by Nicole Locke
‘Shouldn’t we search the grounds to find Anwen?’ Rhain said.
‘She’s with Ffion and safe. The blood is fresh; we end this now.’
He stepped through his mother’s...no, Anwen’s room. It was like some macabre nightmare. His nightmare with cryptic blood-drenched words written on the wall just for him.
‘I will kill him,’ Teague said, his words no more than the truth.
Rhain carefully stepped over a blanket on the floor. ‘I’m for finding him first. There doesn’t appear to be a forced entry.’
Teague brushed the tapestries aside. He didn’t care how rough he was with them. Everything in the room was ruined. The bed, the walls and the tapestries were stained with blood.
Teague pointed his sword towards the wall directly across the room from the bed where Anwen slept. Rage coursed fresh through his body and he thrust a killing stroke in the air before lowering his sword. The blood on that wall was not splattered clumps, but neat concise red slashes: a message in blood.
Wronged blood covers wrong blood. Child first.
There were significant differences in this message. The previous messages had been threats against him; they had never threatened others. This one wasn’t vague, it was cryptic and it was written in blood.
‘Who is writing these?’ Teague seethed.
Rhain crossed his arms. ‘I am unclear as to what covers wronged blood. All I could see was it covered the walls of Anwen’s room.’
Teague’s world shifted and he turned to his brother, a man who shared his blood, but not his resemblance. Even their mannerisms and temperament were different, but he never doubted their bond. Teague had been there the day his mother died giving birth to Rhain.
‘That wall was not only Anwen’s wall, but Gwalchdu’s wall.’ Teague’s voice grew urgent as the idea took hold. ‘When was the last time you visited the chapel’s books?’
Rhain merely lifted an eyebrow. ‘There was no need to spend my time reading them when Ffion has them so well memorised.’
‘No, I do not mean God’s book. I meant the chapel’s logs, our family’s history?’
Rhain’s shrugged. ‘Never. I have only been interested in making my own history.’
‘The message mentions blood and blood could also be interpreted as blood lines. We cannot find the enemy outside Gwalchdu, so perhaps the enemy is within. There may be some meaning in our family books. This may have something to do with my past.’
Fingering his dagger, Rhain lowered his voice. ‘He’s a fool thinking to turn back time. Wales is ruled by England now.’
Remembering Anwen’s story, Teague knew how the past affected the present. ‘But it hasn’t sat well with everyone. It might be speculation; they may be simply mouldy books.’
‘Maybe, but something nags at me. Like a sword about to sweep behind me.’ Rhain shook his head. ‘The animals must be the wronged blood, but how are they wronged?’
It was a clue, but it was also a warning.
Teague’s breath froze in his lungs. A warning is for those who can heed it. Those who are alive.
Blood. Child. Bloodlines.
Teague felt his sword slip in his hands before he gripped it tight. ‘When you saw Ffion, how close were you?’
‘I was talking to Peter, but close enough to see the worry in Anwen’s eyes.’
‘And Ffion’s?’
Rhain shrugged. ‘They appeared focused, but they did shift.’
Teague’s gut wrenched. ‘Yes, like a liar’s. How long ago did they leave the garden? An hour? Two?’
Rhain turned, concern etched on his face. ‘What is the matter?’
‘It’s Ffion. All this time. We dined with the enemy.’
Rhain shook his head. ‘Ffion. What are you saying?’
What was he saying? Blood pooling around his feet. Fresh blood. ‘This is our blood. Our bloodlines, but this isn’t about history. This is about what is happening now.’
‘Where are you going?’
Teague had already opened the door, his shoes marking the floor with every step he took. He’d been betrayed. Again, but by his mother’s sister. The agony arced through him. ‘Do you think I want to say this? She is family, but she is the enemy. She knows how important Anwen is to me. I cannot conceive anything else.’
‘I won’t believe it. Even so, what do you want me to do?’
‘Go to the rooms in the outside chapel and bring men with you. If they are there, send someone to get me. I’ll search the private chapel in the far tower.’
