Rexanne Becnel (17 page)

Wynne closed her eyes against the revulsion that filled her. Then Isolde lay a hand on her arm, and Wynne forced herself away from the past. She had been given Isolde, she reminded herself. No matter the terrible circumstances of her conception, Isolde was still precious to her. They all were.

“Is that what our fathers did?” Isolde whispered the question.

Wynne nodded. “Yes. That’s what they did.”

“And then when the war was over, they left.” Arthur frowned a little. “Didn’t they even want to see us?”

Oh, God, she thought. How could she hurt them this way? “They had to go back to England. They left before any of you were born.”

The twins looked at each other. “Where are our real mothers?” Rhys asked.

“Isolde’s mother fell on some rocks and died,” Wynne answered at once. They’d heard that abbreviated story before, she knew. But now to explain the others.

“Arthur, your mother died a few days after you were born. Sometimes that happens. And Rhys and Madoc, your mother died too, when you were both only a year old. But all of your mothers are in heaven right now, watching over you all the time. They love you so much.”

She felt a tug on her skirt and turned toward Bronwen. “What about
my
mother?” the sweet-faced child asked. “What about me?”

Wynne sighed, and stroked a silky strand of blond hair back from the girl’s brow. “Your mother was very young. Too young to raise a baby of her own. That’s why you were given to Gwynedd and me to raise.”

“You mean an English soldier planted his seed in a little girl?” Isolde asked askance.

Wynne had to force herself to appear calm. But inside she seethed once more with impotent rage. Put that way, in the innocent words of a child, the crime seemed tenfold worse than it already was.

“Yes,” she spoke the word tightly. “Yes, that’s what happened.”

“But … but she wouldn’t want … I mean, did she want …” Isolde’s voice trailed off.

“No, sweetheart. She didn’t want him to. None of your mothers wanted the English soldiers to plant their seeds in them. But the soldiers didn’t care. When that happens, it’s called rape, and it’s a very cruel thing to do to a girl or a woman.”

“But how can he give her his seed if she doesn’t want it?”

To Wynne’s relief it was Arthur who answered Isolde. “You’ve seen the sheep and goats. The ram is bigger and stronger. Even if the ewe doesn’t want him to, he can still do it.”

“But most men aren’t like that,” Wynne hastily added. “Most men marry a woman first, and she agrees to have a baby with him. They love each other, and the man is gentle and kind to his wife.”

“Are Cleve and the English soldiers going to do that to Isolde and Bronwen—”

“—and you?” Madoc finished for Rhys. Both of their faces reflected their horror.

“No! Oh, no, don’t worry. Cleve would never hurt any of us. Nor will his men.” For all her conflicting feelings about him, Wynne knew without a doubt that in this she was absolutely correct. Cleve FitzWarin might be an English soldier, but he was no rapist.

Once again it was matter-of-fact Arthur who tied their discussion of the past back to the reality of the present. “Well, then, why
did
Sir Cleve come here?”

Wynne averted her eyes and stared unseeingly at her tightly clenched hands. Why indeed? She forced herself to show no emotion. “Sir Cleve FitzWarin is a knight. He was sent here by his English overlord to find a child whom this lord thinks may be
his
child.”

The children stared at each other curiously. “One of us?” Arthur asked.

Wynne nodded. “He thinks maybe one of you is this man’s child, and … and he wants to take whichever one of you it is back to England with him. To live there with this man.”

Bronwen shrank back in fear. “But … but I don’t want to go.”

Isolde, too, clung tighter to Wynne’s side. “You won’t let him take us, will you, Wynne?”

Wynne forced a reassuring smile for the children’s sake. “I’ll never let you go. Don’t worry. No one can take any of you away from me.” But inside she was not nearly so certain as she sounded.

Arthur shifted and rubbed his foot, which must have gone to sleep. “I wouldn’t mind if Cleve was my father.”

Wynne saw again the painful longing on the child’s face. “Cleve is not searching for his own son, Arthur, but for someone else’s,” she gently explained.

Arthur shrugged. “I know. But still …”

Much later, when the rush-light had been doused and all five of them were asleep in the curved truckle beds, Wynne sat at the edge of the loft contemplating Arthur’s last words. He wouldn’t mind if Cleve were his father.

