A Memory of Love (35 page)

Rafe de Beaulie watched her go, his silvery blue eyes narrowed and contemplative. She had been a beautiful girl, but she was a far more beautiful woman, he thought. And clever to have realized that his sister was a better wife to Edward than she could have been. Her instincts intrigued him, as did her talk of passions unleashed. He wondered where she would go now and just what she meant when she said that she would have justice of his cousin. Strangely, he believed her when she said she meant Katherine and her unborn child no harm. But what was to happen to Rhonwyn uerch Llywelyn?

She departed Haven Castle, her head high, but her sight was blurred by the tears that filled her eyes. He had not really loved her. The shock of that knowledge burned into her heart and soul. How could she have been so damned naive? She would have been better off with the caliph, but that door was tightly closed to her now. She could not go back to Cinnebar no more than she could come back to Haven.

“Where are we going?” she finally asked her companions.

“To your brother, lady. Then we will decide upon how to kill Edward de Beaulie,” Oth said grimly.

“You cannot kill him,” she said quietly.

“Surely you do not still love him?” Oth said angrily.

“Nay, I do not love him, but you cannot kill him. They would blame me. I have had enough shocks today to last my lifetime, Oth. I mean to go to King Henry to complain of Edward's treatment of me. Certainly the king will compensate me for what has happened. Then, too, I must be declared alive once more in the courts.”

Glynn, as she had suspected, was outraged by what had happened at Haven. He was ready to storm the castle himself and slay Edward de Beaulie, but Rhonwyn dissuaded him as she had Oth and Dewi.

“He must be made to pay somehow,” Glynn said irately.

“Yes, but how?” Rhonwyn asked.

“I am taking you to Mercy Abbey,” Glynn said suddenly.

“I am not of a mind to join a religious order,” his sister replied. “Do you assume my life is over because my husband has disowned me, little brother? It is not, I assure you!”

“I'm taking you to Mercy because our aunt will certainly know how you may proceed. Our upbringing at Cythraul did not prepare us for such deceit, sister. You surely have an honest grievance against Edward de Beaulie and must be compensated by him. I am a poet and a dreamer. I do not know how to advance your cause, but she will.”

“How can you be certain of that? You never met her,” Rhonwyn said to him.

“The abbess Gwynllian is well known in religious circles for her intellect and cleverness, sister. Her fame extends even as far as Shrewsbury. It will take us several days to reach her house, so we must begin now, Rhonwyn. Where else can you go to lick your wounds in safety and consider what you are to do next? Certainly not to our tad.”

“Let us ride,” his sister replied tersely.

They rode hard, resting the horses between dusk and dawn, eating oatcakes and wild berries, drinking from the streams of water that dotted the countryside. They came to Mercy Abbey in late afternoon. The cluster of stone buildings did not, this time, seem quite so forbidding as they had when she first saw it. Again the church bell was pealing for the office of None. Entering through the abbey gates, they waited for their aunt to emerge from the church.

Gwynllian had never met Glynn, but she recognized him immediately. Seeing Rhonwyn by his side, she said, “Praise God, you're alive! What has happened? Why are you here unannounced?” Her eyes mirrored her deep concern. “Come into the chapter house, and we will talk.” Her glance flicked to Oth and Dewi. “You know where to put the horses,” she told them. “Then go to the kitchens, and they will feed you. Come,” she said, turning back to her niece and her nephew. She led them into her privy chamber and poured them each a small cup of wine. She motioned them to seats as she took her own. “Now,” she said, “why have you come to me? Does your father know you are here and alive? And will it cause an incident with the English?” she demanded of them.

“It is a long story,” Rhonwyn began. Then she told her aunt of what had happened in the several years since they had last seen one another. “I did not know where else to go,” she finished. “I am too fine a lady now to live at Cythraul, aunt.”

“Aye, you are,” the abbess agreed.

“What am I to do?” Rhonwyn said. “Edward de Beaulie has treated our family with great disdain. Surely he can be made to pay for that insult, but I have no idea where to begin.”

