* * * * *
The days passed, one much the same as the next, which was kind of remarkable in itself, given where and with whom I was. It wasn't that life was the same as at home-not in the slightest-but Anna and I fell into a routine, just as we had at home: get up, dress, eat, play with a toy or two, eat again, sleep. The worst thing was that I had no books to read, either to her or for me, and I was going to have to do something about that if we stayed here much longer.
Perhaps of most immediate concern to me-and the most disconcerting-was that Llywelyn and I slept together every night and spoke of the events of the day, but he never touched me, not even a repeat of that fierce kiss from the first morning at Cricieth. I hadn't a clue why, didn't dare ask, and was reluctant to admit to myself, even for one second, that I wanted him to kiss me. He was just so ... damn compelling, and I found myself watching him during the day, waiting for him to come to bed before I myself could sleep, and measuring the tempo of the day by what he was doing.
Given the disconnect between my twentieth century reality and his thirteenth century life, I wasn't sure I wanted to know what was happening between him and me; which is why Angharad's comments the morning of the fourth day at the manor proved so enlightening.
"You've started your courses, then," Angharad said.
"Excuse me?" I asked, and then twisted around. She showed me the blood on my nightgown.
"Oh," I said, nonplussed.
"I'll inform the Prince. Where are your cloths?"
My what? You'll do what? "You're going to tell Llywelyn?"
Angharad gave me a look that clearly said how can you be so clueless? "He has to know," she said.
"Why?"
Angharad let out a forceful burst of air that told me she didn't want to explain this. Since I wasn't getting it, I couldn't help her. Finally, she took the plunge. "He must know if any child you carry is his."
I gaped at her, at a loss for words. Llywelyn wasn't being thoughtful or romantic. He hadn't touched me because he was worried I could be pregnant by someone else and pass the child off as his. The color rose in my face, along with my temper and I was marshalling some kind of horrified response when Angharad cut into my thoughts to explain further and make me reconsider.
"The Prince has no children, you see," she said.
"No sons, you mean," I said, getting a grip on reason. "No heir."
"No," Angharad said. "He has no children at all. No one knows why. The physicians cannot provide an answer for him. The people whisper that it is a curse against him; that he is bewitched, or he has a traitor among his household who poisons the womb of all the women who've lain with him."
Angharad nodded, almost talking to herself rather than to me. "That's why he hasn't married, and why the women have become fewer and far between in recent years. Each one must belong to him alone, so that any child she bears must be conclusively his, or no one will believe it. His childlessness has gone on too long and is known by too many people. Even King Henry has been known to mention it, thankful as he is for his own son, Edward."
"Llywelyn hasn't said anything to me ..." I stopped again, my brain refusing to function properly.
Angharad patted my hand. "You're so fortunate," she said. "Perhaps you will be the lucky one."
Holy crap! And then I thought again and realized that he assumed I knew all about this. Just like he assumed I wouldn't fear him when he told me at Cricieth that he was the Prince of Wales. He was a forty year old Prince who had no heir, and the entire world mocked him for it.
Yet I knew, and now he knew because I'd told him, that he did have at least one child with a wife he had yet to find. I didn't know how that changed anything, but maybe it would relieve some of the pressure on him to produce a child now. Of course, the child was a girl and his wife died giving birth to her. I thought back to our conversation. Yeah, I'd mentioned that.
I had less than a week to figure out what I was going to do about this, if anything, and how I was going to respond to Llywelyn, when and if he asked for more from me than friendship. I gazed at the wall above Angharad's head as she got my clothes together. Going home never seemed less possible and more necessary.
We'd awoken that morning to snow-a lot of it-and only a handful of men stood sentry or left the gatehouse. It wasn't so cold in our bedroom I could see my breath, but these rooms were hard to heat in winter, and unless you were standing right next to the fire, they were often chilly. Since Llywelyn's bedrooms were always large, the fireplace tended to do a poor job.
Nobody was allowed to go anywhere and Llywelyn's questions about the ambush remained unanswered. From what I gathered, the assumption was that if we couldn't see anything in this weather, nobody else could either. But by that afternoon, I was thoroughly sick of myself and everyone else.
Anna and I hid in a corner of the great hall, Anna playing with a doll Angharad had given her. I was beginning to think that learning to sew might be a viable option-appalling notion that it was. To stave off such dreadful thoughts, I began to look through the wooden boxes that were positioned along the wall opposite the fireplace.
