Memories of the Heart

 

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Author's Note

After William, Duke of Normandy, conquered England in 1066, he lost no moment to institute and firmly enforce his own will upon the whole. First,
all
lands belonged to the crown. Its title and use would be granted only to faithful nobles who swore earnest fealty to him. At the same time these landholdings earned by the price of unswerving loyalty were governed by William's own inflexible rules.

William declared that if one of his barons attacked another, by that wrongful action the aggressor's holdings were automatically held forfeit and reverted to the crown. During days of relative peace under Norman rule, this arrangement went far to minimize any danger of the sort of useless losses too often wreaked upon European lords by greed and petty quarrels among their number.

After nearly a century of such firm control, came a comparatively brief era of less than a full score of years during which royal restraints were shattered …

Three times before his death, the Conqueror's youngest son, Henry I, King of England and Duke of Normandy, made his barons and bishops swear to accept his daughter, Empress Matilda (the young window of the Holy Roman Emperor), as ruler after him. Nonetheless, when he died in 1135, his nephew, Stephen of Blois, seized the English crown. By 1139, Matilda's illegitimate half-brother, Earl Robert of Gloucester, had rallied the forces of the western barons on her behalf and with 140 knights accompanied her from Normandy to Arundel to launch an attempt to regain the throne for her.

And thus began the period in English history known as the Anarchy. With the intermittent civil strife there was no clear leader in the land. Some nobles supported Matilda, others Stephen, and most used the conflict as an excuse for fighting amongst themselves for their own gain. Many vacillated between the two contenders, playing one against the other to win lucrative bribes of land and titles.

As the conflict progressed, many landholdings had two claimants, one ceded the fief by Matilda, the other by Stephen, and all lands were held only by right of the personal power of their lords. Unless the local lord was unusually strong and fair, there was little peace in the countryside and the roads were no longer as safe as they had been in King Henry's day. Bands of robbers roamed everywhere, taking what they could from the strife-ridden land.

At long last came the invasion of Matilda's son, Henry, and with the 1153 agreement struck between him and Stephen the prospect of an unchallenged succession returned and the peace was restored in England.

Chapter 1

W
ELSH
B
ORDER
, 1145

“Aye, it can be done.” As Mabyn solemnly nodded, her abundant and unruly grey hair almost seemed to be a part of the thick smoke billowing up from the central firepit behind. “But for that deed there's a price to be paid.”

“Anything, Grandmother, anything.” Ceri's silver-green gaze earnestly met others the same but infinitely more penetrating hue. Gran Mab's piercing stare went far to reinforce her position as the area's “wise woman,” respected yet feared for her ability to wield uncanny powers.

“Tch, tch,” Mab muttered with a disapproval that filled her single-room cottage as surely as the thick haze which steadily rose from burning peat. The sharp wits of her sweet but far too vulnerable granddaughter were dulled by emotion for a wickedly handsome man, leaving her no more perceptive than Princess Angwen had been when issued a similar warning decades past. That it was a Norman earl who had been and was again the focus of admiration—first father, now son—only made their folly greater. Foolish, foolish maids.…

“Please, Gran.” Ceri's voice trailed off as she fell to nibbling a full lower lip in fear that the other's reproving murmurs forewarned a refusal to grant the boon so anxiously besought. And she knew all too well that if not won now, the chance to secure her most fervently desired prize might never come again.

It was true that Lord Tal visited the former princedom of Llechu in the Welsh hills each spring and each autumn but never before had there been reason for him to remain in the village of Dyffryn for so long. Near every year during the score that measured the length of her life, Ceri had closely watched him, their Norman lord, the earl of Westbourne.

More than a decade her senior, Taliesan was not only devastatingly attractive with a potent smile and golden sparks of wry humor in his dark eyes but he was brave, strong, and tenderhearted. She knew the latter to be true for having seen him deal gently and generously with the elderly, the infirm, and the hoards of children who flocked to him whenever he appeared. With the passing of time, she, too, had come to idolize Taliesan, the hero to whom she had gladly if mutely surrendered her heart.

Due to the gap between their stations in life—he a Norman lord and she a simple Welsh villager—in the normal way of things Ceri could never have expected more than perhaps to serve him a horn of ale welcoming his visit. There could be no remote hope for a closer or more personal relationship.

