Rhuddlan (69 page)

And lucky—because Haworth now had no
intention of going to Rhuddlan.

He felt a childish urge to be spiteful in
response to the calamity which had befallen him. He wanted to
thwart Hugh’s carefully plotted plan. He wanted Hugh to be puzzled
over the Bastard’s lack of response and then, when he finally
admitted the truth, he wanted Hugh to look stricken and beg to know
the reason behind his refusal to obey this important request. He
wanted to see Hugh chastened by the knowledge that he had deeply
wounded the most loyal friend he’d ever had.

Beyond the gates, he told his companions that
they were going to make a general sweep of the countryside to the
west and south of Hawarden. The earl was concerned, he said, that
Gruffudd ap Madog had been too quiet for too long…

Chapter 44

June, 1177

Hawarden Castle, Gwynedd

Olwen found herself back at Llanlleyn.
Nothing had changed. It seemed like years since she’d been gone but
little William was still unsteady on his feet and Henry still spent
more time asleep than awake. Goewyn appeared, smiling happily, glad
she had returned to Llanlleyn instead of going to Rhuddlan. She
hugged Olwen tightly. “Welcome home!” she said…

Home. She had once had a home all to herself;
a pretty little manor in the midst of several cultivated fields.
She’d had servants and a cow and a number of sheep. She’d had her
children and plenty of work to do. But she’d been terribly
lonely.

Llanlleyn was her home. She felt comfortable
living communally; if her children had been left behind at the
manor when she’d been abducted, who would have looked after them?
At Llanlleyn there were many mothers, even a few who were nursing.
Lady Teleri had been right to insist she needn’t worry, that Goewyn
would have found someone to care for the boys.

She sat alone in the women’s house. Goewyn
had gone out to supervise the cooking for the feast; a celebration
as much for Olwen’s return as for Rhirid’s and his men’s safe
return, she had said. Rhirid was happier than Goewyn could remember
him and it was due to Olwen. “I told you once he was in love with
you,” Goewyn said before leaving the women’s house. “What will you
say when he asks you to marry him?”

She was gone before Olwen could answer. The
shadows in the building lengthened as the day waned and she sat
there alone, musing over the events of the last few days. As she
had thought, the earl hadn’t wanted to let her go with Lady Teleri.
She was to be used instead to bait a trap for Lord Rhirid. The earl
wished to entice Lord Rhirid into battle because of the insult he’d
received when she hadn’t been delivered to Hawarden as
promised.

Everything happened so quickly. The earl told
Lady Teleri he had arranged an escort to take her to the
Perfeddwlad but she, as she’d sworn, refused to leave unless Olwen
could leave as well. The earl was angry; it didn’t please him to
have his plans disrupted. He had the two women brought to his
wife’s rooms and locked in with her, declaring that none of them
would ever leave Hawarden.

Olwen was afraid, remembering the horror
stories the countess had told her when they’d last been together.
Teleri was livid. She boldly vowed to escape from the fortress or
die trying. Olwen reluctantly agreed to accompany her. The plan,
however, came from the countess. She lay in her bed, very still;
blood-stained sheets, courtesy of Lady Teleri who was bleeding,
covering the lower part of her body. Lady Teleri called frantically
for help, crying out word ‘baby’ over and over. The guard and the
servant who’d been taking them food, burst in and recoiled at the
sight of the apparently unconscious countess. In the confusion of
people in and out of the chambers, Olwen and Lady Teleri managed to
slip through the door.

They kept their heads down and strolled
nonchalantly down the stone steps to the hall, outside and across
the ward, through the open gate and down the steep stair to the
inner bailey and there mingling with the women who habitually left
the fortress at that time to bring their husbands and sons in the
fields a noon meal. They passed through the gate without
recognition, Olwen’s heart throbbing nervously every step of the
way.

And then they were free! Teleri told her they
were going to head towards the Perfeddwlad and although she was
anxious to return to Llanlleyn, she acquiesced without a fight.

They began walking. It was hot and sunny and,
for some reason, very quiet. Neither one of them spoke, saving all
their energy for the journey. After a short time, she thought she
heard a faint, steady noise coming from behind them but she refused
to turn around, certain that such an action would actually bring
the noise to life. Trying to ignore it didn’t make it go away, she
soon found out. The noise grew until it was identifiable as
galloping, pounding hoofbeats. She and Lady Teleri whirled around
at the same moment—and there, rapidly bearing down on them, was
Roger of Haworth.

