“Whatever can this mean, Emma?” the older woman asked, bemused.
* * *
Barely a month later, Emma walked slowly along the woodland path. Once again, the track was covered in snow but today Emma felt warm, her feet well shod and her heart beating fast in anticipation of her future. She looked up at the skeletal tree canopy arching way above her head. The snow-laden branches shimmered jewel-like in the winter sun. Emma felt as though she was walking down the aisle of nature’s cathedral.
Emma was not alone. In her arms she carried a small child and inside her –she now knew for certain– she carried another.
“Where are we going, Mammy?” the child asked.
Emma beamed at him. It had been a blessing and –she believed– a sign that speech had been gifted to the boy only upon her return to the farmstead. “To our new home, Oswald,” she said.
“Is it far?” he asked.
“Not so far,” she assured him, kissing his brow.
Emma’s pride dictated that she walked from the village to Danburgh Castle, to take residence with Lord Robert.
Since Emma had last set foot in the castle, much had changed. The lady Fiona had been banished.
Upon hearing of the matter, and fearing that Lord Robert’s power over the land would be weakened by the severance of his alliance with the Scottish thane, the King had suggested that Lord Robert marry a Norman noblewoman. Lord Robert, however, proposed a less obvious match. He shocked the King by declaring his preference for an English commoner.
When Emma arrived at Danburgh Castle she was greeted by the woman-servant, so familiar to her from earlier times. The woman was surprised by the manner of the new lady’s transport. “You came on foot?” she asked incredulously.
“Yes,” Emma replied.
“But, my lady, it is not safe–”
“I hope, good woman, that my union with Lord Robert will unite our people and I intend to show that I have trust in this belief by living without fear.”
Leaving Oswald in the care of the woman, Emma made her way to the great hall of the castle to be greeted by her lord. She found him, sitting in a throne-like chair on a dais at the head of the long banqueting table. His elbow rested on the arm of the chair and his chin rested in his hand. He sat in his tunic and hose, with his legs apart. He watched Emma intently as she walked the length of the table to stand before him.
Emma observed, as she approached Lord Robert, proof of his pleasure in seeing her, expressed in his smiling, dark eyes and outlined distinctly in his hose.
“Where are my boys?” Lord Robert called to her.
“The good woman has taken Oswald to meet his younger brother, Harry,” she replied.
Lord Robert nodded approval. “Now, will you take your place, Lady Emma, as my future wife and the mother of my sons?” he asked, gesturing with his hand to the empty seat beside him.
“No, my lord,” Emma replied calmly, shaking her head.
Lord Robert looked at her quizzically.
“There’s somewhere I would far rather be seated,” Emma explained, mounting the platform, hitching up her skirts and diving eagerly upon him.
* * * * *
RHIANNON
“If you find yourself in danger, I will come for you,” Alwyn assured Rhiannon. “One day you’ll be my wife. Promise you will keep yourself for me. Promise you’ll be chaste until we’re together again.”
“I will,” Rhiannon said, with a tear in her eye.
Alwyn bent his head and kissed her cheek. “And I will keep myself for you,” he told her.
Night had fallen upon that same day by the time Simon, son of John the merchant, reached the gates of the walled town. The guard greeted his familiar face warmly but the young man, he noticed, was on edge this evening. “Trouble with your Welsh suppliers?” he asked.
“No,” Simon insisted, “just some fears I had that there might be rebels on the road.”
“You can never be too careful,” said the guard, “these country folk are capable of anything.”
“Yes,” Simon agreed.
The guard checked beneath the cover of the cart in a cursory manner and told the boy to carry on, bidding him goodnight.
Simon’s heart was still pounding as he drove his horse under the arch of the gatehouse and into the streets of the town. It didn’t settle until he’d unloaded the goods into the cellar of his father’s house, taken the cart to the back of the building, stabled the horse and returned to the house, locking its front door to the world outside.
* * *
John the merchant stood in the main room of the house surveying his son’s acquisition dubiously. “She has a pretty face, that I’ll grant you, but she barely speaks a word of English,” he said as his son appeared from the street.
“She does speak,” Simon assured him, “and she learns fast. She has a shy nature, that’s all.”
“Are you certain she understands the risks we’re running to keep her here?” the older man asked. “Does she appreciate that she is at risk?”
“Yes,” Simon insisted. “Believe me, Father, it is by her own will that she’s here. Rhiannon wants more than anything to be a lady. With time, her English will improve and she’ll be able to pass as a woman of the town. I’m confident that the necessary term of her concealment will be a matter of months.”
Merchant John stared at his son. The boy must be besotted with the dark-haired girl to hazard harbouring a Welsh woman in the English stronghold. But she was here now – to try to remove her from the house would be to run as great a risk as Simon had taken in smuggling her into the town tonight. “I hope you’re right, my son,” John said.
Merchant John looked again at the girl. He wasn’t sure whether she’d understood the conversation she’d just heard. Her expression was confused and anxious. But intermingled with his doubt was some other feeling towards her.
