Rhuddlan (84 page)

She awoke early the next morning, vaguely
surprised that she had managed to fall asleep. There was still a
murkiness to the daylight; it was not yet fully dawn. Her women lay
quietly, except for a gentle snore here and there, but a certain
noise had jiggled her into consciousness and although she was too
woolly-headed to realize completely what it was, she was positive
it was something she couldn’t ignore. She slipped from her bed,
tiptoed to the nearest window and opened the shutter a crack. She
heard the noise again—several nearly simultaneously—saw the men
milling in the bailey below and remembered everything with a sharp
intake of breath. As quickly and quietly as she could, she got
dressed, pulled a veil over her hair and left the chamber.

The hall was deserted. The door at the
outside entrance was thrown back and the sounds of jingling tack
and spurs, of swords sliding across chain mail to be fitted snugly
into belts, of men talking, coughing, spitting, laughing because
they were all as eager to believe the terrible accusation as Sir
Warin, came to her as she paused in the stairwell near the
pantries. There was a figure on the landing outside, leaning on the
stone wall overlooking the bailey. It was the earl, and she walked
towards him.

“My lord,” she said.

He straightened up and spun around. “Lady
Teleri!” he greeted her cheerfully. He made a short bow and she
curtsied. She thought he looked much better than he had the day
before; although his hair was still grey and his frame thin, his
face seemed less weary and some of the age had dropped away. “Have
you come to see your men off? And bid them good luck?”

“I wish I could, my lord,” she answered,
joining him at the wall, “but I still disagree with this
undertaking.”

He laughed. “Well, you’re not a man, my lady,
nor a soldier. Right or wrong as the matter may be, you can’t
imagine how keen they are to pursue it, if only for the fresh air
and exercise.”

“Here was I thinking it’s revenge they’re all
after,” she said tartly.

“Oh, yes,” he said, his expression sobering.
“Revenge is the strongest motivation of all. Surely even a woman
would agree with that? A woman can understand as well as a man the
impulse for revenge.”

She lifted a shoulder indifferently, not
feeling strong enough at that hour to debate with him, and stared
at the knights and foot soldiers gathered below her.

“I had news this past January I would like to
share with you, Lady Teleri,” he continued in his earlier, jovial
tone. “My wife was delivered of a healthy baby boy at one of my
estates in Normandy. My heir.”

Teleri turned to him in surprise. “I had
forgotten, my lord. Congratulations. You must be pleased.”

“To be truthful, I’m of two minds. The
existence of an heir saves me much bother and yet…Tell me, Lady
Teleri,” he said, fixing her with an intent expression, “what do
you think your husband would do if he suspected the child is
his?”

She drew in her breath sharply, astonished
that he had voiced the idea. “I—I’m not sure, my lord,” she
stammered.

“Do you think he
does
suspect?”

She paused, and then shook her head. “No.
He’s impetuous. He would have done something by now if he
suspected.”

A shout from below distracted them. The army
was ready to depart. Fitz Maurice looked up to the landing and
raised an arm in salute. Hugh waved in return but Teleri made no
gesture.

It took some time for all the men to clear
the gate. The earl and Teleri watched every one leave, in
silence.

“
You
suspected…” Hugh said matter of
factly, but in a low voice which trailed away like a wisp of
smoke.

It was true. The nagging idea had first come
to her at Hawarden, when Olwen had told her the countess was
pregnant and later resurfaced in the first weeks after Longsword’s
departure, when she realized she had failed to conceive. She had
found it strange that no one had even hinted at the possibility,
particularly her husband, but she saw no reason to mention it. Even
now.

“What will
you
do, my lord?” she
asked, instead of acknowledging his remark.

He smiled a little. “What I’m doing already.
I must say, it was the most wonderful coincidence that the man we
killed was the very one who began the whole business between Rhirid
and your husband. I had thought the weakest part of the scheme
would be trying to persuade Sir Warin that the Welsh were
responsible without actually having to declare it. A wonderful
coincidence.”

She was confused by this abrupt change of
topic and gave him a puzzled look. “I don’t understand. What are
you saying? Guri didn’t kill that knight?”