She tried to run but it was no use; Haworth
had a horse. He cut in front of them and forced them to stop. He
seemed to glare at her with the same cold expression he’d worn when
he’d snatched Bronwen from her. And then he drew his sword and
raised it high. She squeezed her eyes shut…thought about her
children…murmured a little prayer…waited to be killed…

A short, whistling sound and a thud. Lady
Teleri gasped and she opened her eyes. Haworth tottered in his
saddle, one hand grasping the shaft of an arrow. His eyes glazed
over and then he fell to the ground.

She heard her name, ‘Olwen!’ and turned
around. Lord Rhirid was coming towards her, slinging a bow around
to his back as he walked. He was grinning; he was so happy to see
her. He had saved her life, she thought as she watched him
approach. She smiled back at him, but for some reason, she knew she
didn’t feel as happy as he obviously did.

“Olwen!” he said again but now he was walking
through the women’s house to where she sat. The shadows were
longer; the sun was sinking and it was taking him a long time to
cross the relatively short space between the door and the bench
upon which she sat. Why didn’t her heart leap up to meet him? she
thought. She was glad he was coming but that tickle in the pit of
her stomach was missing. And yet, she didn’t run from him. She was
comfortable in the darkening embrace of the women’s house, of
Llanlleyn…

Finally he was near. He stepped from the
murkiness into a space lit by a torch in a sconce on the wall. He
wasn’t grinning anymore, she noticed, looking first at his mouth.
She raised her eyes. It wasn’t Lord Rhirid’s face staring back at
her—it was Richard’s.

“Olwen!”

Everything slipped away in an instant. She
opened her eyes to find Lady Teleri bending over her.

“It must have been a good dream,” Lady Teleri
remarked. “I called your name several times before you finally
awoke.”

Her neck ached. Her sewing, part of another
gown for Teleri, lay on the floor near her feet. She must have
fallen asleep on the bench, sitting up and in the middle of the
day. It was understandable because most of her nights at Hawarden
had so far been sleepless: it was difficult to lie in bed and pass
into a comfortable oblivion when she worried about her sons and
was, six days on, beginning to wonder if this exile would ever
end.

“I dreamt about Llanlleyn,” she said.

Teleri sat down next to her. Olwen didn’t
like the sober look on her face. “I hope it wasn’t too fond a
remembrance.”

“What do you mean? What did the earl have to
say?”

“Well, I tried to put it to him prettily; I
suggested that after nearly a week, we must be overstaying our
welcome, but he waved my concern away. So I tried to put it
tactfully; I hinted that I was anxious to see my uncle and he said,
of course, of course. Then he became very serious. He said he
hadn’t wanted to alarm me but Sir Roger, who had been in the field
for the last five days or so, had returned with news of having
sighted enemy activity. I asked him what that meant and he said
Gruffudd ap Madog was in the area and to send two young women off
with even a small protective force would be to tempt the anger of
Prince Dafydd.”

“He said
two
women, Lady Teleri?”

“Yes. See? I told you he meant to include
you. Anyway, he doesn’t want to risk harm coming to us as Powys and
Gwynedd are enemies. He wants to contain the problem himself and
then we may go. It will be several days yet, Olwen. That’s why I
hope you aren’t too homesick for Llanlleyn.”

Olwen stared at the hem of her skirt for a
moment and then reached down to pick up the cloth she’d dropped.
“It’s not Llanlleyn I miss but my children,” she said quietly.
“Lady Teleri…do you trust the earl?”

Teleri looked astonished. “Trust the earl?”
she repeated. She laughed. “What a question! Of course I trust him.
Of all the Normans I’ve met, I trust him the most.”

“Even though he betrayed the king during the
Great War?”

Teleri shrugged. “Men do things like that…”
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Why are you asking me this?” When
she didn’t answer right away, she said sternly, “Speak to me,
Olwen! Why don’t you like the earl? What are you thinking?”

Olwen bit her lip and picked at the stitches
along a hem until Teleri snatched the material out of her hands.
She looked up guiltily. “I’m sorry, Lady Teleri. I suppose I’ve
been influenced by Richard…and the countess. She had nothing good
to say about her husband…”

“Such as?” Teleri prompted.