‘Alone?’
Running, Teague snarled, ‘She’s got Anwen!’
Chapter Twenty-Two
Teague bounded up the stairs to the private chapel at the top of the tower. The door was unlocked and it slammed against stone as he shoved it open.
Ffion knelt before the small altar. Her back was to him and she made not a sound or movement to acknowledge his arrival.
Standing to his left, and close to Ffion, Anwen turned to him. Her eyes were wide with terror, with...relief? No...regret. She deliberately shook her head and slowly gestured for him to remain still.
He took in the totality of the scene before him. The afternoon sunlight scattered rays of light through the room and reflected the scene in all its horror. It was laid like a nightmare before him.
‘So you have come to the rescue.’ Ffion slowly removed her headdress. ‘How predictable.’
Teague could do nothing but watch. Ffion knelt at the altar. Her back was to him, her black habit and headdress falling to the floor like a sweep of unbound hair. It was so like the memory of that fateful day from his childhood and now, as then, he stood helpless.
He glanced at Anwen. She was trembling, but there was fire in her eyes. His past and future lay before him in this room and he knew he would change the course of history this time.
Ffion swept away her headdress, stood and turned. Her shorn blonde hair was in contrast to the black she wore.
‘What do you do with that blade, Ffion?’
‘You do not ask what I do with the poison.’ Ffion pushed up her sleeves so a vial, bound to her wrist, swung hypnotically. ‘Your whore noticed it.’
Ffion pursed her lips. ‘Of course, I had to make her notice it. She insisted on obtaining help. I threw a blade; you can see it embedded in the door behind you. But it was no deterrent to keeping her in the room. Foolish child to not fear a dagger...but she did fear the poison.’
Anwen was in the middle of the room, too far away to get to, but not too far from Ffion to be safe if she threw another blade. Anwen was trapped and so was he.
‘I never thought you patient enough to hear what needs to be said.’ Ffion smiled, her eyes like madness gleaming around control. ‘She was not so patient.’ Ffion skimmed the blade along the vial to keep it swinging. ‘No, the only reason she stayed, and stayed quiet, too, is because I told her I’d drink this poison if she left.’
Teague clenched his sword at the hours of terror Anwen suffered before he got here. And she couldn’t even cry out?
‘I had to do it or she wouldn’t stay.’ Ffion shrugged. ‘If she left the room, you wouldn’t come here to hear my tale. And it’s time for you to hear it because my illness is worsening and I want things in order before I go.’
This was his aunt, his family, yet she was a stranger. Was it her sickness? She’d changed since his childhood, becoming more crazed with control. With her hatred of him. ‘Ffion, it isn’t Anwen you want. It’s always been me. Let her go.’
‘I wasn’t merely holding her here for you. She has her purpose, too.’
He wanted Anwen safe. ‘She serves no purpose.’
‘Of course she does. For you to worry. To feel out of control. You must realise I could have killed her at any moment. I may still
.’
He had no blades to throw. Anwen was too far away to protect. Still his hand tightened on his sword. His training, his fear, demanded he do something.
‘If you take one step towards me—’ Ffion enunciated each word ‘—the blade I hold will swiftly end her life. You are not quick enough.’
A brutal fact. He could do nothing. Nothing, as Ffion perched on the high-backed chair underneath the window behind her. He watched the light from the window envelop his aunt briefly before she emerged again, sitting regally in her scarlet-streaked robe. ‘You are right, it has always been you.’
‘Then let her go,’ he said. ‘Let me help you.’
‘Help me?’ Ffion’s eyes darted to the vial.
Poison in his aunt’s fragile hands. Had she had an episode before this? Perhaps she was disoriented or maddened temporarily. In the past any help he offered made her angrier, but nonetheless he tried. ‘It is your illness that is making you this way. Do not do this.’
‘Do not talk to me of my illness!’ A blade quick, unseen, but heard, skimmed past his ear and hit the wall behind him. Another was quickly in her hand. ‘I know my sickness worsens. I know I must end it, but only after you know the truth.’
