Chapter 35
May, 1177
Rhuddlan Castle, Gwynedd, Wales
The mood in the castle was tense and uneasy. The departure of the healer, rumored to have actually been a Norman noblewoman, had affected the lord to a troubling degree and no one knew what to do about it. Longsword brooded constantly, rarely spoke and flew off the handle at the slightest incident. The servants worked in silence, his men avoided him and even Teleri remained shut in her chambers, apparently unwilling to cross his path lest she finally lose one of their battles.
Everyone breathed easier when Richard Delamere returned from his manor. It was the general consensus that if there were one person in the world who could talk to Longsword, that person was Richard Delamere. But Delamere himself could have told them all that this time he was as much on the outside as they were. He knew his friend still blamed him for concealing Gwalaes’ true identity.
But Delamere had his own problems. He and Olwen had hardly exchanged a friendly word during his recent stay, unless it pertained to the boys. Instead, their mostly frosty conversation centered around his proposal to build a wall around the perimeter of the manor house. Olwen’s response was lukewarm. Despite the unpleasant shock of Haworth’s invasion, she didn’t seem to appreciate the idea as he had expected. She had asked him what the purpose of it was if there wasn’t anyone in the manor to defend it. Meaning, he supposed, him. And then it had hit him all of a sudden—the reason for her withdrawal, the reason for her frustrating silence: she was angry that he didn’t stay at the manor but returned to Rhuddlan. He was relieved it was something so simple—he had begun to think she was no longer interested in him—but annoyed as well, because she apparently didn’t understand that he had a responsibility to Longsword.
He returned to Rhuddlan after an absence of less than a week, when the tension between him and Olwen grew unbearable. He was angry that she wouldn’t take the idea of the wall seriously; obviously, he told her, she felt she was capable of managing quite well on her own. But the larger part of the reason he left was something he couldn’t now admit to Olwen: Longsword. Delamere was worried about him. He had never before seen Longsword so touched by another person, including the king, and he wondered if he might not try something crazy, like chasing after Chester.
He’d breathed an inward sigh of relief that Longsword hadn’t yet managed to get himself into trouble but after two days of trying to coax something more than single syllables out of his friend, he almost wished he’d had. He wasn’t familiar with this Longsword, who was quiet and cold, whose eyes seemed permanently stained with black, who would stride off to the stables without warning, leaving his men to scramble after him, and go on murderous hunts through the countryside; this wasn’t Longsword’s typical manner and after nearly a lifetime of friendship, Delamere was suddenly powerless to influence him.
And then, like the hot, steaming weather they’d endured on the plain before Dol during the war, the tense situation broke. A large man, heavily mustached in the style some Welsh preferred, appeared at the gate of Rhuddlan Castle, bareheaded, dressed in worn clothing and, as far as the guards could tell, weaponless. He was riding, not very expertly, a plodding field horse, which he addressed in bursts of impatient language. The guards grinned at each other. A free man, perhaps from the iron ore mines or a fisherman, with some imagined crisis to report. Sure enough, when the man saw he had their attention, he started calling out to them in a frantic tone. Really, they thought, the Welsh were inveterate complainers.
The urgent language did not abate once the man was inside the fortress. He slid clumsily from the patient horse and it wasn’t long before his wild harangue and gesticulations had attracted a small group of soldiers who watched his performance with various degrees of amusement and laid bets on what his message might be. Guy Lene was summoned; his command of Welsh was limited but he thought something had been attacked and the mood of the guards quickly sobered and it was decided Longsword should be consulted.
Longsword was located in the hall but his presence wasn’t enough to suddenly enable the Welshman to speak French. The stranger raised his voice in an effort to make the Normans understand Welsh but this ploy also failed. Lene was dispatched to fetch Richard Delamere, whom he found polishing his sword in the otherwise empty barracks where he’d gone to puzzle out both Longsword’s and Olwen’s strange behavior in solitude.
Delamere’s serious expression darkened when he heard the message. He turned towards Longsword and the others. “He says the abbey’s under attack by Rhirid ap Maelgwn.”
“He’s back?” Longsword asked.
“Apparently so. The man says he recognized Rhirid from his last visit to the abbey.”
They should have expected it, Delamere thought; obviously Prince Dafydd had released Rhirid after hearing the report of Maelgwn’s untimely death.
