“Then I must be the sacrifice,” Rhiannon exclaimed bitterly.
“Only you can judge that. If it is truly a sacrifice—a laying down of your life—then perhaps Simon, who will live because he has duties and obligations that he cannot slough off, must live with his endless longing.” He reached out and pulled her close again. “My love, there is time enough for you to consider these things peacefully and at leisure. Pembroke will surely fight now, and Simon will be with him. He will be too busy and too tired to think of women.” He smiled. “Go and make your dress decent, Daughter, and then come back and tell me how you fared at Henry’s court.”
He had heard that from Simon, too, but pretended he had not and listened eagerly to Rhiannon’s version. That both tales were so nearly identical was a good sign for the future. Inexperienced as she was, she had learned more than he had expected. Yes, indeed, Rhiannon would be very useful to him once she was Simon’s wife. Nonetheless, he did not mention that subject again, and when Rhiannon asked if she could go back to Angharad’s Hall he agreed readily, admitting that he would be busy gathering his men for a proposed campaign in conjunction with the Earl of Pembroke’s forces.
From the corner of his sly eyes, Llewelyn noted that his daughter had become paler. Since he was sure her fear was not for his sake, he rightly assumed she had followed his statement to its logical conclusion. Simon would very soon be physically at war whether he remained with Pembroke or came back to Llewelyn.
Rhiannon left the next morning carrying the burden of that knowledge and the understanding that she might be condemning Simon to great and lasting unhappiness. A less subtle man might have tried to conceal the fact that Simon would be fighting, in the hope that Rhiannon would fear for him less, feel less pain, and be more inclined to marry. Llewelyn knew better. Let the fear peak now.
Perhaps Kicva would see it and soothe her daughter, although Llewelyn was never sure of what Kicva would do or say. Even if she chose to ignore Rhiannon’s distress, no emotion can long remain at fever pitch. In a few months the fighting would probably be over, at least during the worst months of winter. Simon would go to Rhiannon as he had promised. By then the pain would have become dulled by long familiarity, whereas the joy and lust aroused by seeing him again would be fresh and new. In any case, Kicva would know what to do if Rhiannon changed her mind, whatever the cause. The escort who went with Rhiannon carried a letter to be given to Kicva in secret.
The weather was unusually benign as Rhiannon traveled home, as if the countryside had set out to make her welcome. The days were warm, the nights crisp and just cold enough to make a fire a true pleasure. The hills were breathtakingly beautiful, each tree flaming or glowing in gold, orange, red, or maroon. A multicolored carpet of shifting patterns, all lovely, padded the roads and the pathways through the forests. Rhiannon was too sensitive to be unaware, but the awareness only caused her more pain, for she saw the beauty and could take no joy in it. Worse, the nearer she came to home, where she expected to find peace, the stronger grew her compulsion to turn about and hurry back. If she were with Llewelyn, at least she would hear news of Simon.
The impulse was so imperative that she would have yielded if she had not known she would be unwelcome. Llewelyn did not carry his womenfolk around with him when he was going to or preparing for war. If she went back, he would promptly send her home again. She cursed and wept, and when she arrived at Angharad’s Hall she barely greeted her mother before she ran out on the hills. But even this last comfort failed her, and when she tried to call some wolf cubs to her, they retreated into their den.
Rhiannon called herself a fool for that. She knew she could not “call” when she was angry or hurt, and the hills could give no comfort when each favorite spot reflected an image of Simon. There could be no quick cure, she admitted, having known it all along. She would have to endure from day to day, not even aware of the healing, until one day she would be quite well. It would be easy to know, she thought, as she plodded wearily back to the hall. When she could think of Simon with the same calm pleasure she felt on thinking of Llewelyn, she would be cured of love.
Simon’s troop was not well pleased when they were ordered out of Ruthin before they had caught up on their sleep or had eaten a decent meal. Simon, however, was eager to be on the move, to be doing something that would dull both his hopes and his fears. Llewelyn had increased both by his reception of Simon’s report. There was no doubt of his pleasure over the political news. He had unlooped a heavy gold chain from his neck and placed it around Simon’s.
