by Speer, Flora
Castle Of Dreams
by
Flora Speer
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2013, 1990, by Flora Speer
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Cover Design Copyright 2014 By Laura Shinn designs
Whoever loved that loved not at first sight?
Christopher Marlowe
Hero and Leander, 1598
Reynaud
I first came to Afoncaer in the Year of Our Lord 1103, when I was thirty-four. I soon became so fond of this untamed green borderland between Wales and England, and so fascinated by Afoncaer itself, that during the long winter nights, while others drank and talked or loved the dark away in quiet corners, I began writing the story of the great river fortress and of the people who have lived here.
I had a good deal of help in this project. I was not surprised that those who lived at Afoncaer would so freely tell me their stories, or recount tales they had heard in their youth. I long ago ceased to wonder at the things folk will tell a man in a cleric’s robe, even one not ordained priest. I remain a lay brother, and these tales I repeat here were not confessions in the usual sense, though I have no doubt they served that purpose in several cases, and one or two told me secrets they ought not to have spoken aloud.
What did surprise me, and astonishes me still, was the honesty of the women who spoke to me. The daughters of Eve, members of that sex said to be devious, willful, stupid, and dangerous to men, have opened themselves freely to me, until I, who have had no carnal knowledge of women since I entered clerical orders at age eighteen, and who have in all the intervening years burned for only one woman, and she loved another and never guessed at my feelings – I, Reynaud the architect, have come to know and admire, to love in the purest sense, and sometimes almost to understand, the women who have revealed their lives to me. And so I have set down those tales as though they were happening before my own eyes.
Sir Guy fìtz Lionel, second baron of Afoncaer, the dearest friend that ever I knew, used to tease me that my eyes, pale blue and chronically watery from wind, dust, and dirt, and from too much squinting against the sun, were in fact weak from too much reading and writing. He could do neither himself – most noblemen in those days were unlettered – but I knew the words were said in friendship, not envy or contempt. Sir Guy was always a kind man, too kind perhaps in his treatment of Lady Isabel, considering all she had done. And as for his punishment of Sir Walter fìtz Alan…But I am ahead of the story I wish to tell. I should begin at the beginning with the outlaw knight, the brigand who was the first Norman at Afoncaer. And when I look backward, recalling what I have been told of that time, my weak eyes see all too clearly the pattern of ambition and betrayal that was to persist for so many years, until Afoncaer was nearly lost.
Part I
Branwen
Wales, A.D. 1085
Chapter 1
Branwen was fourteen when Normans came to Afoncaer for the first time. She knew, for everyone knew, that they had already conquered parts of South Wales and had established fortified outposts in Gwynedd and Powys, but until now they had ignored Afoncaer. Her distant cousin, the Wise Man Rhys ap Daffydd, had been driven from his home in Powys and had vanished into the thick forests east of Afoncaer. Some said Rhys had made himself invisible and would remain so until the Normans went away, but Branwen, who had been his pupil for several years, did not believe the story.
Branwen had been taken from her childhood home the year before, when her mother died, and had been sent to live with her aunt and uncle at Tynant. Her brother Griffin, older by six years, had gone to Afoncaer, half a day’s walk away from Branwen’s new home, to serve their grandfather as a warrior. Branwen was none too fond of Griffin. He was too violent for her taste, which, thanks to Rhys’s teaching and gentle influence, favored learning and the compounding of herbal medicines, and included a deep affection for all living things. She did like her cousins at Tynant. Whenever their household chores were finished they roamed together in the forest or rode her uncle’s ponies, and once they even discovered an unknown, hidden entrance into the storage cellars of the house. They told no one about it, keeping the knowledge as their own private secret and making the tunnel passage a part of their innocent games. Branwen was not unhappy, despite her half-orphaned state.
She could not understand why anyone would want to live at Afoncaer. It was only a wooden hall built on the bluff overlooking the river, with stables and a small stone chapel. It was always full of rough, sweaty men who were sworn to her grandfather, the ruler of Afoncaer. Branwen thought the place was ugly. She much preferred Tynant, which lay in a flower-filled meadow in the forest where a clean, wide stream ran over ancient rocks, or, if not Tynant, then the green peace of the forest itself, which Rhys had taught her to love.
The Normans appreciated what Branwen did not. Afoncaer guarded one of the most important roads into Wales, and they were determined to conquer Wales, as they had earlier conquered all of England. They took Afoncaer, with great loss of life among the Welsh defenders, including Branwen’s own father and uncle and grandfather. When it was over, her brother Griffin sent for her to join him at the fortress.
“I don’t want to go. I hate Afoncaer and I despise the Normans,” Branwen said. “What can Griffin be thinking of?”
“Perhaps he’s going to marry you to a Norman lord,” giggled one of her younger cousins.
Branwen stared at the speaker, aghast, cold fear pouring through her veins.
“If that’s what he wants, I won’t do it,” Branwen declared.
