Rhuddlan (31 page)

She considered him for a
moment longer. He
was
desperate…but he also needed her. And she wasn’t about to
permit her daughter to be a pawn in his game. She decided to call
his bluff. Heart racing and muttering every prayer she’d ever
learned, she turned and began rapidly walking away from the
Normans, in the direction she’d last seen the abbess.

A short time afterwards, they were on their
way to Rhuddlan—without Bronwen. The entreaties of the nuns and
their earnest appeals to his character were too much for Delamere
to fight. Besides, the continued waste of time was threatening his
sanity.

He had the Welsh girl behind him. She clung
to his belt so lightly that sometimes he could forget she was even
there. He knew she detested him so much she didn’t want to touch
him. But they were riding as quickly as they could with the late
afternoon sun shining directly into their eyes and the journey was
not smooth. More often than not she had to grab him to keep her
balance.

But he didn’t spend much time thinking about
her. He was concerned for Longsword and it was with great relief
that after what seemed an interminable time, he spied Rhuddlan. He
turned his head slightly. “We’re almost there,” he said to her.
“Look—you can see the top of the keep.”

Despite her feelings of revulsion, she
looked. He felt her shift to the left. All at once the grip on his
waist tightened. Obviously, he thought, she’d never seen anything
like a Norman stronghold and was overwhelmed by the sight of
Rhuddlan Castle.

“It’s entirely self-sufficient,” he added,
unable to resist a little boasting. “We provide all our own food,
craft our own weapons, brew our own ale and weave our own
cloth.”

“Do you trample your own grapes to make your
own wine?” she inquired.

He didn’t bother to answer such a flippant
question. Perhaps she wasn’t as impressed as he’d imagined.

Before long they reached the gate. Delamere
cantered through and pulled his horse to a halt in the middle of
the vast ward. A groom came up to help the Welsh girl down and then
held the bridle while he dismounted.

By now the sun had gone beneath the horizon
although there was still enough illumination to make lighting the
torches ringing the ward redundant. The yard was full of
people—every one of Longsword’s men and a couple dozen curious
Welsh. The girl stood apart, her eyes taking in everyone and
everything. De Vire had been entrusted with transporting her basket
of medicines and now he walked over to hand it to her with an
embarrassed face while his cronies snickered at him. Delamere,
who’d been checking on Longsword’s status with Guy Lene, came up
and silenced them with a harsh glare. Still without a word, he
grabbed Gwalaes by her wrist and pulled her hurriedly towards the
keep.

He’d been told that Longsword’s chamber was
now neat and the air within tolerably fresh. But Longsword himself
was not faring so well. Yesterday he’d been in the throes of
delirium, thrashing wildly around in his bed, but now he was lying
still; his breathing was raspy and quick and his face had a deathly
pallor.

He released Gwalaes’ wrist and pushed open
the door. His eyes went immediately to the bed, the horrifying
thought suddenly striking him that perhaps his friend had died in
the short time between his arrival at the front gate and his
arrival at the chamber, but no. Longsword was still alive. Blankets
had been pulled up to his chin, but Delamere could see his chest
rising and falling.

Gwalaes slid past him. She placed her basket
on the floor near the bed and bent over Longsword’s prone form, her
head tilted as if she were listening to his breathing. Then she
moved the coverlets down to his waist and out of her way.
Carefully, she peeled back the linen bandage untidily wrapped
around the injured area. She gasped.

“Is it very bad?” Delamere asked
worriedly.

“Yes,” she answered shortly. For a moment all
she could do was stare down at the wound in total disbelief. Then
she heard the sound of a hand slapping hard onto flesh and a cry
and she whirled around.

There was someone else in the room. A young
woman who’d been hovering in the shadows and was now the object of
Delamere’s fury. He was standing over her still as she cringed into
the wall, his hand raised as if to strike again.

“What are you doing?” she demanded. Her heart
was pounding so violently it hurt.

He turned his face to her,
his handsome features twisted by ugly rage. “This is
her
fault! I left it to
her to doctor him and instead she’s all but killed him!”