The prince had been somewhat less forthcoming on Simon’s description of his personal problem, that instead of leaning more toward marriage, Rhiannon had barely been prevented from formally breaking the betrothal. Llewelyn had listened without comment, but his eyes and his lips narrowed. Simon knew that Llewelyn favored the marriage, especially after hearing that Rhiannon had made so strong an impression on Henry. Therefore, Simon assumed that Llewelyn’s expression of determination meant he intended to see that the marriage took place.
In a sense, that gave Simon confidence. He could not remember anything Llewelyn undertook that he did not eventually achieve. Rhiannon had to marry Simon reasonably soon, however, or Llewelyn’s purpose of using her as an emissary could not be fulfilled. What increased Simon’s fears was that Rhiannon’s father might push her too hard and she would be driven to some desperate action.
Simon found Richard Marshal at Usk by the twenty-sixth of October and was welcomed warmly both for himself and for the news he brought. On the thirtieth, Gilbert Bassett appeared with Hubert de Burgh. Surprisingly, the Earl of Kent was not at all desirous of being revenged or of unseating the king, nor did he desire any part of his power be restored. He wished, he said, only to be permitted to live in peace on the diminished estates still permitted to him. He was reluctant to engage in any action against Henry, but when pressed gave his opinion that war could not be avoided. He would not approve a treaty with Llewelyn, despite his gratitude to Simon, although Richard’s own good sense and his other advisers insisted that such an alliance was a necessity. Simon did not fail to remind them of the benefits that had come from Chester’s long friendship with the Lord of Gwynedd. There had been peace on the border for many years, Simon pointed out.
This caused a burst of merriment. “What peace?” Richard asked sarcastically. “Those Welsh thieves come out every summer and autumn like a plague of locusts and mice.”
“That is nothing,” Simon protested, laughing, “only a little playful raiding. The Welsh are poor. That is not war.”
His point was acknowledged, and it was soon agreed that Richard and a few others would meet with Llewelyn at the Welsh leader’s stronghold at Builth.
“Circumstances being what they are,” Richard said bleakly, “I will be in less danger in Llewelyn’s keep than in one of my own.”
With great rejoicing, Simon sent word of this decision to Builth, as instructed. Either Llewelyn would be there, or word would be sent on to him. His overt mission accomplished, Simon lingered at Usk, greeting old friends and arguing war and politics with them. He had nothing else to do, since his compliment of men was already with him and he did not dare go near Rhiannon. Besides, Llewelyn had suggested Simon should stay if he was welcome. He had suspected that there was still a possibility of Henry’s making new truce proposals to which Richard, ever hopeful of peace with his overlord, might agree.
Simon was very willing. Richard found him useful, and the duties and male company kept him occupied. He had a good deal to suffer from his young friends, who could not understand his sudden and unnatural chastity, but he found that the jesting at his expense honed his pride and made it easier to resist his physical urges. What was most painful to him was the kindly weather, which prevailed over South as well as North Wales. He constantly saw Rhiannon running the hills like a wild doe and remembered the joy of being her stag.
However, Simon was wrong in imagining Rhiannon tasting this free joy. After
the first abortive attempt to do just that, she did not go out to play and dream in the usual way. She busied herself with practical matters—the end of the harvest and the work of storing the hall against the lean months of winter. She practiced her music and made a round of the far-flung dwellings to treat the sick, both man and beast. Yet each day her longing for Simon grew rather than diminished, and her fear and pain increased. There was something else that frightened her even more. Math was avoiding her.
She could not understand that, but she was afraid even to think about it. Instead, she wondered why time was not performing its usual service of healing her wounds. At last she realized that her increasing fear for Simon was a result of uncertainty. It was far worse, she decided, not to know what was going on than to know the hour and day of a battle. This way she felt a death stroke every minute when, in truth, it was far more likely that Simon was talking and laughing with his friends or hunting or drinking or playing some game.
