Chapter 30
May, 1177
Rhuddlan Castle, Gwynedd
There was a soft knock on the door and she heard one of her women speaking in a hushed voice to someone. Angrily, she strained her ears. Why did her servants whisper? Once, she would have been mollified at such a display of tender concern for her emotional state; now, she was annoyed. It didn’t change anything, did it, for her women to be so solicitous? If she were still at home and feeling melancholy, her uncle would devise some amusement to raise her spirits. But here at Rhuddlan her husband offered no such sympathy. And he was the one with the power; what good did it do anyone else to try to make her feel better?
A hesitant shadow creeped over her field of vision and she looked up from the piece of cloth on which she’d been sewing in a disinterested manner with a sharp frown.
It was that healer who had saved her husband’s worthless life. She darted a shy glance or two at Teleri but mostly kept her head bowed as if she were unsure of her reception. Her obvious awe lifted a few of Teleri’s spirits.
“What do you want?” she demanded.
“My lady, I was told you’ve been troubled by bad headaches,” Gwalaes said nervously. “I was asked to bring you a poultice which you can lay across your forehead when you rest to help ease them.”
Teleri smiled humorlessly. “The trouble is not so much the headaches but being unable to rest in the first place, Gwalaes.” She looked unfavorably on the folded cloth in the woman’s hand. It was, she imagined, filled with something that smelled vile. In fact, she thought she could smell it already…or perhaps that was just the scent of the healer’s gown. Still, her head was pounding…“You may leave it here.”
But instead of simply putting it down on the table and going, the healer hesitated. Teleri looked up again from her sewing impatiently.
“Why can’t you sleep, my lady?”
Her first instinct was to snap back some angry reply. She certainly wasn’t about to admit the truth: that she was feeling low because Gladys had successfully escaped Rhuddlan a week earlier and Longsword hadn’t even noticed. It seemed all her plotting had been for nothing. And now Gladys was walking the same halls she longed to walk and talking to the same people to whom she wished she might speak.
No one had said anything to her about Gladys. Apparently, aside from her immediate circle, she was the only one who was aware of the servant’s absence. It gnawed on her and made her so unhappy that she was unable to sleep a night through. Instead she lay awake, imagined arguments between herself and her husband running through her head at top speed in which she condemned his relationship with Gladys and he had no good answer; in which she was scornful and blistering and made him, at last, finally understand how beloved she was to everyone in her uncle’s house and how shamefully he had been treating her. Sometimes, in these imagined conversations, Longsword was so chastened by the truth of her accusations that he capitulated and allowed her to leave Rhuddlan.
For the past week she had tossed and turned, silently cursing the fate which had forced her to marry Longsword, forced her to endure the humiliation of Gladys’ pregnancy, forced her to always be on her guard around her husband so that he wouldn’t suspect her weakness and take advantage of it. When she finally slept, it was a fitful rest which left her grumpy and headachy all day.
No. How could she possibly admit to being jealous of such a pathetic creature as Gladys?
“I have no idea,” she said instead. “Perhaps it’s the change in weather.”
“I’ve got dried herbs and flowers—chamomile and rose petals—that would calm you and help you to sleep, my lady,” Gwalaes said. “But not here. In my storeroom at the abbey.”
“I’ve heard that my husband won’t let you leave Rhuddlan,” Teleri said curiously. “Is that true?”
Eleanor felt her face flush with shame. After several years as her own mistress, she was more than aware of her present situation of helplessness and she didn’t like it. The nuns lived a strict and ordered life but never before had she felt as free.
“It’s true, my lady. He says he worries for Bronwen’s safety—and mine, of course.” She wondered why she was making an excuse for him.
Teleri stared intently at her. “It’s a lie. You know that, don’t you? We both know the true reason he keeps you here…”
A thousand protests ran through Eleanor’s mind but in the end she didn’t reply at all. Teleri struck her as spoiled, capricious and impatient but not stupid.
Without warning, the Welshwoman jumped up from her bench. “I hate him, Gwalaes! He’s ruining all our lives!” she said angrily. “Why didn’t he just die from his arrow wound? Anyone else would have died! I don’t think he’s King Henry’s son at all—I think his father must be the devil himself!”
The women sitting nearby who were listening to the conversation immediately started buzzing and one crossed herself. Teleri glared at them. It was suddenly all too much for her.
