Rhuddlan (65 page)

It wasn’t long before he discovered that he
was not the only one suspicious of the relationship between the
two. There were rumors. He sat one night in the barracks, as usual
slightly apart from the other men, cleaning his sword and only
half-listening to the increasingly boiserous conversation before
him. Most of the men were drinking and in the beginning told
stories which may or may not have been true and whose sole purpose
seemed to be to inspire an even taller tale from the next speaker.
When the novelty of the contest wore off, they turned to discussing
the members of their set who were not there with them. Eventually,
they remarked upon Ralph de Vire, pronouncing him fair enough with
weapons but rather stand-offish in personal relations. It was to be
expected, one man said; de Vire hadn’t been with them long and he
was still feeling his way around. Yes, another man snickered; that
explained why he spent so much time with the earl.

Suddenly, there was dead silence in the room.
Haworth wasn’t fully aware of what had been said but when he
realized the silence had to do with him, he recalled the knight’s
words and their implication and he looked up from his work to find
that everyone’s face was studiously averted. He stood up and
carefully replaced his sword in his belt, and then left the
barracks.

The night air had a slight edge and he could
smell the tang of a wood fire in it. There was a new moon; the sky
was mostly dark but for pinholes of light here and there. The
bailey was full of shadows because of it, although high torches had
been planted in the ground in various spots to facilitate travel.
He was halfway up the steps to the motte before he realized where
he was headed, and he stopped. He couldn’t very well burst in on
Hugh and demand to know if the person in his bed were truly Eleanor
Bolsover. A small light flickered in his chamber and Haworth stared
at it longingly until it blurred. He stood still on the steps and
watched the light until, finally, it went out…

After a sleepless night, he found himself
again on the steps to the motte. This time, he climbed them
resolutely, buoyed by the persuasiveness of the arguments he’d had
with himself when he couldn’t sleep. He’d been with the earl for
years, far longer than Bolsover or de Vire, and his devotion and
allegiance deserved an explanation. At the top of the motte, he
paused and looked at the keep, to Hugh’s window; it was unshuttered
to let in the summer breezes as it had been the night before.
Without further hesitation, he entered the keep. Servants setting
up the trestle tables for breakfast gave him blank looks. He went
up the winding stair to the second storey. There was no guard on
Hugh’s door; that was as it should have been, because if someone
were to guard the earl’s sleep, it could only be Haworth. He lifted
his hand and rapped harshly on the door. When there was no answer,
he rapped again even more loudly, lifted the latch and walked
in.

“Who is it?” Hugh’s voice demanded, irritated
and displeased.

Haworth paused briefly in the antechamber to
allow his eyes to adjust to the gloomy light and proceeded to the
bedchamber, which was better lit from the outside window. “It’s
me,” he said.

“Roger?” Looking rumpled and barely awake,
Hugh pushed himself up onto his elbows and squinted towards the
door. “What’s wrong?”

“Where is he?”

“Who, for God’s sake?”

“De Vire!”

“Sir Ralph?” Hugh yawned and twisted his neck
from side to side until it cracked loudly. “Why would he be
here?”

Haworth’s anger deflated. De Vire was not in
evidence. He and the earl were the room’s only occupants. “I’m
looking for him…” he said lamely.

“Yes? So, why do you look for him here? Have
you tried the barracks? Where all the men sleep?”

“But I was there myself all night and he
never came in!”

Hugh leaned back into his pillow and stared
up at the wooden ceiling. “Well, I don’t know what to tell you,
Roger. Perhaps he’s got a young woman somewhere.”

“A woman!” Haworth exclaimed as if the
possibility were a novel idea. But it was one he liked. “A woman…”
he mused.

The earl frowned at him. “I don’t know what’s
gotten into you lately, Roger! You’ve been acting very
strangely—like this preoccupation with Ralph de Vire.”

“It isn’t a preoccupation, my lord!” Haworth
protested. “I’m sorry! It’s only that I hardly see you. You rarely
speak with me.” His voice dropped and his tone was earnest. “I
never stay with you anymore.”

Hugh made a noise of irritation and shoved
back the bedcovers. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and
glared up at his captain. “Roger, we’ve discussed this many times!
You know I need an heir!”

