Therefore, ap Ganol had immediately sent word to Tudur ap Gwyfn of Llangefni and also to several other Anglesey warlords. Since distances were not as great as they were in other parts of the country, it was in little time that several major warlords in Anglesey received the news of de Shera’s intentions and within hours, men were moving to gather at Castell Meurig, the largest fortress in Anglesey aside from Rhydilian. It was a gathering of houses to discuss de Shera’s latest news and it was an angry mob that collected in Meurig’s hall.
“The wedding is on the morrow,” ap Ganol said to the group. “Though I respect de Shera for his hereditary titles and his abilities as a warrior, I do not respect him for his intentions. Why would he take an English bride when there are plenty of good Welsh women about?”
The gathering rumbled ominously. The great hall of Meurig was more of a round house, built upon the foundations of a Norse structure that had been round in shape. The walls were waddle and daub and the roof thatched with heavy sod. Smoke from a great pit in the middle of the room clogged up against the ceiling in great gray clouds. Men inside inhaled as much smoke as they did air, and now with all of the bodies present, it was a stuffy and polluted place.
“I do not think to question de Shera,” another man said. Bron Llwyd was a childhood friend of Bhrodi’s. “The man is our king. He is our greatest warrior. I was at Moel-y-don last November when the English built a bridge over the waters and marched upon Anglesey. De Shera was the first man they came across and he crushed them. He hates the English as we do, so if he takes an English bride then he must have an excellent reason.”
The group roared and argued, shouting their disagreement across the room at Bron, who jumped up on a feasting table to be better heard. The crowd was growing restless, angry with de Shera’s intentions. He knew what this group was capable of.
“So what is it that thee wishes?” Bron yelled at the crowd. “Do you wish to destroy de Shera? You cannot and you know it. He is too powerful!”
“Too powerful, aye, but he borders on betrayal with this marriage,” ap Ganol pointed out and the crowd roared its approval. “Never forget that the man’s father is English; therefore, de Shera is half-Saesneg and he has been a known ally with them in the past. He fights against the English, or with them, depending on what’s in it for him. The last time he fought with the English, he gained more English lands that just Coventry. Have you forgotten?”
The gathering was thoroughly upset by now and Bron put up his hands to quell the anger. “De Shera is all Welsh, with a Welshman’s heart and soul,” he pointed out. “Through his mother, he is our king. He would not betray us.”
That didn’t seem to help. Men were arguing, shoving each other around, uneasy and angry. As Bron began shouting at those who were beginning to fight, another man leapt onto the feasting table.
Tudur ap Gwyfn was an older man from a very ancient and distinguished family and this was his castle. Men listened to Tudur, including Bhrodi. He respected the man for his wisdom and insight. Therefore, before the situation grew out of control, Tudur would speak his mind. He held up his hands to silence the crowd.
“De Shera is not a traitor,” he said flatly. “What he does, I suspect, is for peace with the English king. De Shera is a shrewd man and he is not foolish; if he is marrying an Englishwoman, then there must be a good reason. You will not question him on his motives.”
The group of men didn’t particularly like that statement but the rumbles weren’t as angry as they had been; Tudur had that effect on the crowd. The old Welshman continued.
“However, I will say this; I do not approve of this marriage,” he said. “It reeks of another English attempt at conquest. Therefore, if it is English blood you want, then there will be plenty of it at the wedding. De Shera wants an English bride; then he can have her. But the English attending the wedding are under no such protection. They are the enemy in our lands and it would send a message to Edward if we were to massacre his retainers.”
Bron had been listening to the speech calmly until the last sentence. That wasn’t what he had expected. He moved in Tudur’s direction.
“Do you not think Bhrodi will have something to say about that?” he asked. “The English are there as his guests.”
Tudur turned to him. “But they are not our guests,” he replied. “I will not sit in the same hall peacefully with English who have killed all three of my sons. I do not want an English foothold in Anglesey with de Shera’s marriage.”
