The Warlord’s Bride

by Margaret Moore

  “Perhaps things aren’t as bad between Madoc and his brother as you think,” her mother suggested.

  She, too, was in Roslynn’s chamber, sitting on the stool by the bed. “His brother treated us well, and did everything he could for you after you swooned again. Maybe Madoc went to thank him.”

  Roslynn would like to believe that, but knowing Madoc’s tempestuous nature, she could not. “How long has he—”

  “Long enough to be back again,” Madoc himself announced from the doorway.

  Thank God! She could swoon again with relief to see him standing hale and hearty before her.

  “I assume Lady Roslynn is feeling better?”

  He spoke so formally, so coolly, as if she were any other visitor who might have taken ill. Worst of all, though, she couldn’t tell what he was feeling. She had always been able to read his emotions, but now it was as if he spoke through a veil.

  What could she expect after she had left him? “Much better,” she said.

  “Good. I would speak with you alone, Roslynn.”

  Still so cold, so aloof. What had happened to his fiery temper? How had he become so distant, so stern, so remote?

  Had that not been what she’d wanted? her conscience chided. A calm demeanor, a manner devoid of anger—but apparently all other emotions, too.

  Roslynn nodded her agreement and her parents immediately departed, while Madoc came to stand at the foot of the bed like a grim and silent effigy.

  “You went to see Trefor,” she said, deciding to speak first if he would not.

  “To warn him that if he or his men set foot on my land again, he will rue it, for next time, I will act.”

  She could see his steadfast resolve, heard the finality in his deep voice and knew this threat was genuine. Trefor had finally pushed him too far.

  Although Trefor had wronged him more than once, for whatever reason, she hated to think she would bear any responsibility if men of Llanpowell died in such an attack, especially Madoc. “We were treated well, like guests. All of us, our men included.”

  “If it had been otherwise, my brother would already be dead, and his men with him.

  “But I didn’t come here to talk about my brother,” Madoc continued. “I understand further travel might cause you and the baby harm, so you must stay in Llanpowell.”

  It was not a request.

  Clutching the bedclothes as if they were a rope pulling her from within a deep well, she decided she wouldn’t lose this chance to speak to him about his brother, to try to have some good come from the ruin of their marriage. “Trefor says he’s taken your sheep only because you stole from him first—that, like you, he seeks only just reparation.”

  Her husband crossed his powerful arms. “That’s a lie, or more of his self-serving excuses. He also calls my marriage to Gwendolyn a theft and my inheritance of Llanpowell a robbery.”

  She shifted, so she was sitting more upright. “Is it possible that you both have been robbed by someone else and not each other? Isn’t it possible that whoever is stealing your livestock is using your feud to mask their thievery? You’ve both only blamed each other instead of searching for anyone else.”

  “No one else but Trefor would dare to steal from Llanpowell.”

  “Will you not at least consider the chance that Trefor is innocent and someone else to blame?”

  Anger sparked in his eyes, but this time, she was glad to see it. Better the Madoc she knew than this cold stranger.

  “Trefor’s lying, trying to stir up more trouble between us,” Madoc said, “and he’s succeeding, if you take his word over mine.”

  “I don’t, but I can believe there’s a third party at work, profiting from this feud.” She hurried on before Madoc stormed out of the room, as he looked about to do. “Trefor told me something else, that the day before he was to marry Gwendolyn, he saw you kissing her.”

  Madoc’s face reddened and his body tensed. “There is your proof that he’s a lying scoundrel. I never kissed Gwendolyn until after the priest blessed our union.”

  “Did you kiss anyone that day?”

  “No, or I would—”

  Madoc fell silent, and it was as if he’d hardened into a statue of a man stunned.

  “By the saints,” he whispered in a voice like a ghost’s in a sepulchre, his arms dropping to his sides. “There was a woman. Her name was Haldis. She was Gwendolyn’s cousin.”

  He felt for the stool and sat heavily. “Trefor thought she was Gwendolyn?”

  “He also says he told you what he’d seen when he finally arrived at his wedding.”