“Yes, my lord, but Lady Eleanor doesn’t stay
the night! I could—”

“Could what? Am I supposed to send a man to
fetch you whenever I’m through with my wife? To be honest, Roger,
it takes so much out of me that I tend to fall asleep as soon as
she goes.” He stood up. “Since you’ve woken me, you can help me
dress.”

It didn’t seem right that a woman should have
any claim to that, Haworth thought as he stared at Hugh’s naked
body. “You always look so beautiful in the morning, my lord,” he
said hoarsely.

“I have a busy day ahead, Roger,” the earl
responded neutrally. “Bring me a shirt.” When Haworth turned away,
he added, “You know your trouble, Roger? You need a diversion. You
saw so much activity at Rhuddlan that quiet Hawarden isn’t
thrilling enough for you now. Why don’t you pay a visit to Chester?
Check the accounts. I barely trusted de Gournay when I lived there,
I trusted him less when I discovered he was informing my mother of
my every move and since finding Eleanor I don’t trust him at all. I
still don’t believe she made it to Rhuddlan on her own and he
always had a weak spot for her.”

Haworth stopped abruptly in the process of
passing a tunic and hose to Hugh, alarmed. “I don’t want to go to
Chester, my lord.”

“Fine! I was only thinking of you…”

“But if you’re so concerned about your
accounts, why don’t you send de Vire? I’ve heard he can read and
write like a cleric.”

The proposal seemed to anger Hugh. “Why are
you always harping on de Vire? It’s as if you’re jealous of
him!”

“I don’t think I would begrudge you your time
with the countess if the rest of it wasn’t taken up with Ralph de
Vire,” Haworth said. He knelt down at Hugh’s feet and took up his
boots.

“And I’ve told you the reason I must speak to
Sir Ralph. We are discussing Rhuddlan.”

Hugh tugged his tunic down impatiently and
sat on the edge of the bed. He stuck out a leg and Haworth pushed a
boot onto his foot and cross-gartered the hose to his leg. The feel
of the taut muscles beneath his hands was almost mind-numbing. But
his resentment of de Vire was overpowering. “Three weeks of
discussing Rhuddlan…” he muttered.

“Oh?” Hugh said sharply, snatching back his
leg and putting out his other one so violently that it narrowly
missed striking Haworth in the nose. “It’s either Rhuddlan with de
Vire or Powys with you and I’m sick of Powys!”

Haworth looked up at him with a pained
expression. “But—”

“But nothing!” the earl interrupted angrily.
“Listen to me, Roger—the Welsh bother you? Well, I’m bothered, too,
but not by the same man. I’m bothered by Rhirid ap Maelgwyn. He was
supposed to be our ally against the Bastard; I gave him horses and
weapons, and damned fine ones at that! All I asked in return was
Richard Delamere’s whore and perhaps a strategic arrow sent in the
Bastard’s direction. And what have I got? Nothing! This is what you
ought to be concerning yourself with—not Gruffudd of Powys, who
might have cut his throat while shaving last month, which would
explain why he hasn’t turned up recently! Not Gruffudd, but Rhirid
ap Maelgwn!”

Rhirid revived on the hurried ride back to
Llanlleyn to find himself slumped in a very undignified posture in
Dylan ab Owain’s arms. His head throbbed and the ground spun but he
insisted on being transferred to his own horse for the remainder of
the journey. “What happened to William Longsword?” he asked his
champion hoarsely, once this change had been effected.

The other man shook his head. “Nothing,
Rhirid. He lives. But we fought well! It was an even match and I
think we surprised them.”

But Rhirid was in too much pain to feel
pleased with a draw. He cursed the vagary of fate which had sent
his horse’s foreleg crashing down on his head, certain that he
could have killed Longsword and put their feud to rest at last. He
was suddenly tired of it. So tired…

By the time they reached Llanlleyn, the
daylight was waning. The rain had settled into an unabating, steady
rhythm and everyone was glad to see the torches blazing in the
covered platform by the gate where the look-out stood and shouted
down to those inside that the men had returned. Despite the
weather, the welcoming was crowded and boisterous.

