Rhuddlan (59 page)

“And you promptly got into a feud with one of
your neighbors, was almost killed by him and have now had your wife
kidnapped by him! Does that sound like least harm?” Delamere
snapped. “For Christ’s sake, William, stop feeling sorry for
yourself! You’ve got to make a decision: either go back to the
king, tell him you couldn’t stick it and offer him your service, or
put the past behind you and get on with your work!”

Another pause. Then Longsword said quietly,
“I’ll go back to the king.”

Delamere was incredulous. “You can’t do that,
Will!”

Longsword took a deep breath and let it out
with a shudder. He sat down heavily in his chair and to Delamere it
seemed as if the statement had greatly eased his tension. His
expression was suddenly more tired than angered and when he spoke,
his voice was unemotional. “I don’t care anymore, Richard. I’m not
feeling sorry for myself; I just don’t care. Everything I’ve ever
wanted has been taken from me and right now Rhirid doesn’t bother
me a bit. Let him win.”

Delamere crossed the room with an urgent
stride. “Will, you don’t mean that. Perhaps you’ve lost Gwalaes and
Gladys but what about Teleri? She’s your wife and she’s been
kidnapped by Rhirid—you can’t let him get away with it!”

“If I send a messenger to Dafydd, he can
force Rhirid to give her up much sooner than I could if I scoured
the hills for her.”

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing!” Delamere
exclaimed. “You don’t care that Rhirid’s made a fool of you and
Dafydd will know it? Have you never thought that perhaps the reason
Rhirid didn’t wait in ambush for us was because the greater insult
to you was for him to steal your wife away from under your nose?
Doesn’t that infuriate you?”

Longsword looked up at him, unsmiling. “A
month ago, it would have.”

“Will, stop joking—”

“I’m not joking, Richard!” His gaze was
steady. “You know, there’s a certain freedom in not caring…”

Delamere controlled himself
with effort. “Is that so?” he retorted quietly. “I have no idea…and
neither do the sixty-odd men in the barracks who have sworn their
swords to you. Do you know what I’m thinking, Will? That perhaps
the king made you custodian of Rhuddlan Castle to
teach
you how to lead. To
teach you how to stop putting yourself first all the time and
instead make decisions and take actions which result in what is
best for the entire kingdom!”

In Longsword’s ensuing stunned silence, he
turned on his heel and strode out of the room, slamming the door
shut behind him.

Chapter 38

May, 1177

Llanlleyn, Gwynedd

Ever since she’d first heard his name in
connection with Longsword’s attempted murder, Teleri had harbored a
few fantasies about Rhirid ap Maelgwn. Her favorite one, in which
Rhirid rescued her from her rude and boorish husband, was actually
realized. She had indeed been plucked out of Rhuddlan and spirited
away by Rhirid. But the moment she’d passed through the gate into
Llanlleyn, the fantasy had abruptly ended. The fortress was a
forlorn affair, a collection of round wooden buildings chinked with
mud and capped with turf set close together upon an expanse of
uneven, trampled ground. The living arrangement was old-fashioned,
with nothing more than screens separating the sleeping chief from
the rest of his people. The unmarried women had their own house and
it was here, behind her own arrangement of screens, that Teleri had
been put into an insultingly tiny amount of space. With everyone
living so close, it was impossible there could be secrets and she
was uncomfortably aware that she was the primary topic of
conversation.

Rhirid had warned her not to
expect anything grand but she hadn’t pictured such a
primitive
place. And the
inhabitants were as dour as their dwellings. At first she’d been
perversely flattered by their collective silence, believing them to
be awestruck by her status as Prince Dafydd’s niece, but eventually
she decided that they were simply unfriendly. Especially the women.
The quartet appointed to serve her was mostly silent; its
spokesperson was the surprisingly average-sized woman who claimed
to be the wife of Dylan ab Owain, but even her words were terse and
grudgingly uttered.