  “God, no, he didn’t!” Madoc jumped to his feet and stared at her in disbelief. “He just kept saying he knew what I’d done. As far as I knew, I hadn’t done anything wrong—and I hadn’t! It was just a few kisses in the shadows, because I was young and a little drunk and Haldis looked like Gwendolyn and she let me. He should have known I’d never betray him like that—never! How could he even think it?”

  “Because you loved Gwendolyn. You said so yourself and I daresay he knew it, too. You aren’t very good at hiding your feelings, Madoc.”

  He was too open, too honest. What he felt others saw, good or bad.

  “He should have known that on my honor I wouldn’t have touched her, not when he loved her and they were to be married,” Madoc protested as if she were his judge. “Gwendolyn would never have betrayed him, either. She loved him too much.”

  “Yet she married you so quickly.”

  “Aye, because…” He strode away, then returned, his expression a mixture of rage and anguish. “Because he’d shamed her and our families. If only he’d trusted us—or come right out with his suspicion, I could have told him he was mistaken. God help us all, I could have proven it—Bron would have vouched for me, and Uncle Lloyd, too. He saw me with Haldis and started to tease us about getting married next. That’s when I left her and went to bed.”

  “Now that you know the truth, can you not find it in your heart to forgive him?”

  To her dismay, Madoc’s expression grew as hard as flint, as adamant as iron. “No. He destroyed her happiness, and much of mine, grieved and disgraced our parents, all because he made a mistake and believed us capable of such dishonor.”

  “Yes, he made a mistake that night and his heart was broken. You made a mistake when you were so quick to take his place—”

  “What?” he cried angrily. “Would you blame me still?”

  “Could you not have waited even one day? Can you swear to me on the life of your son that there was no rivalry between you, no ambition, that you never saw a chance to gain?”

  “No! I did it for Gwendolyn, and my parents and the alliance.”

  “And because you loved her,” she insisted, determined to make him see that if Trefor was to blame, so was he. “Because you wanted her and Trefor himself had given you the chance to have her.”

  “All right, I wanted her,” he retorted. “I thought she was the prettiest, sweetest creature God had ever made. Does that please you, to hear that? I wanted her and I married her—and regretted it the moment the vows were exchanged.”

  Arms stiff at his sides, he fixed Roslynn with his glare. “I know your first wedding night was hellish. Now I’ll tell you about mine.” He pointed at a spot beside her. “She lay there sobbing all night long, aye, and every night thereafter, because she was sorry she’d married me and loved Trefor still. She never loved me and never would. And then she died—with his name on her lips.

  “So don’t ask me to forgive Trefor, because I can’t and I won’t. I don’t care what mistakes he made—others have paid for them, and Gwendolyn is dead.”

  Madoc crossed his arms and regarded her with a scorn that broke her heart. “Is that why he took you, to make you his advocate? Or was there another, royal hand at work?”

  She fought back tears, for she would not let him see her cry. “I am no man’s advocate,” she said with a coldness to counter the heat of his anger. “And what do
you mean, a royal hand? Do you suspect John sent me to your brother, or wanted me to speak to him? Why, when he sent me to you to be your wife?”

  “To cause dissension between us, to make us attack each other until we’re both destroyed,” Madoc said, moving back. “To be our Helen.”

  “No, he did not. He sent me to be your reward, as Lord Alfred said. I didn’t even know you had a brother until after I arrived.”

  His glowering gaze faltered for a moment.

  “Or do you think I’m lying?”

  “No,” he brusquely replied as he started for the door.

  Before he could open it, Lord James burst into the room, followed by his wife. “I don’t care if you’re her husband or not, you’ve been here long enough. My daughter is to rest. The physician said so.”

  “Then she should rest,” Madoc said with a stiff bow. “You are both welcome to stay here until Roslynn is fit to travel or the babe is born.”

  “I must return to my own estate,” Lord James replied. “However, my wife will remain until the child comes.”