Bron cocked an eyebrow. “You just said that de Shera had his reasons for marrying an Englishwoman.”
“Mayhap he has his reasons, but they are not my reasons. His alliance is not mine.”
Bron sighed heavily. “You are a vassal of de Shera,” he reminded him. “His alliance is your alliance.”
Tudur shook his head. “Mayhap the man needs to be reminded that we, as a group, are his true strength,” he said “He did not consult us on this marriage and he should have. Therefore, the English at Rhydilian belong to us. We will kill them and send a message to Edward, and the message is that we will not tolerate the English in Anglesey. Edward tried to gain foothold here last November and we destroyed him. Now he tries to do it with a marriage to de Shera. We will fight him off once again by destroying the English contingent at Rhydilian.”
Bron didn’t like that suggestion at all but he knew he couldn’t stop it. He was a lesser warlord with only one hundred men sworn to him and if the group turned against him, he knew they would destroy him. He wasn’t strong enough to fight them off. Therefore, he did the only thing he could for self-preservation; he backed down on his argument lest they think he was a traitor, too. He looked at Tudur.
“Then what do you intend to do?” he asked. “Do you not think that there will be armed English at the wedding?”
Tudor glanced at Lon, who was very much in approval of the plan. “It will be better to strike at the wedding feast when the English have too much drink in them,” he said. “We will attend the wedding and the feast, as de Shera has requested, and when the English are too drunk to fight back, we will strike. In fact, de Shera will not even have to know our true motives. Fights break out at weddings all of the time and no one ever seems to know what started them. It will be the same at de Shera’s wedding; no one will ever know what started the battle, but they will know that we were victorious in the end. The Englishmen will die.”
Bron shook his head with regret. “Bhrodi will know your motives,” he said. “If you do this, you are defying him and his intention to create an alliance with the English. How do you think he will react?”
Tudur knew that The Serpent could be deadly when provoked but he would not back down. “If the situation was different and it was one of us marrying the English to create an alliance, I would suspect de Shera would not approve of it,” he said. “He would be here right now plotting with us and declaring Welsh sovereignty. In time, he will understand our motives and he will agree. We are not meant to ally with the English.”
“The Serpent will strike you down, ap Gwyfn,” Bron said softly. “You will not survive his anger if you do this.”
Tudur could see that Bron was not entirely convinced. He was afraid that the man might even warn de Shera of their plans. Therefore, he muttered something to Lon, who in turn whispered something to two of his men. Soon, several men were moving for Bron, who was pulled off the table and dragged from the hall.
Bron ended up in a dank, moldy cell as the Welsh warlords of Anglesey continued to plan their attack well into the night.
CHAPTER NINE
The great hall of Rhydilian was alive with the glow from hundreds of candles, expensive tallow tapers that had been brought out of storage and ignited in celebration of the lord’s marriage. The dogs had been cleared out and the entire room smelled of roasting meat and fresh rushes. Knights were dressed in their finest and ladies were clad in beautiful garments. On the event of The Wolfe’s daughter’s wedding to the hereditary king of Angl
esey, it was indeed an occasion to celebrate.
As Penelope sat next to Bhrodi at the head table, she was rather taken aback by the spectacle on a rather grand scale. Four massive feasting tables were weighed down with more food than most people saw in a lifetime and a group of six minstrels from the village of Menai played enthusiastically near the hall entry, filling the room with the sounds of harps and mandolins. One of Bhrodi’s teulu commanders, also a musician, played along with his citole.
Penelope smiled as she watched her Uncle Kieran and Aunt Jemma dance their way by the head table; she’d never seen her Uncle Kieran dance before and surprisingly enough, for such a large man he was rather light on his feet. She could hear Jemma laughing all the way across the room.