“We don’t know what Griffin wants,” her aunt soothed with great reasonableness. “Griffin is now your nearest living male kin. You can’t refuse his summons without a serious reason, and you have none. Perhaps he only wants you to use your healing skills among the wounded.”
“You must be right,” Branwen said with relief, not wanting to think any more about the suggestion her cousin had just made. “I ought to take along a goodly supply of herbs to ease the pain of battle wounds, and others to help the injured to sleep.”
“You’d help Normans?” cried a young male cousin. “If I had the chance I’d kill them all.”
“Rhys has taught me,” Branwen told the eight-year-old would-be warrior, “that if a person is ill or injured it matters not which side of a dispute that person favored, or whether I like or dislike my patient. I must put what skills I have at the service of anyone who needs them. Besides, if I care for the Norman wounded their leader may be willing to let me tend to the hurts of the Welshmen who were taken prisoner, and thus I will be able to help our own good people.”
Branwen chose the necessary herbs from her supplies and packed them into her saddlebags along with as many linen bandages as her aunt could spare. Then she mounted her horse and, accompanied by the armed guards Griffin had sent for her, left Tÿnant and went to Afoncaer.
The place showed all too clearly how bitter had been the battle to take it. The chapel still stood, and the tiny priest’s house beside it, but the log palisade surrounding the fortress had been pulled down and burned by the Normans during their assault, and the great hall was badly damaged by fire. Branwen dismounted, looking around in stunned horror. She was about to order one of the guards to attend to her horse when she saw her brother striding toward her.
“Griffin, I’m glad you are safe. I’ve brought my herbs,” she began, pulling her saddlebags off the horse. Griffin silenced her with a laugh.
“It’s not for that I ordered you here,” he told her.
Wondering what he did want of her, Branwen turned to stare again at the devastation the Normans had wrought. She flinched at the sight of those cruel foreigners swarming over her grandfather’s domain, searching for whatever loot they could find. Griffin made an impatient gesture, calling her attention back to him.
“It could have been worse,” he said in answer to the horrified look she cast upon him, “had I not surrendered when I did.”
“Surrendered?” Branwen flushed with shame and anger. “Our grandfather would never have surrendered. Or our father.”
“But they were both dead by then, and our uncle, too, which left me as leader of the defenders. Unlike the other men in our family, I have enough sense to make certain I survived.” Griffin smiled at her. It was not a pleasant smile. “Now Afoncaer belongs to Sir Edouard, but he will let me keep our father’s lands, for a favor. You are to help me, little sister.”
“What can I possibly do?” Branwen did not believe the bestial Normans would ever give back anything they had once taken, not even some unimportant forest or farmland. She said so, and Griffin laughed at her again.
“You know nothing of such matters. I have made a pact with them. I have given my word and Sir Edouard has given his. He is their leader, and you will marry him.”
“Never! I’ll die first!” Branwen gaped at her brother as if she had never seen him before. So, her cousin had been right. She had not thought even Griffin could be so insensitive and heartless toward his own kin. “These Normans have killed half our family and you expect me to marry one of them?”
“That’s right.”
“You’re mad. I won’t do it. I’m going back to Tÿnant.’’ As Branwen started to remount her horse, Griffin’s cold words stopped her.
“You can’t go back there. It was attacked just after you left. Tÿnant belongs to Sir Edouard by now.”
“Our aunt, our cousins, what of them?” She could hardly speak for fear for her loved ones. Griffin merely shrugged, and suddenly Branwen remembered that one of her male cousins was old enough to be a serious rival to Griffin in the near future. There had already been talk within the family about the competition between the two.
“How can you side with these Norman brutes?” Branwen cried.
“Your skin is too thin, Branwen. You are too particular. I,” Griffin told her, “am now Sir Edouard’s liege man. He will grant me our father’s old lands as my fief, and one day soon, if we are both clever and keep our wits about us, I shall be lord of Afoncaer. It is what I have always wanted. Had the Normans not come I would have had to wait patiently for years while our grandfather ruled here, and then our uncle and father, before my turn. And at some point I would have had to fight our cousin Owain of Tÿnant, whom the Normans have today conveniently removed for me. I saw my chance and I took it. And now you, sister, will do as I tell you.”
It was insane. The entire world had gone mad. There was not even time to grieve for her dead. Sir Edouard, Griffin told her, was eager for the marriage and would waste no time on unnecessary preliminaries. There were no respectable women at Afoncaer to attend her. They had all fled or had been killed when the fortress was sacked. The only women there now were camp followers, and even Griffin would not assign one of them as his sister’s maid.
“You will have to dress yourself,” Griffin told her, taking her arm and pulling her toward the priest’s house. “You are to wait in here until Sir Edouard is ready for you.”
“Where is Father Conan?” Branwen demanded. She had known the elderly priest for years. He was close to her grandfather’s age and much respected. Perhaps he could make Griffin see how wrong it was to treat her this way.
“He’s burying the dead,” Griffin said, forcing her through the doorway into the dim outer room of the little dwelling. “You won’t see him until it’s time for him to bless the marriage. Leave your saddlebags here. You won’t need your herbs in the chapel. Save them to bind up your beloved husband’s wounds on some other day.”
