Rhuddlan (83 page)

“Let’s go back, Will…”

Rather abruptly, Longsword got to his feet.
“I need to find the latrines,” he told Delamere shortly and stalked
away.

There wasn’t any way Delamere was going to
leave his friend after having heard the real reason for their
departure from Rhuddlan. He just prayed the prince had some secret
plan up his sleeve to ensure a quick end to the siege of
Taillebourg. Or failing that, he hoped Richard would simply get
bored and dismiss his army.

Upon the expected rejection of the prince’s
terms, which demanded full capitulation of both town and fortress
in return for royal forbearance in the matter of the destruction of
the countryside and the sparing of many lives, Richard’s forces
proceeded to lay waste to the area as promised. This activity did
not trouble the besieged, who were well-provisioned and somewhat
smug behind their formidable walls and ditches but there was
bewilderment within when Richard moved his camp directly beneath
the wall nearest the city gate. With its line of escape so
convenient, the garrison came out to challenge him but he’d been
counting on a frontal assault and defeated it easily. He and his
men entered the city and after two days of rioting, looting and
mayhem which proceeded in a steady, inexorable sweep towards the
defenses of the fortress, the garrison there surrendered as
well—without a fight. The impregnable Taillebourg, which had never
before been challenged, had fallen to the king’s son. The city’s
defenses were stripped away and the castle, like its five cousins
before it, was razed to the ground.

The rebellious petty barons of Angoulême and
Aquitaine who had been testing the mettle of Richard, their
overlord, were subdued and humbled…at least for the moment.

The prince and his army returned to Pons to
deal with Geoffrey de Rancon, the most vociferous of the rebel
barons, but that man, having been informed of the fall of
Taillebourg, gave up his castle to Richard on bended knees and
watched the prince tear it down around his ears.

Delamere finally came away with enough goods
to barter for repairs to his hauberk. And when the prince disbanded
the army and announced his intention of returning to Henry’s court
to give a personal account of his activities in Angoulême and
Aquitaine, Longsword, rather than meet his father again,
reluctantly agreed to go back to Rhuddlan.

Chapter 50

June, 1178

Rhuddlan Castle, Gwynedd

Teleri stood on her toes and dug her hand
into the wagon-load of long grass. She extracted a fistful and
sniffed it, at first tentatively but then with more appreciation.
Still, she was careful not to display too much enthusiasm as she
turned to the cart’s owner. “I suppose it will do,” she said with a
doubtful expression. She pursed her lips and frowned. “But not at
the price you seek. I would be happy to pay you three pennies.”

The man protested. Teleri eventually paid
four and a half silver pennies but not until she had made certain
that all the grass was fresh and sweet-smelling, even down near the
bottom of the cart. The she directed him towards the rear yard
beyond the kitchens, where women were waiting to stuff new
mattresses. It was the final bit of her spring cleaning effort,
during which the keep had been turned inside out and whatever
hadn’t moved had been scoured, swept or whitewashed. And she was
well-pleased with the results.

Longsword’s abrupt departure several weeks
after the battle with the earl had caused her much embarrassment.
Wherever she went, she was positive that people were whispering
about his rejection behind her back. She was angry with herself for
catering to him and being spurned nonetheless. She was angry with
him for being a stubborn fool. But she stopped short of secluding
herself as she had after the earl’s visit the year before. Instead,
she’d taken charge of the household and organized the smallest
function to her specifications. Warin fitz Maurice was the
commander of all things military and by mutual agreement, she
handled what remained, including the resolution of squabbles and
petitions and the procurement of the castle’s supplies. Nine months
after Longsword had gone, she was satisfied with her work and happy
because of it. She had merely one cause for complaint: that despite
trying, she hadn’t been pregnant when her husband had left her.

She watched as the cart ambled off on
groaning wheels and was about to head for the keep when her
attention was diverted by a sudden hubbub at the gate. A group of
soldiers clogged the entrance and the guards in the tower were
intent on a sight on the road outside. Several voices shouted for
Sir Warin. She wondered what might warrant such excitement, and
then it occurred to her that perhaps her husband and Sir Richard
were at last returning. She wasn’t certain if she was pleased with
the possibility.