As the feasting and gaiety went on long into the night, Penelope remained seated and wouldn’t dance, not even when her father begged her to. She was embarrassed to be in a dress even though she looked spectacular in it; the ivory silk clung to her delicious body, something that had not gone unnoticed by Kevin Hage or Bhrodi’s men, and she had been completely mortified to stand up in front of a roomful of people in the dress to say her vows. She was dying to change into clothing she was comfortable with but her mother had flatly denied her; she was the bride, Jordan had scolded, and it was time she acted like one. Brides did not dress in breeches and tunics, Jordan told her, and Penelope had been crestfallen.
In fact, her mother had spent a good deal of time lecturing Penelope on how she was to behave now that she was to be a married woman. No more breeches, no more mail. She would dress and behave like a woman from now on because that is what Bhrodi de Shera deserved. He needed a wife, not another knight, and Penelope had been grossly unhappy with her mother’s directions even though she knew, deep down, that the woman was correct. That being the case, she was somewhat resigned when Jordan had dragged out her trousseau the morning of the ceremony, filled with lady-like things and more items to furnish a new household.
There were chests filled with surcoats, shifts, undergarments, hose, and shoes. There were other chests filled with plate armor and other valuables as part of her dowry. There were no chests filled with mail or swords or armor, and Penelope had actually gone to her father and cried for an hour about it while William had listened patiently. Then he told her that she was to be a married woman now and things would have to change. Unhappy, she had pouted considerably after that but it didn’t change things. She was to be a wife and not a warrior. God, she hated the sound of that.
Therefore, at sunset on a dreary and misty day, Penelope Adalira de Wolfe had become the Lady Penelope de Wolfe de Shera in front of a hall that was full of both English and Welsh. In addition to the family members who had accompanied her to Wales, Bhrodi’s guests included several local chieftains, which made the atmosphere very strange considering they were in the same room with English warriors and not fighting them.
There was a minute amount of tension but not enough to concern William or the other Englishmen. It was a wedding, after all, and even as the wedding feast went deep into the night, the English and Welsh were actually getting along. Some of them were playing dice in one corner of the hall while others scattered about were drinking and laughing, or just drinking. It had been a remarkable show of unity, one that the older English knights including William found quite astonishing. Had they only known it was all an act by the Welsh, they would have been on their guard. As it was, they were enjoying the celebration just as the Welsh seemed to be, festive under a false sense of security.
Bhrodi didn’t suspect any of what his vassals had in mind. They seemed to be having a good time and that was all he could sense. He hadn’t left Penelope’s side all evening even though she had been too nervous to carry on a lengthy conversation with him, but he remained with her, trying to engage her in small talk. He could see that she was uncomfortable in a crowd, more of a private person than someone who enjoyed attention, so he didn’t press her to dance. He was content just to sit with her.
He did, however, want to speak with her; since their long discussion in the keep four days earlier, he’d hardly had time to talk to her and he was very anxious to continue coming to know her. More than that, he was quite anxious to consummate their marriage and had been since he first saw her in the body-skimming ivory dress. For a man who’d not had sexual relations in well over two years, the mere sight had been enough to arouse him. Now he found he could think of nothing else and the alcohol he had been drinking only magnified those thoughts. As the gaiety and music went on around them, he leaned into her ear.
“Would you like to retire now?” he asked quietly.
Penelope looked at him as if he had just suggested something very shocking. She had a wide-eyed look but quickly settled down when she realized he had every right to make the request. He was now her husband although it would take some getting used to. She was torn between resisting him and simply getting it over with.
“If… if that is your wish,” she said, then looked around the hall. “I would like to bid my parents a good eve, if I may.”
Bhrodi nodded graciously, following Penelope’s gaze to the dance floor where William was now escorting the very small and very pregnant form of Tacey to the center of the hall. Tacey had been in the company of Jordan and Jemma all evening, each woman paying particularly close attention to the girl, but as William carefully pulled her out to where others were dancing, Bhrodi’s brow furrowed.
“What is your father doing?” he asked, trying not to sound too worried. “He cannot think to dance with her, can he?”