“This is
your
fault, Sir Richard!” she said,
her voice trembling with anger. “I told you to leave him with me
for a week but you insisted on taking him away. It wouldn’t
surprise me to learn that the wound reopened on your journey back
to Rhuddlan.”

He stared at her, his chest heaving. When the
second blow did not fall, Gladys uncovered her face and watched,
uncomprehending, the interplay between the two.

Delamere turned away from Gladys and came up
close to Gwalaes, never taking his eyes from her. She tried to hold
his stare but couldn’t. She took an unsteady step backwards and
bumped into Longsword’s bed.

“Can you help him?” he asked, his voice low
but with no trace of the anger that had pulsed through him only an
instant before.

Her own anger also deflated as she looked
down again at his master. She sighed. “I’ll do whatever I can, Sir
Richard. I swear it.”

Chapter 22

March, 1177

Hawarden Castle, Gwynedd

Despite the season, Hugh’s work at Hawarden
proceeded rapidly. Rather than waste time tearing down the old
tower and erecting a new, larger one as had been his first impulse,
Hugh, on the advice of his master builder, had simply built
upwards. The tower was circular and the original wood had already
been replaced with dressed stone by some previous tenant; he merely
added two storeys and had the interior chambers whitewashed and
hung with tapestries.

The palisade was torn down and a stone wall
put up in its stead. New guard towers were erected on either side
of the stout gate. The bailey, connected to the motte above it by
means of a wooden bridge across the ditch, was expanded to three
times its original size. The barracks and stables were enlarged to
accommodate Hugh’s sizable garrison and a warren of alleys and
rough dwellings was evolving to shelter the workmen and their
families.

Roger of Haworth complained there wasn’t
enough land to support this sudden invasion of people but Hugh
wasn’t worried about such a small detail at this point. His
demeanor was much more relaxed since he’d arrived at Hawarden and
he was feeling too optimistic about the future to take Haworth’s
criticism seriously. The only cloud on the horizon was his mother.
He’d had a messenger only a week earlier from Stroud by way of
Chester. Maud was working with great vigor on procuring him a new
wife and she had sent him a list of five possibilities. Miles de
Gournay, apparently apprised of the contents of the letter to Hugh,
had included a note of his own in which he outlined the more
desirable characteristics of each contender. Hugh had glanced
cursorily through both letters while the messenger stood by
impassively, having previously informed Hugh that Maud had ordered
him not to leave without a response. Hugh cursed his mother under
his breath. How far did he have to flee to finally escape her? He
had written back that such an important decision required more than
several hours’ consideration and that he wanted to ride to Chester
to discuss the matter in earnest with de Gournay. Then he’d sent
the messenger off and promptly tossed the two letters into the
nearest brazier.

Haworth, fiercely solicitous as always, had
immediately protested the earl’s decision to visit Chester,
pleading instead that de Gournay be brought to Hawarden. Hugh had
had to bite his tongue to keep from bursting out into laughter. He
neither planned to go to Chester nor consult with his steward. He
had no intention of marrying again. He was quite enjoying his
freedom after the long years of incarceration at Falaise.

“You can delay all you want but she’ll only
keep at you,” Haworth warned.

“Perhaps her next messenger will disappear
under mysterious circumstances, Roger.”

“She’ll just use another one,” Haworth said.
“She’s not the type to give up.”

Hugh snorted. “As usual, you’re correct. I’ll
adjust my thinking. Perhaps she’ll simply drop dead.”

The Normans were not alone at Hawarden.
Gruffudd ap Madog, the ruler of northern Powys, was keeping a very
close eye on their activity at the castle. It was soon obvious to
him that his old enemies were settling in for a long stay and the
knowledge worried him. He had spent the last few years since his
father’s death fighting with his brother over the right to Powys, a
struggle only recently resolved with a judicious division of the
principality. Northern Powys was probably the worst part of the
bargain but he was damned if he was going to lose any inch of it to
the Normans. He knew about the Rebellion; he knew the earl of
Chester had fought against the king. He suspected the earl had been
exiled to the outpost at Hawarden and he believed the Norman,
fearing to cross his king one more time, had nowhere else now to
flex his muscles but in Powys.