“Do you know that Gladys is missing?” she demanded.
“Missing?” Eleanor echoed, startled.
“Yes, missing! Gone! Disappeared! Lord William made her pregnant and then lost interest in her. Another life he’s ruined! No one’s seen her in days!”
Eleanor didn’t remember anybody commenting on the absence of Gladys but neither did she remember seeing the servant in the last week. “But where could she have gone, my lady?”
“Lord William had better pray she has gone somewhere!” Teleri said bitterly. “If I were her, I’d just kill myself and get it over with! What is she without his protection? Nothing! She’s totally at his mercy! As am I!”
The women protested their mistress’ avowal of suicide until she snapped at them to shut up. And then, as quickly as the emotion had burst out of her, it left her. She sank back onto the cushioned bench. Her hands reached up to rub her temples and she closed her eyes.
“How much more of this can I endure?” she said in a low voice, almost to herself.
Eleanor couldn’t breathe. Teleri’s outburst had struck a chord; although Longsword wasn’t the physically abusive husband Hugh was, it was obvious that Teleri was as miserable in her marriage as she herself had been. But while she had had Gwalaes to comfort her, the Welshwoman had nobody.
“My lady—” she began, but was interrupted by a sudden commotion down in the ward below. She could hear shouted voices and the trample of hooves. “Maybe it’s news of Gladys,” she suggested.
Teleri laughed shortly. “I don’t think so…” Gladly accepting the diversion, she stood on the bench and looked through the window above it. “A horseman has just come in through the gate,” she reported to the other women. “A Norman, but not from Rhuddlan. I don’t recognize him.” She turned back to the window. “It’s odd; he’s just sitting his horse. Men are just standing there. I think I can hear my beloved husband arguing at the top of his lungs with someone. Probably poor Sir Richard…Gwalaes, you speak that horrendous language; run and find out what’s going on for me.”
The hall was crowded with men when Eleanor entered it and all of them seemed to be speaking at the same time. She didn’t dare walk up to one and ask who had just arrived. She scanned the throng for Alan d’Arques, but in vain.
She was about to retreat to Teleri’s chamber no more enlightened than before when out of nowhere came a stream of such loud shouting that it hushed the noise in the hall. Eleanor recognized Longsword’s voice and guessed he was in his council chamber. She couldn’t quite make out his words but he was obviously angry.
One of the knights standing near her suddenly raised his voice. “Two marks says he doesn’t let him in!” Immediately the bet was taken up and the stakes were raised as men clamored around him with their wagers. Eleanor was in danger of being swept away by the surging tide and she quickly turned and escaped back up the stair.
“Well?” Teleri demanded the moment Eleanor appeared on the threshold. “Who is it? What’s all that shouting? Why did everyone rush into the hall?”
“I don’t know who it is, my lady,” Eleanor said breathlessly. “Only that he must be an enemy of Lord William. The soldiers are gambling on whether or not Lord William will admit him—”
“I asked you to find out what’s happening, Gwalaes! I could have guessed this much by standing at my window! Oh—” Teleri drew her breath in sharply. Her eyes bulged as she looked at Eleanor. “It must be Rhirid ap Maelgwn who’s come!” she said excitedly. “That would account for my husband’s reluctance to greet him. Do you hear me, Gwalaes? It’s Rhirid!”
Eleanor was more cautious. “But you said the messenger is a Norman, my lady.”
Teleri waved an impatient hand. “Perhaps I saw wrong. Or perhaps he was simply dressed in the Norman fashion. Who else could it be if not Rhirid? Who else would my husband consider his enemy?”
Eleanor had no answer.
“I’m going down! I want to meet Rhirid at last!”
“My lady, you can’t do that!” Eleanor said, alarmed. “Lord William sounds extremely angry. You know the feud between the two—”
“He is despicable, Gwalaes! He is like an infant! A real man doesn’t let petty misunderstandings hamper his judgment.”
Eleanor failed to see how a nearly fatal arrow could be construed as a petty misunderstanding but said nothing.
“You must come with me, Gwalaes,” Teleri ordered.
“I don’t think—”
“You haven’t any need to think, Gwalaes. Come!” Without a backward glance, she swept out of the chamber. Reluctantly, Eleanor trailed after her.