But from the snatches of sentences which rose
above the general din, she inferred that something more dire than
Longsword’s unexpected arrival had happened. Fitz Maurice suddenly
passed swiftly by her without his usual acknowledgement, followed
closely by two other knights. Apparently this business was too
important to share with her. She frowned, moved forward and tapped
the nearest soldier on the arm. “What is happening?”

The man glanced nervously at fitz Maurice
before answering in a low, quick voice: “The earl of Chester is
coming up the road.”

The earl of Chester! For some reason, her
heart began racing. This was indeed a surprise. After all that had
passed between him and Longsword, she had supposed never to see him
again.

She realized the great concern at the gate
was whether or not to admit him; in the end, the gate remained open
and the earl and his modest entourage trotted into Rhuddlan,
seemingly oblivious to the sensation created by their arrival.

Hugh’s men halted just inside the gate but he
himself continued forward until he was directly before her and
waited a brief moment while a groom ran up to hold his horse and
then he dismounted—almost carefully, she thought. She discovered
why in the next moment, when he bent low over her hand and gave her
his usual, respectful greeting. She was shocked to see his hair was
now mostly grey. He straightened up and smiled at her and she was
further shocked at the sight of him. He was much thinner than she
remembered and his face was wan. The blue eyes which had been his
most striking feature were duller and less piercing. She had once
considered him attractive but now he merely looked old. It occurred
to her as she welcomed him to Rhuddlan that some terrible illness
might have befallen him during the winter and she laughed inwardly
at the apprehensions of Lord William’s men. What could they
possibly have to fear from this less than imposing figure?

Fitz Maurice interposed himself. “May we ask
why you have come to Rhuddlan, my lord?” he asked in a firm,
authoritative voice.

Hugh turned bland eyes on him. “Is your
master within?”

“No, he is not, my lord. I am in charge.”

“Then I must direct my story to you,
Sir—?’

Fitz Maurice inclined his head. “Warin fitz
Maurice, my lord.”

Teleri wished the man didn’t sound so stiff,
as if he begrudged the earl every breath he drew, but Chester
appeared not to notice. “Sir Warin,” he said in an unhurried voice,
“we were traveling along the old Roman road when, not far from this
fortress, we stumbled across an unsettling sight—”

A sudden shout, a call to fitz Maurice,
interrupted his story. The three of them glanced immediately in the
direction of the gate and to a spectacle of milling and muttering
men.

“You must have a look, Sir Warin,” the earl
said.

Fitz Maurice frowned and strode off toward
the gate. When Teleri tried to follow, Hugh held his hand up. “I
don’t think you should see that, my lady. There was a lot of
blood…there is blood all over the place.”

Teleri stared at him for a moment without
speaking and then went after fitz Maurice. But the soldiers proved
a more effective obstacle than the earl; they were large men and
she couldn’t see between them.

After some time, fitz Maurice emerged from
the crowd and as the men shifted to let him pass, she was able to
see a makeshift litter lying on the ground with a prone figure in
it.

“What is it? Who is that?” she demanded as
fitz Maurice neared her.

“He is one of our knights, Lady Teleri,” he
answered tersely. He did not pause but went right up to the earl.
“My lord, will you explain how you found this man?”

Chester shrugged a little. “There isn’t much
to the story, Sir Warin. He was lying off the road a bit, in the
undergrowth, apparently the victim of some treachery—”

“It was the Welsh that did this, Sir Warin!”
Another man, his expression outraged, burst out. He pushed by
Teleri with unrestrained movements. “The Welsh did it! Llanlleyn
did it!”

Fitz Maurice did not look pleased with the
interruption. “That’s as may be, but—”

“What has Llanlleyn done?” Teleri asked in as
loud and sharp a voice as she could muster, tired of being
ignored.

The man turned to her. “They’ve finally taken
their revenge, haven’t they? For the killing of the shepherd the
winter before!” He stabbed his arm into the air behind him. “He was
the one who came to my defense when the Welshman attacked me. He
killed the Welshman and now Llanlleyn has killed him!”

Teleri’s face was skeptical. “You think
Llanlleyn did this? I don’t believe it!”

“Lord William never did pay the fine…” fitz
Maurice ventured cautiously.