Moving into the second, smaller room, which served Father Conan as bedchamber, Griffin picked up a garment that had been draped across the priest’s narrow bed.
“Here is a wedding gift to you from Sir Edouard,” he told her. “Put it on.”
“Where did he find it?” Branwen asked. The gown was of blue silk with gold trim, and she could see it was much too large for her small frame. “There was nothing like this in Afoncaer, I’m sure.”
“It’s probably booty from some other fortress he has taken,” Griffin said carelessly.
“Right off some poor woman’s body, most likely,” Branwen said in disgust. “I won’t wear it.”
“You will, or I’ll see you married in your shift with all your bruises showing. And you will have bruises after I’ve finished with you.” Griffin’s words reminded her just how violent he could be. Knowing she had no choice but to obey him, Branwen picked
up the gown with unwilling fingers.
“Very well,” she whispered. “Please leave me in private while I dress.”
“I want no tricks from you.” Griffin eyed the single tiny window with unease. “There is no way you can possibly escape your fate. If you try, you will be severely punished.”
When he had closed the bedroom door, Branwen put on the dress, turning up the overly long sleeves until her hands were visible. The too-loose waist she girded with her own belt. Attached to the belt she wore her ornately decorated small dagger. Until today she had used it only for cutting meat at table, but now she was prepared to use it for its other purpose, self-defense. She had no comb, so she used her fingers to try to bring some order to her dark curls.
While she made her preparations she considered her situation and tried to think of some way to alleviate it. She understood why Sir Edouard wanted to marry her. She knew her own value. She was a noblewoman, a minor one, it was true, but a Welsh noblewoman nonetheless, and through her Sir Edouard would have a legitimate claim to her grandfather’s and her father’s estates. Once they were wed and the marriage was consummated, Sir Edouard could take her grandfather’s place as guardian of the road into Wales. Thanks to his wife’s birthright, Edouard would soon become both rich and powerful. Branwen believed her traitorous brother Griffin would never be allowed to rule at Afoncaer, whatever Sir Edouard had promised him. Griffin would probably be killed once he was no longer needed, for while he lived he was a threat to Sir Edouard’s own claim. She wondered how it was that he could not see that for himself.
Griffin banged on the door, calling through it that the hour for the wedding was at hand. She tried one last time to argue with him, begging him for their dead father’s sake not to do this to her, telling him he owed her protection and ought to be ashamed of himself. He made no answer. He only took her arm and dragged her roughly into the chapel.
Branwen felt as though she was walking through a nightmare. Sir Edouard’s men and their squires were all there, crowding around the altar of the chapel that was too small to hold them comfortably. Griffin stood near her, looking smug. And there was the bridegroom. He was tall, dark, and hard looking, with flinty grey eyes that were cold as the northern seas in winter. He looked her up and down without a flicker of emotion. Branwen’s throat went dry.
Father Conan took his place at the altar. Branwen knew the elderly priest well enough to tell he was greatly offended because the Normans had all worn their swords into the chapel in defiance of accepted custom. He looked at the weapons with barely concealed anger, but the Normans apparently had no intention of disarming.
“Wait,” Branwen said before Father Conan could speak. “I have something to say.”
She heard a muttered exclamation of annoyance from Sir Edouard, who had moved to stand beside her at the altar, but he made no effort to stop he
r. She saw Griffin frowning at her. She prayed she would not forget the Latin her cousin Rhys had taught her. She hoped Sir Edouard could understand Latin. Enough, at any rate, to comprehend her meaning. She doubted he would understand if she spoke Welsh.
“By our ancient laws,” Branwen said, her voice sounding thin and shaky, “I have the right to refuse to marry any man I do not want. I will not wed the man who killed my family. I will not say the necessary words, nor will I sign the contract.”
“But you will, my lady.” She had scarcely blinked before Sir Edouard had drawn his sword and was threatening her with it.
“Speak the words,” he ordered, the point of his sword aimed at her throat. “Welsh law means nothing at Afoncaer any more. You are under my rule now.”
She could not speak. She was too terrified to make a sound. Suddenly she realized if he killed her he could not marry her. That thought gave her the courage to face him boldly, not caring what the outcome was, for if she were dead he could not force her into his bed.
“Put your sword away. This is God’s house,” Father Conan commanded. “Sir Edouard, leave this innocent maiden alone. You hold Afoncaer by your own strength. Let that be enough. And you, Griffin, if you persist in forcing this unnatural marriage, you will surely suffer the fires of Hell for what you do to your sister.”
“Welsh traitor!” Sir Edouard now pointed his weapon at Father Conan, who looked calmly back at him.
“Would you make martyrs of us?” asked Father Conan.
“You think to make me look a fool before my own men,” Sir Edouard declared. “You will see us married, and at once, or you will die here in your church, and I’ll take the woman without your blessing and keep her as my mistress and give her to my men when I’ve tired of her. Would that please you, priest?”