Rhirid ordered a feast and scanned the crowd
briefly for Olwen before the ache and dizziness in his head
overcame him. He barely made it standing to the chief’s house and
to a corner of privacy, clenching his jaw and counting every step
of the way. He collapsed in a chair and fought nausea while
attendants stripped him of his battle gear and his healer studied
him thoughtfully and gave him something bitter to drink. Noise
swirled all around him, addling wits dulled by pain and the herb
drink. Through the confusion, he saw Goewyn standing hesitantly to
one side, apparently reluctant to enter the press of men; he saw
Dylan go to her and bend his head to hear her words and then he saw
the pair of them look at him.

After what appeared to be a short argument,
Dylan returned to his side. “My wife would like to speak to you.
Privately, if possible. She won’t tell me what it’s about. I tried
to convince her it was a bad time but you know how insistent she
can be.”

Whatever Goewyn wanted, it was a fortuitous
interruption; Rhirid raised his voice as loudly as he was able and
ordered everyone out. He gestured for Goewyn to approach.

For the moment, his throbbing head was
forgotten. He had never seen Goewyn as she appeared to him now:
pale and uncertain, barely able to look him in the eye, nervously
twisting a small, damp square of cloth in her hands. He felt a
shudder of premonition. “What’s wrong?” he demanded, half-rising
from his seat. “What’s happened to Olwen?”

Goewyn raised her head and he saw that her
eyes were red-rimmed. “She’s gone, lord,” she said in a rising
voice. “She’s been taken.”

“Taken?” Dylan exclaimed.

“There were three of them, lord! Normans!
There was nothing I could do!”

Rhirid and Dylan exchanged a glance. “Normans
were here?” the chief asked harshly. “Are you certain?” When Goewyn
nodded, he added, “Did they say who they were? Where they were
from?”

“The earl of Chester, lord.”

Rhirid sat down again. His head spun.

“How could they have found us, Rhirid?” Dylan
asked in disbelief. “Even William Longsword hasn’t been able to
find us.”

“The better question is how did they manage
to get in!” Rhirid said angrily. “Three Normans stroll up to the
gate and are simply admitted? They seize a woman under my
protection and stroll right out again? Who was supposed to be
watching out?”

“They didn’t come inside, lord,” Goewyn
said.

The two men looked at her. “Well?” Rhirid
prompted sharply when she hesitated.

She exhaled shakily. “We were summoned, Olwen
and I, to the wood. They were there. One of them spoke to her in
that foreign tongue and she said something in return. On it went
for a while and then she turned to me and said she must go with
these men or they would return with a large army, burn Llanlleyn to
the ground and kill all of us. She begged me to look after her
children. She said she would be all right but she had to leave
immediately. It was urgent and she wasn’t even able to say goodbye
to her boys.”

“And you’re sure they were from the earl and
not Rhuddlan?” Dylan asked.

“Yes, I’m sure!” Goewyn answered shrilly.
“Olwen told me so!”

“If they were from Rhuddlan, they would have
taken the children,” Rhirid said shortly. “And Lady Teleri as well,
no doubt.”

A sob caught in Goewyn’s throat and he
glanced at her curiously. He would never have imagined she could be
so affected by anything. And it was strange, too, that
she—invariably deferential but imperious; self-assured and
self-righteous—was avoiding his gaze.

“I have the feeling, Goewyn,” he said softly,
“that you’re not telling me something. What did you mean when you
said you and Olwen were summoned? Who summoned you? It couldn’t
have been the Normans because you didn’t know they were in the wood
until you got there.”

There was a moment of hesitation, and then
she nodded slowly. She dabbed at her eyes with the square of cloth
and finally raised her head. Her expression was worried but
resolute and he had the sinking feeling he wouldn’t like what he
was about to hear.

Her voice was low. “Lord Rhirid, against your
wishes, we plotted,” she said. “The three of us, Olwen, Lady Teleri
and I. We plotted to sneak Lady Teleri out of Llanlleyn—”

“
What?
” Dylan roared. “Were you out of
your mind?”

She darted her husband a nervous glance out
of the corners of her eyes but appealed to Rhirid. “We all had
different motives, lord; Lady Teleri wanted to go home to the
Perfeddwlad, Olwen wanted to end your feud with Rhuddlan and I
wanted to save Llanlleyn from a second destruction. I found a man
willing to escort Lady Teleri to the prince and they left this
morning on your heels—”

“Who is this person?” Dylan demanded, his
face red with anger. He stepped close to his wife, towering over
her. “Who is he? I’ll kill him myself!”