There was a slight edge to her voice. Olwen
was well aware of the esteem in which her mistress held the earl
and she was obviously feeling protective of him. She debated the
purpose of giving Teleri any further information, but the other
woman was watching her intently, ready to claim victory when Olwen
was unable to produce specific evidence. She took a deep
breath.

“Such as…he keeps her prisoner, under lock
and key. She can’t leave her rooms. Her servants and her guards
aren’t permitted to speak to her. She said when she first arrived
and asked for her daughter, he refused her request and starved her
until she stopped screaming for Bronwen. He sent Bronwen elsewhere
to live. He even gave her a Norman name—Mathilde. She doesn’t know
if she’ll ever see her own daughter again, Lady Teleri!”

Teleri looked unconcerned. “The way the earl
put it to me, he sent Bronwen to his mother to learn the Norman
customs. That seems reasonable.”

“Very well, Lady Teleri. There’s more. It
concerns me. Despite what he implied, I’m fairly certain the earl
won’t let me go with you when you leave.”

Teleri jumped up from the bench in
exasperation. “How many times do we have to go through this?”

“Lady Teleri, it’s true! Please listen! Lord
Rhirid told me that when he left the earl, he was given horses and
weapons to specifically use to fight Lord William. In return, I was
to be abducted from my home and sent to him. But Lord Rhirid
promised me he wouldn’t keep his bargain…and I think that’s why the
earl sent his men to take me away by force.”

“
You
?” Teleri stared down at her. “For
what purpose?”

Olwen shook her head
helplessly. “I have no idea. But I think I know
why.
One of Lord William’s knights
brought a little girl to me and asked if I could keep her for a few
days. He said she was the daughter of the healer who had saved Lord
William’s life and that the healer herself would come to fetch her.
But she never came. That horrible man came instead, the same one
who came to Llanlleyn. The little girl was Bronwen.”

Teleri was silent, her face expressionless.
Olwen watched her with some trepidation, suddenly afraid that if
Teleri didn’t believe her story and instead ran to tell the earl
about it, the earl’s vengeance might be terrible indeed and not
only against her but against the countess as well.

Finally Teleri seemed to resolve something in
her mind. When her glance returned to Olwen, her chin was up and
her eyes were cold. Olwen’s heart sank, knowing that look all too
well. “I won’t leave without you,” Teleri said. When the other
woman, shocked, didn’t answer quickly enough, she added forcefully,
“I swear it!”

“I—I don’t doubt you, Lady Teleri,” Olwen
stammered, still surprised. “But I wouldn’t ask you to do that for
me.”

“No,” Teleri shook her head dismissively. Her
voice was stiff. “No. I want to pay the debt I owe you, Olwen. You
were kind to me at Llanlleyn when no one else was kind. I have not
forgotten.”

Later that night, as she lay in bed with no
hope of sleeping because of the anger eating away at her gut,
Teleri picked over the conversation she’d had with the earl on her
first day at Hawarden, searching vainly for anything personal, any
syllable proving he might have been speaking the truth to her. All
his polite, concerned words resonated earnestly in her head…but she
realized now that they’d been lies and that Olwen’s fears were
quite justified; after all, she knew exactly how the earl had
discovered he had a daughter and where he—or Haworth—could find
her…She felt a shiver of apprehension at the thought of what Hugh
intended for Olwen. It was a point in Longsword’s favor that she
always knew where she stood with him on any given day, because he
shouted when he was angry with her and ignored her when her
existence didn’t bother him. A silent, calculating man such as the
earl was much harder to estimate…Teleri might have felt more than a
grudging sympathy for her former servant if she wasn’t so damned
jealous of her.

Because it was Olwen again. Olwen again who
was the center of attention while she—who by birth, at least,
should have been more important—was a mere pawn. Olwen, beloved of
Sir Richard while her own husband despised her; Olwen, who had
captured the heart of Rhirid while she had languished in isolation,
her grand schemes fizzling into nothing; Olwen, who had been the
real target of the earl’s invasion of Llanlleyn while she had just
been collected because she couldn’t have very well been left in the
rain, a situation which might have inspired the prince’s wrath…