Heartsong (30 page)

“I can tell you. He sent your sister to help his sister at a castle called Fiston.” Lydon pointed to the north. “Margot bears a child and her other attempts have all met with misfortune. However, Rhianna left Fiston for Wales days ago.”

“Nay, I do not believe it,” Arthur shouted. “And he must not die. He must account for the lie he told to me.”

Edina watched as Lydon almost smiled at the lad. “If you know how to heal him, then proceed.”

“Not I, but my brother. Garrett cannot die!” Arthur fled from the chamber as quickly as he had entered it.

A short time later more voices came from the hall. After a quick knock on the door, Arthur again marched into the room, his face still red with anger.

“My brother, Arvel, has great knowledge of herbs and such.” He spit the words at her. “He knows what to do. Garrett deShay cannot be allowed to die.”

Edina shivered at the rage in his voice. She glanced from one to the other, her thought straying from her patient.

“Arthur, your father is Alwyn? And this is Arvel?” She shook her head.

For one moment, Arthur calmed then grinned at her. “And, there are Alawn, Angor and Anwyl. Mother refused to call her Anna. Mother added the beginning so she is called Rhianna.”

At the mention of Rhianna, Garrett moaned. His voice, hoarse and full of pain swept the room. “Rhianna!”

There was stunned silence for a moment, then Arvel turned to Edina. “What have you done for him?”

“Not as much as I should have,” she murmured.

“Arthur says he must not die. He must explain why he would not surrender our sister. I will make him well, then he will answer our questions.”

Arvel turned to his younger brother. “I’ll need medicines. Find someone who can go into the woods for the herbs I will need.” He glanced over at Edina and she knew immediately he noticed the small lump forming at her waistline.

“My sister will go,” Edina said.

“Aye, Mildred will go,” Lydon replied as if to

acknowledge his wife’s response. “But first,” Lydon moved between the bed and the Welshman. “How do I know you will heal him? What assurance do I have that you will not do something to cause a slow and painful death?”

Arvel smirked. “He is now dying a slow and miserable death. If I wanted that, all I would have to do was leave. Nay, Arthur says he can explain why he did not release Rhianna into our care. Therefore, I will heal him. He can answer those questions. Now the longer we talk, the closer the hand of death. Do I fix your Lord, or do you stand here and carp with me?”

Lydon stepped aside.

Edina sent for Mildred. Weary to the point of exhaustion, she gladly relinquished her place beside Garrett’s bed.

“Your Lady wife?” Arvel nodded to Edina.

“Aye,” Lydon answered.

“She needs to rest or she will lose the child.” He turned to her. “Go. Your Lord will be safe. You have done all you can. You need to leave this to us.”

“You will watch?” she asked Lydon.

“I will not leave this room.”

Edina knew those words were meant not only for her ears but for the other men in the room. Knowing there was nothing more she could do, she left to seek her own bed.

As she descended the stairs, she heard the weak and hoarse voice of Garrett calling once more for Rhianna. The sound brought tears to her eyes. Any fool could plainly see that Garrett deShay had given his heart. He didn’t know it, her husband didn’t know it, and certainly Arthur and his brother didn’t know it. They had to find Rhianna, for all of their sakes. If Garrett once again had been deserted by someone from Wales, none of their lives here at Knockin would be pleasant.

She passed Mildred running up the stairs.

“You are needed.” Edina watched as her own sister raced up the last steps to Garrett’s room. There was another who missed Rhianna, who had learned to love the woman with the voice like an angel.

With Garrett’s cry of pain and his pleading for his beloved, she brushed her own tears from her eyes and made her way to the chapel. She needed to pray for them all.

Seventeen

The yellow-green leaves of spring had darkened into the dark green of fall as Rhianna clutched the harp next to the babe nestled beneath her swollen breasts. She had realized almost immediately after she’d arrived at the cottage that she was carrying Garrett’s child. What a shame no one knew. However, it no longer mattered.

One day soon, after the babe arrived, she would leave the forest. For several weeks, when she first arrived at the cottage, she had considered leaving this place and trying to find her way to Wales. She had been ill then and remembering her failed attempt at escape when she first arrived at Knockin, she’d decided to wait. Aye, after the babe was born, then she would find a way to her home.

Once she’d shaken some of her grief and surveyed her surroundings, she realized Garrett would always hold a part of her heart, but this was no longer about her. The babe was everything now.

To that end she struggled as best she could. She fashioned herself a blade of sorts, trapped a number of wild animals, and gathered berries. Water was close by so she survived. There were no visitors from Margot’s castle, in fact, no one ever came to see her. However, twice a week, someone brought a basket of food and left it in the doorway of the cottage. She wondered often if someone at Fiston knew of her plight and sent food.

Again, as she had from the beginning, she raised the harp to her arms, careful of the strings, wore thin from overuse. She began to sing to the child she carried, her voice reaching to the edge of the forest. One song led to another, until something sparked her attention. Her voice trailed off.

She didn’t know what caused her to glance toward the edge of her clearing, but a boy stood there. For a second, she trembled in fear, for this was the first time in months she had seen another living soul. Then she saw a tiny woman next to him. It was obviously a mother and son. Her benefactors or did they want something from her?

As they stepped closer, the woman, who was much older than she first appeared, spoke to her in the Welsh language. “The castle rumors say you are dead.”

“Nay, I am not,” Rhianna replied in the same tongue, trying to relax.

The woman smiled and Rhianna sighed with relief. They must not mean her any harm.

“I am called Pernith. This is Tom, the son of my daughter. He has been raiding my pantry to feed you for months now. Mind you, I don’t mind. I just wanted to know why. Now I do. Tom loves music.”

Tom nodded enthusiastically and Rhianna smiled at him.
Why had he not come forward before?