Most were full of clothing and blankets but I opened one to find a set of musical instruments, which included a simple flute, a tambourine, a small drum, and, unbelievably, a six-string guitar. Learning guitar had been my small musical defiance when every other girl played the flute or the clarinet, and my eventual answer to the symphonic hell that was middle school band. I hadn't known they had guitars in the Middle Ages.
I pulled it out and one of the strings twanged. Instantly, the hall fell into such a complete silence, you'd have thought they'd never heard an instrument before. I straightened and found every face turned towards me, looking expectant.
Goronwy spoke from his seat by the fire. "Can you play that?"
"I ... I think so," I said. "It needs tuning."
"We'll wait," he said.
Huh. My fingers slipped on the strings, sweaty from nerves. Thankfully for me, since there was no way I'd have been comfortable playing with him there, Llywelyn was absent, probably laboring in his office. Goronwy brought a stool for me to sit on and I plucked through the strings. They hadn't been tuned to the standard 'E A D G B E,' but I fiddled with them a bit and finally got them right. It seemed likely that my playing would be totally different from what the men were used to, but I didn't actually know. The man-at-arms who doubled as a bard had died at the Gap and except for some drunken bellowing after dinner, no one had sung since we'd been at the manor.
As I tuned the guitar, my stomach roiled because every one of the songs I could think of was in English-or rather, American. Plus, I didn't think R.E.M. was going to go over well with this crowd.
I met Goronwy's eyes. "Are you sure about this?" I said, my voice low. The men had returned to their conversations while I tuned the guitar, but I could feel their glances as they waited for me to get ready.
He nodded. "Please play for us," he said. "We will enjoy whatever you feel like singing. Take your time."
I allowed myself a relaxing breath and thought again. I did know some folk music; maybe a few simple songs would do to start. It only took one strum for the hall to quiet, and another for everyone's heads to turn to me again. From the interest in the men's faces, I knew I had my audience.
"Three score and ten, boys and men were lost from Grimsby Town ..."
Since the Welsh were morbid a lot of the time, I hoped an English sailing song was appropriate and the sentiment carried, even if nobody but me understood the lyrics and it had been written six hundred years from now. With the second time through the chorus, the men began to nod their heads and keep time with their feet. When I finished that song, I went on to a jig, a ballad, two drinking songs and a couple of anti-English Irish folk songs which everyone would have appreciated if they'd understood the words. I was willing to bet there were plenty of anti-English Welsh folk songs I could learn to play later.
A servant brought me a cup of water an
d I stopped playing to drink it-and to give myself time to come up with something else.
"More!" Someone at one of the tables shouted, followed by a chorus from several others and some nodding of heads.
I looked over the rim of the cup at Goronwy, who now had Anna on his lap with a rattle she'd been shaking to an approximation of the beat.
"Please," Goronwy said.
"Okay," I said. "Tell me when to stop."
"We won't," he said. But he was smiling when he said it.
I strummed another chord, and with it, remembered that I did know one Welsh ballad. I had no idea what the words actually meant, but Mom was always humming it. I gave Goronwy an assessing look, had a moment's panic that the song had something to do with Llywelyn's death, and launched into it:
Afallen peren per ychageu.
Puwaur maur weirrauc enwauc invev.
In diffrin machavuy merchyrdit crev.
Gorvolet y gimry goruaur gadev.
To my astonishment, I'd barely finished the first line before the men began to join in. Their pronunciation was different from mine and I still had no idea of the meaning of the words they were singing, but when I hesitated at the end of the first verse, Goronwy twirled his finger, telling me to keep going. So I went around again. And again. The song was about, from the bit I could translate, apples, and somewhere there in the first verse, a pig.
In the middle of the third verse, Llywelyn appeared in the doorway. His eyes met mine from all the way across the hall, and though my fingers still played, they stiffened. Still the men sang. Llywelyn tipped his head and smiled.
The song came to an end and my fingers came off the strings. In the silence that followed, Llywelyn moved closer, his footsteps ringing hollowly on the wood floor, and came to rest with one shoulder propped against the wall a few feet away from where I sat.
"One more?"
I nodded. Mom had another song, one she'd sung occasionally when I was a child, but then more often after my father died. It was a slow lullaby, not a raucous tavern song like most of the others, and I understood the words. I sang in Welsh, translating in my head as I went along for my own benefit. Halfway through, however, my fingers skipped a note. I'd forgotten the ending. Though Mom had sung this as a lullaby, it wasn't really. It was a love song-and I was singing it to Llywelyn:
Walk with me, under star-strewn skies,
Your hand warm in mine.
Until the dawn, I'll dream of you,
Good night, my love. Good night.
All the while, Llywelyn watched me, his arms folded across his chest, a small smile playing around his lips.