Then he understood. She had always intended to take the poison. It was about control. Order. Something he cloaked himself in, something his aunt had been hiding behind. Both of them suffocating. He understood that now. Anwen had given him hope. His aunt still had a chance.
‘Put down the blade and the vial. God would never allow this.’
‘God?’ She waved her hand and the knife glinted in the light. ‘You speak to me of God? I know Him as much as I know my illness. He gave it to me; He gave me my gift, as well. I know what you do not. He has left me. Your whore is testament to that.’
He didn’t dare look at Anwen. As long as he talked to Ffion, her attention was on him. ‘Then tell me,’ he bit out. ‘Tell me this truth.’
‘I loved my sister,’ Ffion said. ‘Love, like only the most pious person experiences. In our childhood, she saved my life many times.’
‘Because of your illness,’ he said, as if his heart wasn’t hammering.
Ffion nodded. ‘I was older when the episodes started. There weren’t many at first. They would come about if there was a sudden jarring sound or someone suddenly opened shutters to let the sunlight in. If I became upset, it worsened. Elin was the only person there when it first happened. So we conspired to hide it.’
‘At the time, we had a healer and Elin thought we could study under her to find a cure. Obviously that was Elin’s idea. I humoured her, but knew it wasn’t possible to end my affliction. Yet, I could study to protect myself. I learned how herbs harm people and I learned to throw these blades.
‘By the time I turned fifteen, I could kill anyone with a blade or by a crushed flower, but I couldn’t control what was happening to me. Elin was almost past marriageable age and no Welshman asked for her hand. I blamed myself and even more so when she was forced to marry an English bastard.’
All these years and he hadn’t known. His mother and aunt had been close, but now he could see their kinship for what it was. How Elin suffered for her sister; how she might have feared her.
‘Elin said she loved William. I sought answers at God’s altar, but all I could think of was that English bastard using her body for his lust. I made a plan and it included you, Gwalchdu’s lord.’
‘What did you do to Teague’s father?’ Anwen asked.
Ffion threw a blade that sliced the air near Anwen’s head. ‘You should keep your whore quiet.’
Teague wanted to fling his sword at his aunt. Anwen was now crying; her tears flowing unchecked, but there was fire in her eyes. This wasn’t fear, he knew, but anger at her helplessness. It was costing her to be quiet and do nothing. It was costing him not to protect her from Ffion. His aunt, who murdered his father.
So many years had passed, and yet he could remember that day. Remember the discordant whispers of Ffion and his mother. Anwen did not know the story of his past, and yet did she guess this?
‘You killed him,’ he said.
Ffion waved her hand, flashing another blade. ‘Elin was mine; no one could love her like I did and so I convinced her he could not be faithful. When he left to meet with Lleweyln, I gave him a potion. It was easy enough, but with his size it took too long. That’s the reason he died in the forest and not at home.’ She pursed her lips. ‘Dead is dead, of course, and Elin never knew the truth.’
So his father had loved his mother and it had been Ffion who betrayed them. Ffion, who he kept fed, clothed and sheltered. Ffion, who hated him.
‘Why?’
Ffion smiled as if savouring his question. ‘I was pregnant at the same time as your mother.’
Anwen visibly started at the news. Teague couldn’t move at all. Ffion pregnant? How had no one known?
‘That day I killed your father I alone attended Elin at her childbirth. She was my sister, my love. I did not want our time together to be polluted by intruders and barred everyone from the room. But the birth took too long and her life was seeping away.’
‘Her baby was still. Dead. By God or gift, I began my own labours. I silently welcomed the pain. Elin had suffered worse; her labour was so much longer. She never knew of mine because she was overtaken with her pain.’
‘She looked like an angel when I placed my baby in her arms. By giving her Rhain at that moment, I was repaying a lifetime of her loyalty to me.’ Ffion’s smile changed, softened. ‘When the servants came, I wrapped her dead babe in the bloodied blankets and disposed of the body.’