To say she was dismayed by this turn of
events would have been an understatement. Having been raised by a
childless, indulgent uncle, Teleri wasn’t used to disappointment
and the stark reality of Llanlleyn hit her hard. She thought that
if she’d known the Welsh could have the same contempt for each
other that the Normans had for them, then she would never have left
Rhuddlan. At least at Rhuddlan she had familiar, doting servants,
the outward reverence of all the inhabitants, including the
foreigners, and a husband whose actions she could predict. Her
fantasy of a triumphant partnership with Rhirid ap Maelgwn hadn’t
materialized. The chief hadn’t spoken to her at all since their
arrival, despite several requests to Goewyn to arrange an
interview. She began to wonder if Goewyn, whose attitude towards
her was invariably frosty, was even passing on her messages.

In the meantime, she kept to her tiny space
in the women’s house, reluctant to go out among the people who
whispered about her and who stopped to stare at her as if she’d
suddenly grown a second head. She became increasingly dissatisfied
with her decision to leave Rhuddlan, and more querulous with her
attendants, prompting daily arguments between Goewyn and Dylan.

“How long is Lord Rhirid planning to keep
that woman here?” Goewyn demanded one evening.

Dylan’s hand paused over the sword he was
polishing with a square of oiled sheepskin. He looked up at his
wife. “Lady Teleri?”

“Who else? Has he got a few others hidden
away somewhere?”

Goewyn stood before him with her hands on her
hips, the sleeves of her gown pushed up past her elbows. Dylan
noticed she was glaring more intensely than usual and that her
normally impeccably dressed hair was slightly tousled.

He frowned. “Why are you all wet?”

“She wanted to bathe! It’s wet work! And
first the water was too hot and then it grew too cold. And then she
was annoyed when I told her there was no scented soap but when I
offered to throw crushed herbs in the water instead she very curtly
refused. Then she became angry because it was taking so long to
comb out her hair but she complained we were too rough with the
snarls and knots! Why does she insist on wearing her hair unbound?
And her gown!” Goewyn snorted with disbelief. “That’s the best
part. She said that under normal circumstances she would have
tossed her gown out for rags because it was ruined from rough
treatment these past five days but she knows there can’t possibly
be anything suitable at Llanlleyn to borrow and so now every day we
must take it away and brush and clean it for her to wear again in
the morning!” She stepped closer to her husband. “I’m asking you
once more, how long is she staying?”

Dylan leaned his sword carefully against the
side of the stool on which he sat. From long experience, he’d
learned that the best way to avoid a protracted argument, which he
couldn’t possibly hope to win, was to ease out of the room slowly,
before his wife realized that he was running away from her.

“That’s for Rhirid to decide, Goewyn. You
know I have nothing to do with it,” he said mildly.

“You’re his champion! His most important man!
He must listen to you if you choose to advise him!”

He stood up and tried to stretch casually. He
attempted a different approach. “So she’s a little spoiled. She
can’t help it—she was brought up that way by the prince. Just
ignore her.”

“I can’t! I’ve been told to wait upon her,
Dylan!”

“Goewyn, you know why she’s here. It’s a huge
insult to the Norman lord. It’s a great victory we’ve won by
stealing the girl away from under her husband’s nose.”

“And are we supposed to keep her until her
husband decides to come and get her?” she demanded. “With his army?
And the prince’s army? And the king’s army?”

He was beginning to feel irritated. “You
don’t understand this business, Goewyn! You just do what you’re
told and don’t worry about what will happen tomorrow.”

“The trouble with you men is you never think
about tomorrow! You never think at all! You just act!”

“Goewyn, hush!” Dylan whispered nervously.
“Rhirid will hear you!”

She glared at him defiantly. “I hope he does!
I would like him to tell me why it isn’t it enough we lost
Llanlleyn once but now we must be threatened again! His father,
blessed man, would never have countenanced this action!” Her voice
rose sharply. “Where are you going?”

He took up his sword and swiftly retreated
without answering. Although cowardly, it seemed to be the safest
course.