The effect of the news on Longsword was immediate. He seemed to expand in all directions, as if knowing that he was vitally needed had filled him with a self-confidence that was physical. Once more he was the calm and efficient leader he had shown himself to be at Dol. He ordered his men organized and prepared to ride out within the hour. He gave instructions for his hauberk, coif and helmet and heavy boots to be brought to him in the hall. He chose Ralph de Vire to stay behind with a handful of men. Delamere was absurdly pleased to see the abrupt transformation in his friend’s mood. At long last, Longsword would have his revenge against Rhirid ap Maelgwn. The peace with Llanlleyn was broken.
Teleri had known about the attack on the abbey before her husband because the messenger of these dire tidings had awakened her with his loud shouting below her window. She’d watched the subsequent, frantic activity in the ward with barely a flicker of interest; even the realization that Longsword was finally going to meet Rhirid in violent confrontation didn’t excite her as it once would have done. And when the last man-at-arms had trotted through the gates, Rhuddlan’s ensuing silence had seemed as forlorn and hollow as her entire being.
She didn’t care about anything anymore and she didn’t feel like fighting anymore. Gladys was gone and Gwalaes was gone but she was still there and nothing had changed. The earl of Chester had gone as well, leaving her feeling slightly hurt that he’d turned out to be married and more than a little mortified that he was rumored to prefer men to women anyway. And she was still there. Forgotten by her uncle, hated by her husband and even abandoned by Rhirid ap Maelgwn, whom she’d irrationally counted on to rescue her from the nightmare she was living.
In the weeks since Gwalaes’ abrupt departure, Teleri’s appetite had decreased to the point at which her women had to cajole, often tearfully, several bites of selected meals into her mouth. Always petite, she had lost enough weight to alarm those who saw her. She took no interest in her appearance, her hair had lost its rich sheen and splashing water now and then on her face sufficed as far as bathing was concerned. The weather outside her windows was mild but more often than not, she insisted on keeping the shutters closed. Her rooms became as gloomy as her mood.
She stood at the window and shivered. Judging from the light, it was midday but she was still tired. She seemed to spend most of her time sleeping lately; to do anything else merely caused exhaustion. She stared onto the empty ward and couldn’t remember how long she’d been standing there or what she’d been watching…vaguely, she heard the click of someone’s tongue, a flurry of footsteps and then a robe fell down around her shoulders, but it was a cold and heavy robe and gave her no comfort. Sleep was her only comfort and she started to move towards her bed.
A great shout caught her attention and she turned back to the window. There was activity near the gate; pandemonium, she thought. Longsword had left a guard behind and it appeared that all the soldiers comprising it were rushing full force to the main entrance, climbing up onto the walls or into the tower. Teleri stood on her toes and squinted her eyes until she saw, in the near distance, tens of horsemen thundering in the direction of Rhuddlan.
Welshmen.
Warriors, by their roars.
She knew immediately what had happened. It was a trick. There was no attack on the abbey of St. Mary; the attack was to be on Rhuddlan.
Her heart beat furiously. Her tiredness evaporated. Down below, Longsword’s men were struggling to close the gate before the Welsh arrived. There was only a handful of defenders but Teleri knew from her husband’s ceaseless bragging that only a handful was necessary to successfully defend his well-stocked fortress from a larger opposing force.
She caught her breath. “Hurry…” she urged in a whisper.
But the gate was closed and barred and when in the next moment several Welshmen finally reached it, a barrage of arrows flew down to greet them, although the steep angle ensured that none of the missles hit anyone.
One of the Normans was shouting, “Wait until they pull back! Wait until they pull back!” and Teleri recognized Ralph de Vire waving his arm at the others.
She couldn’t see the Welsh at the gate but their more numerous companions had halted just out of arrow range. Some had dismounted and were huddled together. She wondered which one was Rhirid ap Maelgwn but although she had always envisioned him as taller than any other man and twice as broad, there wasn’t any one person who didn’t look like the others and the distance made it impossible to see individual features.
The air was filled with a silence as one side waited and the other conferred which seemed almost absurd after the tumult of only a moment before. Teleri felt frustrated; why hadn’t Rhirid rushed more quickly? Why had his men shouted and hooted, alerting the Normans to their presence? Would they turn around and leave if they failed to draw the Normans out of the fortress?
