Castle of the Heart

by Speer, Flora

  “Yes. My son.” Selene put a protective arm across her belly.

  “And here,” Arianna added, “Joan has made an omelet just for you, with herbs in it.”

  “The slugs are eating the herbs,” Selene sniffed, refusing to look at the omelet. “I detest slugs. They leave slimy trails. I can’t eat slimy things. Take it away.”

  “There are no slugs in this,” Joan declared, plunking the wooden plate down in front of Selene. “These are all good dried herbs from Lady Meredith’s stillroom. Ask Cristin, I sent her to fetch them. If you don’t want this omelet, tell me before it’s too cold to eat, and I’ll give it to Master Reynaud. He can use the strength in those eggs – and eggs are precious. The hens aren’t laying well.”

  “Eat it for the baby’s sake,” Arianna urged, and Selene relented.

  “She’s a baby herself,” Joan said later, when Selene had gone to her room to rest. “Why, even Cristin is more grown-up than that. Cristin wastes not a morsel of food, she’s been helping me to make cheeses – at least the cows are still producing milk – and now look at her, learning her letters from Master Reynaud.” Joan nodded toward the place across the hall, where Cristin’s curly copper-gold head was bent over Reynaud’s shoulder to see the book he held open on his lap. “Cristin is a good girl, if a bit wild, but my Lady Selene will not make a worthy mistress for this castle.”

  “It’s the baby,” Arianna said, surprised at this outburst from the usually mild-mannered Joan. The bad weather was getting on everyone’s nerves. “Selene will be better after the baby comes.”

  “I doubt it. She’s weak, I see it in her eyes. There’s something about her, something I don’t trust.” Joan picked up a tray and stalked off to the kitchen, calling to Cristin to come and help her.

  “She’s right, you know.” Reynaud laid aside the book he had been reading to Cristin and shifted about in his big wooden chair, resettling his body more comfortably on the cushions. Arianna knew the constant dampness made his injured joints ache. She could tell by the tight look to his mouth that he was in pain. She wondered if the tingling and discomfort he had once told her about, which made him think his lost leg was still there, still attached to his knee, was bothering him again. “Joan is right about Selene. I’ve looked into her eyes, and I’ve seen terror there, and something else. It’s as though she’s keeping some deep and terrible secret.”

  “The baby,” Arianna began, but he would not let her finish the excuse.

  “She had that look before she got with child. I’ve tried to befriend her, but she avoids me. Perhaps she thinks I see too much.”

  “Reynaud, forgive me if I hurt your pride, but what you saw may have been Selene’s response to your injuries.”

  “No.” He interrupted her again, his manner more intense than she had ever seen it before. “Arianna, I tell you, that young woman is not to be trusted. I’ve known men with that look who later committed some terrible deed. Sometimes I see her watching Thomas, and I fear for him.”

  “Stop!” Arianna put out one hand as though she would forcibly silence the cleric. “I’ve known Selene all my life, she’s like a sister to me, and I believe, no, I am certain, that she cares for Thomas. If she were capable of violence, which she is not, she still would not harm Thomas. I tell you, once her baby is born, this strangeness you and Joan think you see in her will cease.”

  “I pray, my dear, that you are right and I am wrong.” Reynaud’s pale blue eyes held Arianna’s grey ones. “Unfortunately, I know too well that violence, and bloodshed, are not always necessary for treachery. And,” he added, his soft voice sinking to a whisper, “I will continue to watch Selene.”

  Part III

  Gwenefer

  A.D. 1116-1117

  Chapter 8

  Autumn, A.D. 1116

  In his secret stronghold hidden deep within the Welsh forest, Emrys the rebel leader sat drinking and plotting with his most trusted aide.

  “It’s Afoncaer we must destroy,” Emrys said. “I did not agree with those few raids last winter, the way Gwion took his men into Powys so openly. It was unnecessary, the loss of so many good Cymry, and for what? We only killed a few Normans, and we were lucky to escape with our lives.”

