Rhuddlan (21 page)

It remained a ruin until
Owain’s son Dafydd returned it to Henry six years later. The king
sent in masons and builders to refashion it, building in stone in a
rectangular shape softened by rounded towers at every corner. The
main gate, bounded by a pair of close-set towers, faced the river
only several hundred yards away, while the rear of the fortress
looked out upon the demesne, the castle’s own fields, worked upon
by
taoegion,
unfree
laborers. Passing through the gate, one emerged onto the ward.
Straight ahead was the keep, containing the ample hall and lord’s
quarters; to the left were the barracks which housed the royal
garrison. The ground floor of one tower served as a chapel. The
kitchens, bake-house, brew-house, laundry rooms and latrines were
in the rear, as were the stables and the armory. There was a
covered well just past the entrance to the hall. The ward was a
large expanse of packed earth. Rhuddlan was strong, superbly
designed to withstand a lengthy siege. Its storerooms on the
windowless ground floor of the keep were vast and Longsword kept
them well-stocked.

Not only was he prepared for a siege, he
longed for one. Any bit of trouble. Any diversion, no matter how
harsh, from the mind numbing inactivity of the past two years.

In the old days, in the time of his great
grandfather Henry I, there had been plenty of strife with the
Welsh, particularly along the marches, the borderlands separating
the principalities of Wales from England. Plenty of opportunity to
hone battle skills and take plunder. Even the early years of his
father’s reign had been marked by friction but most of this had
since been resolved.

The prospect of spending the rest of his life
lost and forgotten in the placid hills of northern Wales did not
excite William fitz Henry in the least.

He left his chamber. Delamere pushed himself
away from the wall and followed him down the circular stairwell
which led to the hall below.

“William, what would you think if I were to
move Olwen here?” he said. “Perhaps she could wait again on Lady
Teleri—”

“No!” Longsword answered curtly.

“Why not? You complain I’m away too often. If
Olwen were here, then I would never need to leave.”

The hall was empty but for a pair of serving
girls sitting on a bench near the unfired hearth. Longsword
recognized one of them and gestured to her to bring him a pitcher.
After two years he still hadn’t learned any Welsh and couldn’t seem
to remember even the few words for his basic needs, such as wine,
that Delamere had taught him. But he had noted that this particular
servant was quick to understand his simple gestures and that she
had a less likely chance of messing up his orders than any of the
other ones.

He turned to Delamere. “Olwen wouldn’t be too
happy. She never got on with Teleri.”

“She’d come if I told her she had to.”

Longsword smirked. “Maybe she would…if you
swore to marry her first.”

“Will, I’m serious.”

Longsword waved his hand irritably. “There
isn’t any need to bring your family here, Richard! I apologize for
my anger.”

The girl returned with a pitcher of wine and
Delamere dropped the subject. His pleasant relationship with Olwen
was becoming a sore point with Longsword, who was confined to his
castle and to a wife for whom he had no affection. Much as Delamere
loved his friend, he couldn’t but help feel a warm and intense
pride in his burgeoning family and it seemed now that every day he
spent at his manor flew by so quickly that he was easily persuaded
to stay longer.

At the same time, he felt
guilty about leaving Longsword alone. The two had been close
friends since childhood. Out of respect for their long association,
Longsword had generously enfoeffed Delamere with a small area of
good land. It had been the Norman habit when invading Wales to
simply replace the traditional Welsh administrative divisions with
the nearest Norman counterpart. The basic Welsh political unit was
the commote, ruled over by a chief. Bound to the land and not free
to leave it were the
taeogion,
who provided the chief, his war band and his
family with the fruits of their agricultural labor. Also belonging
to the commote, but legally free, were the
bonheddwyr,
pastoralists who moved
their stock from winter shelters in the lower lands to summer
pastures in the hills. A victorious Norman lord merely needed to
put up a castle on the site of the former chief’s fort in order to
collect the revenues of the commote. The exchange wasn’t as easy or
favorable to the Welsh; in addition to losing their native rulers,
they were now subject to Norman law.