All this time Rhiannon had been standing in the centre of the floor with her head bowed. Suddenly she raised it and looked Merchant John in the eye. “I remember you, Sir, from when I was a child,” she told him in her awkward English. “You would come to visit my father–”
“I dare say you were one of those rapscallions running around the farmyard,” the merchant joked but immediately he felt he’d blundered; she was certainly not a child any more.
Rhiannon smiled understatedly at her master’s comment. “My mother sends you her regards,” she added. “She hopes you are in good health.”
Merchant John glanced involuntarily at the girl. He had to look away, fearing she would sense what he’d been thinking and wary of her opinion. “I thank her. Next time you visit the farmstead, Simon, be sure to inform the good woman I’m as well as an old man can be,” he said.
“Nonsense, Father,” Simon replied dismissively.
“I don’t suppose either of you have eaten,” John began.
“No,” Simon confirmed. “Rhiannon will prepare something,” he suggested, adding, “that’s her role.”
“No,” his father replied, “you must both be tired; I’ll see to it.”
* * *
It was with trepidation that Rhiannon had crossed the threshold of the merchant’s house. Her parents had been thrilled when the merchant’s son, Simon, had agreed to their daring scheme to send their daughter –the eldest of no less than six daughters– to keep house for his father. “If you are to go into service –and go into service you must–” Rhiannon’s mother had told her, “what better than to be in the service of the English and reside in the house of a gentleman?”
Rhiannon had smiled but had been fully aware that it wasn’t so straightforward. Her father had been selling produce to John for years; they had a good relationship with the English merchant, though it was always his son who came to the farm to collect goods now. But the English king distrusted the Welsh and the Welsh weren’t allowed inside the walls of the garrison town where the merchant lived.
Rhiannon had known very well when the boy Simon had agree
d to smuggle her into his father’s house that her position would be that of a criminal – that the merchant and his son also risked imprisonment or worse if the true identity of their house-girl were to be discovered. Rhiannon understood that she must now conceal herself from the world until such a time as she could pass for an Englishwoman. Only then would she be safe to venture out into society.
“And I dare say you’ll be treated like a lady, now the merchant’s wife is gone,” her mother had concluded, once the arrangement had been agreed upon. “And if the boy Simon doesn’t take a fancy to you, perhaps the merchant himself would like to take a younger wife–”
“Mother!” Rhiannon had scolded but the older woman had only laughed at her daughter’s indignation and defended her position saying, “Remember, Rhiannon, I have six of you to find husbands for – I can’t be too fussy.”
Merchant John’s wife had died in the last outbreak of the Black Death, two years earlier. Back then Rhiannon had been little more than a girl but her memories of the plague were vivid. It was a time when the physical barrier of the town walls had served a dual purpose – to deter Welsh rebel invaders but also to keep out infection. However, once the disease had infiltrated the stronghold, the walls had turned traitor on the town’s inhabitants, confining them to greater risk of death within their boundary. Then Rhiannon’s mother had been glad to be lodged in the relative safety of the hills.
But now the plague was gone she craved prospects for her daughter that she herself had been denied. Such was the older woman’s ambition that she was willing to sacrifice not only Rhiannon’s chance of becoming the wife of Alwyn, the farm labouring boy who had professed his love for her, but also, it seemed, her daughter’s life itself.
Rhiannon’s mother knew her daughter could be put to death for the crime of entering the fortified port if she was caught by the English forces. Likewise, she was aware that, residing in the merchant’s house, Rhiannon would live under constant threat of invasion by enemies of the English king. But the woman believed that, if her daughter could pass as an Englishwoman and marry an Englishman of means, her life would be transformed. And she was such a pretty girl, with her long, dark hair and her bright eyes – what man could resist her?
In the end Rhiannon had concluded she’d no choice but to submit to her mother’s wishes. It had been with reluctance that she’d said farewell to Alwyn, her sweetheart, and agreed to go away with Simon, under cover of night.
Lying in concealment beneath the goods loaded onto Simon’s cart, Rhiannon had wept for fear of what lay ahead. She trusted the boy but the way he looked at her was different from the way Alwyn looked at her. Alwyn had never laid a finger on her; he said they should both remain pure until they were married. Simon was shy but Rhiannon had noticed him watching her when he thought she didn’t see.
And now to be alone with him and his father, and nobody knowing that they harboured her in their house; Rhiannon could hardly believe that her mother had been so ready to trust the merchant and his son.
* * *
“These will be your sleeping quarters,” Merchant John told Rhiannon, showing her to a small room in the loft of the timber-framed building, late in the evening of her arrival in the walled town. He stood in the doorway of the room, as Rhiannon walked towards its small window. “It will be prudent to keep the shutters closed,” he cautioned.
“Yes,” Rhiannon agreed, resisting the temptation to open them to discover the view. She was surprised to be accommodated in such comfort – she had expected nothing more than an alcove beside the kitchen fire. “You are very kind, Sir,” she told her employer in her stilted English.
Merchant John couldn’t help but smile at Rhiannon’s laboured efforts to communicate. “You’ll have heard, no doubt, that I have no wife,” he continued. “I hope that you will look upon this house as your home whilst you’re here.”