  “Gwion was a fool,” his friend agreed. “Brave enough, but too hot-tempered. He never stopped to think before he loosed his arrows, and see what has become of him. He and his men are all dead, and therefore of no further use in our fight against these cursed Normans, who always have more men to send against us.”

  “Aye, Cynan, you are right about that. The Normans are too strong for us to meet them in open battle. Treachery is the way to best them. What we need is a clever, devious plan, and the patience to wait until the time is right. A plan like mine. Have you found a girl for me?”

  “I have. She’s a distant cousin by marriage of my wife’s brother. Her father—”

  Emrys cut off the flow of his friend’s words. The family histories his fellow countrymen loved to recite were not only interesting, they were often useful, revealing relationships among those who fought the Normans that Emrys could depend upon for his own advantage, but this time the listing of relatives could wait until he had decided whether or not to use the girl.

  “Where is she?” Emrys asked.

  “Waiting out there.” Cynan tilted his head toward the closed door of the rough stone cottage that served the rebels as headquarters.

  “What, all this time in the rain? You could have brought her inside at once.”

  “Since when has a little rain bothered anyone who’s true Cymraes? Besides, you said you wanted someone patient. I was testing her.”

  “Well, if you think she’s been tested enough,” Emrys said, refilling his cup with ale, “bring her in.”

  Cynan flung open the door and called into the wet night. After a pause a figure entered the cottage. Cynan slammed the door shut on the rain and came back to sit by Emrys. They waited, watching her, both tense and alert. They were very alike: short, dark, wiry men whose sharp-featured faces bespoke their blood relationship. They were similar, too, in the almost religious fervor with which they hated the Normans.

  The girl pushed off her hood and threw the edges of her grey cloak back over her shoulders, then walked to the firepit in the middle of the cottage floor and held her hands out to the flames. She was small, as many Cymraes, Welsh women, were, and from what Emrys could see of her she had a softly rounded figure. She did not wear the usual white head covering, though her hair was cut short in the Welsh fashion, and black curls clustered damply around her face. Dark eyes under thick dark eyebrows met Emrys’s look with no evasion. She had a good face, not pretty, but with strong Welsh bones and pale clear skin. Emrys thought she was the kind of woman who could make a man believe she was beautiful, even though she was not.

  “What’s your name?” Emrys asked.

  “Gwenefer.” Her voice was rich and full, and Emrys imagined she was one of those who would rather sing than speak.

  “Are you a virgin, Gwenefer?”

  “I am.” She did not appear at all shocked by the question, she simply answered it.

  “Can you prove it?”

  “How shall I do that?” A flicker of amusement crossed the strong young face, and the rich, musical voice was filled with mocking laughter. “Shall I bring you all the men who have offered for me, with whom I have not lain, or shall I swear it before a priest?”

  “It is very important,” Emrys said.

  “I know who you are, Emrys, and I have told you truth.” Her dark eyes did not waver. The momentary laughter was gone from her voice and she was perfectly serious again.

  “Do you hate the Normans, Gwenefer?”

  “It is galanas, blood feud, between me and them.”

  “Why, Gwenefer?”

  “The Normans raped my mother until she died. They made my father watch what they did to her, and then they took him to Afoncaer and hanged him.”

  “And why did they not rape you, t
oo?”

  “That was seventeen years ago. I was but a babe at the time. My mother hid me in a clothes chest before the Normans broke into our home, and that is where my uncle found me later, sound asleep, with my mother’s blood all around and my father gone. They held a mock trial for him at Afoncaer before they hanged him, and he said publicly what the Normans had done. There are still men and women alive who remember it.”

  Emrys sat very still, watching her.

  “Name your parents, Gwenefer,” he said at last.

  “My father was Cadwallon ap Rhodri, my mother Angharad.”

  “It’s all true,” Cynan assured his leader.

  “I know it’s true. It was in the time of Baron Lionel. I knew your father, Gwenefer. I was only a lad then, but I was in that group of angry Cymry who tore down the half-built walls of Afoncaer and overran the place and killed Baron Lionel. I had the pleasure of loosing one of my arrows into that bloated pig as he stood on the inner wall directing the defense.”