A streak of light tearing through the blue sky caught her eye. Suddenly the noise resumed. So many men were yelling at once that it was impossible for her to understand their words. She looked beyond the wall to the Welsh and saw that some of them had ridden forward. She squinted hard because it appeared that they were on fire. And then she saw them raise their bows to the sky and let fly a dozen flaming arrows in the direction of the fortress before pulling their horses’ heads around and retreating out of the range of retaliation.
Teleri watched this scene repeat itself several times before slipping from the window. A thought had just occurred to her: if Rhirid was determined to burn down Rhuddlan, then she had better be prepared to escape, in which case she needed to be dressed. She clapped her hands together and ordered her women to bring her clothes. No, no; she changed her mind; she wanted water, soap and a drying cloth first; there wasn’t time to have it heated, she just wanted a bowl—and, she added sharply, one of these lazy women ought to be brushing out her hair while she waited.
Suddenly there was more activity in Teleri’s chamber than outside where de Vire had put servants to good use extinguishing flames while he and his men attempted to prevent the Welsh from getting close enough to shoot off their flaming arrows to harmful effect. Her hair had been brushed and braided, her face washed and her women were just about to remove her shift when the door to the outer chamber slammed backwards and a very large man with long, black mustaches materialized on the threshold.
Teleri stared at the intruder in amazement. Her mouth dropped open. Her women, bent double and holding the hem of her shift, froze. The shouting outside was the only sound in the room. “What do you want?” she asked the stranger in a steady voice.
The man rudely looked her up and down, smiling slowly, and belatedly, she realized she was practically naked. She reached over to her bed, snatched up her discarded robe and held it in front of her body. “What do you want?” she repeated angrily.
“Not that, mistress! I’m a married man!” he protested, grinning. “Do I have the honor of making the acquaintance of Teleri, Prince Dafydd’s beautiful niece?” When she didn’t answer, he glanced unfavorably at the trio of stout old women surrounding her and flashed his teeth again. “Apparently so. Well, mistress, I’m sorry, but I’ve come to take you away. We haven’t much time; it would be best if you came with a minimum of fuss, although I have no problem with flipping you over my shoulder—”
“Aren’t you the same man who rode in here not long ago and told Lord William that the abbey of St. Mary was being attacked by Rhirid ap Maelgwn?” she interrupted, frowning at him.
“Not a suspicious mind among them,” he said cheerfully. “And I’d always heard the Normans were an untrusting lot.”
Teleri sucked in her breath. “Are you Rhirid?”
The man hooted. “No, no! But I’m his man. My name is Dylan ab Owain. Now, if you please, we must hurry.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to ask why Rhirid wanted her. But she decided she didn’t want to know the answer. It was enough she could reassure herself that she hadn’t become worthless after all.
“I’ll come,” she said, feeling a thrill of excitement she hadn’t felt in a long time. “But I need to dress first. I can’t meet Rhirid ap Maelgwn like this.”
Before he could protest, she slammed the door to the inner chamber against him. He stared dumbly at it. He hadn’t planned on any delay; Rhirid’s instructions had been explicit, particularly the part about not wasting time.
He started pacing the perimeter of the antechamber and for want of a better occupation, counted his number of circuits. He grew anxious when he arrived at double digits and was nearly shaking with panic ten circuits later. How long did it take to throw on a gown? Suddenly he stopped in his tracks. What if there were another door in the bedchamber, one which led out of the keep?
But just as he reached for the door, it swung open and Teleri emerged, dressed in her sky blue gown, the one she had put on in anticipation of Rhirid’s arrival for the peace negotiations two months earlier. The long hem trailed behind her. Her hair was now loose and covered with a sheer veil in blue and gold, there was a pair of soft leather slippers on her feet and she had rings on every finger. Draped across the arm of one of the servants following her was a light, fur-trimmed cloak.
For a moment Dylan just stared. Teleri looked utterly beautiful, especially to a man who had been away from home for a long time. She realized the affect she was having on him and smiled modestly but lifted her chin a little higher. Dylan’s mouth opened and then clamped shut quickly as if he’d thought twice about what he’d been about to say. Instead he looked away and cleared his throat. “We must hurry,” was all he said.
They left the keep the same way Dylan had entered it: through the ground level entrance across from the kitchens. They were out of the sight of the Norman guard although they could hear quite clearly the sounds of the assault on the walls. He kept his hand secure around her wrist and urged her along with whispers and tugs while her women fell further and further behind. They ended up behind the stables and before the postern gate. Dylan turned to grin at her.