Penelope grinned at her father, who was being very gentle with the timid young girl as he explained the dance steps. “Why not?” she asked. “I think it is very sweet. Besides, do you really think my mother would allow her to dance if she did not believe it to be perfectly safe?”
Bhrodi had to admit she had a point but he was still uncomfortable. “He is a very big man,” he said, watching as William led Tacey about in her first few steps. “God’s Blood, he’s going to step on her.”
Penelope began to giggle. “He will not step on her,” she said, turning to look at him. “He has eight granddaughters. He knows how to handle young women.”
Just as she said that, Tacey went one way and William went the other and they ended up crashing into one another. Tacey actually laughed as William set her on the right course. Bhrodi winced.
“He will crush her,” he said. “I am not entirely sure I can watch this.”
Penelope’s laughter grew. “Are you always so worrisome?”
He gave her a look that rather suggested he wasn’t about to admit anything to her. “Your father is three times, nay, four times Tacey’s size. It is well within my right to worry.”
“And I suppose you will not allow him to dance with our daughters, then?”
He scowled. “What daughters?” he said. “I told you we were to have all sons.”
“And I told you all daughters.”
He could see she was jesting, thrilled that her nervous manner was loosening and she was starting to enjoy herself. It was the same woman he’d seen those days ago when they’d had their most wonderful private conversation. It was the woman he could see himself growing fond of. At least, he hoped so. Eager to maintain the light mood in a more secluded setting, he shook his head at her.
“We will continue this conversation in private because I am sure that if I spanked you in public, your father might have something to say about it,” he said, rising on his big legs. “Shall we retire to our chamber, Lady de Shera?”
Our chamber. Penelope’s smile faded and her nervousness returned although she fought it. He was her husband now, as alien as that thought was. She didn’t even really know the man at all, but she was about to come to know him better than she’d ever known any man in her life. It was inevitable.
Taking a deep breath to summon her courage, she stood up and Bhrodi politely grasped the long silk train that was wound up around her chair. He picked it up an
d followed her as she made her way over to her parents and family, who had an entire table all to themselves. Jordan, who had been watching William and little Tacey, caught sight of her glorious daughter approaching and she immediately went to her.
“Are ye having a good time, sweetheart?” she put her hands on Penelope’s face and kissed her cheek. Then she looked at Bhrodi. “A fine feast, m’laird.”
He dipped his head graciously. “My thanks, Lady de Wolfe,” he said, “but I did not have a great deal to do with it. You organized the majority of it.”
Jordan smiled. “’Twas those women I brought from the village,” she said. “As I told ye, women are very useful. I think ye’ll come tae appreciate it.”
“Mayhap I will.”
Jordan nodded her head, catching a glimpse of her husband and Tacey as they moved across the hard-packed floor. “Speaking of women,” she said, “yer sister seems tae be enjoying herself a great deal.”
Bhrodi turned to watch William and Tacey, now dancing in sync. “I am glad,” he said. “Thank you for what you have done for her, Lady de Wolfe. She seems very happy.”
Jordan beamed. “She is a sweet lass,” she said. “She has taken a liking tae me husband, as ye can see.”
Penelope smiled as she watched her father whirl the young woman around. “Papa likes to dance,” she said. “It looks as if he has found a willing partner.”
“Penny, lass,” Jemma, a cup of wine in hand, came up behind Jordan. “Why have ye not danced yet?”
Penelope could feel her cheeks grow hot with embarrassment. “I am not much good at dancing, auntie,” she said. “Mamma tried to teach me but I never really learned.”
“But it is yer wedding, lass,” Jemma persisted. “I never had a decent wedding and neither did yer mother. The least ye could do is let us see ye dance and enjoy yerself.”
Penelope was mortified as she looked to her mother for help. Jordan took pity on her. “The lass has no aptitude for dancing,” she told her cousin. “She would trip and kill herself and ye know it. Leave the dancing to those who know how.”
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