Attention dropping to the earthen floor beneath her stool, Ceri inwardly reasserted the truth that she wished no ill upon either their lord or his knights. She honestly sorrowed for the one killed in the shocking assault that had left both Tal and his other guardsman wounded. Aye, 'twas a foul misdeed that had laid their Norman master in the next small cottage. Yet she could not rue the fact that by this wrong he would remain in their tiny village and under her grandmother's healing care for leastways a few days more.

Ceri was sincere in wishing only good fortune for Lord Taliesan. Though the battles being waged over the English throne were common knowledge, Llechu could not reasonably play any role in the outcome. Thus there was no rationale for the assault against Lord Tal within its borders. She would earnestly pray that such a vile event never reoccur even though the granting of that plea would also ensure there'd be no repetition of this precious opportunity for her to steal a taste of love's sweet delights.

“I cannot promise happiness for, although I mean to grant my too tender gosling her wish—” Mab stood, a dark silhouette against shifting patterns of smoke momentarily turned golden by a burst of flame, while her penetrating eyes bored into those of the much younger woman seated below. “'Tis an action I fear will lend you a deal more woe than joy.”

Soft masses of dusky curls fell forward over slender shoulders as Ceri solemnly nodded acceptance of her grandmother's caution. But nothing could prevent lips nibbled to berry-brightness from curling upward with joy for this gift no matter how reluctantly given.

“For you will I cast a web of enchantment over our master,” Mab ruefully promised. “And by that spell 'tis
you
Lord Taliesan will view through the warm haze of love misted eyes.…”

Ceri's soft green gaze glowed with silver lights and, more than her slight smile, it was this clear evidence of anticipation which deepened Mab's concern and brought a warning to her lips.

“The strands of that web are fragile and will hold only so long as Lord Tal lingers within the sphere of my powers.”

Gone truly solemn, Ceri again nodded to her scowling grandmother. She had no choice but to accept this tight restriction on the promised time to be shared. The squires who had accompanied Lord Tal and his knights into Wales were already hastening toward Castle Westbourne carrying news of the dastardly assault. They would assuredly return in little more than a sennight, perhaps less, accompanied by additional guardsmen and the wagons necessary to safely transport their wounded lord and his injured knight home.

The boundaries thus imposed on hours spent with her noble beloved were depressingly clear, yet Ceri bolstered her resolve to meet this new challenge. These limitations would indeed result in a lesser period of happiness for her, but she meant to welcome the gift with an earnest delight all the greater for its brevity.

Determination firmed Mab's lips as she gazed down on the seated maid gone motionless. She grieved for the distress Ceri would inevitably suffer in payment for seeking and receiving this boon. However, she had long believed the girl was too often lost in fantasies and thought that this might be the difficult lesson Ceri must learn. Mab's decision to allow this painful encounter was further strengthened by her certainty that sorrow over a brief heartache would be far easier for the tender maid to endure were there limits to its potential for anguish. Princess Angwen's experience was proof enough of that sad truth.

Lifting a long stick fire-blacked on one end, Mab bent to stir the hearth's bright coals into renewed flames, the better to revive a brisk bubbling of the pale green liquid in her cauldron. This determined action caused thick smoke to billow anew, and while Mab peered through the malodorous haze, she saw deep into the gentle mists of her own memory. There she beheld the faint image of a young Princess Angwen approaching to plead her cause.…

That scene, now clear in her mind's eye, had played out decades past while their Welsh prince lay dying. It was then that Angwen, his daughter, only child, and heiress, had been promised in marriage to William, the Norman earl of Westbourne. By that union their prince's lands would be joined with the Norman border lord's vast holdings.

However, the princess had known that this alliance formed for the sake of her inheritance would provide no security for her future. Thus, before descending from the Welsh hills, Angwen had beseeched Mab for a spell of enchantment able to hold the earl in her thrall … at least long enough to produce the male heirs whose birth would guarantee her a preeminent position in the Norman's castle.

In response, Mab had given the princess a small leather sack containing tiny seeds (one to be placed in the earl's food each day) along with the warning of a “price to be paid” once they were gone. It was clear that Angwen had assumed the last of the seeds merely signaled an end to her hold over the earl. Foolish, foolish maid.

Unfortunately it was equally plain to Mab that her granddaughter understood the warning no more clearly than had Angwen. Clicking her tongue in mild disgust, she announced, “Once beyond the ancient borders of Llechu, your
hero
will have no memory of you or your time together in yonder cottage.”