Con did not appear to notice that she hadn’t answered his question. “Your duties must be many now that you’re both master and mistress of the house.”

  He waved her away with a rueful grin. “I won’t distract you from them. We’ll talk over old times and catch up with each other during the evening meal. In the meantime, if there’s aught I can do to make myself useful, bid me as you will. I can turn my hand to most anything.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of putting a guest to work.” She didn’t want him snooping around the place, talking to folks about things he had no business knowing. “Take your ease and tune your harp until supper. It’s been a long while since we’ve been entertained by a minstrel from away. You’ll more than earn your bread and brychan tonight.”

  She bustled off to prepare for the meal. And to make sure her children had plenty of little chores to keep them occupied and away from the hall until supper.

  “He’ll be gone in the morning,” she muttered under her breath as she worked and directed others in their work. “He’ll be gone in the morning. He’ll be gone in the morning.”

  The repetition calmed her, like reciting the Ave or the Paternoster.

  Yet along with the rush of relief that surged through her every time she pictured Con ap Ifan going on his way tomorrow morn without a backward glance, a bothersome ebb tide of regret tugged at Enid, too.

  A small but bright fire burned in the middle of Glyneira’s hall that evening, its smoke wafting up to the ceiling where it escaped through a hole in the roof. A sense of anticipation hung in the air, too, as Enid’s household partook of their supper.

  There were over two dozen gathered that evening, most distant kin of Enid’s late husband. All eager to hear the wandering bard who, according to rumor, had fought in the Holy Land.

  Enid sat at the high table with Howell’s two sisters, Helydd and Gaynor. She had placed Con at the other end, between the local priest and Gaynor’s husband, Idwal, who’d taken a blow on the head a few years before and never been quite the same since.

  Though everyone at Glyneira had gotten used to Idwal’s halting speech, outsiders often had trouble understanding him. Father Thomas was voluble enough to make up for what Idwal lacked in conversation, and then some. His uncle had gone to Jerusalem on the Great Crusade and returned to Wales years later to ply a brisk trade in holy relics. Enid trusted the good father to keep their guest talking on safe subjects.

  Subjects that did not concern her or her family.

  Once all were seated, the kitchen lasses bore in platters of chopped meat moistened with broth, and set one between every three diners, as was Welsh custom in honor of the Trinity. A young boy brought around thin broad cakes of fresh lagana bread on which diners could heap a portion of the meat dish for eating.

  Gazing at their guest, Helydd leaned toward Enid and whispered, “My, he’s a handsome one, isn’t he? And so pleasant spoken. Is it true you knew him back in Gwynedd?”

  Enid nodded as she worried down a bite of her supper. Though she’d eaten nothing since a dawn bite of bread and cheese, she felt no great appetite. “Con’s mother was a distant kinswoman of my father. She died when the boy was very young, and nobody knew much about his father. Con used to coax the oxen for us until he got big enough to hire out as a soldier.”

  He had been the only other youngster around her father’s prosperous maenol in the Vale of Conwy, for Enid’s two brothers were several years their senior. Since neither of the children had mothers to keep a sharp eye on them, they’d run wild as a pair of fallow deer yearlings.

  In spite of herself, Enid found her gaze straying to Con’s animated features as he spoke with Father Thomas, watching with jealous interest for some reminder of the winsome boy she’d once loved so unwisely.

  Sudden as a kingfisher, he glanced up and caught her eyes upon him. Though she scolded herself for her foolishness, Enid felt a scorching blush nettle her cheeks. She prayed the fire’s swiftly shifting shadows would mask it. The last thing she wanted was for Con ap Ifan to entertain a ridiculous notion she still harbored a fancy for him.

  On second thought, there was one thing she wanted even less.

  Con swilled another great mouthful of his cider and nodded in pretended interest at some long-winded tale of Father Thomas’s. At the same time he tried to fathom the queer sense of dissatisfaction that gnawed at him.

  What reason on earth did he have to be disaffected? He’d been met with scrupulous hospitality from the moment he’d crossed the threshold of Glyneira. He’d eaten his fill of plain but nourishing fare, and the cider here tasted far superior to that of the last place he’d stayed. The company appeared good-natured and eager to be entertained.

  So what was goading him like a burr in his breeches? Con asked himself. Surely it wasn’t childish pique at Enid for neglecting him? Or was it?

  After all, they’d grown up almost like brother and sister for their first seventeen years, then hadn’t lain eyes on each other for the past dozen odd. Was it too much to expect she might set aside her chores to spend a little time with him? Especially since he’d be off in the morning and might never see her again.

  Clearly he’d hoodwinked himself into imagining she’d worried about him after they parted, thirteen years ago. If she’d cared for him half as much
as he’d worshipped her once upon a time, she’d have shown him more than the dutiful interest of any hostess in the comfort a chance-come guest.

  If he hadn’t known better, he’d have suspected she was deliberately trying to avoid him, until she could send him on his way at the earliest opportunity. But what reason could Enid have for that?

  “Were you ever to Jerusalem in your travels, Master Conwy?” The priest’s question shook Con from his musings.

  “Twice or thrice.” He nodded and glanced from Father Thomas to Idwal, a big quiet fellow who followed their talk with a look of intense concentration. “Mostly I fought in the north, in the service of the Prince of Edessa.”

  The priest drained his flagon of cider, probably to grease his tongue for another rambling tale about his uncle.

  Partly to forestall that, and partly because he hadn’t been able to coax a straight answer out of Enid, Con said, “It can’t have been an easy winter here since the master met his end.”

  Kiwal’s broad brow furrowed deeper, while the priest replied, “Not as bad as it might have been, perhaps.”

  “How so, Father?” When he sensed the priest was reluctant to say more, Con reassured him. “I only ask because Enid and I are old friends and distant kin. She might be too proud to beg my help on her own account, but if there is anything she or her children need, I’d find the means to assist them.”

  “You are a true Christian, sir!” Father Thomas clapped a beefy arm over Con’s shoulders. “As you can see, this is no prince’s llys, but folks aren’t starving either. The lady Enid has always been a careful manager and Howell’s sisters are both smart, industrious women. Though it was hard on them to watch Howell die slowly of his wounds, they had Our Lord’s own comfort knowing they’d done everything needful to ease him.”

  Con replied with a thoughtful nod. The old priest had a point. What part of the hurt a body took from the loss of a loved one came from guilt over being unable to prevent or assuage the death?