“Do you want him dead?” her aunt queried.

Rhownyn shook her head. “That would be too easy,” she replied. “The lady Katherine I hold blameless in the matter. She is meek and was subject to her brother's will.”

“Do you want
him
dead?” Gwynllian asked, half jesting.

Rhonwyn actually laughed aloud. “Nay. I do not like Rafe de Beaulie particularly, for he is arrogant and obviously has a lofty opinion of himself. However, he loves his sister and did what he believed was best for her even as my own brother, Glynn, did when he sought me out in Cinnebar.”

“Restoring you to life legally will not be difficult,” the abbess said thoughtfully. “Your existence cannot be denied. It is plain fact.” Her long elegant fingers drummed lightly upon the long table before her. “As to the rest I must speak to the bishop at Hereford. Edward de Beaulie discarded you without any real proof of your demise and quite hastily contracted another marriage without a decent period of mourning. But your induction into an infidel's harem as his second wife will surely stand against you, rhonwyn. You were a Christian knight's wife, and yet you yielded to the lustful blandishments of another man. There are many who will think you should have died rather than succumb.”

“Then they are ignorant of the harem,” Rhonwyn replied spiritedly. “I had not even a knife to cut my food. I was constantly watched. There was absolutely no way I might have ended my life even if I had wanted to do so. But all I wanted was to escape and return to my husband, not knowing that he had already betrayed me!”

“That attitude will assuredly gain you a certain amount of sympathy,” the abbess noted, “but it will not completely exonerate you.”

“I was faithful in my heart to Edward de Beaulie. He was not so faithful to me,” Rhonwyn replied stonily.

Her aunt smiled. “Stoke the fires of your outrage, my child, and we shall gain some justice for you. Are you sure you wish to pursue this path?”

“I must, else my honor and the honor of our family be compromised,” she said. “ap Gruffydd is a proud man, and this reflects upon him badly unless we can obtain some compensation for the slight upon our escutcheon, aunt.”

“I am forced to agree with you, my child,” the abbess said. She turned to Glynn. “Have you nothing to say in this matter, ap gruffydd's son? By the rood, how much you look like your father in his youth!”

“At first,” Glynn said, “I thought to slay de Beaulie, but my sister dissuaded me. She does not wish me to have a stain such as that upon my conscience, especially as I intend to return to the abbey at Shrewsbury and eventually take holy orders.”

“So you would become a monk, Glynn ap Llywelyn?” the abbess said quietly. How interesting that her brother's son leaned toward the church and not toward a kingdom of his own.

“I have seen the world, aunt, and while I find it interesting, I am not meant for such a life. Soon my music and my poetry shall be in praise of God alone. The peace of the contemplative life is what I seek. I prefer its discipline and order to the hurly-burly of the world at large.”

“Does your father know of your decision, nephew?” Her fine brown eyes scanned his face.

“He will, although I know he considered this would be my path long ago when he came to fetch Rhonwyn. Tomorrow I will send Oth and Dewi to find him so he may be made aware of what has happened to my poor sister.”

Rhonwyn hit him a blow upon the arm that staggered Glynn.

“Ouch!” he yelped.

“I am not to be pitied, brat!” she snapped at him. “It is my honor that has been besmirched. But make no mistake, Glynn, I need no man to make my life complete. I never did and I certainly don't need your pity!”

“There are but two paths for a respectable woman,” Glynn said. “Either she enters into marriage or she enters a convent.”

“I am no longer respectable, it would seem,” Rhonwyn mocked him, laughing. “Therefore I may do what I please and plot my own course through life, brother. I am considering becoming a merchant and using the gold Baba Haroun so generously sewed into my cloak to set up a shop in Shrewsbury. I shall import silks and spices from the east and grow richer with each passing year. I shall take young men for lovers, and when I send them away because they have begun to bore me, they shall go grieving but wiser for their time with me.”