  “I thank you for that,” Gwenefer said, her voice low.

  “And now,” Emrys went on, “Baron Lionel’s younger brother Guy rules at Afoncaer and tempts his Welsh subjects with the safety of his walls, and Norman justice equal to that dealt to the Saxons he has settled on his lands, and with more of their own harvest than the Normans elsewhere think is due to villeins. Oh, he is a monstrous kind and fair ruler, this Baron Guy, and his is the same blood that spilled your parents’ blood. Will you join with me to destroy Afoncaer?”

  There was a third stool by the table, and Gwenefer sat down on it, placing her strong, well-shaped hands flat on the table’s surface. She faced Emrys with no diffidence but rather with the straightforward gaze of one who meets an equal.

  “Lord Guy has rebuilt Afoncaer until it is so strong no mere raid will have any effect on it,” she said. “You must know that. I think instead of direct attack, you have some treacherous plan in mind. Tell it to me.”

  “There is a man, Sir Geoffrey, who is Lord Guy’s former squire, and now his liege man. This Geoffrey is the Lord of Tynant Manor, half a day’s fast ride from Afoncaer, which he holds in fief to Lord Guy.”

  “And how will he help us bring down Afoncaer?”

  “Whenever Lord Guy leaves Afoncaer, taking with him a goodly number of his armed men, he calls Sir Geoffrey to that service he owes his liege, and puts Afoncaer into Geoffrey’s charge.”

  “This Geoffrey must bring his own men with him to Afoncaer as reinforcements,” Gwenefer said.

  “Not so many as you might think, for he must leave most at Tynant to guard that place, which is not so well fortified as Afoncaer. Our best chance to take the castle is to do it while Lord Guy is absent.”

  “I think you will never take it. But if you should, Lord Guy will bring an army back to Afoncaer and seize it from you, and kill us all. How will that give us the revenge we want?”

  “First, you will help us to get inside the castle. More of that later. Once inside, we will kill everyone there. My spies tell me there’s a new bride come to Afoncaer, and she’s with child. If we wait long enough, we may have the chance to kill two heirs to Lord Guy, young Sir Thomas, and Thomas’s child.” Emrys grinned, enjoying the thought. “When Lord Guy returns, all unsuspecting, we will have bowmen waiting along his route to pick off as many of his troops as we can before they reach Afoncaer. When they arrive at the castle we will open the gates and let them inside and slaughter them there. All of them. Once Afoncaer is ours, enough of our fellow-countrymen will join us there to hold off the English king’s armies until we have destroyed it. When we are done, not one stone of that castle will remain standing on another, and all its people will be dead. Thus will our revenge be complete.”

  “And what is it you want me to do?” Gwenefer asked.

  “I warn you, you will need patience,” Emrys said. “We must move slowly and cautiously. It may take a year or more to do this. You are to become Geoffrey’s mistress. You are to charm him so completely that wherever he goes, he will take you with him. Sooner or later, he will take you to Afoncaer while Lord Guy is away, and when that happens, you will open the postern gate to us and let us inside the castle. In the meantime, you will send us whatever information you can about those pestilential Normans and their plans, so we can be well prepared for our day of justice.”

  “I am to be a spy,” Gwenefer said, and Emrys nodded.

  “Since you are a virgin,” Cynan spoke up, “and Sir Geoffrey will be your first lover and have proof of that, he will trust you the more. You might even give him a child.”

  “No,” Gwenefer said firmly. “I will bear no child to a Norman. I’ll go to an old woman I know of who will give me some herbs to prevent that. I will give up my virginity to him, for I see it’s the best way to do this thing and make him trust me. It will be my sacrifice to my fellow-countrymen. That, and my life, if I’m caught. Now, Emrys, tell me how I am to meet this Sir Geoffrey and how to enter his service.”

  “There is an elderly woman who manages his household.”

  “He’s not married?” When Emrys shook his head, Gwenefer smiled and looked pleased. “Good. With no wife to be jealous of me, my task will be easier. What of this old woman?”

  “You will go to this Rohaise and ask for employment. Tell her some sad story. Cynan has said you are capable of taking her heavier duties off the woman’s shoulders.”