Olwen didn’t know which was worse: Teleri’s
reportedly atrocious behavior or Goewyn’s ceaseless complaints
about it. She remained silent on both subjects because she didn’t
believe it was her place to express an opinion under the
circumstances, but a strange thing happened as the days passed. She
became aware that her status at Llanlleyn was bizarrely high. The
men were invariably deferential to her and the women treated her
with the same respect they accorded Goewyn. It was to do with
Rhirid, of course. She knew from her own instinct and Goewyn’s
none-too-subtle hints, that he was besotted with her. For another
woman, perhaps, this would have had a useful purpose but Olwen was
still angry at being taken out of her home and fearful of what was
meant for Richard. She maintained a cool demeanor around Rhirid.
She never expected to be asked to use her influence to persuade him
to divulge his plans for his hostages.

Her initial reaction to
Goewyn’s request was negative. She wanted to have as little as
possible to do with Rhirid and it was already enough that he seemed
to continually turn up in the places she visited—her access
unlimited on his order—and that he frequently embarrassed her by
sending her the choicest parts of the meat from his own table. Now
Goewyn wanted her to risk his misinterpretation of their
relationship by approaching
him
. She refused.

But Goewyn persisted and as
time wore on, Olwen started to relent. After all, she reasoned, it
was perfectly natural for her to want to know what was going to
happen to her and her boys…and she had to admit to herself that
she
did
want to
know. Additionally, she couldn’t deny that Goewyn’s fears of
another destruction of Llanlleyn were well-founded. Richard had
told her about the Norman raid on the original stronghold and she
didn’t doubt that Longsword would want to exact a similar
revenge—and probably more dire—this time. Why should the innocent
suffer the loss of their homes simply to assuage the wounded
reputations of the combatants?

But the most compelling reason turned out to
be her desire to repay Goewyn for the kindnesses the other woman
had shown her, particularly after she’d learned the poor esteem in
which Teleri was held. As in most small holdings, the women of
Llanlleyn were a tight-knit group but Goewyn’s warm example had
admitted her without reservation. It was years since Olwen had been
part of the larger population, and she hadn’t realized how much
she’d missed the camaraderie, the friendships and the gossiping of
a group of women. She was by nature a friendly, generous person and
despite the presence of two serving women and half a dozen male
laborers, she’d often felt lonely in the relative isolation of her
manor. She could almost wish to live forever in a place like
Llanlleyn; perhaps, then, Richard’s long absences would be easier
to bear…

“Very well,” she told Goewyn. “I’ll ask him.
But don’t expect a miracle. Men can be very close-mouthed when it
comes to their plans. If Dylan won’t tell you anything, why would
Rhirid tell me?”

“Because he’s in love with you and trying to
make you fall in love with him,” Goewyn said matter-of-factly. “So
if you ask him a question, he won’t refuse to answer it because he
wants to get on your good side.”

Olwen opened her mouth to
say that there was little chance of
that
happening but Goewyn looked so
eager that she couldn’t bring herself to dash her hopes. “Very
well,” she repeated instead. “How will it be arranged?”

“Don’t you worry! I’ll pass along a message
through Dylan. Just keep yourself looking nice.”

“We’ve got trouble.”

Rhirid glanced up from his task, alarmed by
Dylan’s sudden materialization at his elbow and his grim
pronouncement. “What trouble? Normans?”

“That wouldn’t be trouble; that would be
pleasure,” Dylan snorted. “This is much more serious. Women.”

“Ah…” Rhirid relaxed. “One woman in
particular?”

Dylan nodded glumly. “She’s up to something,
Rhirid. She’s been too nice to me these past few days. Do you know,
she hasn’t complained about Lady Teleri since the day before
yesterday and last night she offered to rub my back when I
mentioned it felt a little sore.” He shivered. “I tell you, Rhirid,
it’s like when the birds stop chattering and everything is quiet in
the forest. You look up and sure enough, there’s a storm waiting to
break.”

Rhirid stepped away from the trench and
adjusted his clothing. He grinned and slapped the other man’s
shoulder. “Or perhaps she’s finally realized what a wonderful
husband you are, Dylan.”

“It isn’t a joking matter, Rhirid!” Dylan
retorted. He closed his eyes as he settled into position. “She’s up
to something; I know it. It’s to do with that Olwen. They’re very
cozy.”

“Olwen?” Rhirid asked sharply. “What about
her?”