“Lord Rhirid paid the
galanas
with the money he
received for giving up Sir Roger to Lord William. Olwen told me so.
The debt was paid. Llanlleyn didn’t kill that man; Lord Guri
wouldn’t dare.”

“Why not, Lady Teleri?”

“Why would he?” she countered. “He has no
reason to provoke a conflict with Rhuddlan.”

“But he knows Lord William is absent…”

“He still has no reason, Sir Warin!”

The earl, whom she’d forgotten was standing
quite near to them, as slight and shrunken as he’d become, spoke up
in a languid voice. “He might have done it to strengthen his
position. Lord Rhirid’s decision to make an alliance with Rhuddlan
could not have been a popular one.”

“But it was a successful one!” Teleri argued.
“His warriors might have complained before but certainly not
afterward!”

“Not necessarily, my lady,” fitz Maurice
said. “There were grumblings, remember? When Lord William agreed to
the earl’s terms without seeking the advice of either Welsh chief.
And they got nothing for their pains.”

“Except a large payment for Sir Roger and
horses and weapons!”

“I’m only suggesting that Lord Guri might
have condoned or even committed this murder himself to prove his
loyalty to Llanlleyn and to his warriors,” Chester interposed
smoothly. “But there is one sure way to discover the truth. Go to
Llanlleyn.”

“No!” Teleri protested. “The whole idea is
preposterous! Guri wouldn’t break an oath of peace even to appease
his men—”

“But the formal peace is between myself and
Llanlleyn, my lady, and between myself and Rhuddlan…”

“There’s no such agreement between us and
Llanlleyn,” fitz Maurice slowly agreed and Teleri saw in his face
that it was this last thought which convinced him of Welsh
guilt.

“I’ve only a small force with me,” the earl
said to him, “but if you’d like, I can send to Hawarden for men to
accompany you to Llanlleyn.”

Fitz Maurice shook his head. “Thank you, no,
my lord. We’ve more than enough soldiers to take care of Guri.”

“Of course. I merely thought you might want
to show Guri that Hawarden and Rhuddlan stand together in this
matter.” He shrugged. “Anyway, it would mean a delay of several
days and I’m sure you want to take care of this as soon as
possible.”

“You can’t send an army to Llanlleyn!” Teleri
exclaimed. “You don’t know the truth of the matter! Send a formal
delegation if you must but you will offend Guri for perhaps no
reason if you appear at his gate with an army!”

“Yes, my lord; you’re right,” fitz Maurice
said, ignoring Teleri. “It’s best to settle this matter immediately
and let the Welsh know a harsh retaliation is the penalty for
laying hands on a Norman.”

“You’re making a mistake!” Teleri said in
frustration.

Fitz Maurice turned to her
angrily. “Then will you tell us who
did
perform this act of murder, my
lady?”

She held his cold stare for a long moment but
was ultimately forced to look away for lack of proof or even a
suspect to sustain her conviction. “I don’t know…” she admitted
reluctantly.

“Perhaps, as the hour grows late, the earl
and his entourage will consent to pass the night as our guests,
Lady Teleri…”

“Of course,” she said stiffly. She glanced at
Hugh. “I will make the arrangements, my lord. You are welcome to
Rhuddlan.”

Her humiliating dismissal did not bother her
as much as her stubborn feeling that fitz Maurice’s conclusion was
wrong. But she had no other to offer in its place and so her
argument had no chance against the muscle of outraged male
sensibility. The simplest—and probably most enjoyable—way to solve
the problem was to fight.

But her unease remained unabated even as the
day drew to a close. She made excuses to the earl and retired to
her rooms for the evening. She was certain the conversation in the
hall would be of an entirely martial bent and was uninterested in
hearing about tactics and revenge and blood, especially when it
degenerated after extensive drinking into wild boasting. She mulled
the story over and over in her mind while she sat with her women,
scarcely able to eat a bite of her supper because of the knot in
her stomach and then she lay awake a long time in bed. She thought
of going to the barracks and confronting Sir Warin without the earl
standing over them but she knew he would only ask her to leave. He
believed Guri was responsible for the murder and she also knew he
saw this opportunity for revenge as the perfect way to prove his
loyalty and good leadership to Longsword. He didn’t want her to
convince him he was wrong…