“Of course not!” he laughed.

“But you agreed with Sir Warin that he had!
You dismissed my protest!”

“Certainly! How else to get his blood up? How
else to get him out of Rhuddlan with most of his army?”

She could do nothing but stare at him,
open-mouthed.

“Perhaps it will be clearer to you if I ask
you a few questions, Lady Teleri,” he said. There was delight in
his eyes and she was suddenly apprehensive. “For instance, do you
know where Lord William went when he left Rhuddlan last fall?”

“What has that got to do with anything?”

“I know where he went. Your husband, perhaps
taunted by the suspicion that my wife may have been pregnant with
his child when she left this fortress—or perhaps not, as you
believe—arrived in Normandy late last year and has been fighting
alongside Prince Richard ever since. But he did find time to
approach the king and ask for a favor. Do you know what that was,
Lady Teleri? No? I’ll tell you. He asked his father’s assistance in
having his marriage—your marriage—annulled.”

She was stunned. She sputtered, “No—no—we—”
reflexively and then fell silent. This news shocked her more than
the revelation that the Welsh were indeed innocent of her man’s
murder.

“It’s quite true, my lady.”

She shook her head and immediately felt
dizzy, listening to such revelations before she’d eaten breakfast.
“No,” she said firmly. “I don’t believe it.”

“I assure you, my lady, it’s true. I’m a man
with many interests beyond my little property in Gwynedd. Interests
in Normandy and in England. I need to know the condition of the
realm almost as badly as the king. And so I have another army—this
one composed of messengers who bring all kinds of information to my
backwater castle. Trustworthy messengers who earn their money by
ensuring the information they carry is accurate. The king, by the
way, refused his request.”

But she could hardly hear his words through
the blood rushing in her ears. “We had an agreement!” she said,
aloud but really to herself.

“An agreement?”

She looked at him, her eyes suddenly
focusing. She didn’t explain what she’d meant. “Never mind,” she
said. “This has been rather a full morning and I’m not thinking
clearly, my lord. I must go back inside, I think.”

But as she turned away, he took her arm and
held her fast. “Perhaps you’ll recall my earlier words, Lady
Teleri,” he said quietly. “Perhaps you will recognize now that we
have something in common.”

“What is that, my lord?”

“A desire for revenge against Lord
William.”

“Revenge!” Her heart began racing. She was
trembling like a frightened child but it wasn’t the earl who had
provoked this reaction; it was her husband. She shook with helpless
outrage at his betrayal.

He had told her he was leaving because Sir
Richard needed a change of place. Sir Richard was desolate after
losing Olwen and waking up each morning in Gwynedd was driving him
mad. He had told her that he had an obligation to his friend—Sir
Richard had always stuck by him—and he believed that if they left
Wales for a short time, Sir Richard would be better for it. His
plan was to join the king’s entourage for the duration of Sir
Richard’s recovery and afterwards, they would return to Rhuddlan.
It had all sounded so plausible to Teleri. Even a simpleton could
have seen that Sir Richard was suffering.

But that had just been Longsword’s excuse,
she realized now. He wasn’t interested in helping Sir Richard; what
he’d really been after was the annulment. He’d always been honest
with her before their agreement but now he had betrayed her.

If the earl hadn’t been standing there,
watching her, she would have burst into tears, she thought, because
it was simply too much to swallow. Instead she stopped her
trembling, lifted her chin and looked him in the eye. “Revenge, my
lord?” she repeated, a little shakily. She cleared her throat.
“What is your plan?”

Chapter 51

June, 1178

Rhuddlan, Gwynedd

“I think we’re quite near the abbey,”
Longsword said, pulling up on the reins and halting when the dusk
seemed to verge on the edge of turning dark. “Shall we detour and
ask for hospitality for the night or make a meal out of whatever’s
left in the saddlebags and sleep on the damp ground?”

“I haven’t got anything left in my bag but
the rind of the cheese we’ve been eating the last two days,”
Delamere answered. “But you go if you want. I’m not up to being
cheerful for the sisters.”

Nor for me, Longsword thought sourly. He
watched as Delamere dismounted and led his horse off the road and
down towards the stream which ran alongside it.