With great self-assurance, Teleri moved through the mass of people in the hall to the landing outside. Apart from a handful of soldiers and several grooms, the ward was empty. The gate was closed. There was no activity at all below; a rare occurrence at Rhuddlan. It was as if everyone and everything waited for Longsword’s decision.
“They must be on the other side of the gate,” Teleri hissed over her shoulder to Eleanor. “I’ve never seen such a display of poor manners, Gwalaes! This would never happen in the prince’s court—it must be a Norman custom to let important guests languish without. And what of the peace between my husband and Maelgwn? If I were Rhirid, I would—”
But she didn’t have the chance to finish. Ralph de Vire came out of the hall in such a rush that he nearly knocked Teleri down. He paid no attention to either woman. Instead, he shouted to the knights below to have the gate opened. The men in the ward leaped into action at last; there were calls to the guards in the tower and yells for the grooms to stand by. Several men ran to the gate and heaved it back, the iron-reinforced wood creaking in protest. There were indeed horsemen waiting on the other side and the first few moments of their entrance were a confusing swirl of rising road dust, jangling bridles, ringing spurs and tramping hooves.
Teleri watched it all with a thrilled smile. That one in the front, at the head of the line—that must be Rhirid, she thought, leaning forward over the low wall to get a better look. He wasn’t very much like she’d expected; he didn’t look like a grim-countenanced avenger carrying a fiery sword…And like his messenger, he was dressed as a Norman—
She frowned. No one in the assemblage appeared to be Welsh. The riders were lined up in neat rows, wore mail and carried long, tapered shields. Their heads were capped with metal helmets that covered their foreheads and noses as well. Their saddles were large and heavy; the horses upon which they sat were large and heavy.
The man in the lead, the one she’d assumed was Rhirid, stood with one other slightly apart from the rest. In contrast to their companions, both were bareheaded and the first man did not wear mail. The second was dark-haired, stocky and scowling; his lips moved as if he was muttering something disagreeable to the first one, the mail-less one, who was russet-haired and wealthy. She could tell he was wealthy by the fine accoutrements adorning his horse, the signet ring on his finger which gleamed in the noon sun, the ornate clasp holding the ends of his dark tunic together and by the calm, amused expression creasing the pleasant features of his face.
He was grinning at her. She half-turned her head and whispered to Eleanor, “That’s not Rhirid ap Maelgwn! That man is a Norman!”
Roger of Haworth, protective of Hugh’s dignity, muttered angrily. “This is intolerable, my lord! Where is he?”
“Probably watching us from some window above.” Hugh sounded unconcerned. “Probably gauging how much time may be permitted to elapse before his continued absence is perceived an insult.”
“It is an insult! He should have been down here, waiting to greet you, before you even entered his damned castle!”
The earl glanced at his captain with amusement. “The Bastard obviously doesn’t care as fervently as you do for custom, Roger. Only a man who feels he’s strong enough in his own right will defy convention.”
“Whatever strength he has comes from the king,” Haworth spat out. “He holds nothing in his own right, my lord.”
“Yes, of course,” Hugh agreed. He shrugged. “Well, he can’t leave us here forever.”
They had spent several weeks as guests at the court of Prince Dafydd, after which Hugh had decided they would visit Rhuddlan before returning to Hawarden. His interest had been piqued by conversations with the prince, during one of which he’d learned that some of the men Dafydd had sent him to use against Powys were from a small commote called Llanlleyn and had been responsible for recent trouble in the area, including an almost fatal ambush on the Bastard himself. It was to be hoped, Dafydd had told him wryly, that the instigators of the ambush would find better occupation for their swords in northern Powys than closer to home. And spare him, Hugh had added to himself, the necessity of informing King Henry that his bastard son had been killed in some petty altercation.
No, a few days at Rhuddlan wouldn’t come amiss, Hugh decided. He was familiar with the fortress, of course; it had been in his family from the Conquest until that fateful day when Owain Gwynedd had sacked it and reduced it to rubble. He was curious to discover how the Bastard, who’d always had the reputation of being the most loyal son to his father, had settled into a pedestrian life. This dispute with Llanlleyn—was it indeed a petty matter or was the Bastard so bored that he had tried to create some excitement?
When Haworth objected, Hugh gave him an explanation designed to appeal to his masculine pride: “How would it look, Roger,” he said reasonably, “if the Bastard were to learn that we had been in his neighborhood but hadn’t come calling? He would think we’re too humiliated to see him! Do you really want him to think we’re cowards?”