  “I am. My aunt trained me well. I could manage Afoncaer itself if I had to.”

  “So you shall, when the time comes, for as long as the castle stands. You will endear yourself to Rohaise, and make yourself valuable to her. Next, very slowly and reluctantly, for you are, after all, a sensitive, pure virgin who would prefer to save herself for her future husband, but slowly as I say, you will let yourself be enticed into Geoffrey’s bed. Do not hurry this part of our plan. The longer you delay your consent, the more he will value your surrender when it finally comes. He must be bursting with desire for you before you go to his bed. Tease him a little. Make him suffer. You should enjoy that. A first, small revenge.”

  “And what,” Gwenefer asked coldly, “am I to do when this brutal Norman lord simply rapes me before I am ready to say yes to him?”

  “From what I have been able to learn of Sir Geoffrey, I do not think that will happen. He has a few serving girls he enjoys, and he treats them well. They will satisfy his physical urges while you entangle his heart and his thoughts. Make him love you if you can.”

  “Very well. What then?”

  “You are cool, Gwenefer. I hope you will be warmer in Sir Geoffrey’s bed.”

  “I do not know what I will feel when that time comes, but I promise you I will act my part well. What shall I do once I am Geoffrey’s mistress?”

  “You will go on as you did at first, being kind to Rohaise, helping her in every aspect of managing Tynant, and passing to us all the information you can about Tynant, Afoncaer, and the Normans who inhabit both places. I want to know all their weaknesses.”

  “How shall I send this information to you?”

  “I will tell you,” Emrys said, “after you have made your promise to us.”

  The three of them, Emrys, Cynan, and Gwenefer, clasped hands and swore an oath never to betray each other or their goal. Gwenefer swore on the blood of her Norman-dead parents. Then they sat through the night, planning.

  Chapter 9

  Selene’s labor began on All Hallows’ Eve and continued into the next day. Meredith and Arianna had prepared a small room for the birth, cleaning it well and strewing cleansing herbs about the floor. To it they brought Selene after it had become clear that this was no false beginning, and there they made her walk back and forth across the room until she could no longer stand without help and her linen shift was damp and bedraggled.

  Arianna’s heart was wrung with pity for her friend. Over the last ten days Selene’s hands and feet and face had all swollen so much that Arianna could barely recognize her. Meredith’s medicines had not helpe
d.

  “It’s all water,” Meredith had told Arianna several days before, “and I do not know why it won’t pass out of her body. I’ve tried everything I can think of. I know this will frighten you, Arianna, but you need to be told everything, so when the time comes you can help me. I have seen this happen to only one woman before, many years ago. When the hour for her hardest labor came, she was seized with a great convulsion and she and the baby both died. We must do everything we can to prevent that from happening to Selene. When the labor is far enough along, I will give her a medicine I am making from rotted rye seeds. It will make her body expel the baby faster. It’s dangerous, but I think it is the only chance she has of living through this.

  “We will not,” Meredith added, “tell anyone about my medicine, Arianna. The men would not understand, and Thomas, out of fear for Selene, might forbid it.”

  Arianna had agreed, promising her silence. So here, in the tiny, candlelit room, Arianna steeled her heart against Selene’s piteous moans, and held her upright, and made her keep walking.

  “Meredith says it is easier this way.” Arianna tried to sound encouraging. “If you walk, the babe will move downward naturally. If you lie down, it will take longer and be more painful.”

  “It’s painful enough now.” Selene paused in her walking, her fingers gripping Arianna’s shoulders until the present spasm passed. “How could Thomas do this to me? I’ll never forgive him for this. Never.”

  “Come along, Selene, keep walking,” Arianna urged, telling herself Selene really was in pain, and would quickly forget her anger at Thomas once she held her child in her arms.

  “Drink this.” Meredith brought a wooden cup to Selene.

  “No.” Selene turned her face aside as another pain caught at her. “I hate you, Thomas! You never loved me. Oh – oh!” She let go of Arianna’s arm and bent over, clutching her belly.