Gruffudd wasn’t a man to sit and wait for
trouble to come to him. Although strictly speaking Hawarden was in
Gwynedd, he sent his warriors to the castle to harry the laborers
and check their progress. For nearly a week after Hugh’s
conversation with Haworth, the Normans found it impossible to do
any work in the bailey. The Welsh struck quickly, randomly and
without warning. They burned the wooden houses beyond the
protective curtain wall; they halted a convoy bringing rough stone
through the forest to the fortress, burned the wagons and
shepherded away the ox-teams. They shot at the workmen, killing two
and wounding half a dozen others. When Hugh sent his soldiers after
them, they did not stand and fight but disappeared into the dense
woods where the Normans dared not follow. Every day they grew
bolder and the Normans more frustrated. Gruffudd even began
imagining taking Hawarden for his own. And after that, Gwynedd.

Hugh decided to apply to Prince Dafydd for
aid. Haworth’s reaction was less than thrilled. “Why the Welsh?” he
asked. “Let’s send to Cheshire; call up your levy. Let’s fight with
Norman manpower.”

“And risk the king’s involvement?” Hugh
scoffed. “No, it’s better if this dispute is simply viewed as a
Welsh problem which is being resolved by the prince. Henry will be
apt to keep his nose out of it.”

“What if the prince refuses to help us?”

“He won’t. Especially if his old nemesis is
threatening his own land.”

The next day a messenger was dispatched to
the Perfeddwlad, the seat of Dafydd’s government, to seek an
audience with the prince on behalf of the earl of Chester.

Chapter 23

March, 1177

Rhuddlan Castle, Gwynedd

To Longsword, it was as if he had been cast
down into the depths of a deep lake. When his eyes were open he
could see light beyond the murkiness, shimmering hazily on the
surface of the water. But it was a struggle to keep them open, to
keep his sense of direction, to keep flailing the arms which would
propel him upwards into the world he knew he had once inhabited.
Sometimes the effort overcame him and he would give up and slip
back into the inky depths. Sometimes he felt a warm hand on his
cold body, consoling him. Sometimes he heard voices from the
surface calling to him and encouraging him.

And then…the struggle seemed not so great, or
perhaps he had gained in strength. He forced himself to concentrate
on moving his muscles until, body aching, he finally burst through
the gloomy, icy water and emerged into the peace of familiar
surroundings.

At first he couldn’t even
shift his head. He moved his eyes instead, and saw the blurred
outline of a woman standing near the open doorway to the chamber.
There was something familiar about her, he thought…and then he
remembered. She was
his
woman; she was carrying his child. Thank God, he thought with
relief, he remembered
something
. He wasn’t quite sure how he
had ended up in his bed in the middle of the day and he didn’t even
know what day it was, but he recognized the woman all right. Surely
the rest would come back in a few moments. He was tired. He closed
his eyes.

Suddenly they flew open again. He couldn’t
remember her name!

She had turned away from the door and closed
it. She was walking towards the bed. He cursed his eyes, blinking
furiously in an attempt to clear his vision but it was no good. His
eyes felt as if they’d been dipped in sand: gritty and
scratchy.

“Wait a moment,” she said.

She disappeared from his view. When he tried
to turn his head to follow her, a searing pain ripped up the side
of his neck and, not expecting it, he grunted involuntarily.

“Don’t move,” she ordered sharply.

He felt a little annoyed at her tone. He was
the master here, not her. He opened his mouth to tell her so but
nothing came out except a few hoarse,indecipherable bursts of
air.

She returned. There was a stool near the bed
and she sat on it. She held a linen cloth in her left hand and she
leaned over him and dabbed gently with it at his eyes. The cloth
had been soaked with warmed water; he felt the grit loosen and wash
away. He blinked several more times until he could see clearly. He
frowned. He didn’t know this woman.