That was not really surprising. Cleve had touched something in Arthur that no one else had. Even before Cleve had saved him from that dreadful fall, Arthur had already begun to look up to him. Now it was a powerful case of hero worship.

And why not? she wondered disconsolately. The man was certainly everything a boy would look up to. Tall and handsome; strong and in command. He rode a powerful destrier like one born astride, and carried his weapons with a confident air. He was not overtly threatening, and yet anyone could see he was not a person to dismiss lightly. To top it off, he was patient and generous with each of the children, free with both his time and his good humor.

Only with her did he display the darker side of his temperament.

A shiver snaked through her, and Wynne sighed. The dark side of his temperament. He certainly brought out
her
dark side as well. So much so that if she were not more careful, she might soon be the one carrying his seed to fruition in her belly. Only it would not have been planted there against her will. That she could not deny.

“Dear God,” she groaned as she pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms about them. What had she done to deserve such a curse be sent down upon her? Why did he have to come here?

But she knew why, and the answer chilled her anew. He wanted one of her children—not her. He had a maiden awaiting him in England. Edeline was her name. Oh, but the man was a completely selfish bastard. He wanted his English bride. He wanted one of Wynne’s own children. And now he wanted her to grace his bed. The man wanted what he wanted, and when he wanted it, no matter who was hurt in the taking.

Yet that was not precisely true, she had to admit. He was indeed bastard born—he’d admitted as much to her. As a result he seemed truly to care that this English lord’s bastard child receive the full portion of his due. She grimaced in frustration. If only he could see that lands and castles were not everything to desire from life.

But how could he? He himself clearly longed for those very same sorts of possessions, so he assumed everyone else must as well. To be fair, most people did. But not her children, Wynne vowed. Not hers. They were Welsh, and they would reject everything English, as did she.

Only they didn’t. And if she were honest, she would admit that she didn’t either.

“
Lleidr
,” she muttered under her breath, picturing in her mind Cleve’s smiling visage. The man was indeed a thief in every sense of the word. He’d stolen her confidence and thereby weakened her reassuring hatred of the English. He’d stolen kisses and more from her. Now he’d stolen her children’s loyalty—especially Arthur’s.

He’d even stolen her heart—

No. That was not true, not even close to true, Wynne decided angrily. He’d fired her ardor perhaps. But only a little. Her heart, however, remained untouched.

Troubled by her thoughts, Wynne forced herself to rise. It was long past time for her to seek her own bed. As she made her way down the sturdy ladder from the loft, with one last look at the sleeping children, she realized it was raining. Good, she thought as the wind thrust belligerently against the shuttered windows. If it rained and blew hard enough, the Englishmen might be washed away. A tent was not too hospitable a lodging in such a storm as appeared to be brewing outdoors. Nor would the tiny lean-to stable afford any better shelter.

She made her weary way across the shadowed hall. The embers of the evening’s fire glowed hot. Cook had banked it well before retiring to the stone cottage she shared with her husband, Ivor. Gladys and Enid were bedded down in Gwynedd’s small antechamber.

Wynne looked over at the heavy wooden doors that led outside. How were Druce and his fellows faring in the storm? she wondered. She should invite them to bed down in the hall.

As if attuned to her niece’s thoughts, Gwynedd’s form materialized from the entry to her chambers. “Bid the men to sleep within,” she said in a voice muffled by sleep. She pushed a long gray braid over her shoulder and moved as if to return to her bed. Then she paused. “Invite them all,
nith. Cymry
and English alike. ’Tis not a night fit to sleep without.”

Wynne did not respond. She knew her duty as hostess well enough. Besides, Druce’s friendly attitude toward Cleve would probably make it impossible for her to leave the English outside anyway. With a frown on her face and a strange and fearful anticipation knotting her stomach, she found her mantle and working clogs, then made her way to the door.

The wind was in fine form tonight, she thought as she forced the door closed behind her. It tore at her skirts and pulled violently at the full mantle. Like a living thing it was, strong and vital, and angry too. And yet somehow aimless in its direction.

How fitting. It mirrored her mood precisely.