Needless to say, Haworth bristled at the very idea and made no further argument.
Convincing Haworth was the least of his problem, Hugh thought. He wondered if the Bastard would even receive him. Basic etiquette demanded as much but being the son of the king was a position not without its perks and it was well known that William fitz Henry cared for no one’s opinion but his father’s.
So he sent his messenger ahead when he and his party were just a few miles from the fortress, reasoning it was more difficult to turn away people who were right there on the doorstep than those half a day’s ride away, whose faces were unseen. And, after a short hesitation, the ploy seemed to work. The impressively massive gate was opened to admit him and his men.
“He’s either forgiven us or is starved for company,” Hugh murmured to Haworth as they rode through to the ward.
But the hospitality ended abruptly. Hugh, Haworth and their twenty soldier-strong entourage were left standing alone and feeling slightly foolish. Grooms loitered nearby but didn’t rush up to take their horses; no one came out of the keep to welcome them. Haworth became annoyed and after listening to his complaints for several minutes, Hugh began to wonder if it had been a good idea to come to Rhuddlan after all.
He looked up at the keep again. A small knot of people stood looking down at him. One was a petite, finely-featured woman. Her eyes were all over him and he smiled at her. She turned her head s
lightly, as if to speak to someone standing behind her, and then he saw her whole body whirl around and after a moment’s hesitation, disappear quickly inside.
And finally, he saw the Bastard appear on the landing.
“Teleri!”
She jumped involuntarily at the unexpected voice and swung around. Longsword stood in the doorway, glaring at her. Richard Delamere and several other men were behind him but Gwalaes had disappeared. “Get inside!” he ordered. When she hesitated, he gestured impatiently to one of the knights, who pushed past him and reached his hand out for her arm. She jerked away.
“I’ll go myself!” she snapped.
She walked back into the hall with as much dignity as she could muster, humiliated by his disrespectful address. Her women hurried up to her, clucking and fussing until she told them to let her be; they gathered on either side of her, almost possessively, and when she started towards the stair at the rear of the hall it was as if one giant mass were moving across the wooden floor.
Gwalaes was standing in the shadows by the pantry. “It isn’t Rhirid after all,” Teleri informed her, pausing. “Only another Norman. Gwynedd seems to be full of them these days…Gwalaes, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“It’s the confusion, my lady,” Eleanor stammered. “I’m not used to all this noise and activity. The abbey is so quiet.”
“I can imagine,” Teleri sniffed unfavorably. “Well—I’m certain my beloved husband is not planning to present the mysterious visitor to me, so I will retire. Too bad; from a distance, anyway, the man has quite a pleasant appearance.”
Eleanor could not prevent a shudder of revulsion. Teleri noticed it, and thought it an unusually strong reaction. “You disagree? You saw him, then?” she asked.
“I saw them all, my lady,” Eleanor said. Her voice trembled despite her attempt to keep it level. She knew she had to be careful in what she said before Teleri but it was difficult to repress her shock in seeing Hugh again and at the same time watch her words. “All these soldiers in one place—it frightens me.”
“Indeed?” Teleri said, turning toward the stair. “It sickens me.”
When the Welshwoman had gone, Eleanor gave in to the trembling that had threatened to consume her the instant she’d set eyes on her husband as he waited in the ward. Her head spun dizzily. Never had she expected to see him at Rhuddlan Castle—never had she expected to see him again!
She had recognized him in one glance and had immediately retreated into the shelter of the hall. But there had been time enough to see that Roger of Haworth was still by his side. The man who had murdered Gwalaes…The sight of the two of them made her stomach heave in revolt.
She hovered near the pantry, uncertain of her next move. She thought she ought to do something—speak to Longsword, confront them herself—but the idea made her shake so violently she didn’t think she’d be able to speak clearly.
In the end, she just slipped down the steps behind the pantry, down to the groundlevel entrance to the keep through the storerooms and across the yard to the kitchens. She had to find Bronwen and keep her away from the earl and his men; given her daughter’s penchant for ogling the fine-looking Norman stallions, she knew the little girl would not be hard to locate. Bronwen was the most important consideration, she realized, in the whole horrifying shambles of her relationship with her husband. She felt relief at finally making a decision. Bronwen—and her own new identity and the way of life she had cultivated over the last four years—had to be protected at any price.
Surely Gwalaes would have understood…