  “As you wish.” Madoc glanced back at Roslynn, his eyes inscrutable. “For the sake of your health, my lady, I think it would be best if we slept apart.”

  Her heart broken, her hopes dashed, she saw no reason to disagree. “Yes, I think that would be best for both of us.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “WELL, THEN, here you are,” Lloyd said to Madoc several weeks later, having finally found him at the tanning yards downriver from the castle.

  Madoc stood near the lime vats, where the cowhides were immersed until the hair grew loose and the fat grew white and easily visible. The stench was enough to make Lloyd’s eyes water, although not so bad as the offal pits farther away.

  The smell didn’t seem to bother Madoc. Nothing seemed to bother Madoc these days. Despite the return of his wife and her good health since those worrying early days of her pregnancy, it was as if Madoc was only half-alive, although these should be happy days for everyone in Llanpowell. Trefor had stopped stealing; the price for wool, sheepskin and leather was high; and there was to be another child for the lord of Llanpowell.

  “Plenty of wool and parchment this year, eh?” Lloyd noted, warily eyeing his nephew and once more trying to understand what was going on in that heart of his. “Ivor says we’ll have some lovely soft leather for the gambesons. Maybe you’d like some for gloves? Or a new girdle for your wife?”

  Madoc sighed. He did a lot of that these days, too. “Is there something you wanted, Uncle?”

  “No, nothing in particular,” Lloyd replied, looking around. “Just thought I’d come see what you were up to. We’ll have a good income this year, eh, Madoc? No need to worry we’ll be hungry come the winter.”

  “Aye.”

  His nephew started walking toward the heap of willow and oak bark used for tanning, and Lloyd trotted after him. “So, March, then, the midwife says. Busy time of year for a babe to be born.”

  Madoc didn’t reply as he peered into the tan vat, where several layers of hides and tanning material lay.

  “Lady Roslynn’s looking well, thank God. And up to running the household, with her mother’s help, of course. I like Lady Eloise. Doesn’t interfere or look down her nose. Reminds me of your own mother some days, she does.”

  Madoc straightened. “I know you hate coming to the tanning yard, Uncle, so I assume there’s something important you wish to discuss. Well?”

  Lloyd gave his nephew a disgruntled frown. “I can’t stand to see you miserable, that’s all, and your wife, too. Whatever you quarreled about before she left, surely to God you’ve both had plenty of time to calm down and make up. Look you, she came back and she’s living under your roof—”

  “I won’t discuss my marriage, Uncle. Not with you or Ivor or anyone.”

  Not even if the tension between him and his wife was almost palpable, and like a distemper in the household.

  “If you’re still at odds, what will happen when the child comes?” Lloyd demanded.

  “Roslynn will go home with her parents and take the child with her.”

  Madoc had spent many lonely hours thinking about the future, which had once seemed so bright. Since Roslynn’s return, it had only stretched bleakly before him.

  He’d rather she go home with her parents and take their child with her than remain here. If she stayed, the longing for her would surely drive him to despair and rage and perhaps even madness.

  Lloyd’s face fell. “You can’t mean that. Why, I thought when I saw you working on that cradle…”

  “The babe needs a cradle. There’s nothing more to it than that.”

  “Then why didn’t you have the carpenter make it? You would if you didn’t care, so no more beating about the bushes with me, Madoc ap Gruffydd. You love the woman. I know it, Ivor knows it, everybody in Llanpowell knows it. And she cares for you, too, despite whatever the hell you argued about. I can see it in her eyes when she looks at you when you aren’t looking back. Why can’t you apologize or make it up to her?”

  Madoc turned to him and answered, his voice low but firm, his expression grimly resolute. “I said I won’t discuss my marriage with you, or anyone. If you’ve nothing else to talk about, Uncle, go back to the hall and your braggot. We’ve plenty of that, Ivor says.”

  Lloyd flushed and spoke as one who washes his hands of a problem. “All right, Madoc, I’m going. But a pity it is, and I won’t say otherwise. We all had such hopes for you, and now…well, it’s too bad you’re too proud and stubborn to make peace with your wife.”