Longsword’s gift had dramatically altered
Delamere’s position from hired sword to feudal vassal, a man of
independent means. In truth, the grant had been more of a gesture
than a source of income. There was land enough only to feed his
family and his laborers. Olwen’s household consisted of two female
servants and six men who tended to the fields. But it was land,
that most coveted of all Norman possessions, and it meant that he
only needed to report to Longsword for castle guard for a month and
a week and the rest of the year, barring war, was his.

However, Delamere was no husbandman and he
was young enough, at twenty-six, to often miss the camaraderie of
the barracks and the company of his friends, which was why he spent
more time at the fortress than was required of him. And being part
of a small group of foreigners living in a formerly hostile country
made him feel all the more keenly his obligation to them. When he
had first met Olwen, he hadn’t been able to speak a word of Welsh
nor she a word of Norman French but somehow they had communicated
and now, two years later, they were able to converse well enough in
each other’s language. But it was like stepping into a comfortable
pair of boots to ride up to the castle gate and be hailed in
familiar speech and to speak and joke with someone without
stumbling over strange words or groping for unaccustomed
phrases.

He had met Olwen when she’d arrived at
Rhuddlan as part of Lady Teleri’s entourage. Teleri was the niece
of Prince Dafydd and Longsword’s intended bride. She was fifteen,
haughty and hated the foreigners. She had been rumored to be a
beauty, with thick reddish-brown hair, large, dark eyes and
flawless white skin, but from the moment she entered Rhuddlan she
was a disappointment in that regard. She walked about with a sour
expression, her nose crinkled with distaste as if everywhere she
went she smelled something awful and her obvious loathing for
everyone and everything connected with the Norman fortress made her
seem unattractive.

Perhaps in the hands of someone cheerful and
patient she might have been worn down at length into a grudging
acceptance of the fate her uncle had imposed on her but William
fitz Henry was not that person. He hadn’t wanted the marriage and
as his wife didn’t seem disposed towards encouraging him, he saw no
reason why he should make any effort either. He had slept in her
bed only twice; she had accepted his touch with her eyes squeezed
tightly shut and her limbs tensed and unresponsive. After a while,
he had been so disgusted that he’d given up.

Olwen was different. From the moment Delamere
had caught sight of the slight figure running soundlessly across
the ward, her long black hair unbound and streaming, her cloak
billowing behind her, he had been mesmerized. The hour had been
late and there hadn’t been anyone else around except the sentries
in the distant guard tower. He had just come out of the latrines.
The moon was high and full, showering down a ghostly white glow and
illuminating the great ward and as he stood idly enjoying the peace
of the night, the shape of a young woman suddenly manifested from
the shadows near the stables and flew to the stairway below the
hall. Unconsciously he walked a few steps forward, staring after
what he thought must surely be an apparition, so silent and
graceful was it. The figure ran up the steps and paused at the top,
turning around and looking down into the ward. He fancied it looked
at him, although with the distance and the unnatural light of the
moon he couldn’t be certain. And then it whirled around with a
flourish of hair and cloak and disappeared into the hall.

For two weeks at that time the castle had
been full of people who had gathered to celebrate William fitz
Henry’s marriage to Lady Teleri. The two great leaders and their
retinues were there, as well as Longsword’s men and all the
additional servants, cooks and entertainers necessary to cater to
the crowd. The mood was especially festive because the wedding was
to take place on Christmas Day. Delamere had used every free moment
to search for the woman whose nocturnal flight had so impressed
him, but without luck. He didn’t know if she was a noblewoman, a
mere servant or someone’s mistress. He didn’t know if she was a
guest of the king or of the prince. He didn’t even know why he
needed so desperately to find her.

It was difficult to get away from Longsword
who, upon introduction, had taken an immediate dislike to his
intended bride and who stuck to him in increasing despair as the
appointed day drew near. In the end Delamere had given up his quest
and had stayed late at the table with Longsword and his men,
drinking and making crude jokes about all the guests and falling
into bed clothed and exceedingly drunk.