She lifted her face to the stinging rain and let her eyes accustom themselves to the pitch-blackness of the storm. Even through the heavy clogs she could sense the gravel path that led toward the animal sheds. A hedge of roses, bent almost to the ground in the wind, loomed to her right, and she knew that the cedar grove was off beyond it.

A sudden flash of lightning lit the low-hanging clouds from above, then another. For a moment the manor grounds were lit with a pale and ghostly light. There was no color. All was shades of gray, light and shadow, with everything wet and washed out. Yet still she saw plainly the English encampment, shared now by the Welshmen as well.

Their fire was long gone, marked only by a blackened heap and a circle of lumpy forms. Each man was huddled under his own blanket, taking what miserable rest he could under the circumstances. The white tent Cleve had brought was flapping wildly, revealing several more huddled men crowded into it.

Wynne felt a flash of sincere compassion for them all. In the two minutes she’d been outside, her feet and lower legs had already become soaked. It wouldn’t take long for even her heavy mantle to be wet through and through. She hurried toward the camp, holding her hood in place with one hand and the front of her mantle snug with the other.

“Druce. Druce!” she called though the rain pounded in her face.

“I’m here, Wynne,” he answered from the edges of Cleve’s tent.

She gave him a disapproving look. Better that he be huddled in the storm than to be housed in an English shelter. But then, he seemed to be more in agreement with Cleve FitzWarin these days than with her.

“Come inside the manor,” she shouted, though without the least amount of graciousness in her tone. “You needn’t sleep in this storm.”

Another man moved to Druce’s side, and when lightning flashed again, she knew it was Cleve. Though she had only that instant of recognition, she read a wealth of emotions in his piercing stare.

“Thank you,” his voice came to her from the returning darkness.

She would have loved to have excluded him then and there, to tell him that only Welshmen were welcome in Radnor Manor. But she knew she could not. Besides, it was such a childish and emotional reaction. She’d displayed too much childish emotion to him already. It behooved her to play the role of Seeress with more dignity than she had so far.

How that would aid her cause, however, was very difficult to comprehend.

In an instant the men—English and Welsh alike—were scurrying en masse toward the manor. Wynne stood a moment more in the abandoned camp, clutching her mantle to her and wondering what the morrow would bring. Then a firm hand grasped her arm, and she found herself face-to-face with Cleve.

“Come with me to the stable,” he said. “I want to check the horses, and we can speak privately there.”

“No.” Wynne hung back, but it did not affect him at all. Through the muddy yard he propelled her, and at once any thoughts of dignified behavior flew right out of her head.

“Let me go, you vile wretch! I do not wish to speak privately with you!”

“That I can believe. But don’t worry, at least I do not plan to poison you.”

That caused her to dig her heels in even harder. In her struggle her mantle gaped open, flapping around her like the wings of a startled bird. But he was too strong and too determined. As if oblivious to her opposition, he dragged her relentlessly on through the downpour, her mantle trailing behind her.

At the stable door she caught the edge of the opening with one hand. “I shall scream,” she threatened in a furious voice. “I’ll scream, and Druce will be here in an instant. Do you really want to provoke the fight that shall surely ensue?”

She’d thought to best him with that. She’d thought it the one threat that would stall him. But Cleve only let loose a harsh, merciless bark of laughter, chilling her with his complete lack of concern.

“No one shall hear you over this storm, Wynne, so scream as loudly as you wish. Besides, I told Druce I required a word with you. Alone. He’ll not trouble us for a while.” Then he gave one last tug, and to her horror she found herself trapped in the stable with him.

“Now, shall we make ourselves comfortable?” So saying he began boldly to unfasten the ties that held her mantle on.

“Stop that! Don’t you dare—” She batted at his hands to no avail. The mantle was already drenched and heavy from the rain. Once loosened, it fell from her shoulders to land in a sodden heap behind her.

“You wretched man! You horrid
cnaf!
” she cried. “ ’Tis not your place to order me about. No, nor to handle me in so vile a manner.” Her hands curled into fists, though he held her wrists firmly in his grasp. “Were I a man, I would challenge you to battle, and I would cut out your villainous heart—if indeed you do possess one!”