  Madoc watched Lloyd march doggedly away, muttering under his breath. There was so much his uncle didn’t know or understand, and never would.

  ON A GRAY DAY late in February, Roslynn settled herself back in her chair and reached for her needle, wincing as she leaned too far forward for comfort. She put her hand to her swollen belly.

  “He—or she—is certainly strong!” she said to her mother as the babe kicked.

  Lady Eloise generally kept Roslynn company these days. Roslynn saw Madoc only at mealtimes, when he was polite but distant. It often seemed now that the first blissful days of their marriage had been a happy dream.

  “That’s good,” her mother said with a smile as she put away another length of cloth she’d purchased for the baby.

  Roslynn had tried to tell her they already had more than enough to dress the child for a year, yet every time her mother went to market, there would be another bit of cloth or trim she would find absolutely necessary to purchase.

  “The midwife says it will be another month at least,” Roslynn said with a sigh.

  “First babies are generally late to arrive, although you were early.”

  As the time neared for the baby’s birth, Roslynn found it difficult not to worry about the delivery, so she changed the subject. “How many baskets of fish did you count?”

  Her mother had told her she’d seen the fishmonger arrive and make a delivery to the kitchen.

  “Ten,” Lady Eloise replied.

  “Will you add this delivery to the list, or shall I?”

  “I will,” her mother said, fetching the piece of parchment where they’d been recording the tally of goods arriving if they noticed a delivery.

  Even if she and Madoc were estranged, Roslynn had no intention of letting the steward cheat him, although sometimes goods arrived when they were otherwise occupied, or they didn’t realize a merchant had come until the delivery was almost completed. Even so, there were over twenty-five notations Roslynn had managed to check against Ivor’s list of payments in his workroom that didn’t match.

  She had thought of telling Madoc when there were five, but that had not seemed enough to prove that his trusted friend was cheating him.

  She had again contemplated approaching him at ten, but that had been close to Christmas, and she had decided to wait until after the festivities, not that there was much merriment at Llanpowell that year, or as much as usual, she su
spected. Everyone had seemed anxious and subdued, even Lloyd.

  Her father had sent a small wooden chest that had been hers as a child, as well as a little wooden rattle full of dried beans. She had made Madoc a new tunic of the black wool from the ram’s fleece that would surely fit him much better than the one he’d been married in, but he hadn’t worn it or, she supposed, even tried it on. On Christmas morning, she had found a cradle by their bed, finely carved of oak and made by Madoc himself, so Lloyd had told her at mass later. She would have thanked Madoc, but he had been gone most of the day, although the air was freezing and there was snow upon the ground. By the time Madoc returned, the feast had already started and she’d had no chance to speak to him alone.

  “I think we have enough information to tell Madoc of our suspicions,” Roslynn said, putting those painful memories aside. “I can’t be making too many more visits to Ivor’s workroom to check the accounts. I can barely fit through the door now.”

  “Nor should you be wandering about,” her mother added.

  Although Roslynn hadn’t bled or been ill since her return to Llanpowell, her mother constantly urged caution. Roslynn had heeded her mother’s warnings and accepted her help whenever possible to run the household, too. Fortunately, perhaps because Madoc’s own mother had been a Norman, Lady Eloise was well liked and respected, and things had gone smoothly, even with Ivor.

  Roslynn ignored another twinge, for this was a very active baby and such movements weren’t unusual. “Will you go and ask Madoc to come here?”

  “Of course.” Lady Eloise’s mouth turned down at the corners, as it always did when she was worried. “I’ll be happy to stay with you.”

  “Thank you, but this will be painful for him to hear, so I think it would be better if we’re alone.”

  He might get angry, but she didn’t think he’d hurt her when she was so big with child. If he were even capable of hurting her.

  Fortunately, although she had never told her parents exactly why she and her husband were no longer intimate, her mother made no protest. Nevertheless, Roslynn was certain her mother wouldn’t be far away. She would stay close by, in case her daughter should find it necessary to call for her.