Rhiannon understood his words but was uncertain of their meaning. Nonetheless, she was so delighted with the room that she smiled at her new master, eager to please him.
“I will leave you to rest, then,” he said, lingering in the doorway. “If you have need of anything in the night, my chamber is just next door.”
Rhiannon prepared for bed and lay down. There was no way of securing the door of her small room against intruders. She would simply have to trust her new master’s integrity. When it came to it, Rhiannon was so tired that, despite her misgivings, she fell asleep at once.
* * *
Within a fortnight Rhiannon had settled into her new home. Keeping house for Merchant John and Simon was easy and her efforts received praise from her employer and met with the appreciation of his son.
Rhiannon’s fears regarding the merchant’s feelings for her had subsided and Simon too she now trusted. He was a handsome young man: tall, slender and with a head of curled, brown hair, a fresh face and an affable smile. What Rhiannon liked best about Simon was that, despite his father’s position in the town and his prospects for a life of distinction and wealth, he was really a rather shy and unassuming boy. Rhiannon knew that her mother had seen Simon as a potential suitor but, now she spent her days alongside him, Rhiannon began to wonder whether the affection she felt towards him wasn’t more like the kind she would have had for a brother.
After six weeks serving in the merchant’s house, a day came when Rhiannon was left alone. Merchant John was out of town on business for some nights and Simon had ventured beyond the walls and into the hills to collect supplies.
Unbeknown to Rhiannon, as she spent the day in quiet isolation, going about her domestic duties, outside the town enemies to the English king were plotting a campaign to test his authority by bombarding the castle and town walls from the sea.
The terror began unexpectedly once night had fallen. Rhiannon, lying in her loft, alone in the house, was recalled from the brink of sleep by the sound of men shouting and running in the streets below. She gathered that there was unrest and went into the merchant’s chamber, where there was a window onto the street, to see what was happening outside.
Rhiannon watched men running in the dark, carrying torches, hurrying to mount a defence to the hail of arrows and missiles being fired over the town walls from the harbour. She’d never experienced this sort of trouble before and to be alone in the building in such circumstances terrified her. The merchant’s house was set back only yards from the stretch of the town walls that ran alongside the harbour, and so was very much in the line of fire from attacks made from the sea.
Rhiannon’s heart was pounding with fear. She considered running out into the night and attempting to flee the conflict but, if she did so, she risked discovery. Simon had told her that, in the event of a siege, townsfolk were advised to remain indoors unless they were able to assist in a counter-attack. Furthermore, Rhiannon found she was too scared to move. She remained, crouching below the window ledge of Merchant John’s chamber, peering out of the gap in the shutters at the balls of fire flying through the night.
After what seemed like an eternity, Rhiannon heard the door to the house being opened and footsteps running up the stairs. “Rhiannon, are you here?” Simon cried urgently.
Before she could reply he’d found her, huddled against the window ledge, and pulled her to her feet.
“It’s not safe here,” he said. “If the roof catches alight, the house will burn down in an instant. We’d best take shelter in the cellar below.”
Simon, his arm around Rhiannon’s shoulder, guided her down to the ground floor of the house, through the main room, to the kitchen and then down the steps that led into the cellar.
Inside, the young people stood still, breathing heavily to regain their composure. Simon opened the shutters a little to a window onto the street above and they gained enough light to see about them from the fires in the night sky.
“Have you had to do this before?” Rhiannon asked Simon.
“Yes,” he replied, “but never without my father being here.”
“
Did you not think it safer to stay away?” she continued.
“Of course but I couldn’t leave you.” He looked away from her self-consciously.
“You are very kind to me, Simon,” Rhiannon said, blushing at his devotion. “Do you think the siege will last long?”
“It depends – upon how much ammunition the rebels have – upon how ready the King’s men are to fight back. I can’t say.”
They stood beside one another, at the window, looking up to the street.
“Are we safe now?” Rhiannon asked.
Simon couldn’t give her a reply in words. He put his arm around her shoulder once again to comfort her. “We should try to rest. We’re as safe as we can be.”
“Have you ever thought you might die?” Rhiannon asked involuntarily, immediately embarrassed at how silly the words sounded as she spoke them.
Their faces were close as Simon turned to her. The merchant’s son looked at her sadly, saying, “I should hate to die without knowing love.” He hesitated before asking, “Are you still a maid, Rhiannon?”
“Of course, Sir,” Rhiannon replied, remembering her position and offended that he should doubt her virtue. “And until I am married I shall die a maid.”
Simon smiled gently at her. “Come,” he instructed, “Let’s away from the window – it does us no good to watch the battle.”
An hour later Rhiannon could still hear the sounds of the fires in the night and the men at war on the streets. But, huddled as she was in a corner of the cellar on some sacks with Simon, her head resting upon his shoulder and his arm about her, she felt as secure as she possibly could. Occasionally Simon stroked her arm and kissed her hair and Rhiannon couldn’t deny that his affection stirred warm feelings in her. But this was as far as his conquest went.
Three Medieval Romances Page 4