“Not even one man here!” he said.
“Well, it’s barred,” she answered, breathing heavily from the unfamiliar exertion. “No one can get in.”
“But I’m already in! What’s to prevent me now opening this gate to a dozen more of Rhirid’s men?”
“Is that what’s planned?” Teleri asked excitedly. “Rhirid is going to take Rhuddlan?”
The big man laughed. “No, mistress; only you.”
“But why not? The timing couldn’t be more perfect!”
“I don’t think King Henry would approve, nor your uncle.” He lifted the bar which kept the gate locked and tossed it to one side. He gestured to her. “Come. If everything’s gone right, there ought to be a few horses on the other side and we’ll be away.”
Teleri looked back. “Wait a moment; my women are almost here.”
“There isn’t time, mistress. We can’t take them along, anyway.”
“But my cloak—”
“Rhirid will give you an even finer cloak! Come!” And before she could protest further, he swung back the gate and hustled her through it to the waiting horses.
Rhirid watched another wave
of his warriors thunder as close to the fortress as they dared before loosing a slew of flaming arrows into the air. He was growing impatient; he was running out of arrows and the Norman defenders had nearly killed two of his men with well-aimed missiles of their own. Dylan should have returned by now. He swore under his breath and hoped no ill had befallen the man; not only would he hate to lose his most valuable warrior but it would mean he’d squandered a perfectly good opportunity to sack the abbey of St. Mary and draw the Normans out from behind those insurmountable walls in favor of a plan which had failed.
At last there were hoofbeats to his right. The young man he’d put as lookout rode up to him. “Lord, they’re coming!” he called.
Rhirid shielded the sun from his eyes with a hand and peered towards the west. Dylan wasn’t hard to identify and there was a figure sitting behind him on his horse. He dropped his hand. “Good. Guri,” he said to his cousin, “give us some time to slip away and then make a slow retreat. I don’t know how long it will take them to realize what’s happened but stall as much as you can.” He clicked his tongue and urged his mount into a trot. He and the remainder of his guard headed in the direction of the river, away from the view of the men on the walls.
Dylan and his escort had already reached the bank by the time Rhirid arrived and he gave his chief a hearty greeting. “It went perfectly, Rhirid!” he said in a booming voice. “There was never a question that we might be tricking them!”
“Yes, we watched them leave,” the other man replied. “It was a good job.” He switched his attention to Dylan’s companion, whose slight figure in such close proximity to the Welshman’s large bulk made her look like a child, and inclined his head. “It’s my honor to meet you, Lady Teleri. I apologize for our crude methods and I hope you weren’t very much inconvenienced.”
“Not at all, Lord Rhirid. I’m happy to meet you at last.”
Her voice was calm, which pleased him. Chester had stressed how unhappy the woman was in her marriage but Rhirid had always suspected that most women complained about their husbands merely as a topic of conversation. And he’d assumed that because Teleri was Prince Dafydd’s niece, she was a Norman-lover.
Perhaps not. She was attractive, he noted. Chester had left out that part, of course. She rode astride, holding onto Dylan’s belt, and the skirt of her dress was hiked up to her knees, exposing shapely legs…and feet encased in useless gear. Rhirid brought himself abruptly back into reality. Riding around with unbound hair was pure folly and the pretty gown she was wearing was surely going to be ruined by the end of their journey. He darted a quick glance at Dylan, who understood exactly what he was thinking and who shrugged and raised his eyes upwards.
“We have a small journey before us, Lady Teleri,” Rhirid said brusquely. “We’ll try to keep it as comfortable as possible for you.” He took up the slack in his reins and started to move off.
“Lord Rhirid!” she called and he felt his lips tighten because her tone was commanding. He turned back. “Why don’t you take this opportunity to burn Rhuddlan to the ground?”
“We haven’t time,” he said.
“It wouldn’t take long,” she insisted. “The postern’s open and unguarded. There are only a dozen or so soldiers left on the walls. You can be in and out in no time!”
“It isn’t as easy as that, Lady Teleri. A fortress that size would take some doing and we’ve been told that this son of the king can move very fast. We want to be safely away by the time Lord William realizes the hoax we’ve played on him.”
“But—”
But Rhirid had already kicked his horse into action and wasn’t listening any longer.