“It took me a long time to figure out what was going on.” Again she smiled. “I am not usually so slow. So, tell me, when is the child due?” the woman named Pernith asked.

“I—I’m not sure.” She had grown up without the benefit of a mother and after Dafydd died, she’d lost interest in anything having to do with bearing children. At one time, she supposed she’d known how to calculate the birth of a child, but here in the forest, days melted into one another. She had tried to determine how long she had been in the forest, but her sums were never that good. Instead, she dreamed of Lily, Wales and Garrett. She wasn’t even sure what day of month it was, only that spring had come and gone, summer had also passed and now fall was here.

“I think,” Pernith was talking to her. “You are coming home with us. You do not need to stay here in this forest alone.”

Rhianna didn’t argue. Hearing another voice touched an unknown need in her. She realized she was starved for the companionship of other people. After she packed her few belongings, and with Tom carrying her precious harp, they made their slow way from the forest to another cottage.

Outside, this cottage appeared much like the one she had just abandoned. Inside it was bigger and a pot of something that smelled delicious hung from a hook beside the fireplace.

“Sing,” Tom handed her the harp.

The old woman laid a hand on his arm. “Later, Tom. I know you want for your friend to sing but I also want to hear what is going on at the castle. You go and bring back any words spoken.”

Rhianna looked from one to the other. “I don’t think Margot will be pleased that you offered me shelter.”

Pernith snorted. “I don’t give a care what pleases the Mistress of Fiston. She has no say over me. None at all. Now, tell me about you. The rumors are many. Some say you were Garrett deShay’s leman. Is he the father of your babe?”

~ * ~

At Knockin, Arthur drummed his fingers on the table as he leaned toward Garrett. “We have covered the north, nearly to Scotland. Not a word of her,” he said, his frustration plain.

“Aye, ‘tis what we found as we traveled west. Margot’s people all say the same. She left months ago with two men, not too long after she came to Fiston.” Lydon glanced at Garrett, then at Edina.

“And east?” Edina asked, her infant son wrapped in her arm.

Joseph shook his head. “Nothing.”

“Where is she?” Garrett thundered. Arvel laid a hand on his arm and murmured to him.

“I don’t care. I want to know why she left Knockin. Why she refused to come to me?”

Garrett stared at the contingent of men seated around the table at his dias. He had nearly died. Had it not been for Rhianna’s brother, he would have slipped from this Earth. Her brother tended to him, but why not Rhianna? He thought she cared for him yet she refused to come when he needed her most.

In the months since the battle, he had struggled to survive, had met all of Rhianna’s brothers, had even endured a lengthy grilling from each one of them, even Arthur. At one point, he was certain Angor, Rhianna’s oldest brother, intended to challenge him to a fight to the death. Arvel, the healer, had put a stop to it, telling his brother, in Garrett’s condition, it would amount to little more than murder.

Garrett had been honest with them. He had wanted Rhianna. He had bedded her, and she’d become important to him. If she had not refused to come to him when he had been so ill, he would gladly have wed her.

He still didn’t have the slightest idea why she had rejected him. Above all else, if she still lived, he wanted her happiness, after he found out why she had refused to tend him. If she didn’t want him, then so be it.

Unfortunately, she still haunted him. Her face floated in front of him at the oddest times and she slept beside him every night in his dreams. He wouldn’t admit to it, especially to her brothers, but he ached for her still.

“What are the plans now?” Garrett asked.

“I suggest we try west again. Someone must have seen her,” Lydon said.

“What about the two men who accompanied her when she left Fiston? What of them?” Arthur asked.

“I talked to the people of Fiston,” Lydon answered. “The few who saw anything, or remembered, couldn’t place either man. One of Margot’s serfs insisted he saw two men leading a mule into the forest, but we had to discount his words. He was too old and his babbling made little sense.” He winced. “The few who knew about her think she is dead.”

Garrett’s dark mood turned blacker at Lydon words.

Arthur sighed.

Garrett gritted his teeth. He knew just how the youngest of Alwyn’s sons felt. He groaned, remembering how all of this had begun. Edward had wanted a hostage. Edward held Wales, there were a few battles with the Welsh, but now the Scotsmen to the north caused the monarch problems. And he, Garrett deShay, ate his meals and spent his days with five Welshmen, all nobles by birth.

He shook his head, knowing he no longer harbored the hatred he once held. Nay, he owed them his life. Not that his life would be worth much without Rhianna in it, but that fault was his not theirs.

~ * ~

“My Lady, she lives.”

“Willa, are you certain?”

“Aye, and you would not believe her condition. She grows heavy with child.” Willa was panting with excitement.

“With child? You mean Garrett’s baggage is having a child?”

“Any day now, I would say.”

Margot smiled at Willa. For the last month, Margot had sent her out into the countryside to watch the servants, especially the women. The news she brought back each night had not pleased Margot. Not until now. For some reason, none at Fiston were about to give birth. She’d begun to experience real fear. Her time was nearly up. Richard would be expecting word of her deliverance any day now and she had not found a babe to claim as her own.

“You think this babe will arrive any day now?”

“Aye, from the look of her.”

“Where did you find her? I know you would never venture into the forest by yourself.” An unpleasant thought occurred. “You are not taking someone else with you as you carry out my orders?”

“Oh, nay, my Lady. I go by myself. And you are right. I would not go into the forest alone, but she is not in the forest.”

“So, tell me, who gave her shelter?”

Willa smiled. “Pernith.”

“I might have known. Why Richard let that woman come here to Fiston is past my understanding. That I have no say over her or the child she cares for while they farm this land has always been intolerable.”

Margot glanced at Willa. Her maid had heard her rant about Pernith before, but none knew why Richard had given land to the maid from Knockin, nor why the old woman had to answer to no one, not even to him.