When the realization came upon her, Rhiannon and Kicva were sitting beside the fire, Kicva spinning and Rhiannon grinding an aromatic herb in a mortar held in her lap. Rhiannon uttered a gasp of frustration, and Kicva looked up.
“Ah, have you worked out the puzzle at last?” she asked.
“Puzzle?” Rhiannon snapped. “Do you think I am playing a game?”
“Not every puzzle is a game. Some are matters of life and death,” Kicva replied placidly.
Rhiannon was silent, ashamed at having lashed out at her mother without cause. “There is no answer to this puzzle, I fear,” she said at last. “I do not wish to love Simon, but I cannot cure myself.”
“Why should you wish to do so?”
Kicva was not the least surprised by Rhiannon’s statement. Llewelyn’s letter had been very explicit and had given, as accurately as he could—for he knew better than to lie to Kicva—both sides of the story as he had heard them from Simon and Rhiannon. Interestingly, the letter had ended with a request for Kicva to send her news to Builth keep when she had any.
This was as close as Llewelyn dared come to saying to Kicva that he wanted Rhiannon to marry Simon. To give orders to Kicva could easily produce a result opposite from what he desired, so he gave none. In this case, however, Llewelyn and Kicva were in total agreement. Rhiannon needed to be married. Her nature was not at all like that of her mother. Kicva regretted this but accepted it. She thought it very unfortunate that Rhiannon could not find a man to suit her when she was younger, before she had built so comfortable a pattern of life. It would have been much better if Rhiannon had married seven or eight years past, but no man attracted her; worse, there had been no man who would permit her to remain Rhiannon, until Simon.
Rhiannon again poured out the tale, ending with the passionate avowal that it was lunacy for a woman to love any man.
“So I have always thought,” Kicva agreed with a faint smile, “but it seems you are too late to worry about that. It is quite clear that you already love Simon.”
“I will cure myself,” Rhiannon cried angrily.
Kicva stared at her and then laid down her spindle. “You know it is not my practice to tell people about themselves. It does no good. But I will say this because I am disappointed in you, Rhiannon. You are acting like a fool.”
Rhiannon dropped her eyes. “You also think I am being cruel to Simon, and it is better for me to suffer than for him to suffer?”
“Have you lost your sense and reason completely?” Kicva asked. “How could I prefer Simon’s well-being to yours? You are my daughter, flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone. For you I groaned with the pain of bearing and sighed with the pleasure of suckling. I will not say I am indifferent to Simon. I like him as well as I have ever liked any man, but he is nothing to me compared with you.”
“Then why are you disappointed in me?” Rhiannon raised her eyes.
Her mother made a brief, impatient sound. “You have passed twenty-two summers, Rhiannon, and since you were six or seven it has taken no more than one or two questions for you to examine your own heart and find the truth. From the time you met Simon, you have gone back to being a kicking, screaming infant. Why do you lie to yourself, Daughter?”
This, of course, was why Rhiannon had not brought her troubles to her mother in the first place. There was never any sympathy to be had from Kicva, except for injuries like a scraped knee or a bee sting. To complain of misery only brought questions, which delineated the cause so clearly that an obvious solution always appeared. Unfortunately, the solution was seldom easy or flattering.
“This is not your first attempt to cure yourself,” Kicva continued. “When you first met Simon, you sent him away. Did it help? You were even ready to believe yourself a heifer lowing in her heat for any bull. Did that help? Do you really believe there is a cure for your love?”
“There must be! What if Simon were dead or did not want me?”
“If he had never wanted you, I doubt you would have loved him. To love, one must know a man. To see a handsome face from afar and be stirred by self-induced longings is not love. The fact that he did seek you ends that, even if he should change his mind owing to your stupidity—men grow tired of women who cut off their noses to spite their faces—yes, I know that is Simon’s phrase, but it is very apt. If he were dead… Silly child, do you think I love Gwydyon less because he is dead?”