He was glad there was only a day and a half
of travel remaining. Delamere was making him crazy. It had to do
with Olwen. In almost all the time they’d been away, Delamere had
rarely mentioned her and if he had, it had been some general
comment connected to their sons and nothing very personal.
Initially, Longsword had taken this to mean he had finally put that
life behind him. He’d looked to his own situation as corroboration
because it seemed the more time which passed, the less often he
caught himself thinking about Gwalaes. In fact, it abruptly
occurred to him now that he hadn’t thought about her at all since
crossing into Gwynedd, despite riding through familiar hills and
along the old Roman road which passed very near to Hawarden.

But he finally realized that Delamere’s
somber moods meant he was still pining for Olwen. Although it had
had a beneficial affect on Longsword’s own obsession, the passage
of nearly a year had done nothing to dampen Delamere’s desire.
Longsword was bewildered; he had no idea how to react to this. He
had no advice or wise words—in Angoulême he hadn’t even dared
summon one of the women who always tended to collect around
soldiers to try to tease Delamere out of it—so he’d done his best
to pretend nothing was wrong.

That had been fine when they’d been
surrounded by hundreds of other men but now that it was just the
two of them it had become increasingly difficult. There were times
when Delamere’s mood was so foul that he didn’t speak to Longsword
at all. Since crossing into Wales and drawing closer to Rhuddlan,
the silences had become almost oppressive. Longsword couldn’t wait
to get home, if only to escape Delamere for a little while.

He grunted and dismounted, and went to the
spring. After he drank, he splashed water onto his face and over
his bare head and sat back on his heels. It seemed to him ironic
that in Angoulême Delamere had been the one eager to return to
Wales, yet now that they were in Wales, he was dragging his feet.
In contrast, Longsword was impatient to get to the fortress, while
in Angoulême he’d been reluctant to leave. He supposed he was
getting old. The idea of sleeping in his own bed and waking up to a
familiar landscape was beginning to appeal.

“If we’d just pushed a little harder earlier,
we could have made Rhuddlan tonight,” he said aloud, more to
himself than to his companion because Delamere was standing at the
edge of the water, one hand on his hip, the other on the pommel of
his sword, and staring straight ahead at, as far as he could tell,
nothing.

But Delamere had heard him. He turned around.
“I never figured you to be so desperate to get home, Will. I’m
starting to imagine you can’t wait to see Lady Teleri again.”

Longsword couldn’t very well have told him
the real reason for his haste. “Not at all,” he said. “I’m just
looking forward to a good meal and a bath.“

“Hmph,” Delamere snorted. “And perhaps a
young woman to soap your back?”

Longsword grinned. “As if Teleri would permit
it!”

“I was thinking of the lady herself.”

This time he laughed. “As if Teleri
would!”

Delamere was silent for a moment and
Longsword thought that was the end of conversation, but then he
said, quietly but quite firmly, “You’re a fool, Will.” Without
giving Longsword a chance to respond, he turned and began to
unsaddle his horse.

Longsword frowned angrily as he did the same.
He’d never admit it, but after his father had dismissed his desire
for an annulment with a sarcastic retort, he’d resigned himself to
the hard fact that he would have to make an effort to get along
with Teleri. He would never love her as he’d loved Gwalaes but love
seemed to have brought him nothing but misery anyway. He didn’t
want misery; he wanted children. Sons, especially.

Hugh nodded to the guard and proceeded to
climb down the ladder to the ground. Haworth was nowhere in sight.
Of course, he shouldn’t have been but Hugh knew he had to be close
by, so that he’d be certain to make it to the fortress by dawn.
Although Haworth was unimaginative there was nothing wrong with his
thinking when it came to military matters and Hugh admired his
evident skill in keeping an entire army hidden from the view of the
lookout in Rhuddlan’s tower.

His bodyguard joined him as he touched the
ground but before he could take another step, he spotted Guy Lene
hurrying towards him, his expression serious and not a little
worried. Hugh suspected the man did not relish his current role as
leader of the garrison and he smiled. Well, it wouldn’t be much
longer for poor Lene…