Teague reeled. All these years, he was right. Ffion had given peace to his mother, had made those last moments full of love. He had protected her from the Church, from Gwalchdu’s villagers because of that. Yet...he never knew the truth. She was always fervently preaching against adultery, but then, maybe that made sense now. Ffion closed her eyes, eyes that were as amber as Rhain’s. She was Rhain’s mother and he had never seen it. Rhain was his cousin.
‘Didn’t you ever wonder about who named him?’ Ffion’s smile remained the same; this was a secret gift she was proud of and she had a son that made her prouder yet. ‘Such a strong name, and of course I had to have some acknowledgement to my abilities.’
He’d been blind to the truth. Many great Welsh rulers were named Rhain, which meant ‘spear’. It was a name that matched his aunt’s ambitions.
‘Tell me the rest of this story,’ Teague commanded. He would not have her die on him.
‘You were born, impure, from an English bastard, who gave you his family’s name.’ Ffion trailed the blade along the vial again. ‘Made it so easy to fit in with the English King, didn’t it?’
‘Is that why you threatened me?’
‘Your betrayal to Wales didn’t surprise me. No, I simply hated your companionship with my son. Rhain was my gift to Elin. Not you. You treat him like a brother, a second-born, when, had the truth been revealed, he would be superior to you. His blood is pure and he was given from the heart. My heart.’
‘Who is his father?’
‘You ask this?’ Ffion pursed her lips. ‘Ah! That knowledge is not for you, but my son... Although, I did not wish for him to see me like this.’ Her eyes darted to the vial before their amber gaze held his again. ‘I’ll give you a hint, though it matters not. He is gone now, as he should be. But that, too, was because of you. You, who never deserved Rhain.’
‘That’s not enough to tell me.’
‘I just told you as much as I ever will now that she’s arrived.’ Ffion pointed the blade at Anwen.
‘I could no longer just kill you, but her and the babe she carries.’ Ffion smiled. ‘Ah, yes, warrior, she breeds. She has not told you? It was not my intention to kill Gwalchdu’s children, but your child.’<
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Ffion’s pale skin did nothing to hide the increasing feverishness in her eyes. She tapped the blade to the vial now as if counting out the time. She intended to take that poison soon. It would end this nightmare for him and Anwen, but he couldn’t have her do it. Even after everything, he couldn’t.
‘Ffion, you’re hurting. Let Anwen go. Let her get Rhain for you. Let her—’
All three of them jumped as the door banged behind them. It was the distraction Teague needed. Launching across the room, he slammed Anwen against the wall, using his body as a shield.
Rhain raced through the door.
‘My son.’ Ffion tilted the vial’s poisonous contents to her lips.
Rhain skidded to her side, but the poison was already taking effect. Her body now slumped in the high-backed chair.
‘Who was my father?’ Rhain demanded, his harsh breaths mixing with Ffion’s much shallower ones. Whatever she had taken was hitting her fast and her limbs were already convulsing.
Still she must have sensed the force behind the question for she struggled to lay her hand on Rhain’s cheek. ‘Your father is—’ Her eyes closed; her breathing became laboured. ‘East... It hurts.’ She laid her hand to her chest. ‘Use my necklace...’
But she could convey no more. Ffion, Sister of Gwalchdu, was dead.
Chapter Twenty-Three
In the enclosure of Teague’s arms, Anwen watched Rhain slowly cover Ffion with her black robes. When he stood and turned, an invisible mantle had spread across his face, hardening his golden features.
Teague spoke first. ‘I couldn’t find a way to stop her. If I could, for your sake—’
‘No, brother.’ Rhain shook his head. ‘Cousin,’ he corrected.
‘You knew.’
‘I was running to the chapel when Melun and Greta came out of the tower and took me to Ffion’s rooms. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her move that fast. There were papers hidden in her chest.’
‘None of us knew.’ Teague moved to step forward, but stopped as Rhain lifted his hand.