The abbess burst out laughing, although her nephew looked shocked. “Thank God and His blessed Mother, Rhonwyn uerch Llywelyn, that you have not been broken by this experience,” she said.

“My heart is broken, aunt, but only a little, and it will heal, I suspect. I returned because I believed in my heart that Edward loved me and would forgive my small sins. I wanted to share all that the caliph taught me about passion and make up to my husband for the early months of our marriage when passion frightened me so greatly I could scarcely bear for him to touch me. The loss is his, I fear, and he will never know the woman I truly am,” Rhonwyn said softly. “I am very sorry for that.”

The abbess nodded. “It would appear, my child, that you have more honor than Edward de Beaulie. For that you may be proud.”

ap Gruffydd appeared at Mercy Abbey five days later, prepared to berate his daughter for leaving her marriage. When, however, he heard the truth, he erupted into a fit of rage. Rhonwyn, to her own surprise, calmed him at long last.

“I am no longer unhappy over this, but our family's honor must be assuaged, my lord,” she told him.

“Are we back to
my lord
then?” he demanded.

“Tad,”
she said with a small smile, mollifying him.

“I'll have another husband for you from King Henry else our treaty be broken for good and all,” ap Gruffydd said.

“And have you kept so assiduously to that treaty,
Tad
?” she gently taunted him.

He laughed aloud. “I've had little part in your life, Rhonwyn, and yet you know me better than some of my closest associates. Why is that, I wonder?”

“Because I am like you, Tad. I am proud and have always followed my own path, and devil take the hindmost. It seems to have gotten me into almost as much trouble as it has gotten you.” She smiled sweetly at him. “I think, however, that I may have learned my lesson.”

Both Llywelyn ap Gruffydd and his sister, Gwynllian, burst into laughter. Rhonwyn's assessment of the situation was absolutely correct.

Finally the prince said, “There is much of your aunt in you, too, lass.”

“Praise God and His blessed Mother!” the abbess responded fervently, and she crossed herself.

The prince grew serious once again. “King Henry has not been well these past few years. He will certainly be at his palace of Westminster in London. I will send him a letter, Rhonwyn, explaining that you are alive and returned home to discover yourself declared dead and your husband with a new wife. I will tell the English king that you do not desire to have Edward de Beaulie back, as his new wife is with child. Besides, the betrayal and insult to you and your family make such a reunion impossible. I will ask for justice for my daughter, and tell him that you will come to Westminster by Lammastide to seek redress from the de beaulies. There is no viciousness in Henry Plantagenet, but beware his queen, Eleanor of Provence, who is called behind her back
the noble termagant
. She is and always has been ambitious for her family, and she will destroy without hesitation anyone that she believes a threat to them.

“Your dower portion, of course, must be returned to you. I cannot be expected to redower you for a new husband.”

“I don't want a husband,” Rhonwyn said.

“Nonetheless you must have one,” her father said firmly. “We will not argue this point now, lass.” He looked hard at her. “How is it possible that you have become more beautiful despite your adventures?”

Rhonwyn laughed. “You will not turn the subject that easily, Tad. I want no husband.”

“Then it is the convent, daughter. How old are you now?”

“Nineteen, this April first past,” she reminded him.

“We'll be lucky to find you a husband at your age. A widow with children is at least a proven breeder,” the prince noted. “Do you want to enter your aunt's house, lass?”

“Nay,” Rhonwyn said.

“Then another marriage is your only path,” ap Gruffydd said.

Rhonwyn did not argue with him any further. She was a realist. The church would not accept her, for she would be considered a woman of ill repute—a disobedient wife who had run off to interfere in men's business and had been punished for it. And what man of good family would have for his wife such a woman? A woman who had given her body to an infidel? She wanted her dower back, and perhaps a bit of Haven's land for herself. That she would consider recompense for Edward de Beaulie's behavior. Why argue with her father over something that would never be? There would be no more husbands for Rhonwyn uerch Llywelyn.