The day of the wedding had dawned bright and
clear, snapping with winter crispness. An auspicious day but for
the aching heads and queasy stomachs with which the young men of
Rhuddlan awakened. Delamere felt particularly awful and hung well
in the rear of the throng which gathered in the chapel to hear the
betrothed couple exchange vows. After only a short while, he
slipped outside, throat parched, in search of cold water. Servants
were hurrying back and forth across the ward and into the hall to
prepare for the feast. Garlands of pine branches and cones had been
strung along the walls. Near the kitchens, smoke rose in a steady
stream from the roasting meat in the cooking pits. The perfume of
the pine and the smell of the burning meat reacted violently in
Delamere’s stomach and he stumbled dizzily in the direction of the
well.

Someone was there, waiting for him with a
bucket resting on the stone lined opening to the hole in the ground
which was the well. He recognized her at once. She bent down and
submerged the wooden cup she was holding into the bucket, drew it
out and offered it to him with a smile. He took it automatically,
not even looking at it but staring all the time into her amused
black eyes and arched eyebrows, and drained it.

She laughed then, and said something to him
in Welsh which he didn’t understand but which sounded so beautiful
in his ears that he wished she would go on talking forever. She
seemed to know what he was thinking because she continued to speak
in a low, conversational voice while taking the empty cup from him
and refilling it. He studied her more closely. She was real enough.
She wore a crimson surcoat with detail work of gold thread about
the neckline. Her shining dark hair was braided and half-covered by
a linen wimple. But it was her eyes that his kept returning to; he
could not look away.

She laughed at him again, touched a hand to
her chest and said her name was Olwen.

Longsword didn’t believe in love at first
sight, although Delamere pointed out that he obviously found it
possible to hate at first sight since he’d had nothing worthy to
say of his wife since the moment he’d met her. Longsword insisted
what his friend felt for this Olwen was nothing but lust, pure and
simple. And lucky for him—but then Delamere had always been lucky,
probably owing in large part to his lean body, easy manner and
dark, curling hair which he kept fashionably close-cropped—the girl
lusted for him right back.

Olwen was an illegitimate daughter of Prince
Dafydd’s priest and had attended Lady Teleri for the past four
years. She was two years older than her mistress and of a much
happier demeanor. Teleri had never liked her but now that she was
trapped in a foreigner’s fortress with a foreign husband, she
needed whatever familiar support was offered. But when, only two
months after their arrival, it became apparent that Olwen was
pregnant, Teleri demanded that her husband send the woman back in
shame to the prince’s household. The request had coincided with
Longsword’s self-removal from his wife’s chamber and he was feeling
none too pleased with her. He refused and pretended he didn’t
understand the vicious, broken phrases of sputtered Norman French
with which she abused him. He had actually been shocked to discover
that the girl had a temper after all; he’d started to wonder if she
were even truly alive.

Although it meant that he was no longer able
to see her every day, Delamere brought Olwen to the small house
he’d built on his property and set her up with her own household.
Teleri was livid but there was nothing she could do about it. And
Longsword had been in a better mood for weeks afterward; it wasn’t
the kind of excitement he’d hoped for, but it had been a battle of
sorts and he felt that he had won it.

Chapter 15

January, 1177

Falaise, Normandy

There had been rumors for the last few weeks
that his release was imminent. At first Hugh allowed himself to
feel the thrill of excitement but as the days passed and he heard
nothing firm, his hope faded. He became convinced that the king
meant this confinement to last indefinitely and he knew that if he
was forced to spend much longer with Ralph de Fougères, one of them
was going to end up dead.

There were three of them who were royal
prisoners still, two years after the end of the war, awaiting the
verdict of the king. Robert, earl of Leicester, was a decade older
than Hugh, a greying, slender man who kept mostly to his own suite
of comfortable rooms in the fortress and conferred primarily with
the half dozen knights he’d been permitted to retain as his
personal servants. Hugh knew from Haworth, who mingled frequently
with Leicester’s men, that the earl was very anxious about what
Henry would ultimately decide to do with him. He had been
inarguably the king’s most strident opponent. After the surrender
of Brittany, Henry had attempted to end the war by offering terms
to the Young King. It was a direct result of Earl Robert’s adamant
intervention and his refusal to accept anything which Henry offered
that the peace talks broke off and the war continued for another
year.