“But you suffered when he died, suffered greatly.”
“That is quite true, Rhiannon. And I suffer still—if that means that I miss his physical presence. It is more than ten years and I am not cured. To speak the truth, I do not wish to be cured. My love for Gwydyon gives me great pleasure. If a little pain is mingled in—well, that is life. Do you really wish to spend ten or twenty years trying to cure yourself of a great pleasure?”
“It will not take so long. It is different for me; I do wish to be cured.”
For the first time, Kicva looked really worried and leaned forward to see Rhiannon’s face better. “What has made you hate yourself, Rhiannon? Daughter, why are you punishing yourself?”
“Hate myself?” Rhiannon’s voice scaled upward. “I am not trying to punish myself. I am trying to save myself from pain.”
“How? By inflicting unending torment upon yourself? It is true that anyone who loves also fears and that fear is painful. But there are compensations. The fear is brief and not frequent, while the pleasure endures always. It even mingles with the pain and—”
“Makes it sharper and crueler,” Rhiannon spat angrily.
“More poignant—yes—but sweeter, too, for it is shared.”
“I do not wish to share,” Rhiannon cried, springing to her feet. She was so overwrought that she did not even notice the mortar falling to the floor and spilling its contents far and wide. “Why should my life be tied by so many threads? Why should my heart check when Lord Ian’s breath rattles in his breast? Why should I ache when Lady Gilliane fears for her husband? Why should I worry about whether Sybelle has chosen the right man? I need to be free!”
“Now I know why you hate yourself, my daughter,” Kicva said.
She then lifted her spindle and began to spin again. Panting with shock and rage at what her mother had said, Rhiannon kicked the mortar out of her way and ran from the room. Only then did Kicva permit herself to smile. The problem was all but solved. Soon Rhiannon would understand what she herself had said. Another day or two of bitter struggle and she would accept the burden. Kicva’s eyes grew sad and distant. It had never been in her, the ability to feel what others felt. She knew and understood what they felt, often more clearly than they did themselves, but she did not feel it. It was her art to hear the cause underneath the word, but neither cause nor word touched her—not even for her own daughter.
Then she shrugged. Each person was as God devised. Briskly, she put aside her work and took her writing desk out of the chest where it was stored. She sharpened a quill, unstoppered a horn of ink, and wrote: To Prince Llewelyn from Kicva, greetings. I hope you are well as
I am. So, too, now is Rhiannon, or she soon will be. If it is possible that she and Simon be brought together quickly, that would be best, as it is not impossible that he will be driven to do something foolish by her silliness. Even if he does not, the more time she has to consider what she has done will make her ill at ease and increase the awkwardness of the reconciliation. Thus, if a reason can be found to send her where Simon is, find it. Written this last day of October at Angharad’s Hall.
Later, when one of the hunters came in, Kicva gave him the letter and told him to take it to Prince Llewelyn at Builth as fast as he could go.
Rhiannon fled from the hall out across the courtyard. The night air was cold and bit her fire-warmed flesh. Instinctively she turned toward the stable where the big bodies of the horses warmed the air. But horses were too restless for her mood. There were six half-grown lambs penned in a corner. Rhiannon did not know the reason they were penned there rather than out on the pasture, but she ran in among them, grateful for the warmth of their fleece and the placidity of their natures. They would not react, as the horses would, to her inner turmoil.
Hate herself! Was her mother mad? Rhiannon clung to her fury and to her sense of hurt as tightly as she could. To let go of the rage would open the way to an everlasting prison. All her life she had been free to work or to play, to dress as she liked, to say what she wanted to whomever she wished to speak. Was she to yield this freedom? Was she always to need to think whether what she said, did, dressed would affect others? How dare Kicva say she knew why Rhiannon hated herself? Was that freedom not the life Kicva had chosen for herself?
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